The start of the cheese ball.
The morning frittata which can usually be found waiting for consumption by whom ever wants to start their day in goodness.
Stehlin's meat market on Coleraine Avenue in Cincinnati has served the city for over one hundred years. I have shopped there for at least forty years off and on...and now on a lot. My niece, Pam, has brought me lovely things over Memorial Day and I am putting them to very good use. Their dried beef for the cheese ball shown above is the best bar none. I nearly always have this form of cheese ball in the frig for drop in guests who come for drinks and a bite. I got the recipe from a woman who was in my wedding fifty-five years ago and when Glenda (my sister-in-law) and I first saw it we raced to see who could make it first and best. Now Glenda follows the recipe exactly but I adventure and stray to add things that make it even more delicious. You can't hurt this recipe so if you are kitchen challenged, this is your go to recipe. Simple take two room temperature boxes of cream cheese and then dice and chop and season with anything that goes well with a savory cream cheese...onions of any kind, chives, hot sauce (or not), olives (if you like them) herbs of all kinds and on and on. The stores have dried beef but Stehlin's is the best. Pam also brought two packages of ox tails which are burbling away in the crock pot as I write. They slow cook in Mr. and Mrs. T's spicy bloody Mary mix and wine with vegetables After everything is taken out one has a lovely tomato soup to enjoy first. The ox tails come in a tied bouquet and they are a delightful treat for soups, on mashed potatoes, noodles and many other combinations. The meat falls from the bones and I put the bones in the frig for the dogs' treats. Stehlin's bones were the first real bones my dogs have ever chewed. (Thank you, Pam.)
Now the frittata has a potato base and again, anything goes here even scatterings of dried beef, left over ox tail meat, sausage (which Stehlin's is known for) bacon, then top it with whipped eggs and cheese. Start it on the stove and once the eggs are on pop it in the oven and Bob's your uncle.
Stehlin's, I am told, is the only shop to butcher their own meat out back of the store. It is theirs, fresh, and delicious. I am told recently a cow from there escaped and tried to get to the freeway to get the heck out of town. He didn't make it and was captured.
