Recipes You've Never Heard of Outside Your Family

[Kivarita]

Does anyone have family recipes for foods/meals you really enjoy but that you've never heard of in anyone else's family? Might seem like a weird question, but the reason I bring it up...

Sloppy Joe's at my house growing up, and at my house now, are not tomato-based, aka Manwich-like. They're made w/ ground beef, a can of chicken gumbo soup, a diced green pepper and ketchup and yellow mustard. I've never heard of this in anyone else's family...*ever*. It sounds like a "back of the soup can" recipe, but I've never found it. And because it has yellow mustard, my husband refuses to eat it.

The other one we've got is a play on chicken and dumplings, involving 2 cans of Chunky-brand Chicken Noodle soup and a can of refrigerator biscuits. Anyone else heard of this? Anyone wanna volunteer your, ahem, unique family recipes?

TIA!
Kivarita

[Wayne Keyser]

"Tuna Stuff" - great and quick comfort food.

2 cans tuna (drain only one)
1 can Cream of Celery soup
1 can green peas, drained (or, better, cooked frozen peas)

Put 'em all together, warm through, serve atop 6 pieces white toast

[Gary Soup]

Had plenty of that growing up myself. It's just "Easy Tuna a la King." My mother also sometimes made it with fettucine-like noodles. Anyway, it was better than creamed chipped beef on toast or salmon casserole made with cheap tinned salmon.

Link: http://eatingchinese.org

[Mad]

Our version of shepherd's pie was layers of plain old ground beef "seasoned" with worcestershire sauce and mashed potatoes then topped with potato chips --have no idea where it came from but my adult son still remembers it fondly. My Dad made a charming dish which was simply ground beef with a can of cream of mushroom soup poured over - yuck!! My early cooking days were filled with "cream of" soups.

[globalgourmand]

Same here. Growing up, our shepherd's pie was ground beef, frozen peas and corn, a can of cream of ___ soup, and topped with Tater-tots.

My boyfriends' family regularly makes some disgusting things that I've found questionable...

"Turkey enchiladas" with-- you guessed it-- cream of ___ soup and cream cheese. Not a trace of anything red (or green, except for canned jalapenos.)

Corn chowder is ALWAYS served with blueberry muffins. Always. (...???)

"Chicken fricassee" is jarred chicken gravy on plain mashed potatoes. Actually, this is now called "fricken chicken" by his dad.

...but they're just so patient with any of my mistakes... I love you guys! I'll eat anything but those "enchiladas..."

[eastcoastgirl_westcoastlife]

We had something similar to that, but it was "Creamed Peas on Toast" - a basic white sauce with fozen or canned peas, on toast - YUM! Comfort food :)

[Graceeh]

We had this too! I still make it once in a while and I'm 63! You said it... YUM!!!

[Anoel]

Oh! I LOVE creamed chipped beef - even buy the packets in the store these days. :)

[Pat Hammond]

Sounds a lot like the old Maine favorite, Tuna Pea Wiggle!

[globalgourmand]

Tuna Pea Wiggle-- HILARIOUS!

[The Jimbles]

This was my dad's specialty. Only we used to eat it spooned over fried Chow Mein noodles.

[lgss]

We had something similar though with a can of mushroom soup and made with rice or pasta mixed in. The recipe appeared a a children's cookbook we had. It was made as a casserole and coated with crushed potato chips.

[Will S.]

Canned tuna seems to be the but of many of these recipes. Growing up my dad prepared a dish called Tuna Pie.

The shell was crushed up saltines mixed together with butter pressed into of course a pie pan. This was then filled with tuna mixed with onions, celery, eggs, Cream of Potato Soup, bread crumbs and old bay seasoning I think was his secret, but to this day he will not tell me.

My aunt also had this thing called bean dip, which incidentally contained no beans and was in fact cooked ground beef mixed with sour cream and chili starter. Suffice to say many vegetarians fell victim to unfortunate name.

[alkapal]

will, i'd eat that tuna pie! i find it funny that your dad still won't give you his recipe! ask him what is he waiting for, 'cause hounds wanna know! ;-). have you tried to replicate the tuna pie?

[Will S.]

I tried making it, but I was not as good as I remembered it, a little weird. Perhaps I was remembering my youth. It turns out that the secret ingredient was celery salt and a ton of garlic powder.

Here is the recipe he gave me (its not very exact):

Crushed saltines mixes with melted butter pressed into pie pan for the crust

Mix for filling:
2 cans tuna
onions. finely chopped
celery, finely chopped
1 egg
1/2 can cream of potato soup
garlic powder and celery salt to taste
breadcrumbs to absorb any liquid

put the filling in the crust sprinkle with bread crumbs
bake at 350 until set. (you basically poke it and when it fell firmer its done)

good luck! I hope you enjoy it as much as I used to.

[alkapal]

thanks! i'll bet it's cute in little ramekins! ;-).

i could see some tiny diced blanched carrots in that, too.

[herbalista]

I just found this thread. We did something similar, but we'd make a few cups of thick cream sauce (butter, flour, milk) and add frozen mixed vegetables and drained canned tuna. Served it on toast. I still love it.

[herbalista]

Just found this thread. We had "clam howder trash" (clam chowder hash), which was just clams, bacon, onion and potatoes. Add clam broth or water for liquid and black pepper. We always put a spoonful of butter on top of our bowls.

[melaffin]

I'm newly CHOWbound but this is the best site I've seen yet! Would like to share some Super Simple Comfort Foods that must be tried at least once: Spaghetti made with chicken instead of hamburger or sausage - an Egg McMuffin with 1 and 1/2 packets of strawberry jam drizzled between the egg and the ham - a bowl of chili using mashed potatoes as the bowl - and saving the best for last - - - Kidney Bean Soup: 1 can dark red kidney beans, 1 can milk, and a fairly thick slice of butter heated on the stove until the butter melts into the milk - stir in salt and pepper to taste and all your cares melt away - an added treat is to serve it with toasted cheese sandwiches - perfect for dipping!

[fooodin]

Hi Wayne!!!!

Good one !!! How do you get an idea about this recipe.? I am food reviewer and i always remains curious about reseraching new recipes.Thanks for this recipe.
I will be nice on your part if you continue to tell me the latest recipes.I will also do the same.

Neha Sood
Food Reviewer
www.foood.in

[Aaron]

Wierd and Healthful Bean Dip:
2 cups low-fat cottage cheese
1 can non-fat refried black beans
1 avocado, mashed
1/2 cup fresh salsa
juice of 1/2 to 1 lime
lots of chopped cilantro
cracked pepper

Mix.

[Offbalance]

I think I'm going to try that without the avocado one of these days...that sounds delicious!

[MommaJ]

My late mom used to cook elbow macaroni, then add butter, lots of cottage cheese and sour cream. Very rich, somewhat bland comfort food--and I loved it! I made it a few times when the kids were little to a tepid reception, and it's so unhealthy anyway, so I stopped and haven't had it for years. Don't know if my mom made this up or it has some provenance. Gee, I want some right now!

[DS]

My mother used to make something similar: noodles and cottage cheese, with plenty of butter and s&p (but no sour cream). To this day, I crave it when I am under the weather. The rest of my family finds it revolting.

[chittachef]

My mom made the same dish always using large curd cottage cheese which would get soft and a bit oozy when chewed. Also, noodles and milk - one savory preparation with wide egg noodles, warm milk, butter, salt. A sweet version was made using pastina and milk which we sprinkled with large crystaled colored sugar. These were interchangeable as breakfast or dinner items.

[Hot Dish]

This is similar to comfort food my Russian-born spouse makes: noodles with sour cream (and possibly a bit of garlic). Can be made more heart-healthy w/yogurt or cotttage cheese. Ditto the post above--sugar can be added to make it breakfast food.

[upstate girl]

My mom makes "macaroni and milk", similar to the other postings minus the cottage cheese. Just elbow macaroni, milk, butter, salt, and pepper. I guess that makes this a recipe we THOUGHT was only made in our own families!

My mom also makes "sinkers" which are similar to a dumpling. They're made with flour and egg only. They are really heavy, hence the name "sinkers". My mom adds them to all different kinds of soup. My family loves them but we've had many guests who have turned their nose up to them because they're so heavy and have such little taste. I guess it just tastes like my childhood to me.

[Starr77x]

Oh my gosh!! My family makes this and we call it "White Macaroni". My 21 year old son still loves it. My husband and daughter-in-law think it's disgusting. I can't believe someone else makes this!!!

[vicsailgarden]

WoW!
We always just called these dumplings. I had no idea that any other family made them or that they were called "sinkers." Ha! that's funny. I love it. I'm so glad my husband likes them - I think he's the only one besides my brothers & sisters. I will call them that from now on. We add a little salt to our recipe though. Tried parsley once ... but just too much flavor HA!

[eveh]

My Dh's Grandmother made these and I liked them, so we still have them. I drop them in boiling chicken stock and serve them as a side dish, or maybe add back the chicken and have chicken and dumplings. They are chewy that is why we like them. Substantial, not fluffy little things.

[eratosthanes]

I use the flour/egg only mix, but I roll them and cut them into wide strips so they get softer during cooking. I have been making this since I was 13, and my family still asks for it, so it must be good. Would those be thick noodles then instead of thin dumplings?

[Graceeh]

I make this too and call it macaroni soup. I came up with the concoction on my own and everyone else here thinks it's gross; to me it's delicious comfort food!

[czyha]

Upstate girl, LOL, my baba called those flappers and made flapper soup with them. Haven't heard of this one outside of our family. Make chicken broth. Then drop in the flapper dough (flour, egg and little onion salt) using a teaspoon. When flappers float to the top, add chopped green onion and dill. Finish the soup with heavy cream. The chicken was used for a cream chicken recipe that was served with pyrohi and cabbage rolls. Love Ukrainian food! I swear every recipe ends with 'add dill and cream'.

We also had flapper pie, but I think this was a Canadian prairie thing. Graham wafer crust filled with custard and topped with meringue. Yummy, made it this summer for dinner at prairie friend's place.

We did have a dish called sinkers, but these were a dessert made with left over bread dough. Basically cinnamon rolls packed into a casserole dish and baked in cream. OMG, I might have to make those soon!

Thanks for the walk down memory lane.

[yakitat jack]

When you say Canadian prairie and Ukrainian you are taking about Germans from Russian. Your flappers (dumpling, sinkers) is a very old German soft noodle called SPATZLE.

[Julya]

My mom was of German descent and she too made these heavy flour and egg dumplings, always put them in soup. I prefer them to the fluffy, biscuit type of dumplings.

[wineos]

My mom used to make "rice cereal" which is the same as your mom's "macaroni and milk" only subbing white rice for the macaroni, and sugar for the salt and pepper. We would get so excited when we knew we were getting "rice cereal" for breakfast.

[sandylc]

We used to have rice with milk and sugar for breakfast.

[DishDelish]

We grew up eating leftover rice with milk, butter, sugar and butter. Absolutely comforting.

[PhoebeB]

Sounds like variations of Noodle-Kugel to me.

[eastcoastgirl_westcoastlife]

Ah, I had a bf whose mom would make something similar, with elbo macaroni mixed into scrambled eggs - great w/ketchup and hot sauce!

[weezerific]

When I was little, the scrambled eggs/macaroni/ketchup thing was the only protein I would eat. I still basically only eat eggs with the ketchup, maybe I should try the noodles again!

[soulshine]

Ha, that is still a favorite of my family. In fact it is the most often requested side dish, even amongst the finicky and the cottage cheese haters.

Another favorite dish in my family has been "Cottage Cheese Pancakes" which are really crepes, filled with small curd cottage cheese seasoned with minced onion, garlic, salt and plenty of black pepper. I grew up on these and when I talk with family members who have since moved away, they complain about missing them. My cousin said she has attempted to make them but they just don't taste the same as mine, which apparently taste just like mom's and grandma's.

Also "California Chicken Casserole" which is shredded chicken and corn tortillas layered with a mixture of salsa and cream of chicken or mushroom soup (or a mixture of the two) and tons of cheese, lasagne style. You bake it until it's all golden crusty outside and ooey gooey inside. I can just feel my arteries clogging!

And "Chicken & Rice" another fave of the family still. Shredded chicken, tons of chopped scallions, soy sauce, and very buttery rice. This is so simple and they really seem to love it. I make it brown rice now, but when I was growing up it was made with minute rice.

The other super easy chicken dish we grew up on was chicken thighs (I remove the skin), 1 c. soy sauce, 1 c. sugar, 1 c. water, and 1 can of pineapple (chunks or crushed) w/ juice. You just bring it to a boil, cover, simmer until tender and falling off the bone.

Mom used to make balogna sandwiches with either butter and yellow mustard or sweet relish and mayonnaise. I've always hated balogna, so I had salame instead. We also had tons of "Toasted Tomato Sandwiches" which consists of toasted white bread, buttered, top with mayonnaise, thinly sliced tomatoes, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. My ex used to request a breakfast treat his father made when he was growing up. Smashed avocado on buttered toast that has also been slathered in mayo, then generously topped off with with black pepper and viola, you've got "Triple Fat Toast"

Mom would also take left over mashed potatoes and throw them in a skillet with a generous amount of butter, brown em' up, push them over to the side and add a few beaten eggs, scramble those up and combine the whole mess. This was my favorite breakfast treat as a child. My grandpa always made scrambled eggs with salame for me when I spent the night. Just about all the members of my family will take left over spaghetti and throw it in a frying pan with a bunch of butter, garlic salt and paremsan, fry it up until it gets all orange an gooey and than eat it on garlic bread. Can you tell I came from a fat family or what?

[oakjoan]

We used to have something we called (made up name) Enchiladas San Fermin. Corn tortillas softened in oil, rolled around cottage cheese mixed with sour cream and chopped green onions. We added pieces of canned green chiles and liberal amounts of garlic powder and s&p. Then a large piece of jack cheese went on top and it was rolled up. More cottage cheese mixture and cheese went on top and it was all baked in the oven.

Actually, it was extremely good. About 1000000 calories per enchilada, but that was in the olden days before we knew about such things as heart attacks and cholesterol.

Also, my mother used to make bean stroganoff - I've posted the recipe a couple of times here. Ground beef, sour cream, onions, kidney beans cooked as a casserole.

[griddlegirl]

My husband grew up eating bologna with butter and mustard sandwiches and still eats them to this day.

[eastcoastgirl_westcoastlife]

Mmmm bologna! My fave was the big wax coated tube, the kind you slice yourself. My parents used to slice it thick and fry it up to make my fave breakfast, fried bologna sandwich on toast, with lots of ketchup!

[kubasd]

fried bologna sandwiches were my fave growing up!! bologna sliced and fried, served on white toast with ketchup is the best..... ahh those days before we had to worry about fat and calories...

[coll]

Fried bologna on a runny egg sandwich (with cheese of course) is a favorite in my house. Not really fried though, just cooked on the griddle with the eggs until it puffs up.

[SusieQ32]

Ooh! I lived on Bologna and mustard sandwiches. It had to be on white bread of course.
I also enjoyed toasting Bologna on bread. It was a great after school snack.

[Julya]

I loved fried bologna sandwiches too, with lots of ketchup!! :)

[coll]

I just watched Bad Santa last night, didn't remember that he was showing his hosts how to fry bologna, then he put it on white bread with some salsa on top and told them it was a quesadilla or something. So not as uncommon as some people might believe!

[vicsailgarden]

My father likes baloney and peanut butter sandwiches.
ouch!

[lscanlon]

When I was 11 or 12 years old, by best friend and I used to bicycle to his grandma's place, which took us a good 45 minutes, She always served us bologna and ketchup sandwiches, which she called "brownie" sandwiches. I never understood the name, but I still whip up a brownie sandwich occasionally.

[ideabaker]

Soulshine, your California Chicken Casserole sounds a lot like my Mom's "The Bomb" beef casserole, a kind of Mexican lasagne thing using corn tortillas--- her recipe was:

The Bomb Casserole

Ingredients:

Hamburger Meat (Minced/Ground)
Jalepeno Peppers (canned or a mix of fresh and canned, drained)
Onion, finely diced
Canned Corn (kernels), drained
Cream of Mushroom Soup
Corn Tortillas
Fine Shredded Cheddar or Mix of Cheddar/Montery Jack Cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350-375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Make the Meat Mixture:
Brown the Hamburger Meat and drain. Add one cup of the drained Uncooked corn. Add ½ of the onion depending on size and taste. Add ½ cup of the Jalepeno peppers chopped and drained.

Assemble the Casserole:
In a flat glass casserole dish or small lasagna pan, place some of the meat mixture into the pan. Add a layer of cheese. Layer on the corn tortillas on top, then add another layer of meat mixture. Place cream of Mushroom soup on top, then cover with cheese and bake until cheese is completely melted.

*I usually put some of the cream of mushroom soup with the meat and layer it in as well as put it on the top... makes for a little more mess, but oh so tasty! And for folks who don't like spicy you can defuse the bomb by dropping the jalepenos...

[p38]

Cottage cheese pancakes you describe are called Nalysnyki. They are Ukrainian crepes.

[maydaycolorado]

We had cucumber sandwiches...basically white bread with lots of butter, sliced cucumbers,, salt and pepper. I love them still! We also used to take Cheerios, dip them in butter and then back into the Cheerios, so you got a gob of Cheerio-fat goodness! My arteries never recovered!

[guilty]

In my family, dipping Cheerios in cream cheese was a traditional finger food for kids. I've never found anyone else who did this, but this Cheerios with butter story is pretty close.

[JJKRCRJRL]

Do you cook the garlic and the onions before you add them to the cottage cheese for the "Cottage Cheese Pancakes"? Thanks

[pattiadleybryan]

Fried Bologna sandwiches are the bomb! Nothing better - you must use miricle whip though and mustard. My mom would mix them together before spreading on the bread. YUM!

[Marilyn]

Yep, my Mom made it too....I make it now but I add
fresh dill to it !

[teamkitty]

The noodle/cottage cheese/sour cream dish sounds like a form of dairy kugel to me, not dissimilar from the "Exciting Noodle Kugel" recipe in Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cooking.

[goodhealthgourmet]

yep, sweet kugel for the holidays for sure, but i also think every jewish household had some variation of cottage cheese & maybe sour cream with noodles for a basic dinner.

haven't thought about that in years. of course now i'm craving it...

[SgtStens]

My mom used to serve me spaghetti and marinara sauce (from a jar, I imagine) with cottage cheese. I don't know where she got the idea, but for years that used to be the only way I would eat spaghetti. Now it seems horrifying to me, and I've never heard anyone else who had it either.

[amethiste]

Sounds like an ersatz lasagna? Substitute ricotta for cottae cheese and add mozzerella and you might have something there.

[coll]

My husband's family (very Italian) used to serve ziti and sauce with ricotta on the side. Only way he'll eat it now.

[Bigley9]

I grew up eating lasagne made with cottage cheese

[ajville]

Growing up we always ate spaghetti or lasagna with cottage cheese. It's delicious! The cool creaminess off the cottage cheese just adds the perfect foil to the tomato sauce. We still do it, my two year old loves pizza and cottage cheese. It is similar to the ricotta theory below. Also similar to sour cream with Mexican food, now that I think about it.

[piccola]

I do this too, but it's better with small-curd cottage cheese instead of the usual lumpy/runny stuff, which waters down the sauce.

[SusieQ32]

We used to make elbow macaroni with butter and ketchup. It was slippery, flavorful, fast and simple. A version of pasta with sauce. Admittedly, I tried it again last year for the first itme in many years and it wasn't as delicious as I remembered, but I still think it's a great kid dish!

[howboy]

This is still, to this day, my first choice comfort food. Especially good with a glass of chocolate milk.

[hotmexi]

They eat macaroni with butter and ketchup to accompany meatballs or sausages in Sweden!

[jomi53]

Sounds like what my Polish grandma use to make . I could never go with the cottage cheese

[rccola]

My grandmother mixed this up: it's basically an unbaked dairy kugel.

[globalgourmand]

Both my boyfriends' mom and grandmother make their lasagna with cottage cheese instead of ricotta. ::SIGH::

[cosmogrrl]

My mom used to make egg noodles with Kraft Parm cheese, butter and poppy seeds. It was usually served as a side dish but was one of my faves. Speaking of cream of _ soups, she'd also make pork chops with cream of mushroom soup ( the thin ones with a bone). Just cook them up in the oven 'til golden, then smother with cream of mushroom soup put back into the oven for a bit, then mix the yummy bits from the bottom in with the soup. It really was tasty.

Of course I'm not above using some canned or frozen items in my cooking to save a bit of time. So I don't sneer at people who do. Besides, in a lot of my dishes that do use said items no one has noticed!

[paulj]

Wiener Pie

Sliced hotdogs in an onion and tomato sauce, topped with a layer of cheese and corn bread batter, baked in a dutch oven.

Toasted oatmeal
Raw oats toasted in a generous quantity of butter and sugar. A simple, but rich version of granola made on the stove top (or electric skillet).

paulj

[fara]

taco beef and taco beans both made with onions, ketchup, soy sauce, worchestire and tabasco.
sometimes my mom would use the leftovers the next day with eggs.

curried vegetable/chicken stir fries w/ a dash of orange juice.

not a recipe, but alfafa sprouts and mayonnaise on white bread.

[piccola]

We had a few, and they came mostly from my dad. He mixes apple, orange or grape juice into plain yogurt; he makes this stew out of pork marrow bones, potatoes and carrots; and he makes spaghetti carbonara by deliberately scrambling the eggs instead of making a creamy sauce (it's pretty good, too, IIRC).

My mom used to make us cream cheese and jam sandwiches, too.

[KathySK]

For some reason we only had cream cheese and jam as a sandwich filling during Passover, on matzah. I never have that combination at any other time of the year.

Kathy

[realitykraft]

I had cream cheese and jam on matzoh packed in y lunch box during passover,made by my gentile mother(please make no comments). It always made me sad because the moisture from the cream cheese sucked the snap out of the matzoh.

[goodhealthgourmet]

i grew up on cream cheese & jelly sandwiches, and during passover it was the same thing - on matzoh. you're right, it used to make the matzoh so soggy! then again, so did anything with moisture. tuna salad, egg salad...sandwich fixins just aren't matzoh-friendly. i think the only one that didn't destroy it completely was plain peanut butter.

