Italian Spaghetti

This recipe for Italian Spaghetti comes from an old Betty Crocker Cookbook I received from my mom and dad as a present waaaaaay back in 1982! That’s before I was married and I used it all the while I was raising my family! This recipe is going under the category of “Money Saving Meals” and also “Pantry Recipes”. It’s very economical and you can have all the ingredients (except the hamburger/turkey) ready and in your pantry. I can’t believe I haven’t put this one on Plenty Sweet Life yet, because this is one of the staple recipes that I used to get a quick meal on the table for a very, very, very busy family over the years. They are now all adults and are making it for themselves for a quick meal! This was one of the few dishes my husband tackled and would make for the family once in awhile. It wasn’t often enough, if you ask me. Ha! I did appreciate that on some of those crazy days where we had all 3 kids going to 3 different activities – or more – on the same night! This is an easy recipe and it’s another of our family’s favorites, as you can tell by the very well-worn and well-used recipe page! 🙂

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Italian Spaghetti

Cook and stir until light brown:

1 pound hamburger (I used ground turkey for this batch)

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, mashed (I minced it)

Drain.

Stir in:

1 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

3/4 teaspoon dried basil leaves

1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram leaves (I never keep this in the house, so I didn’t put this in)

1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves (optional – I did put this in)

1 bay leaf

1 8 ounce can tomato sauce

1 6 ounce can tomato paste

Heat to boiling; reduce heat.

Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour (I don’t think I ever simmered this for more than 30 minutes).

Serve sauce over hot spaghetti or other pasta.

Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

It seems like this recipe uses quite a few spices, but get them all ready ahead of time and they go in all at once.

Chop an onion and mince a garlic clove and in they go.

I used ground turkey instead of hamburger in this batch – either one is fine.

In goes the tomato sauce and tomato paste and that’s it! Just let it simmer away.

Add some No Knead Bread and a nice green salad and you have a simple, yet delicious meal!

This one is so, so good!

Yep – this is one of the family favorites – and it has been for YEARS! We love this recipe and once you try it, you’ll know why. It’s just as easy to make as opening a jar of the store-bought stuff (gasp). I mean, you can do that if you HAVE TO, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I would recommend making this instead. It’s quick and easy to make, it’s very tasty, and spaghetti night will become one of your family’s favorites, too! Try this Italian Spaghetti and let me know how you like it!

Stuffed Squash

Today’s recipe for Stuffed Squash is one I absolutely love. It’s a very easy and very tasty one, and elegant enough to serve for Thanksgiving dinner. You all know my Grandma was a great one for a hotdish, but this is really similar. It has squash, ground meat, onion, celery – oh, and apple. If she and Grandpa would have grown squash in their garden, I think she would have loved making this one for the family – it’s made just like a hotdish, but no cream of anything soup added! 🙂 All I know is, MY family loved this squash, and I’ll be making this quite a few times in the next month or so. Squash is so readily available right now, so there’s no excuse – try this one – I know you’ll be glad you did!

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Stuffed Squash

Cut in half and clean out:

1 or 2 squash (I used 1 acorn squash)

Season each half of squash with:

salt and pepper

pat of butter

Bake at 400 degrees for 50-60 minutes (this was a hard squash, so I went 1 hour and 20 minutes), or until squash is tender when pierced with a knife.

For filling (you can do this while the squash is baking):

Saute in 1 Tablespoon butter:

1/2 pound lean ground beef or ground turkey (if making more than 1 squash, I’d use 1 pound of meat)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 apples, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 teaspoon dried thyme

Remove squash from oven after baking and fill squash with filling.

Top with:

1 cup shredded mozzarella

Put back in oven for 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Remove from oven and add a sprinkling of chopped parsley.

Be careful when cutting these squash – they can be slippery little suckers. Clean out all the “guts” and seeds. Remember – you can roast the seeds just like pumpkin seeds.

I also like to season the squash while baking.

It saves a little time to cook up the filling while the squash is baking.

