A Thicc pan of Lasagna. I think the pan weighs like 40 lbs when full. LOL
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My mom would dice up leftover pot roast and mix it with flat egg noodles and some type of binder. Then cook it in a flat casserole dish She would cut it out in squares and serve it with a thick beef gravy.Comment
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My dad and mom were born in 1911 and 1927, respectively. Yeah, he robbed the post-war cradle in 1948. Growing up during the Great Depression had a huge influence on how they bought and cooked food. If it weren’t for the fact that my grandfather raised beef cattle, we probably wouldn’t have eaten steak as frequently as we did back in the 1950s-60s.
My mom was a very good (southern) cook, who would always season veggies with some kind of pork (ham hock, fat back, country ham fat/skin strips, etc.), then proceed to cook them into bits. Green beans were especially ill-treated, with very few of them resembling anything like a bean once served. She did make incredible creamed corn which we would mix together with out butter beans, what we called succotash. She also made a very good BBQ chicken, from scratch that took about 2.5 hours, in the oven. Pot roasts were delicious, pork roasts were heavenly and her mac and cheese was to die for because of the good quality sharp cheddar cheese and home made croutons dredged in butter on top. She was also an accomplished baker, cranking out pies, cakes, candies and breads. Jams and jellies were also in her repertoire, with pepper jelly being one she made even into her 90s. Her best cake offering was a sour cream pound cake, from a recipe that was handed down from one of her aunts. She also made a killer lemon layer cake. Her best pie was made from scratch chocolate with meringue on top, not whipped cream. She would always make her own pie crusts. Her best candy was a Boston Nut Roll made from sugar, corn syrup and pecans. It was a holiday treat! One of the best things she ever made and taught me to make was cheese straws. They are still a huge family favorite and bring warm memories of her every every time I make them.
My dad learned to cook breakfast after he retired but mom was still working. Scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, grits, country ham and other such offerings wer about all he would attempt. However, he did try to impress us kids one night when mom wasn’t there and tried his hand at making biscuits from scratch. They came out with a consistency and shape of a hockey puck.
In retrospect, my mom had a more outsized influence on me in the kitchen than I ever realized until much later in life. Although I don’t cook much of what she did, she certainly instilled in me a love of cooking and showing love THROUGH cooking for others. My dad did teach me how to use a charcoal grill and for that I am grateful.
Thanks, mom and dad, for all the culinary life-lessons.Comment
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Both my parents were good cooks. Mom's mom did catering and she and grampa owned a café for a while. Mom worked there, but as a waitress, I don't recall her saying anything about cooking, that's what her mother did. But she definitely learned from her mother. I know crispy chicken is highly sought after here, but I didn't have chicken with crispy skin until I ate my mother in law's chicken, and I was not impressed. The way gramma and my mom made it was more steamed chicken. Coated in a flour and salt mix, browned in butter, and then add some water and let it simmer while you go to church (obviously Sunday Dinner). Served with mashed potatoes and gravy and sweet corn that had been frozen last summer when the sweet corn was ripe. I'm starting to drool.
My grandma and my mother were both known for their potato salad, and while it is good, I actually prefer the potato salad as my mother in law made it. That and enchiladas were the only two things she could make that were good. When my mom died last year, I asked my wife to go back to the way she learned to make it. She was surprised. When my mom was around her recipe was the one that had to be used. I had never said anything. Only took me 46 years to get the potato salad I preferred.
I did not realize that some people ate Mac and Cheese that come from blue boxes until some time after I left home. Mom made Macaroni and Cheese the way her mom did, from scratch. Lots of gooey cheese. With either hot dogs or ring baloney, either cut up and mixed in or on the side.
My dad also was a good cook, and he and I never went hungry when we were home alone. While I'm not sure, I think it was because my grampa contracted Spanish Flu in WW1 and it ruined his health for the rest of his life. Grandma spent a lot of time either going to be with him at VA hospitals, or working as a midwife. I think dad did a lot of cooking for him and his younger siblings growing up. He did fine in the house, but also loved to grill. 50 years ago when I was 18 and working in a hardware store I bought him a natural gas grill so he (we) could grill outdoors.Comment
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My mom was a decent cook but when she was on the road for work my dad was in charge and it was always turkey loaf and mashed potatoes. Never againComment
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My parents married in ‘47, I came along 3 years later. First, we never had a fresh vegetable in our house until I started a garden when I was 12. Yeah, occasional salad, but pretty much canned everything. But, my ma’s “boiled dinner was a delight, kielbasa & potatoes with sourkraut. Then there her galumpkis (the L is pronounced as a W for those in Oconomowoc), loved em, loved em, loved em. They are stuffed cabbage rolls with beef & rice with a tomato sauce. My dad, well he was a part time firehouse cook. Part time, cuz those who cooked took their turn when it came up. So, he only knew how to cook for 12-15 guys. But, that did leave us with his ability to make a great batch of chili & yes it hd beans. They were on a tight budget & paid for their own food & back in the 50s they did not make big bucks.
Oh, I almost forgot the "city chicken". It was some kind of ground chicken & maybe pork with seasonings on a stick. I could eat those things til I got sick. She picked this up at a meat market on Livernois Ave.Last edited by FireMan; October 5, 2022, 05:33 PM.Comment
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My dad's signature meal any time mom was gone at dinner time was the aforementioned SoS (Sh!t on a Shingle), which he made using ground beef or chipped beef (as he called it), and we ate it over white toast. Back then my mom never made sausage gravy, and I thought SoS was the bomb, and ate it up.
