Momma's Meat Ball Sub Sandwiches

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah , Happy Kwanzaa Happy WHATEVER YOU celebrate! Wishing you love, peace and JOY!!

Been a while since I've written anything on the blog. Wish I was a doctor as much as myself and my son have been to doctor's offices...it would wonderful to be working instead of the patient side for a change! Alas...that is not to be. I'm very grateful for all our doctor's trying to help us. 

Now it's a crazy YEAR!! Crazy election and regardless of who you voted for....WE ARE ALL STILL IN THIS TOGETHER!!  We either rise or we fall....TOGETHER. 

I'm sick this week so I'm going slow.  But binge watching my favorite TV show. My daughter over the years, for Christmas, has bought me seasons of NCIS.  I LOVE NCIS. Basically because they make forays into Appalachia and mention where I was born and lived from time to time.  I was raised a military kid, a NAVY brat. So much of it is pretty glamorized but I still like it.

So while NCIS playing in the back ground, I'm going to share a family secret recipe.  Every Christmas Eve my family gets together. It began when all of us kids had kids and it became so unwieldy to get us all together on Christmas day.  The kids wanted to drag all their toys to grandma's and when we would not let them, they wanted to hurry up, eat dinner and beg to go home. Momma remedied that. She had us get together on Christmas eve and then we were free to get together with the other in-laws on Christmas day. She and dad would then be free to go visiting or do nothing all day. Just WORKS for us.  

On Christmas Eve, we make Mamma's meatball sub recipe. You get tired of the same old holiday fare and it's a break from the usual.  That recipe came from Norfolk VA. My dad was stationed there his last tours of the Navy before he retired. There was this sandwich shop in the 60's and 70s, that existed somewhere near 13th Bay St and Ocean View Ave. I can't even remember the name of it. 

Made the BEST sub sandwiches long before there was a subway. We would get that treat from time to time when he was stationed there. But it was after he retired that we visited on a yearly trip we looked forward to. We took that trip to visit my sister who stayed in the area and my dad made his way to the naval store to buy his yearly supply of shoes...he never liked civilian shoes, and his civvies, i.e. underwear. After being military for years he never could STAND civilian underwear, shoes or socks.  It's just what we did and our favorite sandwiches from that shop were their meatball subs.

Mom got to know the owners pretty well over the years. The last trip to the sandwich shop in the mid seventies, we learn the owners were closing shop and retiring. Moving to Florida. The realization that was going to be the last favorite meatball sub sandwich we would get from our favorite shop was a bit upsetting. As we sat there and waited for our to go sandwiches, mom was telling them how much we were going to miss them. When our sandwiches were ready the owner put the hand written recipe for her meatball subs in my mother's hands and gave her a hug. And that's how mamma's meatball sub recipe came about. 

There is no other recipe like it. I know because I lost it once and went looking on-line and in the library, never found one exactly like it. But I found it again, luckily stashed in a phone book before I threw the phone book out.  So I'm going to share a family secret recipe. Just like all recipes you just have to modify it to suit yourself. Depending on how many we have visit we double and sometimes triple it. 

I realize there are some unscrupulous people out there stealing recipes, not giving credit, adding them to collections for sale to make a buck. I don't roll that way.  I wanted to share this as a gift before it's lost to memory. Be forewarned it wasn't given to make a buck and therefore according to natural laws we go by you can't sell a gift that is not meant for gain and have it be successful. So just a reminder, Karma, of which I know exists.....is a B!TC#!

Mamma's Meat Ball Subs

In a large bowl- Mix well

3 lbs. lean ground beef

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 medium green pepper, finely chopped

2 stalks of celery, finely chopped

1 large clove of garlic, minced fine

Bread crumbs, Old bread toasted in the oven about 3 cups at least. Crumbled

2 large eggs

1 tsp. Chili powder

1 tsp. Sage

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. salt

Roll into meat balls on a tray. Mine average at least 2 inches in diameter. The larger they are the longer you cook them. 

Take a large skillet, heat hot oil. Brown meatballs in oil until they are well browned and hold together well. Place meatballs after frying in a large pot. The bits and pieces of veggies that end up floating in the oil. Take a slotted spoon and put those in the pot too. 