This filling is so tasty – all the fall flavors!

1 cup of cheese is just a ballpark figure – you can put on as much as you can get to stay on the squash.

This is such a seasonal thing to make with all the squash available right now.

Just look how pretty they are!

I love this dish so much! The squash is delicious in itself, but then you add the equally delicious filling – full of all the fall flavors of apple, thyme, onion, and celery – so good and so good for you! This squash is special enough for your Thanksgiving table, but easy enough to make for a weeknight dinner. You’re going to love this amazingly delicious recipe for Stuffed Squash.

No Knead Bread

I’m jumping on the No Knead Bread bandwagon! When I tried this about a year ago, I absolutely loved it! It’s so easy to do and it’s so good! Now, with some of us not being able to get to the store or when we do get there, not being able to find bread, this is ALL over the internet. It’s another GREAT recipe to be able to make if you have the basics in your pantry. You HAVE to have baking basics in your pantry – at ALL times – not just now.

I know that Grandma would have LOVED this recipe. She always talked about she and her sisters having to make all the bread for their family when they were growing up. They only did it once a week, and woe to the family member who ate the last of the bread before the next weeks baking had been done. It had to last that whole week – there was no making any more before baking day. That’s probably why she had a bin made to hold flour in the kitchen on the farm. I’ve told the story before of her having a built-in bin in the kitchen on the farm that was so big that it seems like it held about a 20 pound bag of flour. She used a lot of flour in those days – they home baked everything! This is a photo of me at about a year old, and I’m sitting on the kitchen floor at the farm, right in front of that bin (it has the vertical pull). You can see how big it was!

It’s so funny that it was built-in – that must have been quite the custom job back then! I think she would have liked this recipe just for the fact that you don’t have to KNEAD it. Can you imagine how long it took to knead and bake bread for a family of 10? Think of how good their abs were – that was good exercise, but a LOT of work!

While this is NOT the fine textured bread we usually strive for, it’s a crusty, bubbly, and delicious bread that’s full of holes and perfect for dipping into and soaking up soups like Grandma’s Tomato Soup or Chili. My favorite way to enjoy the leftovers is sliced thin enough to put into my toaster and slather on some butter and honey or homemade jam, like Rhubarb Jam.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

No Knead Bread

Mix together in large mixing bowl:

3 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon yeast (I used regular dry yeast for this, not rapid rise dry yeast)

Add:

1 1/2 cups room temperature water – not hot and not cold

Stir until it’s kind of rough looking – you don’t need it to be smooth. It does look weird. It’s ok.

Try it plain first, but here are some possible add-ins:

chopped rosemary

shredded cheese

chopped olives, Parmesan cheese, dried basil

raisins and cinnamon

rosemary and roasted garlic

Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature (I just let it sit on the top of my stove) for 12 hours (I’ve seen recipes that say to let it sit 8 hours and I’ve seen some that say as much as 18 hours) – that is the beauty of this bread – mix it up and let it sit until you need it the next day!

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Heat up a dutch oven with the cover on (from what I’ve read, the dutch oven and the cover is important for baking – I have a stock pot, too, but have not tried it in just the stock pot – your stock pot has to be able to stand the 450 degree temp) for 30 minutes.

While the dutch oven is heating up, scrape dough out onto a floured surface, make it into a ball, and put it onto a piece of parchment paper (it may ooze a bit and not stay in a perfect ball – it’s ok). Cover with the plastic wrap used to cover your bowl overnight, and let it sit until the dutch oven is heated.

After the 30 minutes, remove dutch oven from your oven, remove lid, remove plastic from top of dough (it might stick a bit – just pull it off), and carefully (the pot is hot) lift dough and parchment up with corners of parchment paper and put into the hot dutch oven.

Put the lid back on and bake for 30 minutes.

Remove the lid, and bake for another 10-15 minutes (I baked mine 20 minutes here) until loaf is golden and crusty.

Let cool on a rack before slicing or just break off a chunk and start dipping into that soup!