[saltedherb]

Cream cheese and jelly was the only sandwich my brother would eat through his whole childhood.

[ellyse]

Cream cheese and Jelly was the best on bagels, we also ate egg noodles with cottage cheese and bananas with sour cream and a dash of sugar!

[eight_inch_pestle]

Cream cheese and jelly on bagels is best with bacon top. Now that's childhood memories.

[coll]

One of my favorite childhood memories: when Dad made us dinner, it was often cream cheese and jelly on bagels, and Campbells Tomato Soup with wide egg noodles added. All of us still make this meal occasionally in his memory. I have passed on his secret to the younger ones: He used half milk and half water in the soup.

[misterkot]

i always liked cream cheese and jam on sourdough toast.

[pescatarian]

At passover, we made "matzah pizza" - matzah smothered with Manischevitz Tomato Mushroom Sauce and shredded mozzerella

[Chew on That]

I LIVE on matzah pizza during Passover and use the same exact sauce! I always feel so unhealthy on Passover because that's one of the only things I'll like for lunch. I don't like matzah sandwiches. Seeing you bring this up made me so happy!

[rccola]

Try sliced tomatoes which have had the liquidy seed part removed and grated cheese. If you like kimchee, kimchee on matzoh is killer.

[evasgramma]

cream cheese with dill pickle relish on a toasted bagel!! Yum!!

[tonina_mdc]

That sounds absolutely delicious, evasgramma! I love toasted bagels slathered with reduced-fat cream cheese and topped with large amounts of fresh dill or chives. They are wonderful enough that I occasionally dream of having them during the winter, when it is tough (or expensive!) to lay hands on fresh herbs.

[mariacarmen]

i had a friend who was from Venezuela in grade school, and she used to bring cream cheese and strawberry jam sandwiches to school. loved them.

my grandmother used to make me sour cream and sliced bananas with sugar. mmmmm . ..

[jchamberlain]

My sister likes to put cream cheese grape jelly, and a sausage patty on a bagel. I kind of liked it.

[alkapal]

j -- oh yeah, grape jelly on a sausage biscuit is very good, too! now that cream cheese is just decadent. ;-).

[srr]

My mom used to make a "vegetable" soup that started with ground beef and a big can of stewed tomatoes. Anything else was fair game. Yum!

[bryan]

My mom used to do that too. We called it hamburger soup. I still make it at least once every winter. It's about the only time I ever use canned veggies.

[wyf4lyf]

Peanut butter & bacon sandwiches

Peanut butter chicken (slather p-butter over chicken pieces and bake in the oven)

My mother always made the following after Thanksgiving and she insists that you HAVE to use Miracle Whip. We never used the stuff any other time. I cringe every year when I pick up the jar and bring it home...but I wouldn't dare try using anything else in this recipe!!

HOT TURKEY SALAD - serves 8-10
3 cups cooked turkey, diced in bite size pieces
1 -1/2 cups chopped celery
2T grated onion
4 hard boiled eggs (sliced)
1 small jar pimento (or chopped red pepper)
1 small package slivered almonds
1 cup Miracle Whip
1 cup grated Jack cheese
2 T lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
potato chips

Mix together all ingredients and pour in medium size casserole which is very lightly greased. Sprinkle crushed potato chips over top. Bake in preheated 350 oven for 30 minutes. This is best if it stands in refrigerator for a few hours before re-heating.

[boogiebaby]

I've been eating peanut butter and bacon sandwiches since I was about 8 years old! It's something we used to make at Girl Scout camp. I like it best on toasted bread.

[coll]

We grew up with peanut butter and bacon, and also peanut butter and butter.

[foodiex2]

PB and bacon were a Saturday staple in my house growing up too. Also PB and banana (an Elvis favorite) And my grandmother always butter the bread before PBJ or PB and bacon. Her reasoning was that it kept the PB from sticking to the roof of your mouth.

[pamd]

...and you forgot fluffernutters!

[macca]

The kids in my family still like fluffernutters. I think it may be a boston area thing. We go to the Outer banks in NC every couple of years with my family, my siblings and there families. We meet my cousins and their families from Ohio there ( this year there will be 25 of us). Their kids had never heard of fluffernutters. Not they love them.
We bring a big jar of Fluff. Last time we were there, we ran out of fluff. It was really hard to find at the local Food Lion. Was not with the pb and jelly as it should be- but was tucked away on the bottom shelf with the baking items.

[maydaycolorado]

I was at the Food & Wine Festival in Aspen a couple of years ago and they made Fluffernutter sandwiches with CHOCOLATE peanut butter! OMG...I have never had anything so decadent! We were stealing all the leftovers! Chocolate peanut butter is hard to find, but oh so worth it!

[evasgramma]

Ate Fluffernutters as a child in the '60's in NW Penna., near Ohio. Still love them, sent my kids to school with them in their lunches, here in Canada. Also had Peanutbutter and Mayonnaise, NOT Miracle Whip, and Amish Peanut Butter, made with Peanutbutter, whipped with molasses. That was like having a Hallowe'en Toffee kiss!

[slyfox]

My visiting Yankee cousin will never quite recover from our Red Sox fluffernutters....he was and still is horrified by the memory....and we thought it was the coolest thing between white bread!!!

[Mr. F.]

Fluffernutters rock.

[Bigley9]

I was so in love with fluffernutters that we named our cat after them!

[momjamin]

That's a great name for a cat ;-)

When I went to summer camp, there was always a loaf of white bread, a jar of PB, and a jar of fluff on the table for the kids who didn't like what was being served. I wonder if the camp has had to go nut-free since then -- fluffersoybutter?

[Bigley9]

Fluffer-soyer just doesn't have the same ring!

[krissywats]

My father did the same but his reasoning was that it kept the Jelly from soaking through the bread. He also put butter on his tuna sandwich that he took to work for the same reason

[Yongeman]

Yeah! Peanut butter and butter--but cold, hard butter. That's the best.

[hungryann]

Other favorite pb combos in my house:
-pb with cream cheese
-pb with cheez whiz or processed american slice cheese
-pb with nutella
-and the classic: pb with butter
YUMMO!

Other stuff I loved when I was little:

-Raw egg yolk whipped with sugar, cinnamon, cocoa and maybe a splash of OJ (this was supposed to be a fortifier since I was a scrawny kid)
-Smashed up chocolate chip cookies with pureed banana and peanut butter

Ahh! the memories!!

[tonina_mdc]

Isn't it funny how many odd thing PB seems to end up with when you're a kid? My mother used to mix PB and bananas - not such an odd combo, but she would mush the banana into a lumpy paste, mix in a ton of peanut butter, and eat the whole mess out of a bowl with a spoon! To this day, I shiver a bit over the memory....

[raidar]

Oh that sounds wonderful! I have some ripe banana's sitting around. Thanks for lunch!

[MartiniGenie]

PB, dill pickles and Miracle Whip sandwich! Still have to have one on occasion.

[dooflaer]

Yes! Someone else knows of peanut butter with pickles. I'm not a mayonnaise guy, so I would just have sandwiches with peanut butter and pickles. My dad got that from somewhere. Everyone I've told about it thought it sounded disgusting but after trying it had to agree that it's delicious.

[tonina_mdc]

I'm glad somebody likes that idea (other than my mother!) because it always gave me the willies when I was a kid. Now something I DID devour was something my mom always called "green junk" - gross name, but delectable. It was pistachio pudding mixed with pineapple, chopped walnuts, mandarin orange segments and things like that. I still request it for holiday dinners - and I carry off all the leftovers!

[egging]

oh, I love "green junk" too! At my house we called it watergate salad. We'd mix a package of dry pistachio pudding with a tub of cool whip then add in pineapple, mandarin orange bits, tiny marshmallows, nuts, etc. Makes me think fondly of my grandmother, who made the best version.

[tonina_mdc]

Isn't that funny! I've heard of watergate salad of course, but the version I know is made with apples and never had pistachio pudding. The first time my (then future) husband came to a holiday dinner, he saw me beg for and carry off the green junk and thought it was the grossest mess ever. I eventually got him to try it and he tolerates it now, although he still doesn't get the major appeal of it. I guess it's just something you have to grow up with in order to truly love....

[FibroLady]

The one with apples is called WALDORF salad...apples, raisins, nuts, mayo, etc. My aunt and uncle always made watergate salad for all the holiday meals.To me, it was just...meh. I actually prefer the Waldorf salad. (which was invented at the hotel of the same name(

[tonina_mdc]

My bad, you are quite correct. I'm slipping in my frazzled middle age. :-)

[alkapal]

oh yes! a freshly made waldorf, with top-notch ingredients, is a revelation.

just beautiful and so delicious!

[mountaincachers]

Wow! That sounds similar the the peanut butter, mayo, and lettuce sandwiches I used to eat as a kid. I was told that the origin was my grandfather who didn't like sweet stuff like jelly with pb. This was one I quickly learned not to tell my friends about, and haven't had one in years. Doesn't even sound appealing now, though I still love pb. Now I prefer to eat it melty on toast with honey or Nutella. Clearly, I have more of a sweet tooth than my grandfather.

[Seldomsated]

How about crunched-up potato chips on open-faced peanut butter sandwiches?

[thegirlwholovestoeat]

My favorite was ham, cheese, peanut putter, jelly and chips of any kind all in one sandwich... I kind of want one now!

[MrsCheese]

I grew up eating peanut butter and iceberg lettuce sandwiches on white bread. The crispy iceberg keep the peanut butter from sticking to the roof of your mouth and provides a little more texture. I still love it (and everyone thinks I'm weird).

[buttertart]

I don't! We had these too (my mother's idea), and I still love them. Also good with leaf lettuce. Another thing that's wonderful with PB in sandwiches: sliced tomatoes. The two flavors are great together. On the sweeter side: sliced apples, preferably hard first-of-the season ones, salted lightly.

[SLO]

MMMMM on toast so the peanut butter gets warm and a bit runny .. and with the bacon .. NIRVANA

[cooknKate]

PB and bacon is one of my most favorite things to eat! Also PB and crushed potato chips on bread is yummy! I also posted at the end of the thread about PB and green olives

[Amanda please]

My Mom made us "fish-a-ma- jig sandwichs
mashed up flounder with mayo on hamburger buns.

[patmatw]

Mm-m-m, cooknKate, I thought I had posted that for a second, PB and bacon is also my fave, on toast is best, and I don't know anyone else in the world that's ever tried PB and potato chips. It's like having chunky peanut butter, only better! Glad to have read your post and know there's another like me out there.

[patmatw]

I must have posted this elsewhere, but my mom sliced onions paper thin to put on her peanutbutter and white bread sandwiches. I never got up the courage to try it.

[schoenick]

Growing up my mom used to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches and also peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. My husband thinks the pickle sandwiches are gross but I still crave them when I'm missing home.

Also - I made up a recipe when I was first living on my own and money was scarce - box of mac\cheese (the $0.25 a box version), can of "cream of" soup, can of tuna - Mix all three and serve.

[KaimukiMan]

I was also raised on peanut butter and pickle sandwhiches. For mystery readers it is a favorite in the "Alphabet" series by Sue Grafton

[TalN]

Sounds like your tastes are similar to mine. In 6th grade I ate a peanut butter & mustard sandwhich on a dare (hey, he was cute!). I have indulged in this sweet & sour combination ever since. Hmmm, maybe I will try dill pickles sometime.

[eastcoastgirl_westcoastlife]

Ahh - that reminds me of my "Macarena Macaroni" - KD with canned diced tomatoes, kidney beans, mushrooms and chilli powder mixed in :)

[mrschef1]

One of the first "recipes" I learned to make was boxed mac & cheese, sauteed onion, canned mushroom stems & peices and tomato sauce. I made it for years, my kids named it mac-a-tooney. I remember once I began to learn more about food, trying to "gourmet it up" a bit. It was awful. Stick to the basics though and I'd still eat a couple of bowls full!

[Julya]

OH! I just found this after I posted about Peanut Butter, Bacon and Tomato sandwiches! Nice to know others had them too!!! :)

[wyf4lyf]

Glad to know I wasn't the only kid eating PB-bacon sandwiches! I also ate PB and mayo and got laughed at a lot by other kids. Haven't eated that in years.

[slyfox]

fried bologna with Hellmans on Arnold white toast!!!!

[rumple]

Fried balogna with mustard on white bread!

[jomi53]

As a kid it was fried bologna with fried onions on bakery rye fried in lots of butter

[ratbin]

Loved peanut butter and mayonnaise!

[Louise]

Grandpa likes peanut butter and bologna, or pickles, or the three together. Sometimes with mayo, so it doesn't stick to the roof of your mouth. He must know something, he's over 90 and still does the crossword every day. If that's what it takes, I don't think I'll make it.

[pattisue]

I thought we were the only ones! Peanubt butter, bologna and cheese, as well as mayo. Haven't had a sandwich like that in many, many years. I loved it as a kid, but I'm kind of afraid to try it again.

[vicsailgarden]

My dad likes peanut butter and balogna too.
Is your grandpa Norwegian from the midwest like mine?
Been trying to figure out where he got it!

[Northforker]

Thick sliced bologna, extra crunchy peanut butter, and 2 slices of kraft american cheese on wheat bread is my favorite sandwich, been eating them for 30 years, I haven't asked my heart's opinion, it wouldn't be good.

[Bobierto]

Oh man, my Aunt Lorna used to eat PB and mayo! Never heard of it anywhere else! And if my mother ever asked my dad to make dinner, it was either waffles with tiny bits of ham in the batter, or fried bologna sandwiches.

[Tom Steele]

My late brother LIVED on peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. He would eat 2 or 3 in one sitting. He also liked to dip a stick of butter into a bowl of sugar and eat it like a banana. I was horrified!

[soyummmy]

Andrew Zimmern from travel channel's Bizarre Foods was in Minnesota and had a burger with PB and Mayo. He said it was amazing.

My mom's goulash was ground beef sauteed with onions, elbow macaroni and can of Campbell's tomato. served with bread and butter...mmm. i made sandwiches out of it!

Breakfast when I was a little girl was sliced bananas in a bowl with orange juice and sprinkled with sugar.

Great (but ugly) appetizer:
brown ground beef and ground sausage, mix in velveeta and spoon onto cocktail rye, and toast on baking sheet. you can make a whole bunch, and freeze before toasting, and throw them in the oven whenever you need to!

[mse924]

Soyummy, the appetizer you described is a favorite in my family. My grandma used to make it whenever she had people to her house and we called them "the cheeseburger things". My cousins and I used to fight over who got the ones that were browned the most. Come to think of it, we still do :)

[mray]

I grew up around Sedalia, MO and the Drive In there served a Goober Burger with everything including peanut butter and I still put peanut butter on my burgers. All my friends are used to it but I love the look on someone's face that isn't used to it!

My partner's family always eats strawberry jam on the fish they fry up at the family cabin. They make it into a sandwich with white bread. It's really not bad. . .

[coll]

Both sound good to me, probably takes away some of the greasy taste. I may have to try them myself.

[wekick]

Nothing better than a goober burger. I make mine at home with chunky peanut butter and a thin slice of onion and a little extra salt.

[krissywats]

My father used to eat peanut butter on his hotdogs. Still makes me want to gag but he loved it - never in my life heard of peanut butter and bacon....that's hysterical!

[MsDiPesto]

I learned of the joy of PB, Mayo and Lettuce sandwiches from my spouse's dad. I've read that they serve PB & Bacon at one of the ivy league clubs in NYC....

[cheesehead in recovery]

PB & MAYO With Lettuce! My grandmother loved that combo!
It makes be cringe with good and weird memories when ever i hear it. She's physically still with us, but mentally not in this world anymore. Its good to know that she wasn't alone in her love for these weird sandwiches!

[SilverlakeGirl]

Strange.

We used to eat those as kids. That's 50 years ago and I hadn't thought of it til now.

[mountaincachers]

Wow again! I posted above about this sandwich. I can't believe I'm seeing it here, like a long lost friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Candy]

My mother's exotic PB sandwich was made with mint jelly, I prefered peanut butter and bread and butter pickles.

[stuckinschool]

liverwurst and pickle sandwiches!

can also be spread on a cracker with a slice of pickle on top if you wanna get fancy :)

[WineWidow]

YES! liverwurst and pickles are a divine combination! The sour brininess of the pickles totally sets off the rich creaminess of the liverwurst. Yum! We always had them openface on slices of very dark rye.

[sweetie]

Actually my thing was (still is) liverwurst and jam. Preferable strawberry jam.

[vicsailgarden]

you've gotta be kidding!!!

I love liverwurst and I love jam ... but for 2 different meals

[beekeroc]

Jam with perogies! I love to mix both sour cream and jam, preferably raspberry, and so does most of my family. Does anyone else do this , or are we just weird? Whenever I told anyone this they were freaked out.

[alkapal]

thanks for sharing that, sparkina. TMI.

[lulubelle]

I use to take liverwurst (fron the tube), sweet pickle relish and yellow mustard an mash it all together as a spreadd for crackers or toast. YUM!

[eveh]

We ate Souse meat sandwiches. I can taste that wonderful jellied texture and the pickled taste. I can't find that type of Souse meat anymore. We also ate hoghead cheese sandwiches too but they had nothing to do with cheese.

[maydaycolorado]

My mom used to make something called Salamangrundi...basically ground up bologna, pickle relish and a little mayo...spread on bread for a sandwich...it was a real favorite

[evasgramma]

SALMAGUNDI or SALAMAGUNDY
(pirate food: Caribbean, Atlantic, Indian Ocean 17th-18th centuries)
a mixed dish consisting usually of cubed poultry or fish, chopped meat, anchovies, eggs, onions, oil, etc., often served as a salad.

[rgerr1]

My mother-in-law made the same thing, probably withmore mayo than your mom used, but they called it "Party Meat" (because they only made it for special occasions!)

[unmoored]

My Mom is from the Boston area and used to make liverwurst sandwiches on pumpernickel with slices of green bell pepper. Fantastic.

Also, she made pita sandwiches with cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, Miracle Whip (no substitutes), salt and pepper. I still eat them all the time.

[mariacarmen]

my mom used to make me liverwurst on toast sandwiches with a bowl of campbell's tomato soup on rainy days. LOVED IT!

[jen kalb]

My mother's family all devour peanut butter and onion, PB tomato and onion, PB cuke tom and onion etc I think they use mayo but Mom has never been able to entice me into the cult.

[Cynsa]

Oh, yeah! PB and onion with a sprinkling of salt... it's the BEST!

[jrham]

My grandmother makes PB and cheese sandwiches... kind of strange but actually don't taste that bad.

[skamama]

One Sunday night ritual was peanut butter and onion sandwiches. Our PB & onion was with chopped scallions and Miracle Whip-type salad dressing. It doesn't work with mayonnaise.

The other Sunday night ritual was chocolate pudding cake. Dad had been a bachelor a few years before meeting Mom, and he had some recipes of his own he liked to stir up. We ate it warm in bowls after we came home from church, often with vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate Pudding Cake
2 cups flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
4 T. cocoa
1 cup milk
4 T. melted shortening or oil

Sift first five ingredients; stir in milk and melted shortening. Spread the stiff batter in a large rectangular pan (I do mean large). Sprinkle over the top:
2 cups brown/white sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
Then pour over it 3-1/2 cups hot water. Bake 35-45 minutes in a 350 degree oven. The "cake" rises to the top leaving chocolate pudding underneath. Cream or whipped cream is good on it, too.

[Blush]

My mom made that dessert all the time but we called it Brownie Pudding. I still get excited when she makes it! We're in SW Ontario, Canada, btw.

[Duster17]

My mom, also from Ontario called it brownie pudding as well. Any of you Canadians ever heard of bachelor cake? Casting my memory back, there was some sort of chocolate on graham crackers? And put in the fridge.

[Rubee]

Another fan of peanut butter and bacon, and also peanut butter and sharp cheddar sandwiches.

The hot turkey/chicken salad is a popular Southern recipe. It's even in the "Paula Deen & Friends" cookbook.

[amkirkland]

my brother and I would put PB between two slices of american cheese. It really disturbs me these days.

[PhoebeB]

At last, a PB and cheese sandwich fan.

When we kids were old enough to fend for ourselves on Sunday nights after our big Sunday "dinner" (lunch), I invented the PB/Longhorn Cheddar/sliced tomato sandwich. I'd butter two slices of bread, spread PB over one and lay sliced cheese on the other, put them under the broiler until they bubbled, lay slices of a straight-out-of-the-Victory Garden tomato on one piece, salt and lots of pepper, slap them together. To this day it's my favorite fast comfort food, and my grandchildren have become positively addicted to it. And bacon would be great on it, too. Bacon goes with anything and PB is the staff of life.

[btrswttx00]

How about PB with pancake syrup mixed in! Yum! My mom would sometimes also also mix in molassas. With bananas was a good one! Bacon is really yummy too! My cousins did the PB and mayo...never cared for it! Just good eating!

[ArikaDawn]

Love PB and syrup sandwiches. A must have with chili.

[Sparkina]

That PB and pancake syrup reminds me of something I make called a Tri-State Sandwich

PB -- (Georgia)
Maple syrup -- the REAL stuff (Vermont)
Applesauce
between two slices of toast

[DishDelish]

Not sandwiches, but peanut butter and syrup on top of pancakes was my fav. as a kid. When I was done with the pancakes I would glop a spoonful of peanut butter on my plate and top with syrup. Yum!!

[pattiadleybryan]

In the Louisiana hot summer Sunday evenings, we would mix peanut butter and honey with a dash of vanilla, spread it on fresh bread. YUM, YUM!

[tonina_mdc]

Oh wow, that sounds awesome! Ratio of peanut butter to honey please? I'd love to give that a run!

[pattiadleybryan]

Really you just play around with it until it is the sweetness that you like.

Approximate: 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/2 cup peanut butter, 2 tablespoons honey. Top that with sliced ripe bananas and you have a masterpiece.

[maydaycolorado]

My brother used to take peanut butter and syrup, pour it on a plate and stir it all up...he called it "round and round"...I never tried it...it looked too sweet for me! He loved it!

[DishDelish]

That was my favorite! I would have done this more however my Mother would only allow me a small amount.

[Wtg2Retire]

When we were kids, my sister and I used to mix up some creamy peanut butter with Karo white syrup when we got home from school. Also great on a slice of homemade bread.