My mom's signature dish was probably pot roast, and once we were out of grade school, she went to work as an RN at a local hospital, and worked 3-11 (more like 2 to 12) 4 days a week and every other weekend, making us "latch key kids". More often than not, she left us a crock pot on the counter with pot roast, carrots and potatoes in it cooking, for our dinner. I grew to HATE that pot roast. Still liked my grandma's though, but she made hers in a pressure cooker. The other days it would be casseroles of some sorts with instructions to put in the oven, which usually my dad or little sister took care of. I grew to hate casseroles too! I remember during this period we got our first microwave at Sears, and my dad and sister went to "microwave cooking class" at the Sears & Roebuck. After that we had the miracle of microwave bacon, microwave scrambled eggs, and other such fare.
I'll eat pot roast now, but imagine the chuck roasts we buy (choice) are much better than the crappy select grade my mom was buying back in the 70's to 80's.Comment
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One of the things that hit me reading posts here is that in one aspect I probably ate better beef than some of you when I was young, at least until the 4th grade. It wasn't that my dad made a lot of money as a pastor, but especially when we were in a small farming community fairly often someone would mention, "BTW, we butchered, and there's some beef for you at the locker." No idea what grade it would have been, but we ate as good as anyone in the church.
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Both my parents were raised on farms in the '20s and '30s. Almost everything they cooked was well done. That included meat and veggies. I never had a steak I liked until I was served a steak cooked to medium in a restaurant. I wanted to send it back, but I was with friends, so I took a bite.
What a revelation!
Both my parents were good cooks at achieving what they wanted to achieve, but neither used recipes. My Mon's best cooks were Sunday fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, and her riff on my paternal Grandmother's spaghetti with meat sauce. For my Dad, his two standouts were fried fish* and something he made up he called "stuff". Simply put, it was basically a combination of mac and cheese and spaghetti with meat sauce - no spaghetti noodles. The spices are a bit different though. I still make it, but maybe once a year when our Son is home - he loves it. I make it so seldom that I am always afraid that I will have forgotten the ingredients. I just dump some of this and some of that in and taste.
*My Dad was famous for his fried fish. He loved to fish and would freeze fish until he had enough for a fish fry. All the neighbors would be invited and would bring sides so that all my Dad had to do was cook the fish. He even built a wood burning flat top out back just for the fish fries. One time He and I were fishing and camping at Back Bay at the Southeastern tip of VA. It was one of our regular spots, and he knew the owner of the place. Dad cooked him a plate of fish and took them to the man, but the man really didn't want them. My Dad convinced him to take the fish, and about a half hour later the man walked down to ask my Dad how he cooked them.Comment
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My mom didn’t use recipes either. Once my wife ask for a recipe and my mom said use a gurgle of this and the tip of a cooking spoon of that. My wife couldn’t translate it. My mom broke her big toe when I was in High School and because she couldn’t get around well I cooked. She would give me instructions like how much of this to add and while cooking she would say that looks right. To this day I cook by sight more than by taste.Last edited by LA Pork Butt; October 5, 2022, 04:53 PM.
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My mom would use Mortons' Nature Seasons & Lawry's Seasoned Salt on fried pork chops and MAN did that smell awesome. Except she fried them to shoe leather thinking she had to.
My dad would make "venison tid bits" he called it. Venison trimmings too small for steaks or jerky, coated in seasoned pancake batter and fried with onions. It was amazing.Comment
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My mother was an incredible cook. A few of my favorite dishes she made were chicken tetrazzini, beef stroganoff and french onion soup, complete with toasted baguette and melted gruyere. She also made an excellent black beans and sausage soup fixed in a romertopf clay cooker.Comment
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My mom was a very good cook and a great baker. Her signature dishes that I still make today (except for the baked goods - I'm just not a baker):- Chicken n' Dumplings
- Turkey Noodle Soup
- Spaghetti with meat sauce (except I improved on her sauce)
- Ribs and Sauerkraut
- Homemade bread
- Monkey Bread
- Sticky Buns
- Cookies
- Dad's Breakfast [Bacon, Fried eggs in bacon fat, white rice (with butter, salt & pepper) and toast].
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Mom is 93 now… but I’d love to see all the venison stew, Brunswick stew, biscuits, cornbread and streak o’ lean she’s made…
dad was an Army Air Corp cook, but rarely cooked, cause Mom handled it,,,Comment
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A grounding. I was born in 52'. My parents were apartment dwellers until they bought and moved into a retirement trailer park in Lantana FL in the early 80s. What does this have to with the OP's subject, nothing. Other than my father didn't care to or could boil water and my mother hardly could. Her best meal was Swansons TV dinner. Whatever kitchen was in the apartment we were in, she avoided. I learned to cook at a very early age for survival. So there was no signature dish. I'm here and survived. Most likely a better person and certainly a better cook.Comment
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Wow. I've always wondered how people got by... I have a friend from high school, we aren't close anymore, but I do remember neither his first nor second wife could cook ANYTHING. I mean, even microwave stuff was a challenge for them.
It boggles my mind that people don't want to learn. I guess because food has been such a factor in my life - it's really been a shaping influence on me. DOH! (round shape, that is)
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I found this thread while searching for chicken dumplings. How fun!
mom never cooked. Dad made spaghetti (jarred red sauce doctored up with ground beef, bell peppers and canned mushrooms), Lawrys ground beef crunchy tacos, occasional steaks or burgers or hot dogs on the grill. Step mom did good pancakes. Overcooked scrambled eggs (water leeched-out, they were so bad), lots of canned and jarred and boxed stuff. I can’t even say scalloped potatoes and ham or tuna casserole without tasting 🤮 in my mouth.
We lived to go to grandmas house. Best food ever.Comment
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For cookouts she made killer potato and macaroni saladsComment
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