This bread is made with ridiculously simple ingredients – all shown here.

You only need 1/2 of a teaspoon of dry yeast, so I cut off the top of the yeast packet, take out the 1/2 teaspoon I need, fold the top over a couple of times, and store it in a snack sized zip top bag until I need more dry yeast for the next loaf of no knead bread I make. It won’t keep indefinitely like this, but it will keep through 2-3 loaves of this bread. I make this quite often.

All the dry ingredients go into a bowl, and I use a whisk to “sift” them together.

Add the lukewarm water, stir it up, and that’s it. It should look rough – this batch looks pretty good! It doesn’t always look this good, and that’s ok. It shouldn’t look good. I know it doesn’t look like it will work, but it will. Trust the system!

Here’s what it looks like the next day – totally different with a lot of tiny bubbles.

Flour a surface, dump the dough out onto the flour, make it into a bit of a ball, and put it onto a piece of parchment paper. I use a scraper to get it onto the paper. I’ve also just put the dough onto the paper and skipped the floured surface part altogether – that works, too, and it less mess to clean up.

I use the plastic that was over the dough all night to cover it (I suppose so it doesn’t dry out) until the dutch oven is heated. Take the plastic off when ready to bake – it may stick a bit – just pull it off.

Life the dough and paper by using the corners and plop it into the hot dutch oven. Put on the lid and into the oven to bake.

Here’s what it looked like after baking for the first 30 minutes with the lid on. Back into the oven without the lid for another 10-15 minutes.

I thought it needed another 5 minutes, so this is what it looked like after 20 minutes without the lid.

Life the loaf out of the dutch oven by using the corners of the parchment paper and put it onto a cooling rack to cool.

I served it with a nice bowl of Grandma’s Tomato Soup, but it’s good with ANYTHING!

I love this bread so much! It’s so good – with soup, chili, or sliced thin enough to fit into my toaster to have with butter and jam. Let me know if you try any of the suggested add-ins. I’d love to know what you try when you make this bread, or even if you made it plain and love it as much as my family does. It’s so easy to make – I know that just like Grandma would have, you’ll appreciate the time it will save you – you just “knead” to think ahead to when you want to eat it. Ha! See what I did there! I hope you’ll try this No Knead Bread – you’ll be hooked, too!

 

 

Banana Nut Bread

Today I’m sharing a recipe for Banana Nut Bread, just in case your bananas are starting to get over ripe on your kitchen counter. I know mine are. I had a whole bunch to use before it was too late. This is another recipe that can be made with things straight from your pantry. I love my mom’s banana bread, as I shared several years ago with her Banana Bread recipe, but when looking through some recipes from my sister, I found this one. Well, I had to try it. It’s not TOO different from her regular recipe – just a little different. There’s just something about the smell of banana bread baking that makes me feel so comfy. Ok, let’s just go ahead and call this comfort food. It CAN totally be comfort food because everyone’s mom made it and everyone thinks that their mom’s banana bread was the best. If you’re needing a little comfort right now, and you want to try and make those memories for your own family, give this recipe a try. I guess it’s a good one – look at how well-used it is!

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Banana Nut Bread

Cream together:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

Add:

2 unbeaten eggs

Mash:

1 cup bananas (I used 3 for this loaf – they were small ones)

Add to bananas:

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Mix bananas into creamed mixture.

Sift:

2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Add:

1 cup nuts, chopped (I used walnuts)

Turn into greased and floured loaf pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Here are the simple pantry ingredients. You probably have everything to make this!

This batch was made into 4 little loaves instead of one big loaf.

Pretty!

These little loaves were on their way to my kids – special delivery!

I didn’t know when I’d be seeing my kids again since they all live on their own now, so I wrapped them in plastic wrap and foil and marked them so they wouldn’t get lost in the freezer and were never heard from again. They got the little loaves as part of an Easter treat/birthday (for our middle child) delivery. If you have bananas on their last leg on your kitchen counter, check your pantry for these ingredients – you might have everything you need to try this Banana Nut Bread!