[Gayle]

Yum, PB & Bacon. Love it. My mom served it with an ice cold glass of chocolate milk. Delish! She still makes it for me sometimes when I go to visit.

[upstate girl]

I used to eat mayo and grape jelly sandwiches when I was little. Have not had one since then and don't plan on going back anytime soon!

[cookiekelly]

Bologna on Saltines with Miracle Whip. NO mayo!

[almond3xtract]

My mom always eats peanut butter, bacon and mustard on white toast.

[raidar]

PB and Bacon is an absolute family favorite. PB with most things. PB and Honey, PB and Banana, PB and jelly or jam, PB with butter..Heck sometimes we just add layers. Slice of bread, PB/bacon, slice of bread, PB and banana, slice of bread. Best triple decker sandwich.

[emdb]

My irish nana's "goulash."

1 lb ground beef, browned in BUTTER w/1 large or 2 med. chopped onions, seasoned with salt and black pepper.

1 lb cooked wide egg noodles.

2 28 oz. cans tomato chunks w juice.

1 mondo block velveeta.

Combine meat/onion mixture with tomatoes in stockpot. Bring to simmer. Add velveeta, in chunks, until sauce turns close to cheeto-orange. Adjust seasoning for salt and black pepper. Stir in noodles over low heat, let continue to cook 5 minutes until noodles suck up a lot of the sauce and are nice and mushy.

Serve with pepsi. And chocolate cake from a box mix, topped with powdered sugar. Or a thawed Pepperidge Farm freezer cake. You get the picture.

My husband wouldn't eat this at first, but now he admits that every six months, it's a got to have dish at the end of a bad day.

[macca]

Creamed shrimp on Toast
Canned shrimp and a can of peas & carrots. Make a bechamel sauce ( mom used American cheese).Add the shrimp and vegatables to the sauce and heat through. Serve over toast.
We had this for dinner sometimes during Lent. I used to love it. Still serve it at least once during Lent, even now!!

[coll]

My mother made something similar, but served over rice.
Frozen shrimp with condensed cream of shrimp soup (Cross and Blackwell is the brand she used) thinned with some sherry.
Also made cut up chicken in condensed cream of mushroom soup, thinned with sherry, served over Jiffy
cornbread.
I never make these myself, but loved them when I was a kid.

[macca]

Got a recipe from relatives in the midwest that uses cream of chicken soup. Sounds weird, but it is good, and feeds a crowd:

Package frozen Ore Ida home fries
can cream of chicken soup
container of sour cream
stick of butter
16 oz shredded cheddar
shredded onion

mix all together in a casserole. Top with crushed corn flakes and bake @ 350 for about an hour, until chesse melts.
This can also be "doctored" up easily. Can add ham, brocolli, use mushroom soup instead of chicken, etc. I brought this recipe home from a visit to relatives in the Mid West, and it never fails- whenever I brin it to a gathering, am always asked for the recipe.

[coll]

Sounds good, I also keep seeing recipes with tater tots too, so many recipes made with Campbells soup!

I just remembered another recipe, but I'm sure we're not the only ones that made it; it's probably from when Pillsbury invented crescent rolls because I remember my mother making this alot in the 60s-70s.

"Chicken Things" (no idea what the real name is)

6 oz cream cheese
2 Tbs mayo
2 cups cooked chicken or turkey
salt and pepper
poultry seasoning
2 Tbs milk
chopped onion and celery is optional

Mix all together and put in crescent rolls, fold to make packet. Close edges with tines of fork. Dip in melted butter and then bread crumbs mixed with parsley.
Bake 350 for 40 minutes.

This is more delicious than it sounds, and great for using up Thanksgiving leftovers.

[tastycakes]

i used to make these in college - i got the idea from a my roommate's girlfriend. we experimented with putting in sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes, and basil and garlic and they were delicious. i need to make these for the superbowl for sure.

i have also been known to add a can of tuna and a generous amount of ketchup to boxed macaroni and cheese. or mix tuna with hot spaghetti noodles, mayo and fake powdered parmesan cheese and lots of black pepper. we also used to eat leftover steamed rice heated in a pan and then scrambled with eggs, and served with sour cream. let's not forget refried beans spread on toast and broiled with a slice of american cheese - government cheese that doesn't really melt, and the giant cardboard tub of government chocolate chip ice cream, served in a glass with 7-up.

[egging]

we had a similar recipe we called branding potatoes--they were a must at the the post-branding feast on my family's cattle ranch. It consisted of shredded potatoes (fresh or frozen), sour cream, cream cheese, and onion. Heavenly.

[kim shook]

My mom made that shrimp soup dish, too! It was a real fancy 'company' dish in those days. Pepperidge farms had come out with those puff pastry shells and she would serve the shrimp 'stuff' in those with rice. You know, I must have been really influenced by that meal, because even today I have a can of cream of shrimp soup in my cabinet. It is probably at least 5 years old. :-)

[Kivarita]

We had something similar to this - also called "goulash" but it was like homemade hamburger helper.

1 lb. ground beef
1 onion, diced
1 28 oz. can ready cut tomatoes
1 8 oz(?) can tomato sauce
1 6 oz.(?) can tomato paste
1 lb. large elbow macaroni

Brown the ground beef, add onion - saute until softened. Add tomatoes, sauce & paste. Simmer 15-20 minutes. Add sugar if needed to cut the acidity of the tomatoes. Meanwhile, boil the macaroni. Then toss it into the beef/tomato mixture. Voila!

Served, of course, with white bread. ;-)

[jillp]

That's exactly the recipe my mother used for her "goulash." It was amazingly flavorless, too - not a bit of zip to it, in accordance with the mid-century Midwestern cooking tradition. She still loves it and makes it occasionally.

[mamma_spice]

Yes, we had the same goulash too--absolutely NO flavor. Mom also made "Spanish rice"--the same thing with rice instead of elbows. Those were the dishes that sent me over the edge and made me take over the cooking at age 10. No offense to those who like it, though, I just like spicy!

[fara]

my aunt makes something similar and it's called "american chop suey"

[Das Ubergeek]

Yeah, my mother used to make it too. I knew it as American chop suey, but we always called it "macaroni mess". That was what caused me to learn to cook... I hated it, I hated the very smell of it.

[jen kalb]

my midwestern dad has always made the same stuff - called slumgullion. Yuck. It was diff from the Johnny Marzetti they served in my Ohio public school (I think it must be called "marzetti" in Cols. there because of the famous Marzetti's restaurant (now gone, of course) and the sauces carrying that name.

[hondo77]

American Chop Suey is officially a tradition in my family. I had it when I was a kid and it's now my son's favorite dinner.

[Zoe]

I had a friend long ago who made a dish like this and called it "Scottish Lasagna".

[phil]

GThat recipe is what my mother and my aunt called Johnny Mazzetti. I wasn't raised in the Canal Zone. My mothwer made German potato salad(potatoes, bacon and onion in a sweet sour sauce made with bacon fat, vinegar and white sugar. I've never seen anyone make a similar concoction.

[Louise]

My Grandma makes that and it is very tasty. She's in Ohio.

[Cynsa]

I grew up in Columbus, Ohio...my dad made his Johnny Mazzetti with flat egg noodles...there's a pinch of sugar in his recipe.

[Louise]

My oops. It's the potato salad that Grandma makes. I was suprised the first time when it did not go into the fridge, but dang, it's tasty.

Though she's been around a while, she may well have heard of Johnny Mazzetti.

[kivarita]

My dad's side, where the recipe comes from, is from Michigan. Either way, it's in the middle!

[Kelli2006]

That style of potato salad(German) is the only kind that I will eat. I can make the more common potato salad with mayo and mustard, but it is not something that I will ever do for my family.
I grew up in Amish country of N-E Ohio and we were also served Johnny Marzetti in schools. My daughter never had to eat it at school and will occasionally ask for it.
My mother used to make hamburgers out of a mixture that was usually reserved for making a meatloaf. They are delicious when grilled over charcoal and served with onion and tomato.

It is amazing the foods and recipes that we thought were a family idea, only to find out later that it was a local specialty.

[Boston_Otter]

We were also served Johnny Marzetti in the school cafeteria in Gahanna, Ohio (right outside Columbus). My mom's was better, though!

[loveysangel]

We grew up on german potato salad, and now my kids love it. We have it with fried chicken or ham and on holidays mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm good stuff :)

[berkleybabe]

Yup, we had that. German--also had the bacon and onions in rutabaga and also in green beans. My father called it "eingebrengcht" (sp?). Very typical of Austrian/German preps (my grandparents were Austrian.)

So, basically what ISN"T good with bacon and onions?

[TonyO]

Still making that here in Vermont (remember it growing up in Upstate , NY)

[zitronenmadchen]

my dad makes the same thing, with celery seed, the recipe comes from a very old, very falling apart copy of Betty Crocker from the 60s

[NellyNel]

Phil,

I used to live near a German deli that make potato salad that way - it was my very favorite. I dream about it till this day.
Do you know the recipe?

[cooknKate]

We had something like this too, although it was with rice, not macaroni.

[bookgirl234]

My mom made that goulash too except after the elbow noodles were added she put layer of shredded mozzarella on it, put the pot top on and let it melt. I still like it but rarely make it because it serves so many. I did make it recently with some leftover sauce for the nostalgia value and my 8-year old niece loved it so it might be popping up in my life again. She also did a version of it called Lazyman’s Lasagna – basically the same recipe except egg noodles instead of elbows and a small carton of cottage cheese added near the end of cooking. They were the first dinner dished I ever learned to make.

Every family in our town seemed to make a similar goulash - my best friend's mom put some ketchup (along with tomato sauce) in hers.

[loveysangel]

My mom made this too, in the winter especially, except we called it meal-in-one. We always had cornmuffins with it. My kids werent thrilled with it, they called it barf-a-roni. LOLOL

[Cassandra]

My grandmother, who lived in southern Ohio, made this every single time we came to visit. Her's was topped with american cheese, and, most importantly *bacon*!! I have tried to recreate her exact recipe many times, to no avail.

[eastcoastgirl_westcoastlife]

My mom used to make that too!

[Sal Vanilla]

Add chili powder and beans and Partner - you got's Texas Goulash! Yeeeeee Haw. My mom made it all the time growing up. I take exception to the poster who declared your version tasteless. It is basically sketti.

[almond3xtract]

Sounds a lot like what my mom calls California Goulash. We add canned corn, mushrooms, black olives, and a little bit of Velveeta. Pretty yummy!

[Cathy N]

You're all WAY too fancy. My German mother would brown ground beef in butter and add cooked elbow macaroni to it, with MORE butter. She'd let it sit in the frying pan until the noodles on the bottom would get golden brown and stir it. She'd do it a few times so you'd get some crunchy noodles mixed in with the soft. She'd add more butter & salt at the dinner table to hers; I'd add ketchup to mine. I still eat it occasionally but have courageously added some chopped onions & mushrooms to the ground beef. Much more modern:>)!

[bryan]

Wow does that bring back memories. Mom used to make something she called, oh man, "Plenty More in Kitchen" Casserole. Same ingredients but canned mushrooms and corn were added for vitamins - surely not taste - and the noodles were mixed in. It was then topped w/ cheese and baked in the oven for an hour or so. One time she got creative and added rasins to it. Poor Mother wasn't much of a cook. We used to call the casserole "Belly Bomb" for reasons I shall spare the reader.

The first time my bf "cooked" for me he made cheeseburger macaroni hamburger helper w/ corn added. I took a hesitant taste and said "OMG, Belly Bomb"! Needles to say, I do the cooking.

[lgss]

My grandmother was raised by an aunt and many double cousins. They had a family code when they had company. PMK meant plenty more in kitchen and FHB meant family hold back.

[alkapal]

>>>>PMK meant plenty more in kitchen and FHB meant family hold back.<<<<

that is too funny! i'm just imagining how this would go down!
did the family get a look of alertness all of a sudden? did the company find it odd? "oh, pardon me, i didn't quite understand what you said."

LOL!!!

[Jackzig]

My grandmother was even less subtle. She would say "have all you want, as long as we have enough for tomorrow night." That usually curbed appetites.

[Will Owen]

My mom's "goulash" was ground beef, kidney beans and egg noodles with bacon in a sauce made from Campbell's tomato soup. I hadn't had it in maybe fifteen years when I stopped over at an uncle's house in San Bernadino (where my grandfather was also staying), and my aunt made it because it was such a favorite with both uncle and grandpa she figured I loved it too. She was right.

[melly]

My mom made something similar..called "Romanian goulash"..as my grandma was from there. We didn't use velveeta. I have it in my "trailor trash" recipe holder. I love it.

[antjones9]

The Pepsi is a nice touch.

[cookiekelly]

Coca-Cola Chicken:
Equal parts cola and ketchup, maybe a dash of hot sauce, salt & pepper. Add chicken pieces. Simmer on stove top til done. My mom didn't but I remove chicken and reduce sauce. Eat with a baked potato and green beans. Yum!!

[powella]

So glad to find another goulash recipe! My mom's was similar: browned ground beef, can of "veg-all" mixed veggies, a can of tomato sauce(plain), and a block of velveeta. Oh, and she used cooked shells, medium sized. Ooof...I think I feel a shopping trip coming on for the velveeta and vegall.

[rHairing]

OMG we called this Johnny Marzetti but we baked it with macaroni noodles and in the last few minutes added more Velveeta which took on a rather plastic look yet we fought for it.

So a year or so ago I am sitting in my cube and at lunch a smell crosses my desk, as many do at lunch when you sit near the kitchenette. However, it's my Johnny Marzetti!! Turns out, it's my co worker who sits next to me! When I asked her about it, she was embarrassed. Turns out her mom used to make this thing called "goulash", especially when money was tight. Oh and BTW, co-worker is Irish. As for me? I have always homed in on my Danish heritage but when I booked a hiking trip through Ireland this summer, my mom informed me my great grandpa on her side was from Belfast!

[brooklynmasala]

Strawberries or cut cantaloupe in milk. This was a breakfast dish that my dad made up.

[cooknKate]

I eat strawberries in my cereal, love them with milk

[pamd]

ok- this thread should come with a warning- do not read if pregnant! I had some strange thoughts & cravings as I read it. (I mean this in a funny way, not offensive)

Unfortunately, I can't think of any strange thing I ate growing up---other than, when I went camping I used mix WITH MY HANDS:
ground beef
lettuce
tomatoes
carrots
potatoes
ketchup
mustard

all up together in foil & put it on the fire- ate it with a fork when done, yum! (but not too strange)

also, did anyone else ever put potato chips on tuna sandwiches?

[coll]

My mother used to make what she called tuna casserole (canned tuna with cream of mushroom soup) served over potato chips, I hated it! I make it now with tuna salad baked in with mac and cheese, and peas, extra cheese and maybe some breadcrumb topping, so I guess I shouldn't talk!

[wyf4lyf]

Yes! My Mom's tuna casserole was a glop of tuna, mayo and cream of whatever soup with peas, then toped with potato chips. I got married and my husband introduced me to his mom's tuna-noodle casserole which was MUCH better.

[macca]

I think chips on tuns is quite common- not my cup of tea- and I can't abide ANY kind of tuna casserole. Don't like hot tuna- keep the cans in the fridge, so my tuna salad is cold as soon as I make it. Just a quirk, I guess.

[dooflaer]

Nice! I love cold tuna but have never thought of putting cans of it in the fridge. Duh!

[jeanmarieok]

I keep my canned tuna in the drawer in the fridge, too - makes my husband crazy, but it makes perfect sense to me. I am also not a hot tuna fan!

[toodie jane]

yes, and iceberg (the outer green leaves) and potato chip roll-ups. So good!

[jazzpjr]

yes.. potato chips on tuna sandwiches and salami sandwiches.....way back when....ahhhh...

[melly]

Bologna sandwiches with potatoe chips (the thin ones) and a glass of pepsi with ice.

[wineos]

Potato chips on sloppy joes! My kids now do this.

[heidipie]

In grade school I used to put Nestle's Crunch bars in my tuna sandwiches. (Don't tell my mom.)

[krissywats]

What do you mean 'used to'? If there's a tuna sandwich and sour cream and onion chips are around - all bets are off.

[Mila]

BBQ Chips on Tuna Sandwich.
Craving food from 20 years ago now.

[Will Owen]

Waddaya mean, DID? I do - doesn't everybody?

French fries on a grilled cheese sandwich is probably weird, but I had a passion for that for a while...had to be greasy fries and greasy, squoodjy snack-bar grilled cheese. I was skinny then...

[cooknKate]

I love eating tuna salad with Krunchers potato chips, it gets the salt craving really well!

[pikawicca]

Who wouldn't put potato chips on a tuna sandwich? Very yummy, perhaps surpassed by bread and butter pickles.

[toodie jane]

sure did! nice flavor combo.

and one of my favorite taste discoveries a a chowpup was lettuce and potato chip wraps-- a great combo. Use the gark green outer leaves of iceberg (Mom always asked the produce man for untrimmed iceberg)

[patmatw]

Try dill pickle flavor potato chips on tuna sandwich. Delish!

[nami54]

I STILL put potato chips (or fritos, even better!) on my tuna sandwiches!

[raidar]

Likewise. So good!!

[JEN10]

Is there any other way?

[wekick]

potato chips on toasted tuna fish and fritos on ham salad

[DreamCyn]

My best friend and I used to make these sandwiches with pretty much EVERYTHING we could find in her parent's fridge, usually including several kinds of deli meats, mayo, miracle whip, any green leafy thing, vinegar, and especially any any any kind of potato chips.

[slyfox]

This should be changed to wierd and disgusting sounding family reciqe secrets! Although some are intriguing! My inlaws do RoyalMilkCrackerStuffing and dont even think of serving anything else on thanksgiving or you will be excommunicated from the family. Rinse Milk crackers in water to soften, add 1 finely diced onion, 1 egg and 1 stick of melted butter. Now heres where it gets intense.....there are also 3 necessary versions to this. First batch, stuff turkey, second goes into buttered dish and into oven, last batch is fried into little latkes for snacking and then heated in the toaster oven for late family arrivals.....anyone!!!!!!!!! Bueller!!!! Very funny thread!

[slyfox]

I was considering the qeanut butter and bacon.......but graqe jelly on garlic bread....or was it strawberry!!!!

[BeeBee]

We frequently had two sandwiches that I've never seen outside of our home, yet I still can't really believe they're particularly unusual. The first is egg and olive, just a typical egg salad with a large quantity of halved pimiento stuffed green olives mixed in. This was always served on multi grain bread. The second is cream cheese and jelly on nutbread. My sister loved this and requested it often. I actually never particularly liked it, but it's not bad. I suppose you could substitute any sweet quick bread for the nutbread.

[coll]

Cream cheese on date nut bread was one of my favorite sandwiches,we always used Thomas brand: but I got some recently and it didn't taste as good as I remember.

[piccola]

Try the grown-up version now: whipped goat cheese on crusty date/walnut (or and fruit and nut) artisanal bread. The tang of the cheese is perfect with the sweetness of the fruit.

[emdb]

Cream cheese and strawberry jelly on toasted oatmeal bread. Or sunflower seed bread.

And we'd have that egg and olive salad on sourdough, open faced, with cheddar melted on top. Tuna salad with olives, too.

[wyf4lyf]

I loved cream cheese and jelly as a kid (still do), on whatever bread is available. Great on bagels, too!

[wendy8869]

We used to eat cream cheese mixed with chopped pimento stuffed green olives on bread. :-)

[emdb]

Yeah, I love that stuff. I can't help stopping at a Bruegger's Bagels for their olive pimento cream cheese on a pumpernickel or rosemary olive oil bagel. Mmmmm.

[tdg]

yes!! cream cheese and green olive sandwiches are great!

[Cheese Boy]

Since we're on the subject of cream cheese, try this. Lightly toast a plain or sesame bagel that's been halved, and then smear it with plain cream cheese. Make a circular moat in your cream cheese, as if to draw a big 'O'. Drizzle HONEY in that moat. Take the bagel half as it presently is, take a bite, and enjoy the deliciousness. (The reason for the moat is so that you don't have honey dripping all over yourself). Enjoy! It's a Greek thing.

Image: http://www.codeforfood.com/CafeAhRoma...

[toodie jane]

instead of the honey, spread the toasted bagel half with cream cheese or ricotta, then dip it face down into a plate of freshly toasted pine nuts. My favorite winter breakfast. What a flavor combo!

[Frosty Melon]

Or, take the cream-cheesed bagel, slap slices of Swiss on top, and put it under the broiler until melted.

[egging]

yum!!

[ctscorp]

Egg and olive! I have that in my fridge right now. Dad's visiting and his mom recently passed away and she made the best egg and olive. He prefers it on seeded rye. But I'm curious -- Grandma was from Elmira, NY, and then migrated southward to super-rural southern New York State. She was also married to a French Canadian. Any connections? Where did egg and olive come from? Besides being SO DELICIOUS. (Oh and not only potato chips on tuna, but Fritos, too. Yum.)

[twh1475]

Hey BeeBee,
Grew up eating Egg & Olive sandwiches on white bread. LOL have a jar of olives in fridge right now to make a batch. Another thing was Lebanon Bologna Gravy, made like chipped beef gravy, except using Lebanon Bologna (NOT Sweet). And the last one was Porcupines, a type of meatballs made with ground beef and a box of rice-a-roni...YUM

Tim

[kivarita]

Tim, I wish I knew you when I was growing up. I would have sent you all of the Porcupines my grandma ever made. To this day I won't even eat the Beef Flavor Rice-a-Roni. :-)

[MlleYeuxBleus]

My stepmom introduced me to one of her favorite sandwiches when I was a kid... cream cheese & maraschino cherry, usually on oatmeal bread. I was used to regular ol' pb&j, so cream cheese & cherry seemed fancy to me at the time!

[cathodetube]

A friend used to make a loaf cake with maraschino cherries and nuts. Wish I could find a recipe for it.

[judyjudyjudyd]

cathode, this one doesn't have nuts, but they'd be easy enough to add:

Little Cherry Pound Cakes

1 (10-ounce) jar maraschino cherries
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup shortening
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cherry Glaze
Garnish: maraschino cherry halves

Drain jar of cherries, discarding juice. Chop cherries, and set aside.

Beat butter and shortening at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating 1 minute. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until yellow disappears.

