Here's another road trip meal. The recipe was designed around beef. But we often make it with venison. And, frankly, it wouldn't surprise me to find that chicken or turkey would work just as well.

We serve this on a bed of pasta, if making it directly. For a road meal we mix the sauce and pasta, put a serving in a boil bag and top with the meat.

I also find this works better if you shape the meat into mini-patties, rather than leaving them as balls:

Sweet & Sour Meatballs

1 1/2 lbs ground meat
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
5 tbls flour
1 cup oil
3 diced green peppers
3 eggs
1 1/4 cup beef broth
1 1/2 cup pineapple chunks
3 tbls cornstarch
1 tbls soy sauce
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar

Mix together the beef, 1 tsp salt, and pepper. Shape into 24 balls.

Mix together eggs, flour and remaining salt. Dim meatballs in batter and brown in hot oil. Remove balls and pour off al but 2 tablesoons oil. Add beef broth, pineapple and green pepper. Boil, covered, for 10 minutes and return meatballs.

Just before serving add cornstarch dissolved in the soy sauce & vinegar and sugar until sauce thickens.

My mom used to use this sauce to baste rotisserie chicken as it cooked. I adapted it for cold chicken wings, which we usually have with potato salad and cole slaw

Wings, btw, no matter how you make them freeze very well, so are ideal as over the road food. By the time you reach your night's stop they'll have defrosted perfectly. \

Chicken Wings In Coffee Bar-Be-Cue

for the sauce:

In a saucepan combine 1/3 cup strong black coffee, 1/3 cp catsup, 1/4 cup Worchestershire sauce, 4 tbls butter, 4 tbls molasses, 1 tbls lime juice, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp cayenne (or a couple glugs hot sauce). Simmer for about 30 minutes, or until sauce thickens.

Separate chicken wings. Reserve tips for making stock. Deep fry the wing pieces, in batches, for about 13 minutes or until browned and crisp. Drain on paper towels.

When chicken is all cooked put in a large bowl. Pour sauce over the wings and toss until evenly coated. Transfer wings to a large (2-gallon) zipper bag and freeze until needed.

Your coffee bbq sounds yummy, KYH... I could eat almost anything on a chicken wing!

Say- your sauce reminds me of a question... I've always made a version of red-eye gravy that was typically pan juices from a baked ham, enhanced with black coffee, seasoned with lots of ground black pepper, and thickened with a roux until bubbly and thick. But in Martha Hall Foose's "Screen Doors & Sweet Tea" (a Mississippi cookbook written by a native who apprenticed in France- that I am enjoying the heck out of!) her red-eye gravy is pan juices deglazed with black coffe sweetened with sugar- OR believe-it-or-not a can of cola! Also she simmers to reduce but doesn't thicken with roux at all. Is anyone out there familiar with this far-different-than-any-I've-ever-made or eaten version?

Also, Martha makes a delicious sweet potato fritter w/ a hidden surprise that I can't wait to try! She makes mashed sweet potatoes flavored with brown-sugar, cream cheese and cinnamon. Using her hands she molds the mashed sweet potato mixture around an extra-large MARSHMALLOW. She then dips this round billiard-ball-sized fritter into egg-wash, then crushed cornflakes and deep-fries until golden. Yum! The photo of this crisp, gooey morsel in her book looks sweetly irresistable!

Chubby I've never even heard of using a roux with red eye gravy.

There are several approaches. But the end result should always resemble the words that Joan Baez sang:

"I wouldn't be here eatin' this cold corn bread, or soppin' this salty gravy, my Lord, soppin' this salty gravy". Red Eye is what she was singing about.

You make it by frying a ham steak, and deglazing the skillet with black coffee. That's where most people stop. Some use additional liquid (personally, I always pour it a tot of bourbon), including, yes, cola (which is a far more common cooking ingredient, in the deep south, than most people realize---particularly with pork products).

The final "gravy" should be a thin, watery, salty jus, rather than a thick sauce.

That sweet potato fritter sounds great. I'm gonna have to give that a try.

Thanks for schoolin' me w/ the red-eye gravy lesson, Brook... Here I've been making it wrong forever! (or, rather than wrong, I'll call it "red-eye gravy B'! Ha!)

And yes... I've heard the Joan Baez song... and speaking of folks music and Mississippi... one of my fav representations of food in music is of course Miss Bobbi Gentry's 'Ode to Billy-Joe' where that sultry alto of hers sings about biscuits, blackeyed-peas and apple pie being passed at the dinner-table, mid-day.