This week we decided to revisit good homestyle family recipies. Since I was rather protein hungry, I started off the week with a nice and healthy Steak and Potato meal. We used our beautiful blue potatoes from our bountiful summer garden for a twist on traditional mashed potatoes. The steak turned out juicy and delicious. Any meal wouldn't be complete unless I could add some mushrooms and where better to have mushrooms then with steak and potatoes ;) One cool thing about this meal is that I got to make a gravy - actually this was my pride and joy since I have never gotten a gravy to be thick enough or tasty enough (I think that the magic was the worcester sauce).

We also enjoyed a recipe for Soy-Garlic Chicken from Sarah Rich, Mark's sister-in-law. It is such a wonderful treat to have so many great recipies from our family and friends online. Mark had a great time making this juicy and flavorful chicken. It takes a couple of hours of marinating (we shortened the marinating time a bit and cooked the chicken in some of the juice to make sure that we got all of the flavor). He served it on a bed of jasmine rice and a side a corn. The nice bit about this dish was the color contrasts; it is always fun to have a variety of color on the plates.

The last meal of the week comes from my Mom, American Chinese food. I have always enjoyed this meal and with the option of beef, tofu or chicken, it is a flexible meal for anyone to eat. This time we tried it with some cabbage and bright orange carrots from our garden. The one thing I have learned cooking this meal is not to skimp on the ginger and soy sauce. It is really important to have a mouth of flavor (not a mouth of cabbage) when you are enjoying this treat. And the fun thing about this meal is you don't need to prepare any sides,since they are included in the mix.

That wrapped up our week of good down-home cooking. It is always a treat to remember meals from when we were younger.