Combine flour and salt; gradually add to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended. Stir in flavorings and 1/2 cup chopped cherries. Spoon batter into 7 greased and floured 5 3/4'' x 3" mini loaf pans. ( Recommend greasing your pans with shortening for best results.)

Bake at 300 degrees for 55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out almost clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove cakes from pans, and place on wire racks set over wax paper. Drizzle Cherry Glaze over slightly warm cakes. Garnish, if desired.

Refrigerate cakes to let glaze harden.

Yields: 7 mini pound cakes.

Cherry Glaze

1/4 cup butter, softened
1 ( 3-ounce ) package cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup cherries

Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar and milk; beat until smooth. Stir in vanilla and cherries.
Yield: About 2 cups.

[cathodetube]

Thanks for the recipe!

[Sarah C]

My family had a thing for sweet with salty. That's not so unusual, except for some of our regular combinations:

Pot pie made with leftover roast beef and potatoes, with a piecrust top, eaten with sorghum syrup over the top.

Waffles for supper with ground pork sausage and honey (I still love this one).

Another use for leftover roast beef: Hash, made with the beef and potatoes and cooked in a light broth (not fried) and served over white bread --Wonder bread, of course -- with sugar sprinkled over the top! I can taste this in my mind and it still tastes fine, but I wouldn't dream of making it.

Other typical supper entrees (we didn't eat "dinner" at night in Arkansas) might include pineapple or apricot fried pies served with cold lunch meat, or strawberry shortcake -- the biscuit kind -- with cold cuts alongside.

One of my favorite afternoon snacks was cold fried chicken with chocolate cake. Or ice cream with potato chips.

[Sarah C]

Forgot perhaps my mother's strangest concoction: Wild garlic grew in our yard, so when my father grilled steaks she would make "garlic bread" to go with it. To do this, she would smash up the green garlic cloves, spread them along with margarine on slices of the aforementioned Wonder bread, wrap this in foil and heat in the oven. To eat, we spread jelly over the top.

[Non Cognomina]

Sarah, are we related? We had the roast beef and potato pot pie with sorghum, too! My mom always snuck peas in it, though.

Also did pancakes with pork sausage patties and sorghum for dinner, sometimes with ice cream on it. (Dad called it the "supper express train," since dessert came with dinner.)

[toodie jane]

for all my early years, our family traveled to the coast for every Sunday to the beach, where we all spent the day playing in the sand & surf while my dad fished.

We were all deliciously tired at the end of the day after the drive home, so Mom would do her quick, go-to meal: tuna mixed with cream of mushroom soup, heated and served over white Langendof toast, topped with heated frozen peas. Sweet and salty, creamy and crunchy!

The fish went onto the freezer or we had it for dinner on Monday. The cat got the leftover bait! (He loved Sunday!)

[Marie]

Maybe not too weird at the time. My favorite dish as a kid was sloppy joes made with ground beef and tomato soup from the can served on hamburger buns.

[berkleybabe]

"Cracker Mush" (pronounced moosh) :A snack or meal, but doesn't require a recipe.

Take as many Nabisco regular, not honey, graham crackers as you'd like. Break into pieces in cereal bowl. Pour milk over. Eat as breakfast, lunch, supper, snack, when you're sick or sad...comfort and love in a bowl.

Only known in our family...

[Candy]

I used to do that for breakfast when I was in high school instead of cereal. I did not have a name for it but it was what I ate most mornings.

[Fennelhead]

Actually known in our family as "sideboards" because the grahams were arranged on the bottom and up the sides of a bowl before the milk was poured in. This was a breakfast food in our house.

[janedoe67]

my family did this all the time. I still have a bowl once in a while....takes me back. Great combo of crunchy and mushy.

[wyf4lyf]

We still eat "graham cracker cereal" in our house...my kids love it. When they were little (they are now teens), they loved to break up the crackers in the milk with a spoon and make a huge mess. :)

[piccola]

My dad does that with arrowroot crackers, though he actually mixes them with Corn Flakes. It's what I crave when I'm sick.

[toodie jane]

Haha! this was my comfort food when I had my wisdom teeth extracted and couldn't chew! I've been a graham cracker milk-dunker all my life. Still my snack of choice when I come home from work exhausted.

[krissywats]

My grandfather did this dating back to when he was a kid (he'd be well over 100 now). He also liked it with regular crackers - blech!

[Anne H]

This was my grandfather's evening snack-- saltines broken up in a bowl, with milk over it. Eaten with a spoon. I used to love it, when we were visiting grandparents. He'd be about 106 now-- sounds like they were about the same generation.

[kmills9408]

My grandfather does this with saltines and buttermilk.

[Grillmeister]

As a kid I remember white bread torn into cold buttermilk on a hot summer day.

[chowdawggy]

Mama and Daddy used cornbread rather than white bread in their buttermilk; and when no cornbread was available and Daddy had the hankering, he'd eat Fritos in buttermilk.

[DawneeBabe]

Wow..does this bring back memories...Dad at the kitchen table at bedtime crunching up saltines into a bowl, small diced onion bits, S & P then pouring cold milk over it all...never ate it myself...;)

[uman]

I thought we were the only family who had what we called "graham crackers and milk". I still crave it and have it at least monthly.
Anybody else notice that graham crackers have changed in look and taste though? In like the last year?

[maydaycolorado]

We had that a lot when I was little...loved it! Also had just plain soft white bread broken up and served with milk and sugar.

[Julya]

We called it cracker cereal, and used crushed saltines with sugar and milk....yummy!! :)

[Emme]

we made mush with graham cracker crumbs... nabisco's pre-crushed crumbs...

[Chris]

OMG! That is my family's sloppy joe recipe. LOL I'm sure it was on a can at some point, but you're the only other person I've ever know to make it with the gumbo. Dh loves it and sometimes instead of serving it on rolls I mix white rice in it for, you guessed it, sloppy rice.

Enjoy!
Chris

[jvozoff]

ok - I know this is a late reply, but I've just seen this thread. This is exactly how my mom (and I) make Sloppy Joes, but without the mustard. And I thought we were the only ones who knew the secret of Chicken Gumbo Soup in sloppy joes. I like to eat it like a dip on potato chips.

[chittachef]

Grape jelly omelets. A simple egg omelet was filled and folded with Smucker's grape jelly. Wherever the egg made contact with the jelly would turn an unatural blue-green hue. There is NO way my kids would touch this dish and I'm not sure I would even enjoy this concoction any longer. My mom,in her way, must have been thinking "crepe".

[shameless]

My dad used to make that for me when I was a kid. I loved it and thought he was the best cook ever. (This was not a big compilement considering my poor mother's culinary ineptitude.)

I remember asking if we were part gourmet, like part russian, part polish, part gourmet. Hah!

[wendy8869]

My mom used to make me a puffy omelette which had beaten egg whites folded into the yolk. I'd spread jelly on that... it was good!!!

[wyf4lyf]

Oh my gosh, I'd totally forgotten about this! My mom used to make me jelly omelets with grape jelly, too!

[piccola]

I can see how that would work - after all, people (by which I mean everyone who's ever gone to the sugar shack) pour maple syrup on eggs...

[pikawicca]

I've eaten many a wonderful jam omelet in France over the years; it's not considered strange there.

[Das Ubergeek]

From the "I won't eat that anymore" files:

"Macaroni mess", a.k.a American chop suey: brown raw macaroni in oil, add ground beef, S&P, and a can of tomato sauce. Simmer until the macaroni isn't crunchy anymore.

Hot dog soup: leftover boiled hot dogs cut into chunks and simmered in store-brand vegetarian vegetable soup. I would eat the soup, my sister would eat the hot dogs.

From the "I still crave this" files:

Butter-sugar bread. Take white bread. Spread butter on it. Top with white sugar. Watch your glucose count skyrocket.

Pickle "roll-ups": Take deli ham and spread whipped cream cheese on it. Insert dill pickle spears (patted dry). Roll. Slice.

Peas and eggs fried with garlic, olive oil and onions.

"Pizza Jen" -- country ham and dried beef layered with various kinds of cheese and baked

[coll]

We used to mix cinnamon and sugar and put it on toasted buttered bread, that was so delicious!

[wyf4lyf]

Yes...we always called it "cinnamon toast" and I still crave it when I'm not feeling well.

[danna]

My mother would soften the butter just slightly and mash in the sugar and cinnamon until it made a paste. Spread paste on bread and put under the broiler until it bubbles and makes a delicious, crunchy, bubbly crust.

I had no idea other people just buttered their toast and added cin/sugar until a high school friend was over one day and I made cin toast.

Mamma's version is so superior it's almost a different dish (IMHO).

[kubasd]

this was a special weekend treat for us, cinnamon toast is the best, and it has to be broiled with lots of butter....

[wineos]

Yes! Here, too! We visited my mom for Thanksgiving and woke up one morning to a big cookie sheet full of "cinnamon toast." My daughters were spoiled.

[starbucksbrew]

We did that too! My grown up version is butter, cinnamon, and sugar on an egg bagel, for a french toast flavor. I don't use the cinnamon-sugar that comes mixed together. I put a big dose of plain cinnamon first, then top with sugar so it crusts over in the toaster oven.

[pattiadleybryan]

We still love cinnamon toast! Have you ever had egg in a basket?
My husband's dad used to make Eggs in A Basket for the kids when they were young. This is an easy way for your grandchildren to eat eggs and a good thing for beginner cooks to make.

1 slice of bread – you can experiment with different kinds of bread: white, whole wheat, sour dough, texas toast, etc.

1 egg

Butter for the bread and pan

Salt, pepper, nutmeg (optional)

Butter your bread on both sides. Using a small juice glass or biscuit cutter, cut a circle out of the center of your bread. Heat your pan with a small amount of butter and place your buttered and cut bread in the pan. Break an egg into the center. Season with salt, fresh ground black pepper, and a touch of grated nutmeg (optional). You could even add a little grated cheddar cheese. You decide if you want the yellow to be cooked or not. Once the white part begins to cook, flip and cook the other side.

[MommaJ]

Still do! There used to be a brand of mixed cinnamon/sugar, sold in the spices area of supermarkets; it was in a container shaped like a bear (no, I don't know why). It disappeared a few years ago, so now I mix my own and keep it in an old spice jar for easy sprinklin'!

[Das Ubergeek]

Yeah, but this had no cinnamon :)

[macca]

No they are still sold on the Boston area. I have one in my cupboard. My 26 year old neice is a frequent visitor, and she loves the stuff- on toast and in applesauce. We keep this, along with Nutella, in the cupboard for her visits!!

[D.Gresh]

This can't possibly be unusual can it? My kids regularly ask for cinnamon toast for breakfast. I even learned how to make it in home ec some 30 years ago.

[Das Ubergeek]

Yes, except it contains no cinnamon. I didn't like cinnamon as a kid (but now I love it).

[Sarah C]

My mother made that for me when I was small. But there was a disaster once. We were visiting my grandparents on the farm in Iowa, and my mother found what she thought was brown sugar in the cupboard, and made this for me. I took a bite and burst into tears. Turns out it was brown salt. I've never heard of brown salt otherwise, but assume it was used for pickling or canning.

[cooknKate]

Try cinnamon sugar on buttered graham crackers- now THAT is yummy!!!

[almond3xtract]

We did the toast too, but with cinnamon in addition to the sugar. (Still yummy!)

And I also still roll pickles up in lunch meat, but not with the cream cheese.

[aggiecat]

We had a "fancy" family appetizer recipe that called for the "Buddig" type chopped lunch meat, specifically pastrami, spread with a stripe of cream cheese, put a slice of bell pepper and a green onion on the cream cheese, salt lightly then roll up and slice on the (gasp ooh fancy) diagonal and arrange on platter, and suddenly you're a genius chef. I know, pretty lame, but actually fairly tasty if memory serves.

[alkapal]

i've had that done with roast beef, wrapped around a green onion with cream cheese. it was pretty good.

[egging]

yes, we did this too! It was our special New Year's Eve appetizer when my sisters and I would throw a party for the family. Fun memories!

[rgerr1]

My Grandmother made homemade white bread every week. She would slice a thick slice, slather it with butter and then put a heavy coating of sugar on top. Still can feel/taste that crunch of the sugar, then the butter layer on that delicious white bread. Loved it!

[janet of reno]

My mother was not known for her cooking (unlike HER mother, alas..) but she did make one dish I liked (and I'm sure she made it up for the combination of inexpensive and healthy....). She took broccoli and steamed it, then put sliced hardboiled eggs on top, covered it with cheese (Like the American sliced type) and put it in the oven until the cheese melted. I love broccoli so I liked it. The other thing she used to do is cook rice and serve it with honey for breakfast. The only other person I know who ever ate that was my husband, who ate it when he was growing up in India. He shares my love of it.

[wyf4lyf]

This is such a fun topic. My best friend's Mom used to have popcorn with milk for breakfast or a snack. I remember she said she grew up eating that as they couldn't afford packaged cereal. I've never seen or heard of anyone else doing this.

[SarahT]

My grand father always had popcorn with milk saying it was his fav with his older brothers' post civil war Southern upbringing

[missykins]

Wait a minute, you mean pour the popcorn in a bowl and pour milk over it and eat it with a spoon? Hmm, I've done cereal with water when I'm out of milk . . .

[choctastic]

other people have done this. i remember reading about it in the little house on the prairie books. i think it was in farmer boy.

[eastcoastgirl_westcoastlife]

Ha ha! As soon as I started reading the popcorn and milk bit, I thought of Farmer Boy too :)

[luciaannek]

My mom did this too. She'd pour popcorn in a bowl, a little maple syrup and then add milk. We loooooved it.

[shanagain]

My great-grandfather and grandfather did this but with buttermilk. They also liked cornbread or saltines and buttermilk. (Poured in a glass and eaten with a spoon.)

[polyhymnia]

I remembered reading that this was an early american breakfast when I was a kid and tried it a few times when I was little. One tip: make sure your popcorn isn't salted before you pour the milk on!

[MysticYoYo]

Alton Brown mentioned that popcorn and milk recipe on a Popcorn episode of Good Eats.

[ratbin]

We used to get leftover rice, cold, the next morning with milk and sugar. I loved it. I still eat it occaisionally. It makes my husband gag.

[Will Owen]

We had it the same way, though with a sprinkling of cinnamon as well. At that time (as now) I was not particularly fond of either cold rice or cinnamon, and so I never regarded it as quite the treat my mom thought it was, though I ate it dutifully.

[Sharuf]

In our farmhouse, hot rice with milk and cinnamon was one of the wintertime "Hot mush" rotations. Others were oatmeal (of course!), corn meal mush, cream of wheat, and probably several others which don't leap to mind right now. Sometimes raisins or chopped dates or figs were added. We had a choice of sugar, brown sugar or honey to top it off. The hired hands seemed to like anything that was put in front of them.

[kmills9408]

I LOVE this! My mom used to make it for me when I was little. I think I like ordering chinese more for the left over rice in the morning than the actual dinner...

[susancinsf]

I still eat the rice with honey (warmed with bit of milk) when I have left over rice....and while I am not sure the brocolli thing was really that good for you (lots of cheese!), it was quite tasty!

[Amuse Bouche]

On Christmas morning, we always eat pancakes with turkey giblet gravy. Family tradition. I've yet to meet a non Bouche family member who has tried this. It's delicious.

I also grew up on what's referred to in my house as "Daddy's special hamburger" -- a relic from my dad's bachelor days. Crumbled ground beef browned and mixed with quantities of cheddar cheese and worcestershire sauce.

We also used to eat peanut butter sandwiches on romaine leaves instead of bread, but that's become more popular with the low carb craze.

[vacationmomma]

I am late to this topic...but couldn't resist replying. Our family, Pennsylvania Dutch from Central PA...always made turkey gravy and waffles in the days following Thanksgiving, to use up the leftover turkey. I still make it today. Of course, having lived in a lot of different states in the last 30 years. I have had explaining to do.

[Eileen]

My father used to make jelly omlettes as previously mentioned. My mother-in-law used to make spaghetti and mix it with butter and ketchup. I called it "poor man's spaghetti". but the gradchildren always asked for it along with my husband. My aunt used to make tuna fish with hard boiled eggs chopped in it and mixed with mayo.

[amy_rc]

some people don't eat their tuna with diced eggs and mayo???

[vttp926]

i make tuna salad without eggs but i do use mayo.

[thegirlwholovestoeat]

We had "poor man's lobster" which was whatever white fish was available (we lived in AK) boiled and dipped in butter it ketchup.

[AlaskaChick]

Still eat that today tho tendency is to skip the ketchup and boiling is frequently done in wine. And then theres the trimmings from whatever salmon you're filleting, poach in water/wine, drain,flake and mix in butter and salt and pepper. Serve with crackers or just a fork.

[Terrie H.]

My mother apparently had a thing for dill pickles because she would make us cream cheese and sliced dill pickle sandwiches for our lunch box all the time. She also made a rather tasty flank steak (back when it was cheap) rolled around dill pickle spears, doused with Heinz chili sauce flavored with lots of Worcestershire sauce and baked.

Also made a drink I have never seen anywhere -- mixed Welch's grape juice and pink lemonade. That one is worth knowing (don't use yellow lemonade or it will be a horrible color!).

[SundanceKC]

My mom made "purple gurple" — equal parts Welch's grape juice and frozen limeade. It was pretty good.

[Mr. F.]

Molasses and milk.

[Julya]

Loved molasses and milk when I was a kid! Still do, actually.

[luciaannek]

I eat this almost every day with black strap for the iron! I love it, especially if i have time to warm it up. I put black strap in yogurt and kefir too.

[ratbin]

My husband's family relishes a dish called "Ham Barbeque" which is chip-chop ham sliced into long strips and heated with bottled barbeque sauce. Then it gets spooned onto hamburger buns (white). Ick! They also have something called Macaronioa (I don't really know how it's spelled and neither does anyone else.) which is canned tuna made into a sauce with oil, garlic and water served over pasta. It's actually pretty good especially when you add steamed broccoli and black olives. It's the only thing my husband can really cook.
We used to get olive loaf and Miracle Whip sandwiches on Wonder Bread at my grandmother's. The thought of those causes my husband to react the way I do to the Ham Barbeque.

[Yongeman]

This is the best bedtime snack. My mom made, and then I started making these. They're kind of in the smores family.
Spread Ritz crackers with Cheez Whiz. Put a marshmallow on top. Broil on about the middle rack until the marshmallow is toasty. Pop the whole thing in your mouth. My kids love them today (50 years later).

[Yongeman]

French toast. Made the usual way. But with homemade chili sauce instead of sweet syrupy or fruit topping. Now I have it with bottled salsa. Makes my kids want to hurl, but that's how I like it. We'd have it with ketchup if we'd run out of Mom's chili sauce.

[tuqueboy]

Rice crackers slathered with marmite. This was before sodium was invented ;)
p.s. Best topic ever!!!

[Missyme]

For a snack, we would have bread and butter with sour garlic pickles. My father doesn't like dairy, so he would just wrap the pickle, or sometimes a banana but never the pickle and banana at the same time, in the bread and salt it.

[BJ]

I have just thought of one that I haven't had for years. I am not sure if I could eat it now. White bread, covered with brown sugar and milk.
A second one which I do make when feeling stressed. Brown hamburger meat and season with salt and pepper and maybe worchestshire sauce and ketchup. Add chopped onions and brown. Add water to make it into kind of a sauce and then thicken with some flour. Serve over mashed potatoes. We call this Gruel and it always makes one feel better.

[mayjay]

The gruel you mention is similar to my family's "spaghetti and meat" (my husband loves that name). You just add a can of spaghetti to your description and serve over mashed potatoes. It sounds terrible, and my husband doesn't get it at all, but I still sometimes crave that when I'm under the weather.

[berkleybabe]

In our house it's Hamburger Gravy, a relic of my husband's parochial school days. Used to be made with the grease from the burger, and flour, we use canned (lower sodium) cream of mushroom. It's actually comforting and delicious, esp. in winter. I gave a co-worker the recipe and she almost wept--she went to the same grade school and had been searching for years for the recipe.

[Seldomsated]

Just made this a couple nights ago, and used homemade chicken stock instead of canned soup, using a flour-stock mixture to thicken, then gradually adding milk to thin out and add some milk-fat to it. Added a couple dashes of poultry seasoning, lo-salt beef bouillion and black pepper to tart it up. Comfort food! Hamburger and gravy is a dish that lots of military men have learned and passed on.

Our dish I don't remember any other family making was a chop suey recipe, served with the canned crunchy noodles and Minute rice. Ixnay on the last two items these days, but the chop suey itself holds up quite well - quite soy saucy, caramelly flavored, with hearty complexity with the beef and pork cubes' flavors mingling.

[Antilope]

My Mom would make, at different times, hamburger gravy, bacon gravy and last but not least, tuna gravy. These were all served over crumbled toast.

[chef chicklet]

We had hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes, and I loved it!

[btrswttx00]

This brought to mind a lunch my mother made for me when I was in grade school. Penny Gravy. She sliced up a hot dog into thin slices and browned it a bit of butter.Then added flour and mild to it to make the gravy. She served it over toast. Some times she made the creamed tuna over toast too. I'm still not much on hot tuna!

[meagan]

Grilled jelly sandwiches! Yummers! Just buttered white bread and Welch's grape jelly and grilled like grilled cheese sandwich. I haven't thought about those in a long time.

[yenni]

add some softened cream cheese on the other slice of bread before grillling ---- that's really yummers !

[biltong]

I used to take English muffins and grape jelly and toast them until the jelly bubbled and melted into the muffins. It was tooth achingly sweet... until one day when I was in 7th grade the muffins caught on fire and burned up the kitchen and part of the house. We then ate at restaurants for the next few months while the kitchen and house was rebuilt. I never ate them again.

[Kivarita]

I have another one for ya -- and this is from the other side of my family -- fried bologna sandwiches. Not as scary as it sounds. Take 2-3 slices of bologna (Oscar Meyer, of course) -- score it in three places so it'll stay flat while cooking. "Fry" it in a non-stick skillet and serve on white hamburger buns. Why hamburger buns? I dunno - but it was always way tastier than just white bread.

[kim shook]

You can get fried bologna sandwiches (or bologna burgers) at lots of restaurants in the South. I have eaten them all my life.

[macca]

My dad used to make fried bologna sandwiches all the time. And in parts of Ohio they actually have them on the menu in some restaurants!!