 

Skillet Hash

I had a few leftovers in the frig, so I made some Skillet Hash. I used a couple of potatoes left from when I showed you How to Bake Potatoes, and a few other frig and freezer items to make one of the most delicious dishes ever – and all from things I found around my kitchen! What a great way to use up leftovers! Use this for a wonderful breakfast or brunch, a nice lunch, or a light dinner – it’s delicious any time of day! I have to say – this is a perfect weekend dish. You want to use up all the odds and ends in the frig and around the kitchen – don’t let things get to the point of having to throw them – that’s just not smart. This is another one of those recipes that Grandma would have liked. Having survived The Great Depression, she just wasn’t one to waste anything. I think she would have liked how this recipe is another one of those (like Garbage Can Frittata) that doesn’t waste a thing. Let’s get started and round up all the leftover goodies from around the kitchen.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Skillet Hash

Heat in a large skillet:

2-3 Tablespoons olive oil

Saute in oil until soft:

1/2 of a small onion, chopped (I always have onions on my counter)

3 Tablespoons red pepper, chopped (found in frig)

3 Tablespoons green pepper, chopped (from freezer)

2 cloves garlic, minced (also always on my counter)

Add just until warm:

1-1 1/2 cup Christmas ham, cubed (from freezer (thawed first) – you could also use bacon, diced chicken breast, anything you find)

1 cup cherry tomatoes (found on the counter, but use any veg you have – mushrooms, zucchini, can of tomatoes)

2 large baked potatoes, chopped (left from How To Bake Potatoes)

Top with 2-3 Tablespoons shredded cheddar (found in frig).

Top with:

fried egg (eggs are always in my frig)

Sprinkle on chives (from freezer – grew in my garden last year).

I had plenty of onions, but I used one that had sprouted a bit, so it didn’t go to waste. It was still perfectly fine. I just took out the green part and chopped the rest.

These were the frozen chives (from my garden last year) and some peppers that I had in the freezer. I put them on a paper towel so they aren’t so wet going into the skillet.

Same thing with the leftover Christmas ham from the freezer. Onto a paper towel lined plate to thaw and dry out a bit.

Don’t ask me how I misplaced these cherry tomatoes on the kitchen counter. I have no idea – it’s not a big kitchen – and this is the minced garlic that I always have on hand.

So here are our ingredients – all from my frig or freezer!

I diced up the baked potatoes, too, and fairly small so they would warm up faster.

First in go the garlic, peppers, and onions.

Next were the ham and cherry tomatoes – I wanted a bit of a char on those.

Last, in went the diced potatoes to warm all together.

After it was on the plate, I sprinkled on a bit of grated cheddar cheese, and then on went the fried egg, seasoned with salt and pepper (maybe some Everything Bagel seasoning).

The egg did not get as “dippy” as I usually like it, but like Grandma, I wasn’t going to waste it! 🙂 Lastly I sprinkled on a few of the chives from last year’s garden, and there you have it! A masterpiece! It was absolutely delicious! And all from just walking around my kitchen and collecting anything I could find. Keep this recipe in mind when you have a few things to use up – you’ll love how every time you make this Skillet Hash, it will be a brand new dish!

 

 

How to Bake Potatoes

Everybody knows How to Bake Potatoes, right? Well, today I’m sharing how I do it. It’s not too different from everybody else’s, but it’s just one of those things. Sometimes, when I’m in a hurry, I just put potatoes in the microwave to bake. I don’t really like to do that – I’d rather bake potatoes in the oven. There’s something about the smell of potatoes baking – it makes me feel so comfy and cozy – it feels like home! The potato skins get crackly and almost crispy, as opposed to the soft skins when you bake them in the microwave. Baking them in the oven is simple to do, so I hope everyone has a bag of potatoes in your pantry. You can really bake any potato, but I like to bake russets. I think that’s considered your basic baking potato. Potatoes are inexpensive and delicious and good for you – they’re full of vitamins and minerals like vitamin C, vitamin B6, and potassium. Grandpa used to always say our family didn’t eat enough potatoes. He knew what he was talkin’ about!