Cover meatballs in pot with cold water. Bring to a boil and boil for 20 minutes. Drain in a colander and place meat balls back in pot. This gets rid of a lot of fat. Watch clogging up your sink.

I make the sauce in a separate pot.  And you can use your favorite bottled sauce too if you are in a hurry. 

Sauce

1 small clove garlic minced

3 cups water

3 cans tomato paste 6 oz.

1 tsp parsley flakes 

1 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp sugar..(owner said it cuts the bitter of the tomato paste)

1 tsp salt

1/4  tsp pepper

Stir until heated through. Pour over meatballs in the large pot, bring to a boil, cook on low 15 to 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. 

We serve them on sub rolls with mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, green pepper, lettuce, tomato or just plain with the cheeses.  

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do.  Wishing everyone a wonderful New Year!!!

Appalachian Recipes Recycling Orange Peels

I've been trying to make this recipe for Candied Orange Peels and write this blog post for what we would do to recycle our orange peels for weeks. These are things my mother, grandmothers and aunts used to do. Part of the NEVER waste anything mentality our people had.

The problem is her recipe for Candied Orange Peels calls for orange peels from 6 large oranges. When I was a child, with five siblings, we would have those orange peels in 15 minutes. But it's just my son and myself here. I forget to tell him to refrigerate his orange peels. I also forget and throw the peels in the compost by habit. If I wait until I remember to get enough peels together...it would be after Christmas before you get this recipe.

Oranges were a big treat in Appalachia. We did not get oranges all through the year. It was mostly on holidays only. Many times getting oranges or exotic nuts in your stocking at Christmas was a VERY big deal. We don't think of oranges that way today as much.  When my mother was a child, it was always special to get a treat of oranges. To make it last they came up with ways to use those rare orange peels. From what we call potpourri, (and I will give you the ingredients to that) to orange peel candy, and even cleaning products, they were always resourceful and never wasteful.

My mother would use the wood cook stove to make this recipe and it was an aroma of Christmas and the holidays for sure. About Thanksgiving she would buy a big bag of oranges to put in the center place bowl on the table. The bowl was large and it would have apples, oranges, nuts, sometimes bananas and grapes, if times were really good. If you were hungry during the holidays, in between meals, that's where you were pointed to. She kept a pot by the side of the stove on the sink for the apple peels and orange peels. We were told to drop them in there.

She would either make orange peel candy, or boil them in water and strain the liquid out to use as a cleaner on the walls and cabinets, or put them in another pot on the stove for her mix of potpourri. BEST SMELL IN THE WORLD!!!! The apple peels she would sometimes make apple jelly. Wasn't our favorite, so she didn't make it much but later I might post some of her apple recipes.

Orange Peel Candy

Peels from 6 large oranges

1 tablespoon of salt

4 cups of water

3 cups of sugar

more hot water

Take the orange peels and cover peels with salt and water in a glass bowl; weigh it down with a plate. Let it stand overnight. Drain and rinse under cold water thoroughly. Cover peels with cold water and bring to a boil. Drain, add more cold water to cover and bring it to a boil, drain and rinse. Do this THREE times! This gets rid of the bitter taste, and makes the house smell awesome. ALSO this is the water she would save in a jug or bucket for cleaning. Cuts grease off well. When you drain peels the last time, let cool and cut orange peel into 1/4 inch strips. Momma used scissors to cut them into strips. 

Peels should measure 3 cups when you are finished. (If you don't get 3 cups, it's a cup of sugar for each cup of orange peel.) So you can make a small batch, it's just a lot of work for a little batch. 

Add sugar and hot water together (just enough to cover orange peels), to dissolve the sugar. Add the peels and stir. Cook slow until the orange peel is translucent or clear. Drain well in a colander; roll in granulated sugar and dry on a wire rack. She would let the peels dry for a day or so. She would then store her candied orange peel (what she could keep us out of) in a canning jar after it was dried.