[krissywats]

The only way I would eat bologna as a kid.

[hollyd]

the only way I will eat it NOW!

[Deenso]

Fried bologna and fried salami sandwiches were staples of my childhood. Converted my husband to same 35 years ago.

[cooknKate]

I loved fried salami sandwiched as a kid, my mother would get mad because she said it stunk up the house

[Will Owen]

In some diners in the South, fried bologna is offered as a breakfast meat. The fried bologna and eggs at the Hermitage Café in Nashville is, well, breakfast all right...

[btrswttx00]

We had fried bologna sandwiches too! The other way mom would make it was to flour and fry the bologna. Place the slices on a cookie sheet. Top this with mashed potatoes. Make a hole in the mound of potatoes and fill with lots of shredded cheese! Bake this for a few minutes till the cheese is all melted! This is soooo good! She did the same thing with split and fried hot dogs! So delish! I have since then made a easier prettier version where I just mound the mashed potatoes in a butter sprayed cassarole. Top with french sliced hot dogs and top all this with chedder cheese. Baked till hot and bubbly. Tastes great! Looks great!
My uncle made another really good thing with bologna. He bought a big unsliced chunk from the deli. This was usually when he was grilling something else outside. He would chunk it up in to about 1 1/2 in size pieces and lay it on the grill. He let the pieces get pretty dark. I call it charred! It was so good! He used it like an appetizer before the main grilled dish!

[pplachno]

My co-worker at school here in West Texas invited all the teachers and staff to a barbecue he was having out at the lake. He's hispanic, and the invitation said he'd supply hotdogs and Mexican Steak. I had to ask him, and he told me Mexican Steak was thick sliced boloney. He laughed and laughed when I said, "You put it right on the grill? That sounds good!" I love fried boloney, but grilled boloney is even better.

[alkapal]

this reminds me: sometimes my dad would call hot dogs "tube steaks". lol.

[buttertart]

Mine too. I always thought it was WWII soldier lingo. Also called doughnuts "sinkers". (Today is National Donut Day, after all...)

[alkapal]

ok, that would explain it, as my dad was a wwII vet, as well.

[coll]

SOS (you know what that is) is definitely soldier lingo, my husband ate it in the Vietnam era. Funny he never requests it now, just mentions it .... ;+}

[alkapal]

i never heard that term until i got here on chowhound.

my aunt billie used to make creamed chip beef on toast, and i thought it was grand! i still will make it every now and then. she also made me "special" scrambled egg sandwiches, on soft, crustless white bread, with mayo and then cut into 9 squares.

[coll]

I think his mother used to make it too, but not one of his favorites. He probably should request it though, he's getting more into softer foods as time goes on. I have to cut his lunch sandwiches into 8 pieces now so he can chew them!

[mrschef1]

Soft scrambled eggs with cream cheese mixed in, so good. I also love Fritos (or pretzels) dipped in cream cheese.

[alkapal]

the eggs with cream cheese is also good with smoked salmon slices folded in.

[notyourmomma]

We grew up eating fried pepperoni slices with lettuce, tomato, mayo on white bread, kind of a PLT instead of a BLT. A little bit spicier and those pepperoni slices leach a lot of fat and get crispy real quick.

My dad used to make a big bowl of hot toasted bread, topped with scalded hot milk with a chunk of butter and lots of salt and pepper. This was his hangover cure and I remember sitting on his lap as a toddler and eating a bowl along with him. It is one of my most cherished memories. I love "milk toast"

[DawneeBabe]

Oh My Gosh!!...Love 'milk toast'!!!..it was Grammas go-too for whenever I was sick..colds, measles, sore throats or just feeling 'not up to snuff' as she would say..still cures what ails me all these years later. Toasted homemade bread, warmed milk with butter..and later in life some S & P......a bowl of that and a warm blanket on a 'yucky' day still soothes my soul...

[luciaannek]

Fried bologna sandwiches are a big deal in Cleveland. They're on some pretty fancy (or at least, fancier than you'd expect) menus around here. Including a Michael Symon Restaurant.

[heidipie]

The first recipe I invented and gave a name to was Chocolate Squink:

Vigorously stir a (large) bowl of Breyer's Chocolate ice cream until it is the consistency of soft-serve.

Top with three sheets (four rectangles each) of crumbled Honey Maid graham crackers. Stir.

Spray Redi-Wip on top. Top with a cherry.

Eat while watching "The Partridge Family" on a Friday night when your parents are out.

[casalbore spirit]

I used to beat the chocolate Breyer's ice cream to get the air out before eating.Made it taste so much better.Kinda like a pre chocolate Haagen- Dazs flavor.

[wendy8869]

My mom got a recipe from my dad's mom for bean soup. I was actually planning on making it next week (my comfort food). It's just great northern beans, cooked in just enough water (sometimes with a ham bone or ham hocks) until done and then add milk until its nice and creamy. At the table, serve with a big bowl of chopped dill pickles and pickle juice to add to taste (as well as a few slices of cornbread). The pickles really make the meal. Yum!

[gatun]

I grew up on 'johnny mazzetti' and have never heard of it made outside the Canal Zone.

[Debbie W.]

My mom used to make a casserole called Johnny Marzetti which had ground beef, macaroni shells, onions, grated cheddar cheese, tomato sauce, canned mushrooms and some red wine. Is yours the same? This was in Los Angeles in the 1970's.

[gatun]

Yep, thats the one, The canal zone one was altered to have green olives in it, a tomato sauce called Arturo sauce and butter noodles

[lissar]

It's from the I Hate To Cook Book. At least, there's a recipe with that name in it. I'm not sure which chapter.

[maydaycolorado]

I have that same cookbook! It's so old and worn, but I love it!

[macca]

My grandmother used to make coffee jello. She would serve it to us with milk and sugar. We loved it.

[mailgirl]

Quite a few similarities...I guess we all come from some form of quirky families. Here's mine... cottage roll( a form of sweet pickled pork shoulder) hash made with cubes of the leftover meat, carrots, onion and cabbage.White bread spread with butter and bittersweet chocolate sprinkles.Mashed potatoes mixed together with mashed rutabaga(turnip). Liver with fried onions and a can of stewed tomatoes(oddly delicious)and served with the above mash.At Holiday turkey time, a toasted hamburger bun(white of course...how often is this popping up on this thread...so much for nutrition)topped with shreds of turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing and gravy and popped under the broiler to heat through.Rice krispie squares made with marshmallow and peanut butter and topped with melted chocolate chips.Stuffed beef heart and one time(only one time thank God) a cow's tongue with a mustard sauce...EEEWWWW( I was 8 at the time, it doesn't seem quite as disgusting now...)

[Miss Needle]

In my Korean-American family, my sister loved these -- sticky sushi rice, wedge of Vlassic cucumber pickle with extra garlic wrapped up in a slice of Boar's Head bologna.

[yum]

japanese-american here.. on a similar note...rice and lettuce and mayo wrapped in nori(seaweed wrap dor sushi) yum try it!

[BJ]

An easy dessert that I had many times while growing up. Not sure if it was my Mothers idea or mine. Sliced bananas, brown sugar and a covering of milk.

[JMF]

My English mother couldn't and still can't cook a tasty dish if her life depended on it. Her idea of cooking is Heinz Vegetarian beans on buttered toast. (Which I still eat every few months when I get a craving.) I started cooking when I was around 8-9 and took over the family cooking at around age 12 as a self defense measure.

When I was around 10 I came up with a recipe that turned into a family dish. I would fry up chop meat and onions with soy sauce. Then add sour cream and Tobasco sauce and cook until it was thick and creamy. I then would take iceberg lettuce leaves and wrap a tablespoon of the meat sauce in a leaf and eat. I have varied the recipe a bit over the years adding ginger, toasted sesame oil and using chili garlic paste instead of Tobasco, but otherwise it is very much the same and I make it several times a year.

I was in my late teens when I first had meat wrapped in lettuce leaves at a Korean restaurant (Kalbi and Bulgogi) and realized that I had created a fusion version of it.

[btrswttx00]

I love cold Pork and Beans on not buttered toast with a good sprinkle of salt and pepper!

[krissywats]

Five I've never seen anyone else make. All with names: Chinese Hamburger, Chinese meatballs, Sunday Roast, Chili Size, Peach cobbler

Chinese Hamburger consisted of cooked hamburger, soy sauce, cream of mushroom soup, onion, instant rice placed in our corning wear bowl with the light blue pattern and baked with La Choy Chow Mein noodles on top.

Chinese Meatballs were hamburger rolled into balls, soaked in soy sauce, rolled in flour and fried (SO GOOD!!!), served with cooked carrots and ramen noodles.

Every Sunday of my life I'd come home to a roast that was cooking: it was always the 3 inch thick flat variety with a bone in it that my mom had covered with Lipton's onion soup and a can of cream of mushroom and one of cream of chicken. Cover with foil and cook for several hours while at church. It makes it's own amazingly good gravy. Serve with instant mashed potatoes and canned green beans (my mother had a special way of cooking those, too: put the green beans and liquid in a pan and boil until all the liquid is gone - add butter....I made this for friends in college and they all couldn't believe how good canned greenbeans could be...hahahaha)

Chili Size: Open-faced hamburger (white toasted/seared bun!) covered with chili, cheese and onion, eaten with knife and fork. My mother SWEARS that this was a common food in the Lompoc area of CA when we lived there and that the Mexican population called it 'Chili Size'. I've tried to find out where she got this and what it's actually called, but to no avail. My husband laughed the first time I recommended we have 'Chili Size' for dinner - I really thought everyone knew!

Peach cobbler: white cake mix, prepared as recommended on the package, largest can of peaches in heavy syrup. pour cake mix into pan, cover with peaches and syrup. I've made this as an adult. Super yummy.

I can't think of one chicken recipe - we always ate beef...amazing my cholesterol is so good.

[wyf4lyf]

"Chili Size" was (maybe still is?) an item on many coffee shop/diner menus. I think Bob's Big Boy still has them.

[GretchenS]

Yes, when I was an IHOP waitress in the late 70's we had "Chili Size" on the menu and it was exactly as you describe it. In New England anyway it was not a popular menu item....

[Sharuf]

I have had to train my company cafeteria folks to make a chili size for me. Then grab a bottle of tabasco to make up for the chili character shortcomings.

[toodie jane]

you can get chili size at Frank's Famous Hot Dogs in SLO. I think it's a standard deli/diner menu item. Frank's does a really good one!

[KaimukiMan]

it was a sad day when Denny's took the Chili Size off their menu in the early 80's

[TalN]

That Chili Size was on the menu at the IHOP next to my college campus in Texas. It was my regular dinner after dar hopping! But its long gone and forgotten my them now.

[kubasd]

johnny rockets serves a chili size.... not sure how good it is though

[alkapal]

>>>>It was my regular dinner after dar hopping!<<<

TalN, i thought those "DAR" ladies we're a little more uptight.

{;^D.

[MMRuth]

Orange cookies - they are somewhat cake like, but light - have buttermilk in them, and then iced with a confectioner's sugar icing with orange juice & butter. Delicious - they were the "signature" cookie of my grandmother from South Western Pennsylvania and I still make them occasionally. Once my husband took them to his office and the French employees *insisted* that they had to have been made from a French recipe!

[bryan]

If you're willing to give away a family recipe, I would love to have this one.

[MMRuth]

I'll dig it up - it's on a scrap of paper somewhere!

[danna]

yes, please dig! Sounds wonderful!

[Marsha]

My daughter-in-law's "morning after" salvation (she doesn't drink, but her intuition is right on target): Cut miniature bagels in half, spread with butter and garlic salt, toast under the broiler, spread with cream cheese and toast again lightly.

And my mom's hamburger heaven:
One pound ground beef, 3/4 cup chopped onion, 1 cup sliced celery with tops, 1 cut American or cheddar (yellow) cheese, diced, salt and pepper, 2 cups canned tomatoes with juice, 1 small can ripe olives, 2 cups uncooked egg noodles. Fry the meat, add onion and celery and cook 5 minutes, add cheese, salt and pepper, and tomatoes with juice. Bring to a boil. Add olives and put noodles over the top. Cover and bring to a boil again. Stir once, recover, and cook 15-20 minutes. Ridiculously good, I always felt, but that's a lot of cheese--I'd hate to know the calorie count.

[jill kibler]

English muffins, one package
hamburger about 1/2 pound (Maybe a bit more)
salt and pepper
ketchup, about 1/4 cup
French's mustard, about 2 tbls

Mix the burger, salt, pepper, ketchup, and mustard into a spread. Spread onto 1/2 of each English Muffin. Broil until the burger is what you like. The burger grease soaks into the muffin....wonderfully bad for you.

peace, jill

[Fydeaux]

My mother used to make these when I was very young; she called them 'owls'.

[gozz'37]

My grandmother used to make me "dessert" out of iceberg lettuce leaves sprinkled with granulated sugar and then rolled up. Sweet & cool - I can still remember the taste.

Others:

Fried bologna or lebanon bologna sandwiches.
Cranberry Relish: Fresh cranberries hand ground in a meat grinder with a couple of whole oragnes then sprinkled with sugar for Thanksgiving.
After Thanksgiving Turkey Spread: Leftover turkey ground with medium onion then add salt, pepper and mayo. Serve on white bread.
Potato chip sandwiches: Wise potato chips on white bread. Nothing else.
White bread spread with soften butter then sprinkled with sugar.
Also - going to the corner deli and ordering 1/2 lb of "square cheese" -(American cheese). Everyone in my neighbor called it square cheese!

[HwyStar]

Spaghetti sandwich (Hot or Cold)

[jilli42]

Just had a spaghetti sandwich last week...wheat bread spread with Brummel & Brown, topped with spaghetti. Fold and eat !

[HwyStar]

Spaghetti sandwich (Hot or Cold)

[jilli42]

Ahhh the sugar sandwich, used to love those.

[goodhealthgourmet]

that was a lunch and dinner table staple at summer camp! we'd pour a sugar packet [or two] onto a soft slice of white bread, fold or roll it up really tight to make sure the sugar was smushed into the bread.

[mrschef1]

Peanut butter on white bread, sprinkled with as much sugar as it will hold, fold & eat.

[pamd]

At sleepover camp, in addition to the sugar sandwich we also used to use KoolAid powder for a flavored sandwich.

[goodhealthgourmet]

or pixy sticks!

[aggiecat]

I have fond memories of swim meets and dipping our fingers into the powdered jello packages. The smell of full sugar jello and chlorine. Ahhhhh.

[chicgail]

"Raw Jello." I'd forgotten all about it. Never used it in a sandwich, but it was a treat all by itself.

[wyf4lyf]

Ah yes...the sugar sandwich. My MIL, who is now quite a health nut, used to let my husband and his brother (when they were little) make sandwiches with Wonder bread, *margarine* and sugar. It's now the family joke. :)

[cocoagirl]

rosy meatballs over rice- meatballs cooked in whole berry cranberry sauce and can not remember if anything else- loved it!

[spicygirl]

Nice to hear my family was not the only one making fried bologna sandwiches!

My dad would sometimes make what he dubbed "Chinese Eggs" for breakfast. He would take a green pepper, dice it up and saute the peppers in a pan with oil and soy sauce. When that was done, he'd take the peppers out of the pan and then use the same pan to fry up some eggs (not scrambled). He'd serve it up with one egg over a piece of toast with the cooked green peppers on top.

Every so often we'd also have "hot dogs, eggs and potatoes." Self-explanatory ... a mishmosh of cut up pieces of hot dogs, scrambled eggs and homemade home fries.

[MellyCooks]

Don't know what to call these. Toss equal amounts of cubed cheddar cheese and ham with mayo, mustard and relish. Smear on top of english muffin and broil till cheese is melty and browning.

Yum!

[pilotgirl210]

Along the same lines, I make a tuna salad out of tuna, white onion, sweet pickle relish and mayonnaise. Place the tuna salad on top of toasted English muffins, top with a slice of cheese (American works well) and place under the broiler until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Yummmmmmy!!

[MZG]

The old tuna melt. One of my DH's favorites

[pilotgirl210]

In the Great Pacific Northwest, where I live and grew up, a tuna melt is like a grilled cheese sandwich made in a fry pan on a stove top. But you're right.....it is melted cheese with tuna.

[paso_gurl_100]

I'm from Calfornia, born and raised. In 1985, I walked into the Hereford Inn in Superior, Nebraska and asked for a tuna melt. They had no idea what I was talking about. When I described it to them, they still refused to make it, thinking it would "not work" because the tuna salad had relish and eggs in it. I had the chicken fried steak- it was wonderful.

[Susan]

Ritz crackers spread with creamy peanut butter (Skippy, preferably). Make a dent in the PB and add a drop of A-1 Steak Sauce. My granddad also added pickle relish between the PB and A-1.

[Scagnetti]

Here's a few gems:

- Pinkelwurst and boiled kale. Looked and tasted awful.

- Grilled cheese sandwiches with Welch's Grape Jelly spread on top.

- Leftover uncooked egg wash from veal cutlets prep, fried, and then served with tomato sauce over them.

[gus]

Hey! Pinkelwurst and kale isn't that bad at all ... in central and northern Germany, it's the standard preparation for kale -- a celebration of the arrival of the first frost, which sweetens the beloved "Gruenkohl." I think the wurst's fatty saltiness is a perfect complement to the greens ... a Teutonic version of collards, if you will.

[Scagnetti]

Pinkelwurst and kale was the favorite meal of my 1st generation German father (Hamburg) and his 5 brothers. My Italian mother was the only wife willing to cook it ONCE a year. She would literally fill up the kitchen sink with kale and it still wasn't enough to feed all of the boys.

[Gayle]

My dad is from Scotland, and we grew up eating "mince". Basically, boiled ground meat with onion, carrots and turnips. At the end, it was thickened with Bisto (boxed gravy). Served next to, not on top of, boiled potatoes and sometimes boiled green cabbage.

He grew up eating it, my gramma talk my mom and my mom taught me.

One of the most delightful comfort foods. I still make it on ocassion, and the DBF loves it!

Link: http://www.geggieblog.blogspot.com

[MsDiPesto]

Sounds like a rough American translation of Haggis! Esp. since it's served with neeps and tatties! (potatoes & turnips)

[Jackzig]

How about raw ground sirloin on buttered rye bread with sweet raw onion, salt and pepper. Great with an ice cold brew.

Or this one my grandmother used to do. Fresh calf brain lightly dusted with flour, salt and pepper then sautéed in butter. Scramble a couple of eggs in the same pan. Mix the two together. I never tried it but she swore it was delicious.

[DishDelish]

My Mother also used to eat fresh raw ground hamburger as a child and apparently loved it.

Her Mother also used to make blood pie, which according to my Mom was one of the worst things she ever ate. Her Mom didn't believe in wasting anything, even the blood. Perhaps this is why my Grandma taught me to eat grapefruit rinds, and the gristle on chicken. =)

[almond3xtract]

My mom always are raw ground round on caraway rye with raw onion and a tiny bit of ketchup. Or instead of ground round, liverwurst. Yummmm.

[katrinkala]

I'm from Wisconsin, we called the raw ground beef on rye with onions "cannibal sandwiches" and it's frequently a party type appetizer on cocktail rye.

[jobeth_b]

Aye, that's mince and tatties. It is (or was up to the 70's) the staple of the Scottish diet. Sometimes Granny would put oatmeal in it too or serve it with some skirlie.

In Australia they do the mince with a dash of curry powder and sultanas and call it 'savoury mince' - you really have to be in the mood.

[Mila]

LOL. This is a great thread.

Here's our family recipe, but first get the 4 kids into the station wagon with all the luggage.

Can of corned beef, I believe it used to be Argentinean, looks like Spam in a can
Chopped sweet pickles
Chopped onions
Mayonnaise and ketchup

Stir together and put on a white hamburger bun and top with white cheese.

Wrap in tin foil and put in oven for about 20 minutes. Remove and put in cooler by themselves to keep warm.

Pull over to a roadside picnic area about 2 hours into the drive and enjoy.

[LisaN]

My mom's version of macaroni salad - elbow noodles, sliced cucumbers, diced tomatoes and a can of tuna fish all mixed with mayo.

Pork chop suey - made from leftover pork roast and gravy. Dice leftover pork, add to gravy, add diced onion, celery, a can of beansprouts and some soy sauce. Serve over rice with chow mein noodles.

[Louise]

A cookie that only we seem to make, and only at Christmas. We call them vanilla sticks though the original name is, I believe, streifen, German for strips or stripes. The bottom half is meringue mixed with very finely chopped almonds, the top is frosted with meringue. They are baked til crisp then set to ripen in a closed tin with a slice of apple.

Supposedly some bakeries in the Columbus Ohio area make them at Christmas time, though I have yet to see one store bought.

Similar to Zimmtsterne (cinnamon stars). I have seen this in exactly one cookbook, a small paperback handout brochure from about 1939.

[Petitpois]

This isn't really a "recipe" but in our Chinese-American household my dad (the family cook) would take all the leftovers - mapo doufu, stir-fried broccoli, bittermelon in black bean sauce, winter melon soup, whatever was on hand, really - combine it with rice in a huge bowl, heat it in the microwave and we'd eat it for breakfast. He called it "dog food," because he used to feed a similar combo of leftovers to his dog. I don't cook a lot of Chinese food - and when I do, it's usually one dish for dinner as opposed to, say, five - but when I visit my parents I still make and enjoy dog food.

Also, I think lots of Chinese-American households do this, but we always make turkey "jook" (a sort of rice gruel/soup/turkey broth porridge) the day after Thanksgiving. And we eat it with shreds of leftover turkey and red pickled ginger. Yum!

By the way, this is the best thread ever. I really enjoyed reading about Sarah C's family's inventions!

[anonymoose]

Turkey jook is my FAVOURITE part of Thanksgiving (or any holiday where whole turkeys go on sale). It's so much tastier than using chicken!

[akq]

My family made turkey jook as well...and in between holidays we'd make supermarket rotisserie chicken jook. YUM.

[Anne H]

One of my mother's favorites, which she got from her father--her family spaghetti recipe-- Fry some chopped bacon, I would put in onions also if I were making it now, but I can't recall if my mom did-- dump a pound of cooked spaghetti over it (this was always in a large electric frying pan) and add a large can of tomoatoes. Mix. Lots of salt and pepper. Cook until the tomato juice is absorbed, be sure there is lots of pepper in it. Yummy.

