The Plucky Housewives

I would love to be able to tell you that my sweet ol Appalachian granny from West Virginia made this wonderful dish, but that would be lying.  I have no Appalachian grandma.  But we can pretend, right?  I have yet to really determine their origins.  Most of what I am finding is that they are German - but then again, I could claim my wonderful German grandma used to make these.... shoot, can't do that either, unless any of my cousins will back me up???   Anyhow, I made these wonderful things for the first time this morning.   They are sort of a yorkshire pudding but sweet instead of savory.   They were just delicious!  I thought that they would go well for when all the kids are home and we have a house full of company.  Easy to mix up, 20 or so minutes in the oven.  You can be making bacon/sausage and setting a table while it cooks.  Cheap, easy and oh so good.  My kind of food!  SIDE NOTE:  The traditional recipe does...

My mother, dear Arlene, made this chicken and rice casserole often, and I mean often.  I swear we had it once a week, at least.   It wasn't until I was a single parent that I really understood why it was such a staple.  It was easy, it fed a lot of people (and there were a lot of us) and it tasted pretty good.   It was one of her signature dishes - well signature casseroles.  She even included it a family cookbook put together many years ago by my cousin Todd.   However, the recipe in the family cookbook, just never was right.   Something was off.   Night before last, my daughter called and wanted me to remind her how to make the casserole.  I rattled off the process and thought, ya know, I need to work this all out, cause it just doesn't work that way and here I am perpetuating a not so very good recipe.  Last night, I went to work on figuring out what the issue was with this recipe and what I could do to make it really good. Mind you...

Yesterday was one of those days. No, this week has been one of those weeks, where I just haven't had time or energy to cook. I have lots of ideas, lots of recipes out, but I am not even in the mood to go to the grocery store, let alone cook. That being said, I decided to pull some meats out of the freezer.  I had handy a recent delivery of pork products from my favorite local organic farm.  I had grabbed some of his homemade italian sausage and some ground pork.   I let it thaw and in the meantime, was trying to figure out what I should do with it.  I wasn't interested in anything Italian.  We have had too much of that lately.   I had these great farmers market mushrooms I needed to use up as well and then the idea came.  Meatballs - but then I didn't want Italian.  How about Swedish meatballs.  They have that nice creamy mushroom sauce/gravy.   It all clicked.  Now remember, I am still not in the mood to really cook a gravy fro...