Here is the recipe as I made it:

How to Bake Potatoes

Scrub and dry 1 large potato (I use russets) for each person – plus a few extra for leftovers. There are so many things you can do with leftover potatoes.

Poke each potato twice on each side. I use a little paring knife for this.

Put potatoes right on the oven rack – no foil wrapping. You can do that if you want to, but my family likes how the skin gets more “baked” without foil. Back in the day we used to have some big aluminum nails that you would shove into the middle of the potatoes – the theory was that it would help the potato bake faster. But then when they bake faster, you still don’t get the crackly deliciousness that is my favorite thing.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours. If the oven is at a lower temp for whatever main dish you have in there, adjust the time accordingly. If your main dish goes in at 350 degrees, maybe count on baking the potatoes for a total of 2 hours.

Slice them open and serve. Some options for serving:

Classic butter, sour cream, salt and pepper, and maybe chives from the garden

Leftover chili, sour cream, shredded cheddar, green onions

A few slices of deli meat, leftover cooked vegetables, cheese or gravy

Leftover taco meat, salsa, sour cream, green onion, black olives

Anything leftover

On the day I baked these potatoes, I filled them with cubed leftover Christmas ham from our freezer, cooked broccoli, and topped them with a couple of slices of cheese.

How good does that look? What a great light lunch!

Talk about economical! Potatoes are fairly cheap, amazingly delicious (even without adding all kinds of deliciousness to the top), and easy to have on hand. Make some for your next dinner and make a few extra to have for lunch the next day! I hope now that you know How to Bake Potatoes, and how good for you they are, you’ll go ahead and use them for as many meals as possible!

Pullin’ from the Pantry – Money Saving Meals

Today we’re Pullin’ from the Pantry – Money Saving Meals. That means we’re going to go over some recipes for meals here on Plenty Sweet Life that are easy on the budget – especially if you aren’t working and need to be pinching your pennies. Even if you still are working, once in a while it’s ok to go with meals that are good for the pocketbook. See what I did there? I used a “Grandma-ism”. Pocketbook – geez. That’s old school. A lot of these recipes can also be made from things you probably have in your frig or pantry. You can find a lot of recipes that are money-saving – yet still amazingly delicious – on the blog, but here is a partial list of some of my favorites:

Creamed Peas on Toast

Creamed Peas on Toast

Easy Chicken and Rice

10 Minute Tomato Soup

Bunsteads

Hotdish #2

Potato Soup

Potato Soup

5 Can Hotdish

Grilled Tuna Sandwiches

Roast Beef in the Crockpot

Tuna Casserole

Hamburger Hotdish

Hamburger Hot Dish

Spanish Meatballs

Hotdish

 

Pigs in a Blanket

Look at how old this recipe is for Pigs in a Blanket! Remember making these back in the day? My sister wrote this out when she was pretty young! I think she and I must have both gotten this recipe in 7th grade Home Ec class! There were a LOT of great recipes that came from that Home Ec class, and this is definitely one of them. That’s why this one’s going in the Retro Oddities category! I’ve been making this recipe for my kids since they were very small. It’s an inexpensive dinner that looks like you’ve really made something special – and my kids loved it – especially the name! This is another recipe that’s total comfort food for this family, and with shorter days and less daylight coming now this time of year, it’s time to pull out some of our favorite comfort food recipes, warm up the oven, and make some cozy, comfy dinners.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Pigs in a Blanket

Unroll:

1 roll of refrigerator crescent rolls

Separate into triangles.

Remove from package:

1 package of hot dogs (I used my husband’s favorite kind, but we normally use Oscar Meyer Wieners)

Cut slit almost to bottom and not quite to the end of hot dog.

For cheese:

Velveeta cheese cut into 1/4″ slices, and cut those into 1/4″ strips.