Another one my mom made, I have no idea where she got this, but I don't know anyone else who made it. Fry some pork chops (in the electric frying pan, of course). Add ginger, salt and pepper. (Was it fresh ginger or powdered? Probably powdered.) Pour milk over it, and simmer until it was thickened/curdled. (I don't think there was flour in this, pretty sure not, it was just the thickened milk not a gravy like texture.) Again, rely on lots of salt and pepper. I used to love this. My Jewish roommate in college was quite shocked by the idea-- so I know I used to cook it myself after I left home (as is my Jewish husband-- not a dish I make now).

[Louise]

This sounds like Marcella Hazan's pork loin braised in milk. It is absolutely delectable, but there is no way short of total starvation that my (non-observant, Jewish) BF is going to put it in his mouth.

[shortribsfordinner]

My mother (Jewish) also made the pork chops. It didn't taste anything like the Italian version. She didn't brown them first. She put them in a glass baking pan with sliced potatoes, salt and pepper, and milk poured over the whole thing. She baked it in the overn covered with foil for about an hour or so. The pork chops were always overdone and tough, but the potatoes were okay.

[Anne H]

I have to admit I have never looked at Marcella Hazen books. Is the food Italian? I feel pretty sure my mother didn't get this recipe anywhere Italian... plus it had the ginger in it. Which makes it not sound like one of my grandfather's specialities, he didn't go beyond salt and pepper. She was cooking it in the 60s, and she must have gotten it from somewhere, but I have no idea.

[Louise]

She cooks Italian food. That recipe is from one of her Classic Italian Cookbooks, I forget whether the first or the second. In any case, they have been reissued as one volume. I enjoy reading them and fixing some of the recipes, but she has a habit of bemoaning Every Single Time that you can't get the right kind of fennel, or sausage, or cheese, or the eggs are the wrong size, or the protein level of the flour is too high.....enough already!

[cooknKate]

My mother loved peanut butter and green olive sandwiches, and so do I but of course, they are too weird for anyone else nor have I encountered anyone else who either likes them or is willing to try them!

[davinagr]

My grandmother used to make this dish whenever a favorite relative would show from out of town. It's a lot of work and time consuming, but worth it. We called it Cabbage Noodles ...anyone heard of it? You take two heads of raw cabbage and chop em up, then take four large white onions and chop those finely, saute the onions first in two sticks of sweet butter, add salt to taste, then cook the cabbage into the onions until brown. This can take up to two hours. Browning cabbage is not easy. Then cook one package of wide egg noodles...I like the Maneschewitz brand and then stir into the cabbage onion mixture. The cabbage sticks to the noodles and is absolutely incredible. I think it's a Hungarian or Polish recipe.

[rednails]

I can't believe someone else made this besides my mother. She called it Cabbage and Bowties, since she always used bowtie pasta. I haven't had it in years. I should make it, it's great comfort food.

She also made fried salami sandwiches, always using Hebrew National Salami--the best.

One thing my maternal grandmother made was called quite simply, "Roe." She'd buy a female carp fish (a whole one), and check to see if it was pregnant. Slit it open, scoop out the roe (really, the poor person's caviar), cook it, and then chop up an onion and mix it with mayonnaise. Serve it like a dip with Ritz or Triscuit crackers. I was the only family member who really liked it, and of course, no one makes it now. Maybe it was an acquired taste. I'm not sure I'd like it now, but any time I'd go home to visit, she'd always make it for me.

[vvvindaloo]

substitute feta cheese for the mayo and you have Greek taramosalata! which is definitely not bland.

[janethepain]

I think this is a common Eastern Euro Jewish (?) dish - I ordered it at this random lunch counter in the Diamond District because it sounded so strange and bland - and it was.

[adriennec]

My grandma makes cabbage noodles all the time! I still don't like them though... Yours sound much better. Hers are just noodles and cabbage (cooked enough to be mushy, but not browned). That side of my family is Hungarian.

Lots of other things here that I grew up with - fried bologna, grilled cheese with potato chips in the middle.

[almond3xtract]

Cabbage with egg noodles is true Polish, especially if you add butter and caraway seed!

[blindowl]

My family dish is the browned cabbage onion mixture, with caraway seed and a little celery seed (called kapusta), never heard of adding the egg noodles. I'll have to try that, when the weather cools off. Serve with kielbasa, horseradish, and buttered black bread!

[Mame16th]

My Hungarian branch of the family eats this all the time. We add a LOT of garlic & only cook it enough so the cabbage still has some crunch. Awesome with kielbasa & boiled potatoes!

[ca262626]

This dish is an absolute must (amongst at least 10 other very heavy "musts" :) for my family's Christmas Eve dinner . We're Polish. For some reason we have always just called this dish "Concoction," but it's more widely known as haluski.

[BabsW]

I also know this as haluski, common among the Slovak, Polish and Ukrainian communities I've known, and absolutely addictive. When I make it, I usually use homemade spaetzle instead of egg noodles for another twist. lol

[The Professor]

Hungarians definitely have a love for this dish as well. My grandmother made it at least once a week.

[BabsW]

I also use bacon and caraway seed in mine. I've been meaning to make it for a week, and this thread is propelling me along now!

[lsmutko]

I just checked this thread, because we were talking over the weekend about various family recipes and general "poor" food and cabbage and noodles was what I remembered as both delicious, filling and cheap. My grandmother started with a base of bacon fat, then onions and cabbage, brown them, season with caraway, then add the kluski and done. Could be a side, could just be supper.

I'm making it this week.

What we called kapusta was onion and cabbage cooked in bacon fat to wilted but not brown. Add canned tomatoes or crushed tomatoes, a splash of vinegar, cook as long as you want, salt, pepper, caraway. It gets a lovely orange-gold color and the mix of sweet from the tomato and the tang of the vinegar works so well with the earthy cabbage and onion flavors.

[cooknKate]

This is such a fun thread to read!

[maviris]

I grew up in the midwest and my family had a love affair with Campbell's soups. These are some of the tomato soup based recipes I haven't seen outside my family. I still love them - but rarely make them:

1) Orange Spaghetti - Top hot, drained spaghetti noodles with a can of tomato soup. Tastes sweet like spaghettios, but the noodles can be al dente! Best served with some hot hard-boiled eggs with plenty of salt and pepper. Mmm... I might have to make this tonight! Note: This is usually not a meal, but a late-nite snack.

2) Pizza Burgers - To cooked ground beef, add a can of spam cubed, cubed cheddar cheese, a can of tomato soup and some oregano and salt. Spread on half a hamburger bun and bake in the oven till cheese melts.

3) "Shepherd's Pie" - Brown ground beef and onion, drain, add a drained can of green beans and a can of tomato soup. Put in baking dish cover with mashed potatoes. Bake till bubbly. Serve, covered with a slice of american cheese if desired.

etc. etc.... I could write a book!

[almond3xtract]

My great-grandma made the exact same shepherd's pie!! YUM!!!

[heathermm]

In my house my kids love tomato soup and noodles, my moms concoction. I don't like it but they do. Just add a can of condensed Campbells tomato soup, (no diluting) to cooked noodles. They don't like eggs so we've never done that.

My husband grew up on cereal with cold coffee in it. He's Italian and says everyone he knew ate that for breakfast.
My mom eats mashed potatoes on bread and we all like bread and butter pickle sandwiches.

[Smileelisa]

I make a version of that too. I use small shell pasta and add a can of tomato soup and top with parmesan cheese..Yummy

[JoanN]

My father, who was quite a good cook when he set his mind to it, had an hors d'oeuvre he loved serving to guests. He'd mash together sardines and peanut butter and spread it on a Ritz cracker. People would go into raptures over it--until they found out what it was. But they liked it. They really liked it. And so did I.

But then, Dad's and my favorite lunch was limburger cheese and onions on pumpernickel. How come there's no limburger cheese any more?

[Anne H]

I'm confusing Limburger and Liederkrantz-- maybe it's Liederkrantz that I've been eating-- they are both very smelly, right? The one I can get comes in bricks, about 4 x 2 x 2... wrapped in silver foil... smells like very dirty socks... yum.

[SundanceKC]

My dad would mash sardines and mustard into a paste and slather it on Saltines. I loved it — made the sardine bones "dissappear."

He also made a paste of equal parts butter, peanut butter and honey and spread it on Saltines as a Saturday afternoon or after-dinner snack.

[cathodetube]

My parents used to make the limburger cheese sandwiches too! Served with a glass of beer. We had to go and use the dental pik afterwards in order to try to get rid of the stinky breath. It's essential to put salt and pepper on the sandwich. I also like Vidalia onions on crusty bread spread with butter and then sprinkled with salt and pepper. Used to take those to school.

[shortribsfordinner]

From my family, my husband's, and some others:
*Sherbet cocktail - a scoop of lime or orange sherbet in a glass tumbler, with pineapple juice poured over it. Eat/drink with spoon. It's delicious! Served as a first course, or a non-alcoholic cocktail.
*Cream cheese-chopped olive sandwich spread or filling, best on Pepperidge Farm bread, because spreading it ripped Wonder bread into shreds - this was also served at luncheonette counters like Woolworth's. Chopped walnuts were often added, too.
*Brownie Stew - 1 lb ground beef, browned, stir in 1 can Campbell's alphabet soup. We learned to make it in Brownies and my mother added it to her repertoire. It was intended to be a camping dish.
*Bologna rolled up around a sweet pickle stick - no cream cheese - stuck closed with a toothpick. My lunch most days growing up
*Fried Spam served with "gravy" of heated canned cream corn poured on top
*Chocolate eggnog - Milk, chocolate syrup and a raw egg whipped in a blender. Precursor to Carnation Instant Breakfast.
*White bread, crusts removed, flattened with a rolling pin, spread with cream cheese, rolled up around pickled okra, sliced and served with toothpicks - addictive hors d'oeuvres!
*Welch's Grape jelly omelet
*Graham crackers spread with canned frosting
*Bananas in a bowl with milk and sugar, like cereal
*Chocolate sodas - Vanilla ice cream, choclate syrup, and club soda, eaten kind of like a root beer float (Brown Cow). I think I need to make one now.

Only the fried spam seems unique. The other dishes were '50s and '60s standards. I hope no one else ever had to eat the fried spam/creamed corn dinner!

[Tonto]

I never knew another family that served sherbet. We always had it at Thanksgiving until we could not find it anymore, always orange and no pieapple juice. That was 20 years ago at least. Not sure where the tradition originated, but my Mother was English and I am sure it came through her.

[kivarita]

Our variation on the cream cheese chopped olive spread was with black olives and put it on 3 inch slices of celery. Now that I live away from most of my family and holidays are mostly w/ my husband's family, the celery w/ cream cheese and olives is just for me.

:-)
Kivarita

[vvvindaloo]

cream cheese on crackers with sliced olives is great!

[Ruby Louise]

This is so gringo, but Mom used to make enchiladas filled with jack cheese and mild green chiles and topped with Mornay sauce made usually with swiss cheese but sometimes jack cheese. Haven't had those in years but I think about them quite a bit.

[paso_gurl_100]

Your mom actually might have been onto something. Enchiladas suizas are "Swiss" enchiladas. And are an authentic Mexican dish. Nowadays they are made with chicken, but they are always filled with white cheese and they always have a white sauce made with Swiss cheese! You can have them in Tijuana at Sanborn's.

[almond3xtract]

I agree, those are definitely enchiladas suizas. Although suizas are usually topped with salsa verde.

[The Librarian]

Fried bologna sandwiches on white toast, but the secret was "deglazing" the pan with ketchup (Heinz, of course because we lived in Pittsburgh!).

[Cynsa]

- we fried our bologna in sato-shoyu (sugar and soy sauce)...on white bread, of course.

[JA90]

My parents were pretty health conscious, and I laugh when I think about these two adaptations of "unhealthy" dishes:

"Cottage Cheese Danish"- Top a piece of whole wheat toast with a mixture of cottage cheese, vanilla extract, and a bit of cinnamon and sugar. Broil in the toaster oven until the cottage cheese gets a bit melty. It's delicious, but imagine my surprise when I first encountered a *real* cheese danish!

Rice Pudding- Scramble a few eggs and add milk, vanilla extract, cinnamon and sugar. Fry in a pan with leftover white rice and add some raisins. It's more like sweet scrambled eggs with rice and not at all creamy like real rice pudding. Never could figure out why my mom's rice pudding was nothing like the kind I got in a restaurant.

[shortribsfordinner]

I forgot to mention popcorn in tomato soup, and our tomato soup always was garnished with sour cream.

[kayandallie]

How about brains and eggs? I loved them till I got old enough to figure out that they really were brains and eggs. I'm still alive.
When I was growing up, my fav was cheesburger casserole. Very rich, very expensive because of the cheese and sour cream. Made from hamburger, probably tomato sauce (I do have the recipe somewhere but its not worth pulling out), sour cream, cheddar cheese grated, and bicuits out of the can. It was delicious, but somehow not so much so when I was old enough to try making it for my kids. Must have been my mother's talents that made it so good! Or more likely, was relative to the other choices for meals, such as dried out roast with a packet of onion soup dumped on top, or my most hated meal, frozen fish sticks, packaged french fries, and frozen mixed vegetables. Ugh! I hated Friday night meals.
I'm sure that my kids will have similiar thoughts about my meals, though.
Now, of course, everything I make is wonderful!

[berkleybabe]

Hey, I had brains and eggs, too. My grandfather lived with us, moved to PA from Austria. A couple times a year my mother we trudge to the store, poach the brains, clean them, then dad or Pop would scramble it up. A huge treat. I guess health concerns make it a real risk these days. Also a treat were kidneys and eggs.

[Mame16th]

My grandparents used to eat squirrel brains and eggs. As a kid, I'd only eat scrambled eggs, so it was always a disappointment to sit down to a bowl of not-quite-the-right-color eggs and be told, "No, better not eat those, you won"t like them."

[Chowpatty]

The cottage cheese danish was an old Weight Watcher's recipe, often made with some sort of liquid saccharin. Bleh.

My mom was addicted to sesame butter. She served browned butter with a touch of garlic and lemon juice and sauteed sesame seeds with egg noodles, asparagus, artichokes, and probably chopped newspaper, as my dad used to say. I still eat my artichokes with sesame butter.

When there was nothing for dessert, she would broil brown sugar, butter and chopped walnuts on an English muffin for a sublime, rich pastry. I introduced it to my son who thought it was pretty amazing.

She made pesto with walnuts and American parsley and sometimes I still like to make it this way instead of the authentic recipe.

Luckily I was spared most of the Campbell's soup horrors recounted on this thread, but my mom thought she was very cosmopolitan making avgolemono soup with Campbell's cream of chicken, lemon juice and cooked white rice. If I were sick I would probably want some now.

A childhood friend and I invented something called "Super Matzo" which involved spreading Lawry's Garlic Bread spread on Egg 'n Onion mmatzos and broiling in the toaster oven...heaven.
All this was in L.A. in the 60s and 70s, by the way.

[kare_raisu]

i wish we could somehow organize this list into a wacky recipe database...now that would be cool

[Tonto]

Wimpie recipe from Northeastern Pennsylvania

I haven't made this in a while, but it always seemed to be what we in Northeastern Pennsylvania declared to be a Wimpie:

Brown a half a cup of onions in heavy skillet
Add one pound of ground beef
One half cup ketchup
one tablespoon each prepared mustard, worcestershire, vinegar and sugar
Simmer and serve on buns or rice although I have never put it over rice

[fara]

my aunt used to make wimpie burgers which were hamburgers w/spinach and cheese served on a bun.

[Karen_Schaffer]

Wow, does this bring back memories. Here are a few I've remembered while reading this thread:

* Cottage cheese and dark Karo syrup (my father's fave)

* Buttered toast covered with a thick layer of brown sugar (but only at my maternal grandparent's house -- my grandpa and uncles used to make it)

* Broiled sandwiches: Akin to the fried salami sandwiches. Spread a piece of bread with ketchup. Top with salami (be sure to snip the edges all around or it'll curl up into a bowl). Top with cheese (American for the kids, Colby for the adults), and broil until melted and bubbly.

* Corn fritters and syrup for dinner -- negligible nutritional value, but tasty

* Torn Cake -- one of my favorite desserts as a child. I now realizer it's essentially a poor man's trifle. Tear up an angel food cake. Add drained fruit cocktail. Top with vanilla pudding.

[MommaJ]

Hope I'm not duplicating, but I last checked this thread quite a while ago and it's grown to such unmanageable proportions that I couldn't catch up on everything! I couldn't guess what the actual recipe was for this (not that my mother ever followed a recipe), but she often made "Milk Chicken"--chicken parts roasted with milk poured over. The milk evaporated to a kind of semi-carmelized goo that encrusted the chicken, and I thought it was delicious--wonder if it would even be edible to me now.

[Jcooks]

Macaroni and cottage cheese. I remember having dinner at a friends house and was served mac and cheddar cheese - at the time I had NEVER seen that before!

[Cynsa]

My favorite is still my dad's skillet fried Krispy Kreme donuts on a Saturday morning when I was ten yrs. old...
split day-old glazed donuts in half...pan fry in butter and serve hot with vanilla ice cream.

[Ruby Louise]

My Mom used to pan fry day old glazed donuts too, or sometimes broil them. She'd also split day old "cake" donuts, toast & butter them. We never got ice cream with these though. Mom would serve them for breakfast alongside soft scrambled eggs.

[adriennec]

My boyfriend was horrified when I told him how good fried doughnuts are. I just love cake doughnuts fried up. Mmm. The worst part is that my parents will actually fry up other stuff too, like danishes, cinnamon buns, etc if they're getting a bit stale.

[piccola]

Aren't donuts already fried?

[adriennec]

Well yes they are, but both Cynsa and Ruby Louise mentioned having pan-fried day-old doughnuts growing up. My family didn't necessarily wait until they were stale to re-fry them, but we always enjoyed them.

[btrswttx00]

My hubby and his friends loved glazed doughnuts placed in the oven with a slice of American cheese on top till all melty. With at big glass of milk!

[AnneM]

My late mother became "famous" in the neighborhood and among family and friends for her own version of "chopped ham salad".
It wasn't made with ham though. She would buy the end piece chunks of bologna from the deli and put it through a meat grinder. It was then mixed with dill relish, a little lemon juice, pepper and mayo (not a lot). We would have it on hard bulkies. Sometimes we would add some crushed potato chips to the sandwich. yum, I'm craving this now!

[macca]

My mom used to make something similar- except she used a can of spam!! I used to love it, too.

[The Librarian]

That sort of sounds like the "ham" salad at Isaly's in western Pennsylvania in the '50's. I loved it!

[twh1475]

Hi AnneM,

Mom usred to make Spam Salad the same way, hadn't thought of that in years, tasted a lot like Underwood Deviled Ham Spred.

Tim

[Smileelisa]

That is how I make ham salad! Have been for many years. I just don't use lemon juice and I sometimes add onion.

[chai18]

as a kid we use to get noodles, mayo and mashed up broccoli, which was interchangebale with cut up deli depending on the night, dont know where the idea came from but we loved it as kids

[Biggie]

My mom used to make us toasted banana sandwiches - take two pieces of toast and slather with margarine (not butter), sprinkle sugar on top until all the melted margarine is absorbed. Top one slice with a sliced up banana, and top that with the other sugared toast piece. Breakfast of champions. My mom got this from grandfather, who says it's pretty common in Canada. I still make these every once in a while.

My girlfriend's grandmother makes a porkchop dish that I thought was disgusting until I tried it. Take a large bottle of ketchup and squirt it into a crockpot. Add an equal amount of water. Finely dice a small onion and toss that in with a handful of brown sugar and one glug of white vinegar. Throw in raw bone-in pork chops and let them cook for 4-5 hours. Served over mashed potatoes.

[DawneeBabe]

Lol..I kinda balked at making my ex what he called Pork Chop Stew the first time too..a bit different recipe tho...4 raw bone in pork chops or pork steak (even better), a chopped med/lg onion, two cans of Campbells Tomato soup, two can's water, S & P, garlic powder and a splash of cider vinegar. Simmer for 2+ hours until thick then either serve over potatoes OR throw some leftover boiled, cubed potato chunks in to heat thru before serving.

[Splendid Spatula]

- Corn pancakes, made with leftover corn cut from the cob.
- Cream cheese and jelly, so glad to see this is a favorite.
- Frame Soup, made with the turkey carcass after Thanksgiving. This last was not actually that great, always kind of watery, but it was made regularly until...it was determined that nobody really liked it that much!

[Antilope]

My Dad would make corn pancakes by adding drained canned whole corn kernels to pancake batter.

How about "Mickey Mouse" pancakes. Pour pancake batter in three places on the griddle so it fuses into one pancake with "Mickey Mouse" ears.

[Sam Ottawa]

Leftover white rice or noodles with chocolate (either cocoa and sugar, or Neslte's Quick, whichever was available). Secretly delicious. This feels like confession!

[Katie Nell]

I finally thought of some after watching this thread go round and round! My grandma always makes "Dirty Rice," but it's not dirty rice in the Louisianna sense. It's white rice with canned mushrooms and boullion... it's not normally something I would go for, but I love it! Must be grandma's touch! My other grandma makes Huntington Chicken, which is essentially macaroni and cheese with chicken and cracker crumbs on top... always my favorite growing up! I cannot duplicate either of these recipes despite actually getting the recipes from the grandmas! Also, when I was little, my dad used to make me "breakfast burritos," except these were tortillas spread with peanut butter, a scoop of applesauce, cinnamon and sugar, and then whatever fruit we had on hand... usually raisins and bananas. He doesn't remember making these for me! My dad also makes "Yo Apples!" These are diced apples with vanilla yogurt and some cinnamon mixed in. Dad loves to make something out of nothing!

[hoosfoos]

"My other grandma makes Huntington Chicken, which is essentially macaroni and cheese with chicken and cracker crumbs on top... always my favorite growing up! " You trigger a memory I haven't thought of in years: my mother sometimes made a dish with canned spinach covered with coarsely crumbled cracker crumbs and cheese, then baked in the oven until crunchy on top. OUTSTANDING! (I can't imagine ever loving canned spinach!)

