Dinner Tonight, November 22nd

Tonight we are having ham balls, rice, mixed vegetables, homemade dinner rolls, and a gelatin salad.  I put the link to my ham ball recipe here .  Yes, it does have quite a bit of sugar in the sauce and you can reduce that amount.  I don't pack the brown sugar on this recipe so I know it is less than the 1 cup in the recipe.  Ham balls are an absolute favorite of my 17 yr old son.  He likes having rice served with the ham balls as the sauce tastes pretty good poured over the rice.  So today when he comes home after school in order to change into his work clothes, he will be so happy to know that we are having his favorite meal.

Many people serve the ham balls with scalloped potatoes, and I truly prefer this combination, but I defer to what my son likes. 

I have not made a gelatin salad in a very long time.  I always have Jello on hand and it is the sugar free version.  Usually during the summer months I will make up some plain Jello and that becomes a sugar free dessert for me. 

I went to the grocery store this morning to pick up a few things and I meant to pick up some lettuce for a salad and I forgot.  So instead I am going to make what my mom called "sunshine" salad.  You can use orange or lemon Jello for this recipe.  Just make the Jello per the package directions and add finely grated carrot and 1 small can of drained crushed pineapple.  Chill until set. 

When I make up menus I try really hard to picture the colors on everyone's plate and I do my best to not make everything one color palette.  For that reason I will probably go with the lime Jello as it will look pretty and add some additional color to everyone's plate. 

As for dessert, the cookie jar is empty so while I am doing laundry today, I will mix up a batch of cookies. I am thinking of a simple drop sugar cookie.  It is my mom's recipe.  Here it is:

Cookie Jar Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup shortening (You can substitute butter or margarine)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 teaspoons milk
1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel (If you don't have any, it is still good without)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Cream the shortening with the sugar.  Beat in the egg and add the vanilla and milk and orange peel.  Then mix in the dry ingredients.  Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet (I use a cookie sheet lined in parchment paper).  Mom didn't say in the recipe if the cookie sheet needs to be greased and I use parchment paper so it doesn't matter if it did.  Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes.

Variations:

1.  Omit the vanilla and milk and replace with lemon juice; replace the orange peel with lemon peel.
2.  Omit vanilla and milk and replace with concentrated orange juice.
3.  Omit vanilla and milk and replace with marashino cherry juice.  Add cut up maraschino cherries - mom used to squeeze the juice out of these. 

Variation number three was my absolute favorite as a kid and still is.  I usually double this recipe and can't believe that my mom actually had a recipe for such a small amount.  She always made at least 6 dozen cookies at a time from a recipe and froze the cookies for later use.