Insert cheese into slit in hot dogs.

Wrap hot dog in crescent rolls, starting with the wide edge of roll under hot dog.

Roll up and pinch point end under hot dog to seal.

Place on baking sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-13 minutes.

Because I didn’t use the usual Oscar Meyer Wieners, I put the hot dogs on a paper towel to dry them off a bit – these were juicy, but they’re my husband’s favorite.

Unroll the tube of crescent rolls, separate them, and have them ready for rolling.

This is it – 3 basic ingredients – all ready to go.

Cut a slit in the hot dog and insert the stick of cheese.

Roll the crescent roll dough around the hot dog. I found that starting with the wide end on the bottom let you end up with the pointed end underneath so it doesn’t come apart when baking – it stays nice and tight that way.

Tuck the pointed end of the crescent roll dough underneath and it stays put. Easy peasy.

Here they are – ready for the oven!

The hot dogs cook, the cheese melts, and the crescent roll dough gets brown and delicious.

These make a nice weekend lunch or quick weeknight dinner. Serve them with ketchup AND mustard, and you’re good to go.

Oh yum. I haven’t made these for a few years, and I had forgotten just how tasty they are! Your kids and grandkids will love them, and they’ll love helping you make them. It’s time to bring back these tasty favorites. Turn on the oven, get retro, and make up a nice, cozy, comfy dinner tonight with your new favorite comfort food – Pigs in a Blanket!

 

 

Country Pie

I found this recipe for Country Pie in one of Grandma’s old cookbooks – it was submitted by one of Grandma’s sisters, who originally got it from her daughter – who just happens to be my mom’s cousin and my godmother. This cousin is the one who grew up so close – close in age, close in proximity, and close in relationship. They always say they were more like sisters than cousins, even though my mom is a year older. This is a photo of the two of them dressed alike. I love how their parents always used a nice backdrop for their photos! Ha! They have the same dresses, and hair bows, and even their hair is styled the same!

They were great friends – still are! They were just so stinkin’ cute – still are!

As for the recipe – it was submitted to the church cookbook, but I also found the handwritten copy of the same recipe from Grandma’s sister. I love those old recipes, so I put the recipe card in here instead of the recipe from the cookbook. This was a great dish I made when our daughter was over for lunch on a Sunday before a Minnesota Vikings game, but it would be an nice week-night meal, too – easy to do and delicious!

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Country Pie

For the crust:

1 pound lean ground beef – not cooked or browned – yes, raw

1/2 cup tomato sauce

1/2 cup bread crumbs (I used panko crumbs)

1/4 cup onion, chopped

1/8 teaspoon dried oregano (I went crazy and added 1/4 teaspoon – I could have used more than that)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 of a small green pepper, chopped

For the filling:

1 1/2 cup Minute Rice

1 cup water

1 1/2 cup tomato sauce (I used a 15 oz can of tomato sauce total – close enough)

1 cup grated cheese (I used cheddar)

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix all together (except 1/4 cup cheese for top).

Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Uncover, top with remaining cheese, and bake another 15 minutes (after uncovering, I baked it an additional 20 minutes – to make sure beef was fully cooked – before putting cheese on top).

I know it sounds a little strange to use uncooked ground beef, and I thought so, too, but it works! This is the crust, so I just patted it into the pie pan as if it was a pie crust. It’s more like a meatloaf crust layer.

Next, I poured in the filling – and yes! It all goes in!

I forgot to show that I covered the pie with foil. Luckily – and I DO mean luckily – I had just cleaned my oven!

After the baking it covered, I didn’t feel comfortable with how the beef still looked a bit pink, so I left it in for another 20 minutes or so.

Then, on went the shredded cheese and back into the oven it goes! I may have used more than 1/4 cup of cheese on the top – I like it cheesy.

It came out all bubbly and cheesy and delicious! My daughter and I were brainstorming about this recipe – you’ll probably see more variations of this one down the road!