[Tom Steele]

Going back to the original post, my family's recipe for Sloppy Joes sounds VERY close to yours, Kivarita; it's missing only the green pepper. Here's the recipe:

Midwestern Sloppy Joes, circa 1965

This is what your babysitter reheated for you once upon a time. Now, make it yourself! Please don’t recoil in horror when you encounter the can of condensed Chicken Gumbo soup among the ingredients listed here. Thousands of . . . regional . . . cookbooks have been published with condensed soup as a leading ingredient. I’ve tried making Sloppy Joes other ways, and nothing comes close to the body and straight-ahead flavor of this concoction. Besides, the condensed soup provides precisely the right sloppiness to the matters at hand. This is an authentic recipe from Ohio, where Sloppy Joes have flourished for decades. The recipe evolved from one that is now literally 100 years old, emanating from the kitchen of one Leila Harsch, who, among other things, graduated from Wellesley College in 1898. (Obviously, Leila didn’t have access to condensed Chicken Gumbo soup.) It is a most forgiving recipe—a ten-year-old could make these. And did. In fact, this is a pretty good “teaching’’ recipe.

2/3 cup chopped yellow onion
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
a pinch of salt—no more if you’re simmering for over an hour
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/4 pounds ground chuck
1 can condensed Chicken Gumbo soup (Campbell’s is fine)
1/4 cup water (used to rinse out the soup can)
3 tablespoons ketchup
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Over medium heat, cook the onion in the butter until just tan around the edges. Stir in salt, pepper, and cinnamon. Add beef and brown, stirring and breaking up the chunks with a suitable wooden implement. Add remaining ingredients and simmer slowly, partially covered, for an hour or more. The longer it cooks, the more tender the beef will get, as in a good Bolognese sauce. Cook at least until the fat separates from the meat.

Serve spooned into very soft hamburger buns. This makes enough for three or four hungry people.

[mimilulu]

OK, after reading and enjoying this very long thread I have 2 things to add:

1. Not really a recipe, but a Lenten staple in our house. Can of Franco-American spaghetti served with Mrs. Paul's fish sticks.

2. Not a family recipe, per se, but the woman who watched me when I was a young child used to make this for me, and I'll make it for myself to this day when in need of serious comfort food:

Cook elbow macaroni & drain
Melt butter in large frying pan. Be generous. Fry cooked macaroni until it gets a little leathery with some crisp spots. Texture is VERY important in this dish!
Serve in a bowl. Add ketchup until it's all greasy and orangey. Not too much, not too little.

This is serious comfort food indeed!

[Karen_Schaffer]

Oh, that reminds me of another: cooked elbow macaroni mixed with scrambled eggs. Add the maraconi before the eggs are set. Must be eaten with ketchup. Now I'm hungry for it.

We liked fried macaroni too (yes, that leathery texture), but curiously, although we liked ketchup on plain boiled macaroni, we didn't use ketchup on it after it was fried.

[Janet from Richmond]

When I was a child, my friend Barbara's Mom would make fish sticks and Spaghettios for us for dinner. I loved it and complained to my Mom who refused to make it.

[howboy]

The woman who watched me made the same thing! She used spaghetti and ketchup, butter, and ground pepper. Served with a glass of chocolate milk. I still make it when I'm blue.

[The Librarian]

My grandfather used to serve a soup he called Puree of Mongol (one can of Campbell's Split Pea Soup mixed with one can of Tomato Soup and two cans of milk.) He told me he had invented it, which I have since discovered, he didn't. (He also told me that he was a long-lost son of the last Tsar of Russia which, considering we are Jewish, seems unlikely!) I remember loving the soup, but haven't made it in years.

[missykins]

Celery sauce with linguine from my grandmother - it's tomato based and fairly oily. No one I know has ever heard of it, but my aunt looked it up and found it in an old Italian cookbook - it's peasant food.

Damn, I thought we were Italian nobility . . .

[dcfb]

It's funny. I inherited my grandmother's well-worn version of the Betty Crocker Cookbook. Here I discovered may recipes I thought were just for my family.

Here are a few I have not had elsewhere:

Chili Cream - a delicious dish she was famous for amongst friends, colleagues, and family. Think chili, cream, Texas-sized portions of cheese. Made in a crockpot and served over Fritos.

Toasted Brunschweiger and cheese on toast. She loved that I loved it.

I've heard people make the garlic cheese grits with the kraft tube of processed cheese, but I have not ever been served this dish elsewhere.

From my uncle-- beer biscuits served with sour cream and fresh jam.

My mother adds two cups of grated sharp cheddar to the layers of the famous green bean casserole. I was shocked when I first had this elsewhere and it was missing the cheese.

[maydaycolorado]

Paula Deen has a fabulous recipe for Garlic Cheese Grits...I make them for Christmas...I'm not from the south so grits is sorta new to me...these are incredibly easy to make and delicious!

[foiegras]

My own "invention" ... open face peanut butter sandwich with a few strategically placed globs of jelly, toasted in the toaster oven till slightly browned. Made with old-fashioned peanut butter ... the toasting would make it dry on the edges. The jelly globs must not be too close to the edge to avoid overflow when they melt!

Also in the toaster oven, cinnamon toast ... very important to use cold butter in pats so that when it melts you get these very decadent sections in the bread. The toaster oven gave very good cinnamon-sugar "crust." I made the cinnamon sugar myself with extra cinnamon.

We frequently had tuna in white sauce over toast, which was a favorite of my father's that his mother had made. I suspect she made it with cream of mushroom soup, which I think we occasionally did, but usually the white sauce was from scratch. It seems like sometimes there were peas added.

Something I loved to make for myself, eat with soup, etc. was Ritz crackers with peanut butter and a little square of cheddar on top. I've encountered many people who think this odd, whereas it seems perfectly natural to me. For a long time I could hardly eat soup without these.

[Starcrossed]

Would you believe the sloppy joe recipe using chicken gumbo soup is in an old Betty Crocker Cookbook? I was introduced to it by military wives in the 60's, good for end of the month before the new pay period began.

[shana]

bologna hats

you take slices of bologna, and spread them of a mix of equal parts yellow mustard and brown sugar - put them on cookie sheet and bake until they puff up like litte hats - serve with mashed potatoes.

This was one of our favourites as kids - never hard of them anywhere else. Does anyone recognize them?

[djh]

my dad taught us to eat rice krispies with chocolate pudding and milk for breakfast.

and my mom still talks about the peanut butter and onion sandwiches they used to take to school for lunch.

[dcembrtulip]

For any hot day of the year, my mom would cut up chunks of fresh tomatoes from the farmer's market, put it in a tall glass with ice cubes, cold water, and just enough sugar to put a smile on our faces. She told us that her drink would be sure to cool us down!

[Merry113]

For me it's mayo on crackers. I still eat it now while trying not to think about what I'm eating. My stepmom ate the worst thing ever. She would make fried potatoes, chocolate pudding and lima beans, mix them all together and eat. YUCK!!!! My grandmother's favorite thing was cornbread crumbled up in a glass with buttermilk poured over it. Again YUCK!

[macrogal]

My father-in-law does that too! The cornbread and buttermilk. Sometimes he adds garlic pepper. It's disgusting :)

[btrswttx00]

For us in times of not much food around was. Saltine cracker with Miracle Whip and little thin shreds of raw onion! This is really amazingly good!

[doc_k55]

this was a regular part of my diet the year I lived in London (in college)

[Non Cognomina]

My mother always made meatloaf with whole boiled eggs and raisins. I never wanted to admit liking it, since I was teased horribly when I brought leftovers to school for lunch. I found out from my grandma that she was the one to teach my mother to make it that way because that's how my dad liked it!

[fara]

my grandmother made it that way too, an italian adaptation I guess? braciol' style sort of.

[tobycat]

My parents used to brown pork chops in a cast iron skillet, then put a couple cans of creamed corn on top of the chops. Then they would bake them in the oven with a lid for maybe 1/2 hour, then without a lid so the corn would brown and lose some of it's moisture. The chops came out "fall off the bone" tender, so good.

[tobycat]

Also mom used to make what she called "Lobscouch". I've since found the word used for sort of a mix of ingredients, so it fits. It's almost like Johnnie Marzetti. You brown a pound of hamburger with an onion, add a small can plus another 1/2 can of tomato sauce and some water, let that simmer until it is like a thick spaghetti sauce, then add a can of creamed corn. Mix this with a pound of cooked shell shaped pasta and put in a casserole dish. Top with remaining 1/2 can of tomato sauce and then tons of parmesan. Bake until bubbly and parmesan browns.

[calpurnia]

Okay, I have 3 for you guys...

Crazy Rice (because it is crazy good!)
(I'm sure this was on the back of can at some time)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can french onion soup (canned, not powder)
1 cup of uncooked white rice
1 stick of butter
stir together, cover, bake at 350 for 1.5 hours, stir every 30 mins.

Spaghetti Chicken
Cooked chicken
Green bell pepper, chopped
Velveeta cheese
Milk
Cooked spaghetti

Beef Gravy (My hubby's fav rec from my mom)
Ground beef
Ground pork
Salt pork
Onion
Flour
Milk
Serve over mashed potato

[Katie Nell]

Crazy Rice! That's what we call dirty rice... see my post above! How funny!

[traceym]

We had the same rice dish but my mom added bone-in chicken pieces (i now make it with boneless/skinless thighs), we called it "chicken and rice" <<<how very inventive. We used powdered onion soup mix though. We use a couple of cans of water as well and you don't have to stir.

[cocoagirl]

toast and good cheddar cheese with strawberry jam with tea

beanwhiches: bake beans and hot dogs on a bun in our lunch boxes

[Mbuzi]

My mom used to make something that we knew as "Crock Pot Chicken" that consisted of just three ingredients: a chicken that was cut up into however many pieces she felt like cutting it into, a jar of apricot jam, and a bottle of thousand island dressing. These items were dumped into a crock pot for several hours and then usually served with mashed potatoes. I don't like apricots and thousand island pretty much makes me nauseous, so it took a heck of a lot of willpower for me to take the first bite. Surprisingly though, it turned out pretty good - at least I thought so then. I was probably only 13 or so the last time she fixed it though, so I don't know if it would taste quite so good nowadays.

[mhoffman]

Just wow. Is that even enough liquid to stew the chickin in?

[Mbuzi]

It doesn't sound like there would be enough, but somehow it worked.

[ginflego]

I had a friend whose mother used to make your "Crock Pot Chicken" for all of our parties at work. It was always a hit! I've made it myself and it's pretty good!

[anli]

For school lunches, mom made us sandwiches stuffed with her version of "potato salad" - chunks of boiled potatoes, spam and hard boiled eggs mixed with mayonnaise. A hot sandwich favorite was fried spam slices with a pan fried beaten egg(not brokenup or scrambled). Then there would be the sliced beef tongue (boiled in master sauce) sandwiches and the master sauce eggs that I would surreptitiously eat because friends got grossed out by "brown" eggs. For breakfast, my brother loved a poached egg in warm milk.

[kare_raisu]

these are freaking great! esp the egg milk...whats it like...

[anli]

Back then we drank whole milk, so she would heat up a saucepan with milk, drop the egg into a ladle and cook it in the hot milk. I never really liked it, but it may have been mom's variation of the Chinese breakfast of salty soy milk with egg.

[pcdarnell]

My grandfather used to make us kids an open-faced sandwich for a snack that he called "cock mothey and molasses". It was white bread spread with butter, then drizzled with molasses and then sprinkled with sugar. We loved it! I have always wondered about the origin of it (if any beyond his imagination) and if the name was some kind of americanized Irish term. Anybody ever heard of it?

[mayjay]

Well, it's not my family but two words should suffice to get the word out: "bacon toast!"

A while back I was out in a high desert cabin of an old college professor of mine and was introduced to this specialty of his family, what I think of as the most elegantly simple camping food of all time. Good bread works best of course, but anything will do. After you've made your bacon, drop in thick slices of sourdough or crusty french and toast like you would a grilled cheese... You now have a delicious addition to your meal, extra energy for wood chopping, you haven't wasted any of the precious drippings, and clean up is easier.

[Cynsa]

A variation on Bacon Toast with Egg: fry 1-inch bacon pieces in skillet. Add torn bits of bread and fry until golden crisp on both sides; add beaten egg and stir to scramble egg. It's not pretty but it tastes good. The fried bread soaks up all that bacon grease in the skillet. Sometimes I add one egg, unbeaten, to the skillet and just stir it all together until the egg is cooked and coats the bacon bits and fried bread. You'll have bits of egg white and yolk coating the bacon toast.

[toodie jane]

My English dad made these for breakfast for himself--he got up hours before we did--and sometimes for us if we begged him.

Fry the bacon and remove from pan. Remove all but 2-3 T of bacon grease, place hefty white bread (Mom made her own) face down in bacon grease. Leave, not turning, till bread gets lightly crisped, then remove. Place bacon strips on fried side, fold in half and you have bacon heaven! Oh, yeah!

[mels]

My English parents made this too! We called it fried bread. Once in a great while I'll make it - so delicious.

[tkalex9052]

This is a Milwaukee staple--fatbrot. Dip your bread in bacon grease, salt lightly, and you are good to go!

[alkapal]

...and fatbrot leads to fatbutt.

[tkalex9052]

True, especially given our sedentary lifestyle these days. I don't think so much in olden times, when people actually used their bodies to get around.

[jenhen2]

My grandma (Noni) made Noni's Rice, which was butter and garlic sauteed, add white rice and lightly toast. Then add 1 can tomato sauce and water to cook rice. When it's almost done, add a hunk of velveeta and tons of fresh cracked black pepper. Serve piping hot on dinner plates and let the kids smash it down to a thin layer and eat it as the edges cool, from the outside in. You really can't beat this, though I haven't had it in about 15 years!

[mizinformation]

my mom invented (as far as I know) a coleslaw that I still like better than any other--green olives, chopped parsley, celery, and, of course, green cabbage (not shredded, but in big enough pieces that it doesn't get soggy right away). for dressing thin a bit of mayo with some of the olive juice or maybe some italian salad dressing.

I also grew up eating lentils with cottage cheese and ketchup. In fact we put cottage cheese in almost every kind of soup/beans and the occasional casserole (including the tuna and what we called "chili mac" that many others have written about.) soup isn't quite the same without it!

[Dave Westerberg]

Stuffed Pepper Casserole: Made with rice, tomato sauce, sliced peppers, beef, and slices of american cheese on top--I used to request it for my birthday.

"Gravy Train": Beef, carrot, and onion stew ladled over mash potatoes. Wonderful.

[elance]

My family made Stuffed Peppers when I was growing up - half a pepper, with rice, cooked ground beef and tomato sauce, topped with cheddar and sunflower seed, baked until the cheese melted. Absolutely delish.

[vanillagrrl]

My mother has long loved Cheez Whiz and Miracle Whip (must've been her time in Oklahoma as a kid). She liked to spread them both at once on wheat berry bread.

We used to regularly eat a wheat cereal, hot (Wheatena), and my mom would stir in some peanut butter.

My mom also likes to halve an avocado, remove the pit, and fill the cavity with Miracle Whip. And then she eats it all with a spoon.

My grandmother served us white bread sandwiches spread with margarine and sugar. She also made "Arnold Palmers" (iced tea with lemonade) long before anyone else I knew, but hers had instant iced tea, lemonade concentrate, water, AND saccharine.

I love leftover rice with sugar and milk and a sprinkling of cinnamon stirred in for breakfast. Especially brown basmati rice.

And my own best invention recently was topping servings of strawberry shortcake (the real kind with freshly made sweet biscuits and sliced strawberries with sugar) with a toasted marshmallow instead of the traditional whipped cream.

[lollya]

my nana filled her avocado-halves with french dressing

[Mel]

i loved this post!!!!

we used to make banana boats when i was in girl scouts.

banana sliced lengthwise, still in the peel
put chocolate chips and mini marshmellows where sliced
wrap in foil, place near fire and wait a few minutes until warm and gooey

enjoy... oh, how i loved those things

[kdf]

This is a great post.

One of my dad's favorites was "ham spaghetti." Cubes of ham cooked with green peppers and tomato sauce (not my mom's regular sauce, which is good, but a thin and slightly creamy sauce, which took on a bizarre flavor from the ham), served over cooked spaghetti.

It wasn't my favorite.

[iheartveggies]

This sort of makes me think of another staple in my house growing up, which was Spam Spaghetti. It was created when I developed an allergy to tomatoes, and it involved spaghetti with chopped, fried Spam; green peas; and bottled Italian salad dressing.

I remember the time that we had an Italian friend from my dad's office over for dinner and my mom spent the day slaving over a homemade tomato sauce. She was so disappointed when the dish that got rave reviews from our friend was the Spam Spaghetti she'd made as my alternative!

[ginflego]

I always liked Spam sandwiches. Spam fried in butter and placed on white bread with butter. Absolutley delicious!

[just_M]

I like my Spam sliced thin, fried till browned. While still in the pan sprinkle with brown sugar, add a spoonful of spicy grained or whatever mustard and a bit of water to make a glaze. Serve on white toast with Best Foods mayo. Disgustingly good.

[KellBell]

My mom always made Burnt Cheese Toast...sooooo good...put Velveeta in a frying pan and let it fry up till it melts and a burnt layer appears on the bottom but the top half is still liquidy. Scrape it onto toast and eat.

ChiliMac...which was canned spaghetti with chili.

Macaroni and Cheese with hamburger

Sliced bananas in milk with sugar for breakfast.

Viva La Chicken...kinda like a layered chicken casserole with cream soup, cheese, green chilies, and tortillas...

[Biggie]

I just thought of another one...my mom called this "crab toast".

It was canned crab meat mixed with Wispride cheddar cheese spread, and some other ingredients. This was spread on a cut English muffin and baked in the oven for a few minutes. Served as an appetizer at parties.

[toodie jane]

My mom made a quasi-Italian dish she called 'bombaladi' which may have been bombalatti. (the type of pasta shell?)

She got the noodles at the old San Jose Paste Co. in old downtown SJ during the 40's-60's. They were in an old building that was razed for the much delayed 'urban renewal' that left parts of downtown in piles of rubble for decades. I have searched everywhere since trying to find these pasta tubes to no avail--they were 3/4" wide by 3 1/2" long. Just right for stuffing! If these sound familiar to anyone, please let me know!

Brown ground beef with grated onion and parsley and bell pepper, S&P.

Cook a pkg of frozen chopped spinach and add to meat with enough condensed tomato soup to hold it together.

Cook bombaladi noodles till 1/2 done , drain carefully and cool.

Stuff tubes with meat mixture, place in shallow casserole and nap with rest of canned tomato soup. Tuck most of 1 can of black olives between tubes (guess who ate the rest) cover with 2 c shredded sharp cheddar. Bake at 350 till bubbly. Good stuff.

This was one of our favorite dishes Mom made--I think she got an Americanized version of an Italian dish from one of the wives of Dad's fellow soccer team-mates.

Mom and Gram used to love cold, boiled tongue at the holidays. Of course to us kids, this was an e-w-w-w-w! Today, I love lengua.

Aunt Joan made batter pudding for my Gram at holiday family dinners. Flour and milk baked in a metal container like a pail. Served with turkey gravy over it in place of mashed potaotes.

We always had Horse Beans-favas-on the Thanksgiving table as well. Unfortunatley they were not available in the market, so Mom picked them from the orchards where they were used as a green manure crop. (farmers would till them into the ground as a rich source of nitrogen--this was used before the use of chemical ferts became widespread) These horse beans were ususally past their prime and had a sulfur-y, pasty texture. Gagged me then!

[PhoebeB]

You don't mean manicotti shells, by any chance?

[bryan]

Doesn't sound like shells. Like larger tubetti to me.

[peppermint pate]

I've been eyeing this post for the past couple of weeks but have only just had the time to read through it in all of its enormous glory. What a treat!!

So after 276 posts, I'm glad to see that these 3 family favourites from my childhood have yet to be mentioned:

* bbq'd hot dogs on a toasted bun with Kraft crunchy peanut butter - I now like to think of these as a Westernized beef satay with peanut sauce
* canned peach halves filled with mini marshmallows and topped with shredded coconut and a bit of orange juice drizzed on top - bake in the oven until the marshmallows melt - a favourite Friday night dinner side with chicken
* knobbel borscht (aka garlic soup) - chicken broth with lots of sliced garlic and lemon juice, add in a beaten egg at the end so the colour turns a bit milky

YUM!!

[magerber]

And I can't believe my favorite is not listed: Farmer's Chop Suey. Make a salad, with all the ingredients you would normally put in a salad (at least the ingredients you would put in a salad circa 1976), iceberg lettuce, chopped cukes, chopped carrots, tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, whatever else you like. Add a container of sour cream, and a container of cottage cheese (small curd please). Mix this all up and top with potato chips! YUM! Perfect for the summer.

[pescatarian]

scrambled eggs with canned plum tomatoes and worchestire sauce

[btrswttx00]

This reminds me that I ALWAYS have ketchup on my scrambled eggs! This thread is making me so hungry!!

[merg01]

Grandma B's Apple Banana Salad

My 87-year-old father remembers his mother "always" making this Apple Banana Salad. I've never known anyone other than a relative to have ever even heard of it; nor have I ever seen a written recipe. My grandmother taught her daughter-in law. Mom taught her daughters; I've taught my son. We all love it. My 13-year-old nephew even eats any leftovers for breakfast.

Grandma B's Apple Banana Salad Ingredients:

As with many recipes, how much you use depends on how much you want to make.

Mayonnaise
Peanut Butter, creamy
Apples
Bananas
Orange segments

In a large bowl, make the dressing by mixing with a spatula approximately equal parts mayonnaise and peanut butter...though most of the family likes a bit more peanut butter. The dressing should be creamy but not runny. Don't worry, it tastes much better than it looks.

Core, quarter then cut apples into smaller than bite size pieces. Fold the apples into the dressing as you cut to avoid browning.

Peel and slice the bananas lengthwise. Cut each long slice into smaller than bite size pieces. Fold in gently. The best bite includes both apple and banana with enough dressing to hold it together. The salad can be served immediately or chilled, covered, for a few hours. If made too far in advance the dressing will separate.

My son likes mandarin orange in his salad. Dad likes chopped nuts. You could use crunchy peanut butter. While our family favorite may not be the prettiest salad you'll ever serve, it can't be beat when served with roast or fried chicken or a baked ham.

