Day 52

What's on the menu:

Hamburger and gravy
Mashed potatoes
String beans
Chocolate macadamia cookies

Hamburger and gravy
I put a pound of ground chuck in a bowl and added 1/2 onion finely chopped, 1/2 tsp basil, salt and pepper. Make out little round meat balls.
In a skillet cook and brown the meat balls on all sides until done. Remove and place on paper towel.
There will not be a lot of drippings from the ground chuck. I added 1 TB of butter to my drippings. Stir and melt butter and add 1/2 chopped onion and stir and cook about 2 minutes. Add 1 TB flour and stir and brown. Add about 2 cups of water and bring to boil until starts to thicken, add salt and pepper and turn heat down.
Add meat balls back to gravy and simmer for about 15 minutes. This adds flavor to the meat and the meat adds flavor to the gravy.

Mashed potatoes
Peel and thinly slice potatoes and put in salted water and bring to boil. Cook about 20 minutes until done and drain.
Add softened butter and cream with electric beaters. Add pepper to taste.

The browned gravy is so good served over the mashed potatoes.

String beans
I used my home canned ones. Put string beans in a pot and add water and 3 slices of bacon and a little chicken broth. Bring to boil and cook about one hour. Add salt and pepper at the end to your taste.

Chocolate macadamia cookies
1 -1/4 cups butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup macadamia nuts

Cream butter or margarine and sugar in large mixer bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, beat well. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, blend until creamed mixture. Stir in macadamia nuts.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 9 minutes. Do not overbake. (Cookies will be soft, they will puff during the baking and flatten upon cooling). Cool until set. Remove from cookie sheet; cool completely on wire rack.

I found this recipe in a Hershey's chocolate treasury cookbook. I bought this cookbook over 20 years ago at our school book fair.

I wish I owned a stock in macadamia nuts. To half of the cookies; I put softened vanilla ice cream between two cookies, wrapped with parchment paper and put back into freezer.