That meatloaf type crust and the rice filled filling – yum! I would let this sit for 10-15 minutes before serving next time. There was a bit of liquid that wasn’t absorbed into the pie when I cut it for the first slice, but when we went back for seconds, it had.

This was an amazingly delicious lunch, but I just can’t help think it would be a great weeknight dinner – it’s pretty fast to pull together! I served it with a bit of sour cream and some chives from my garden, but ketsup and green onions would be good, too. I think this may just become a staple in this household – I hope you’ll try this Country Pie and make it a staple in your household, too!

 

 

Scandinavian Egg Sandwich

Ok guys – we’re making a Scandinavian Egg Sandwich today! Yes – you heard me! This sandwich can be made almost entirely from leftovers (for our family, anyway). It’s the perfect holiday breakfast, lunch, or snack, and it’s amazingly delicious! Our family made up this sandwich over the years, but it really came to be finalized in 2016 when my sister, her family, and my mom came to be with us for the whole Christmas holiday. Everybody loved it because it uses a lot of our favorite holiday foods. We usually have the ingredients (that are leftovers) at some point during the holiday season, so it really was a no-brainer. My family loves egg sandwiches. In fact, all of our kids HAVE to have their dad’s egg sandwiches at some point almost every time they come to stay with us for any length of time. They grew up on them with his making them before and/or after every sports event, drama event, or music event – and there were A LOT of those. There isn’t really a recipe, just a tutorial, and we’ll explore that for dad’s egg sandwiches at some point later. For now, I’ll just tell you how we made these particular egg sandwiches.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Scandinavian Egg Sandwich

I’m showing how to make this sandwich Scandinavian here, but it’s very easy to change this and make it just how YOU like it!

Step 1-

Slice and/or toast 2 slices from a Julekaga, loaf of bread (or panettone or regular sliced bread), and put one slice on a plate. This is your platform for the rest of the sandwich. I don’t like mine toasted and that’s why I didn’t toast the bread here. My daughter was in Chicago this fall and brought home a panettone from her visit to Eatily, so I didn’t make Julekaga this year. Normally I would use Julekaga, but this year I used the panettone for the sandwiches instead.

Step 2 –

Dollop on a spoonful of your favorite jam. We used lingonberry jam to fulfill our Scandinavian theme, but any jam like strawberry or raspberry would also be delicious.

Step 3 –

Layer on slices of brown fudge cheese (Gjetost) or your favorite cheese. We always have brown cheese for the holidays. If you haven’t tried it – I HIGHLY recommend it (it seriously does taste like fudge)! If you don’t want to try the most delicious cheese in the world, then use whatever cheese you like.

Step 4 –

Next comes a slice of Christmas ham. We have fried the ham at times in the past, but this ham was very flavorful and I didn’t feel like it needed to be fried. If you like it hot, go ahead and fry it first. You could also use turkey, so this would be good for a thanksgiving treat, too. Just use cranberry sauce and turkey instead of jam and ham.

Step 5 –

Last, but not least, a fried egg goes on top. I like a fried egg on mine, and I like it a bit drippy, but you can put on whatever kind of egg you like. My husband likes to break the yolks of his eggs when making an egg sandwich, because he likes to “mess” with stuff while he’s “cooking”. He just folds it up into a square of cooked eggs and puts that on top.

Step 6 –

Top it with the second slice of bread and cut it in half. Eat it like a sandwich, or use a knife and fork – whatever works. It’s so delicious – you’re just not going to believe it! You can tell it’s good by the way the egg yolk and jam somehow drip their way down your fingers and hands. Go ahead and lick your fingers – you won’t want to waste a bit of it!

This sandwich has everything you’d want in an egg sandwich: tender, fruity bread, sweet jam, salty ham, the delicious, drippy egg. What more could you want?!! It’s the perfect after holiday breakfast or snack, as far as I’m concerned. You’re using up some leftovers and it’s ridiculously delicious to boot! I know you’re going to love it. Bring out your inner Viking and try this Scandinavian Egg Sandwich!