Sometimes she would decorate a white cake with white icing with candied orange peel....OH MY Goodness, it was SO GOOD!!!  Once she covered them in chocolate....yep they didn't last long around her brood!

 Wood Stove Potpourri

This one is not measured. She would do this only on the holidays. We kept a pot of water or kettle on the wood/coal stove all the time. It's a dry heat and it would put moisture in the air. During the holidays though she would throw things in the pot to make it smell like Christmas. The fore runner of a potpourri pot.  I don't have measurements so you will just have to judge what smells good to you. About every other day she would throw it out, clean the pot and start over. When she gave up having a wood stove she would have it on the back burner of the modern day stove in a small pot she kept just for the purpose. I gave her a potpourri pot...she never used it. But her recipe works great in either potpourri pot or a small crock pot.  

She would put these items in the water:

Orange peels, apple peels, cinnamon sticks or ground cinnamon, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and  some pickling spice. If she didn't have pickling spice she would add whole cloves and allspice and nutmeg sometimes to it.  When we had these smells in the house, for us it was truly Christmas. 

I want to wish all of you Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas. Blessings to you all.  

What Ever Happened to "OLD CHRISTMAS"?

Well my Christmas Tree is up and it just started me thinking about Old Christmas. So I thought I would jot out a quick post. 

When my siblings and I were children, like most children of the 1950's and 60's we could not wait for December 25th to roll around. Every year we would get the "wish books" i.e. the Sears or J.C. Penny catalogs and we would pour through them wishing and dreaming about what Santa would bring us. When we became too anxious waiting my parents would always say, "You need to be glad that we are not celebrating Old Christmas like your Grand folks did! You would have to wait another two weeks!!"  

Old Christmas Day was January 6th and though I grew up hearing about it, we still were able to celebrate Christmas early on December 25th.   January 6th was called 12th day of Christmas or Epiphany and January 5th was called 12th night. 

In the mountains some people celebrated Christmas according to the old Julian calendar. It came to the mountains with the English settlers and made their Yule time Christmas Eve, January 5th with Christmas Day January 6th.  Even after 1752 when England officially adopted the Gregorian calendar my ancestors still celebrated January 6th as Christmas.

It was not celebrated like we do new Christmas. My mother said when she was little they still celebrated January 6th as Christmas at her Uncles on the farm. It wasn't until the family moved to town that they switched the dates. She said they had a dance on Christmas Eve and they did not have a Christmas tree. Just a stocking left near your bed. She said the first Christmas tree she ever saw was in the late 1930's. Her father had brought one home for one of her younger siblings. At midnight on Old Christmas Eve they would light firecrackers or fire their guns in the air and would do the same on New Years. 

There were a lot of old tales and beliefs that went with old Christmas in Appalachia. My mother told me that it was believed that to have good luck you didn't carry your ashes out of the house from New Christmas, December 25th to Old Christmas January 6th. Kind of as a carry over of that belief I think, at my house when we did have a Christmas Tree, momma would usually have it decorated Christmas Eve and would not take it down until after New Years because she thought it bad luck. 

It's kind of strange today that folks will start their Christmas SO EARLY!! TOO EARLY for me. I had a friend that would put her tree up right after Halloween and take the tree down December 25th.  

They also believed that at the stroke of midnight Christmas Eve sometimes miracles happened. Things like elder trees blooming, cows and animals kneeling in prayer and roosters crowing all night.  I stayed up once when I was little to see if these would happen on January 6th....I swear I heard a rooster crow but never saw any of the other things. I just remember being very sleepy in school the next day. 

When I was pregnant with my eldest child, her due date was December 26.  My mother prayed she would be born just a bit early on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. She came to stay with me and wait. December 25 came and went and then January 1st came and went. My daughter waited to pop into this world until January 6th.  My mother said she should have been more specific in her prayers and prayed to be New Christmas, not Old Christmas. 

We celebrate Christmas on December 25th and Old Christmas is a thing of the past.  But.......I think this year I might go outside on January 5th about midnight and see if any miracles happen or what I can hear. Even if I don't see or hear anything, I have the Old Christmas blessing of my daughter every year. Miracles do happen.