kate – Page 2 – the hip homebody

March 2, 2013

Carrot Fries

What’s that? You’ve never heard of carrot fries? Really?* I hadn’t heard of them until a friend mentioned that she had made them recently and her kids and mine had scarfed them up. I’m a huge fan of carrots. Huge. When I was little, it was perhaps the only vegetable I really enjoyed (but only if they were raw!). It being winter, I was interested in another way of preparing them. Since I was planning on making grandma’s stuffed hamburgers anyway, I knew I would give them a try. Continue reading “Carrot Fries”

February 20, 2013

Stuffed Hamburgers

Grandma’s “stuffed hamburgers” were remembered fondly by more than one of my aunts and uncles. The recipe reads more like a very basic meatloaf mixture shaped into patties and fried in oil on the stovetop. More than one person mentioned how they were the best hamburgers. The handwritten recipe mentions MSG. I didn’t include it. Not because I’m opposed to MSG in principle, it’s just not something we keep on our spice shelves anymore and they were quite tasty without it. Continue reading “Stuffed Hamburgers”

February 17, 2013

Corn Mazatlan

Ages ago, my grandfather (mom’s dad) sent mom a letter in the mail. He’d type them up on this old typewriter. One of those typewriters with character. His handwriting was a little shaky, so the time it took to hunt and peck and correct mistakes was still worth it. In this letter was a newspaper clipping of a recipe for “corn mazatlan” noting that he thought it looked like it would taste good. We had the dish almost every time he came over after that.

After several of meals with a side dish that didn’t always exactly “go” with the rest of the meal (something unlike my mom’s style of entertaining), I asked why she made it since it seemed as if he had only made a suggestion that it might be good and hadn’t specifically requested it. She told me that the effort he had put into that quiet suggestion was his way of strongly requesting it and he had repeatedly eaten enough to demonstrate that he really enjoyed it. It was her way of showing a bit of love through food. Continue reading “Corn Mazatlan”

February 14, 2013

Baked Chili

“Baked chili” was a hugely popular dish in my dad’s house growing up. Many here in Minnesota would also know this dish as “goulash” (even though it bears no resemblance to Hungarian goulash). My uncle Mark remembers requesting this for his birthday meal with regularity. There is a bit of disagreement on whether or not the dish contained corn. The most likely explanation is that the recipe lent itself to variation and sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t. There were also differing memories on the type of pasta used. While the recipe calls for linguine, all of the memories were for small pasta such as elbow macaroni or ready cut spaghetti. Continue reading “Baked Chili”

February 3, 2013

What inspires us

We decided to get this here blog up and running because we were inspired by what we see others doing. There is a whole generation of women and men getting excited about food and crafting. Not only that, but they are sharing it with the world—sometimes stunningly well. Part of our motivation for working on this blog is purely selfish: we want to have a place to remember some of the great stuff we see.

You’ll see some of our favorite sources for inspiration in our “who we like” section at the bottom of the page, but we want to know who you like, too. Comment here to let us know who inspires you with their work. Who are your favorite cooks, crafters, and writers? Who helps make staying-in as good as (or better than!) going-out?

Let’s spread the love, folks!