Who else remembers Porcupine Meatballs, the meatballs with "quills" of rice sticking out? I mixed up a quick batch recently for the first time in years, decades probably, and was surprised how delicious they tasted with a just a few contemporary updates. Let's make it a retro revival ... This recipe is so quick and easy
that I'm adding it to a special collection of easy summer recipes.
Watch for new 'summer easy' recipes all summer long.
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Retro recipes from the 1960s and 1970s may tickle a nostalgic fancy but some times, taste-wise, they no longer measure up. Our palates have become sophisticated, our experiences with food more worldly.But with a few contemporary touches, these Mini Porcupine Meatballs from my childhood kinda knocked me over with grownup goodness.What makes these mini meatballs “Porcupine” Meatballs? In the oven, the rice “quills” swell out of the meatballs. The idea of eating …

The story of Strawberry Bill, my great grandfather, an excuse to share a great low-calorie, low-point appetizer, snack or dessert. This recipe is so quick and easy
that I'm adding it to a special collection of easy summer recipes.
Watch for new 'summer easy' recipes all summer long.
With a free e-mail subscription, you'll never miss a one!
“Strawberry Bill” he was called, my Great Grandfather Gossard. He kept ten acres of berries in Webster City, where June was the big month for strawberry-picking in early-1900s Iowa. Late in life, my Gramma Kellogg, his daughter, wrote about Iowa strawberries in a memory book called “Stories for My Grandchildren.”At sunup, she wrote, local women and children pinned on their straw hats to commence picking, Gramma and her sister Miriam too. The pay was 2 cents a quart. “No one got rich picking berries. A dollar a day was fair pay for work at that time.”As the sun grew warm, the fragrance of the berries was intoxicating. Every now a…