[niki rothman]

So, I'm way late responding to this thread...but it just hit me: "Go far" If anybody knows any Scottish folks or New Foundland folks, please ask them about "go far" - My father's family hail from there and made this weird item from ground beef mixed with water, flour, sliced onions and s & p. The mess was cooked and poured over mashed potatoes. I always hated it, but I'm posting this because I'm really curious if anyone else has ever heard about "go far".

[traceym]

We have Scottish background but are from Ontario. We had a similar dish but we called it mucky hamburger. Mom sometimes added diced green pepper if she was feeling healthy. It's a horrible grey colour until you add some worchestire sauce. We always had it with creamed corn as well. Everyone in the family had different ways of eating it, in three separate piles on the plate (hamburger/gravy, mashed potatoes, cream corn), I liked it with the hamburger on top of the potatoes and cream corn to the side. Someone else mixed the whole lot together which just looked disgusting. My mom would sometimes fry up the leftover like this the next day.
I could understand why it would be called "go far", this stuff sticks to you ribs like nothing else. I've made it a few times as an adult for comfort food but am certain I hear my arteries closing up as I eat it.

Interestingly, a few trailers have popped up in my home town selling "Newfie fries" which is a variation of this hamburger stuff with peas on fries with melted cheese on the top.

[im_nomad]

I am from Newfoundland, and have never heard this referred to "go far"...nor have i ever heard of the fries version mentioned below. Neither of these to my knowledge is a traditional Newfoundland food, or to my knowledge, specific to the area.

[maydaycolorado]

One of my mom's desserts that I loved was cut up orange slices and banana...cut up fruit and add a ton of sugar...put in fridge to marinate...delish! Yep...this one could make you a diabetic for sure!

[teamkitty]

Binga Johns! My mamere would take half-risen bread dough, form it into an open circle - like a bagel, but with a bigger hole. This would be fried (preferably in lard) and served warm with Karo syrup. I'm guessing that the name comes from a version of "Pain d'Indian", and is a kind of frybread. Does anybody else eat this? Ever heard of it?

[Susanbnyc]

Cheerio Ice Cream Sundae

layers of cheerios, icecream and U Bets Chocolate syrup...... so good. The cheerios would always stay crunchy and were a great texture in the icecream mush....

[middydd]

Boiled potatoes heated with brown sugar until the sugar caramelizes, then stir in chopped up hot dogs.

Condensed mushroom soup spread on white bread then toasted under the broiler.

White bread spread with velveeta or cheese whiz then topped with diced bacon and broiled. Think these were called "Cheese Dreams".

[piccola]

it's even better if you toast the cheerios first

[FlyerFanX]

How about a plain old horseradish sandwich. Two slices of white bread, and as much horseradish as you can handle. My late father in law made these on a regular basis. My 15 year old daughter still makes them from time to time now - sort of a "in memory of Poppy" thing.

[teamkitty]

From my uncle, 76, from Ventura, CA: Lard sandwiches. Sounds nasty, but they apparently loved them.

[vkmcgee2]

OK My turn.
The very first weird thing I remember eating was when I was 5 years old. I have no idea why I liked it or why my Grandma let me eat it but I now call them sweet and sour sandwiches. Frenches yellow mustard and jelly sandwiches. No, I don't eat them any more. I stopped eating them by the time I was 6.
Rice and sugar and milk for breakfast.
White bread with mild and sugar, for breakfast.
Chili and rice was a staple.
Something I've never stopped drinking was mashed banana and milk. I can thank the blue birds for that one.
Fried Bologna sandwiches with mustard.
Fried spam sandwiches with mustard.
I just realized how much mustard I eat! Ha, Ha!
Fried hot dog sandwiches with mustard.
Hated Mom's Goulash, I used to smother it with chili powder.
How about Hobo soup? Soup made from whatever left overs were in the fridge.
I'm a fan of tuna and potato chips too. Bar-b-Que were my favorite.
I'll have to ask my kids what they consider family domain recipes.
Cheep pastries, take a tube of biscuits. Dip each in a beaten egg, then sugar. Take a glass and make a depression in the center, fill the depression with jam. Bake till brown at edges.
Salmon and peas over mashed potatoes.
Take a can of salmon, remove the bones and put it in the pot. Add water and spices (garlic, salt, pepper, marjoram, and parsley) boil. Add peas and cornstarch to thicken. Serve over mashed potatoes.
I leave you with the weirdest concoction.
I tasted it because my youngest son dared me to.
I think the Simpson are responsible for it but I'm not sure. Start with a Twinkie and split it down the middle like a hot dog bun. Put a cold hot dog in it. Add cheese from one of those cans on top, I think it's called cheese Wiz?
My youngest eats this, ug! Well it didn't stunt his growth. He's now 25.
I found this post very enjoyable.
Thank you.

[SgtStens]

vkmcgee, that last Twinkie-hot dog-Easy Cheez oddity was actually from the movie 'UHF' from the '80's starring Weird Al Yankovic. It's been at least a decade since I last saw that movie, and that concoction has always been haunting me, curious yet horrifying. Maybe one day I'll actually try it. Good to know your son is still alive. Cheers!

[WineWidow]

Having two Berliners (whose formative years were spent surviving WWII and the Blockade) as parents made for some interesting food items in our home that were never seen anywhere else. A childhood favorite was bratenbrot -- dark rye fried in sweet butter and sprinkled with sugar. My mother still lunches on unheated slices of dark rye spread thickly with butter (always sweet butter in our house) and liberally sprinkled with sugar.

My father's most notable culinary invention however was his weird fried spaghetti. Would cook the pasta, drain it and fry it up with onions and then, as a finishing touch, serve it with a fried egg on top. Loved it as a kid!

[bksaenz]

We used to eat Crispy Dogs, my Dad's invention, that was a combination hot dog/flauta. Take regular weiners and split them in half, pair with a strip of american cheese about the same size as the weiner, and roll them in a corn tortilla and secure with toothpicks. Fry in hot oil until crispy. Yum!

He'd also make us sliced weiners and scrambled eggs and call it Weenie con huevos.

My mom used to make creamed eggs on toast, which was bechamel sauce, with chopped hard boiled egg whites stirred in and topped with grated egg yolk.

Some recipes I am seeking are for two foods I sampled at a wedding reception: a chipped beef/cream cheese dip and a cream cheese/cherry (like maraschino) spread for bread (this was made into little tea sandwiches). Anyone got a recipe to share?

[mrsry]

Mary Kitchen corned beef hash cooked in a skillet with steamed white rice and chopped kimchi, either the normal version or the radish version. As an adult I've made it and improved on it by adding a little minced garlic.

[Lono37]

OK, this was an afterschool treat that we ate at least 3 times a week -

Home-made "Pizza": Take a slice of white bread and toast lightly. Spread with ketchup and top with a slice of american cheese. Broil until cheese is melted. Devour and make another.

If we felt like "pepperoni pizza," we'd cut up a slice of bologna and put a few pieces on top of the cheese, then broil.

My mom always made her "Chicken Polera," which was skinless, boneless breasts (or a cut-up chicken) mixed with canned cranberries and a full bottle of Kraft French Dressing, baked in the oven until tender, served over egg noodles. yumm.

[Veggietales]

Toast white bread, tear up in peices in a bowl, sprinkle with table sugar and pour carnation evaporated milk.

Canned biscuits cut into quarters, deep fried until puffy and golden, then roll in sugar. Now can be found at any chintzy Chinese Buffet.

Breakfast fried rice: render some bacon till crisp, add minced garlic, day old rice, and soy sauce. Mom served it topped with a sunny side up egg.

[lulubelle]

Canned biscuits cut into quarters, deep fried until puffy and golden, then roll in sugar. Now can be found at any chintzy Chinese Buffet.

These were my mother's version of donuts-made every time I had a slumber party.

[eamcd]

A friend and I used to make these as after school treats. Now I can't imagine letting my kids fry things without me -- but I know we did it alone. They kept kosher and I remember the reaction when it turned out she'd accidentally used buttermilk biscuits in the non-dairy pan.

[revsharkie]

We used to have lasagna casserole: ground beef and onions, browned then simmered in a can of tomato sauce with a little salt, sugar and pepper (my mom made this a while back for the first time in years and was shocked that there are no herbs or garlic in it). Then you mix a 3-oz. package of cream cheese with an 8-oz. package of sour cream and a bunch of green onions, sliced. That layers over a half-pound of "fluffy dumplets" or mini lasgne pasta, cooked, then the meat sauce, then mozzarella and other cheeses over the top.

My aunt Edna makes escalloped asparagus, which is about the only way I can stomach canned asparagus. The first time I remember eating it was about 3; i wouldn't have eaten asparagus on a dare then, except this. You take four cans of asparagus and drain, then put the asparagus in a casserole dish and salt lightly. Slice half a dozen hard-boiled eggs and put them on top of the asparagus. Make a medium white sauce and add plenty of cheese (Edna uses Old English cheese, but I generally use a mixture of Velveeta, which melts smooth, and sharp cheddar for flavor). Pour that over the asparagus and eggs, top with buttered bread crumbs, and bake until bubbly.

She told me recently that she has been known to make the same thing with sliced tomatoes instead of asparagus.

When we would go to Oklahoma to stay with Gram and Papa in the summer, Gram would make these open-faced sandwiches: spread mustard on a piece of toast, then top with a hot dog, sliced lengthwise and opened out, and a slice of cheese. Put in the toaster oven on top brown until the cheese melts.

One of my least favorite dishes growing up was what my mom called "bean stuff." It was leftover beans with hamburger and a can of tomatoes mixed in.

Her tuna casserole: Kraft Mac & Cheese dinner, cook the macaroni and then stir in the cheese sauce mix, a can of mushroom soup, and a can of tuna, drained. When I make it I add a cup or so of frozen peas and top with those canned french-fried onions. Then you bake it for 25 minutes or so, until it's heated through.

[Yodeler]

Lamb fries (aka. prairie oysters)
When I was a kid (quite some time ago) one of our greatest treats was when the the lambs were gelded. The lamb testicles were frozen slightly to make them easy to slice. They are sliced in about one eigth to one quarter inch slices then dipped in eggs, then bread crumbs and fried in butter. Absolutely delicious. I've never met anyone else who enjoyed these delicacies (indeed..everyone I tell is SHOCKED that we ate such things). With my father being an avid outdoorsman, we also enjoyed these wonderful treats: frogs legs (from the local swamp), squirrel stew, groundhog (cooked in a cast iron dutch oven buried in the ground), rattlesnake (didn't taste quite like chicken...but close!), stuffed deer heart and many more things that you might not want to imagine.

[Susanbnyc]

YOU WIN!

[twinks]

my Missouri-born grandmother served me "Rocky Mountain Oysters" thinly sliced and breaded and fried and told me it was weinerschnitzel (which I loved) - it was good but then my parents told me the truth...same way with beef heart - I hated fat and gristle and she braised a beef heart (pure muscle) and I loved it, too - until I found out what it was... organ meats turn me off but actually we shouldn't be so so critical of them, there are only 2 kidneys, 1 heart, etc... maybe the Chinese are right about all the weird stuff! The Romans liked stuffed pig uteruses!!!

[aggiecat]

Deer, elk or other wild game heart, well trimmed, cubed, sautee'd with onions then slowly simmered in equal parts milk and broth,add thyme, salt and pepper until tender, add flour to more cold milk stir in and make a thick gravy, serve over egg noodles or rice. Oh my goodness, so rich and yummy.

[Mame16th]

My first job was at a steakhouse in Lexington, KY. We had lamb fries (with cream gravy) on the menu, but the only people who ever ordered them were sweet little old ladies who'd have them with vodka martinis straight up.

[maydaycolorado]

I'm from Colorado and we had Rocky Mountain oysters...bull testicles flattened (I know...ewww),dipped in batter and deep fried...soooo delicious! Of course, the first time you have them, you have to eat them before you know what you are eating! I still love them, but they are hard to find here in Florida...have to settle for gator nuggets and gator tail!

[alkapal]

i didn't realize that gators even had "nuggets."

LOL

[sandylc]

That's where little gators come from.

[alkapal]

tee hee!

now i have to go look for those on a diagram! LOL -- read this (esp. the question itself): http://answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

[foodISlove]

Beat this: Pork Roll sandwich.
First, you slice off a couple rounds of pork roll. Fry it up. When it's done, but still hot, slap on two pieces of white bread slathered with mayonnaise. Hoo-wee.

[Goomba]

Taylor's Pork roll, white bread toast and apple butter.
We used to eat that out on my father's boat when growing up. I recall it was cooked on a small propane type burner. I can only imagine that taking five kids on a boat my parents might have once just grabbed whatever food they had handy at home at the time. It became "boat food" and I always think of it fondly as such.

[jaylatgar]

When I was growing up, we loved sandwiches made with peanut butter and sweet pickles on untoasted white bread. It has to be sweet pickles though, not dill pickles.

[revsharkie]

I used to eat that same sandwich--except I added a slice of cheese. The pickles I used were those little gherkin pickles, and I would slice them to put on the sandwich. And it had to be creamy peanut butter.

[ognir]

Cranberry pie.

It's an old Acadian family recipe handed down for generations. We make it every Christmas and it is otherworldly.

If I told you the recipe, I'd have to kill you. :)

[mhoffman]

Can you give us a hint? Just cranberries and sugar in the filling is it?

[bolivianita]

I too have a secret cranberry pie recipe...could it be the same one?

[woodleyparkhound]

I read all the way through this, thinking of several things to add, but most of mine have been covered! My mom, who was a pretty good home cook, would make us breakfast every morning. Usually it was oatmeal, cream of wheat or eggs, but sometimes it was cinnamon toast -- made as a previous poster mentioned, with the cinnamon and sugar stirred into softened butter, so the result was all bubbly and crusty. I was horrified the first time I had it with the cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on at the end. Another one I adored was banana toast: ripened bananas were mashed with a fork, mixed with cinnamon and sugar, spread over buttered bread, then broiled until bubbly. Both were just divine.

My father (born in KY in 1914) also loved crumbled up cornbread in buttermilk. And southern biscuits 'n gravy.

My mom would cook green beans for ages with salt, bacon with plenty of fat and onions. I hated them as a child, but how I love them now. I would never cook them this way myself. I cook my vegetables slightly crunchy, doncha know, but when I go home to southern Ohio and someone else makes these beans I can't get enough of them.

Mom made wonderful pies -- to this day, I have never had a better pie crust. Our next door neighbor was rhapsodizing about her coconut cream pie at her funeral. When she made pies, she would take leftover strips of pie dough and sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar and bake them for us kids. We'd eat them hot out of the oven as fast as she could produce them.

Oh, and the hard cooked eggs in Bechamel sauce my mom called "Eggs a la Goldenrod".

[lulubelle]

We had "Egg a Lagga" which was my father's way of saying "Eggs a la Goldenrod" the whites of the eggs were chopped and mixed in the white sauce, then served over toast with the yolks grated over the top.

[JenMarie66]

If we were hungry before dinnner, my mom would fill celery stalks with cream cheese and liberally sprinkle on Lawrey's seasoned salt. I still love it.
Every birthday cake was marachino flavored (cake and frosting! VERY bright pinck on all fronts) which I hated but I was the youngest of 4 kids and happy, really to eat ANY cake.
If I went to my friend Julie's house for dinner, there were always exotic and new things. Mandarin oranges in the salad! Incredible. Icky, but cool, too.
We had a large dog and we fed her dried dog food with canned gravy (meant for people but I was too young to realize it). At Julie's one night, I watched in interest and then horror as her mom opened and heated this same gravy and poured it over our pork chops. I burst out crying. "We feed this to our DOG!" I said, halfway out the door and hightailing it home.

[jacquelyncoffey]

We used to feed our cats canned Mackerel. I thought it was cat food only! Imagine my horror when I went into the kitchen one day and found my mother eating "cat food" from the can!!

[Parrot Fish]

Chicken baked with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup.

Use cut up chicken, dilute Campbell's cream of mushroom soup with half the normal amount of water and bake in a 375 oven until chicken is cooked.

serve with rice, noodles or potatoes.

Easy.

[javaandjazz]

My mom always makes a baked ham with heinz chili sauce poured over it with 2 bottles of water added to the pan. Make sure you make mashed potatoes along with it and "pour the gravy" from the pan over the potatoes before you eat them. It's so good!!!!! I always grew up thinking everyone else made this until I mentioned it to my coworkers and they said they have never heard of it before. Then again I also grew up with my dad making home made chicken soup and then as he was about to serve it he would take out a jar of peanut butter and the saltine crackers and we would proceed to eat chicken soup with peanut butter and crackers. Another odd look from my friends when I told them this one too! Richie

[DawneeBabe]

Love that about your Dad and the PB & crackers with the soup..I had a friend that couldn't...wouldn't eat goulash without PB & white bread....a childhood thing I was told...in reading these posts I've realized peanut butter played a big part in a lotta childhoods Lol :)

[Mame16th]

My dad likes a plain peanut butter sandwich with potato soup or chili. Not for me, thanks.

[MuppetGrrl]

City chicken. It's marinated pork and veal, breaded and fried on a stick.

[maydaycolorado]

I LOVED city chicken! Back then, veal was cheap. It was cubes of veal and pork on a skewer. I have described this to several people and nobody believed me. Thank you!

[chicgail]

We had that at overnight camp when I was a kid. They called it "meat on a stick."

[loveysangel]

My Aunt also made her sloppy joe's that way :) I still like them to this day. I still love city chicken. I think its a regional dish from the midwest (i grew up in MI). Nobody that I know in Maryland had ever heard of it either. Also my mom had a friend from Tennessee who used to make us kids cream of chicken soup over toast for lunch. That was and still is one of my favorites whenver I dont feel good or am really bummed out...it always makes me smile :)

[zen_grace]

Take some Sauerkraut. Put it in a colander and rinse well with water. Then, stir in a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup. Don't add water. Heat in a saucepan until it comes to a simmer.

My Italian grandmother from Venice who makes homemade ravioli and tons of traditional soups from scratch used to make this for my mother and her 4 siblings... and this was probably the only thing she ever made that only took about 2 minutes to prepare.

[macrogal]

Chili Mac - Kraft Mac and Cheese with a can of Dennison's chili stirred in. I could seriously eat myself into a coma on this. The only unhealthy thing my mother ever made.

[blue room]

My aunt Olga made what she called "mock oysters"--enough saltines mashed with canned tomatoes until you could form patties. Then fried until crispy on both sides. Not bad, but not good either!

[puppymomma]

My grandma made Mock Liver (ie chopped liver) and it was really good. Wish I had her recipe.

Meryl http://theoccasionalcook.blogspot.com/

[cheapskate]

OK, if anyone else had this, let me know.

Beef kidneys (which smell god awful when cooked) boiled, and then sauted with some type of sauce made with hard boiled eggs. This mixture was served on toast for Sunday breakfast. I didn't like it when they were being cooked the day before, but I sure liked it when they were ready the next morning. My dad would always put tabasco sauce on it as well, something I tried and liked also.

[fooddiva]

OMG...I soo had this growing up; although not with any sauce...just the kidneys! So true, they STINK when cooking, but not altogether bad when done.

[Sharon Campbell]

I came in once when my stepmother was making steak and kidney pie. I thought she was boiling the babies diapers and in my best snotty 12 year way told her I thought she shouldn't boil diapers just before supper. She was not endowed with a sense of humor
and promptly informed me of the error of my ways. Yikes.

[maydaycolorado]

I loved steak and kidney pie! My mom always cooked us breaded, fried gizzards! My brother and I would fight over the heart...so good and chewy! Gotta love those organ meats...liver and onions with bacon was also a big favorite...I think because my parents were raised in the depression, they learned to cook with whatever they could get cheap.

[iheartveggies]

A staple for special occasions in my house was "Protein Salad."

Orange Jell-O powder
Cool Whip
cottage cheese
drained, crushed pineapple
canned mandarin oranges

This was the only way I would eat cottage cheese (and still is) and is a food I still think of fondly.

[revsharkie]

My church ladies make this. I like cottage cheese, but this is about the only way I'll eat jello.

I tried a variation on this, using raspberry jello instead of orange and substituting frozen raspberries for the pineapple and orange. It wasn't bad, but turns out I like the orange better--interestingly enough since I'd eat plain raspberry jello before I'd touch plain orange.

[Anonimo]

My maternal grandfater's "recipe" for Hot Cabbage in Mustard Sauce: Clean and cut a cabbage into small wedges, cook in boiling water with salt until just tender. Drain but not completely, leaving a little cooking liquid.
Mix Gulden's Spicy Brown Mustard (or just plain, old yellow mustard), mayonnaise, and white vinegar to taste, Mix with the hot cabbage. Serve as a side dish.
Also good cold.

[puppymomma]

My mother (not a good cook) used to put chicken pieces in a large baking pan with rice around it that was mixed with water, cream of mushroom soup, and orange juice. While mom wasn't too swift in the kitchen, it was comfort food. I tried, though, as an adult, to make it once and it totally grossed me out.

Meryl http://theoccasionalcook.blogspot.com/

[Sam Fujisaka]

Oh, well, the thread that won't die:

Hot dog + sauerkraut in a hot wheat tortilla!

[PhoebeB]

It's too much nostalgic fun.

[Sam Fujisaka]

That's for sure...this thread really is good fun--it allows us to get to know one another better.

[PhoebeB]

And it tells us that we're not the only ones who don't always dine on pheasant under glass and Grand Marnier souffles :o))))

[hoosfoos]

Sam, yours is about the closest I've seen to my contribution -- my son had a friend from Mexico, who worked hard at becoming Americanized. He used to make Top Ramen burritos. Yum!

[jinet12]

Two things come to mind...One was what my Mother called "Hash"...This was leftover pot roast cubed, the already cooked potatoes, cubed, a sliced onion, the cooked carrots, cubed, and then some of the leftover gravy...All of this was put in an iron skillet and sauteed, with a little water added for consistency, and some Worcestershire sauce added...Know it sounds funky, but it was delish...Another one was hot dogs sliced lengthwise, and sauteed in "margarine", then a sauce was added that was catsup, a little onion, mustard, and brown sugar...similiar to what one might use for baked beans...This was heated through, and served over hamburger buns....Ah...Memories....

[corabeth]

So many good things:

cottage cheese with grape jelly mixed in(my grandmother made her own cottage cheese and her own homemade jelly

saltine crackers & milk or buttermilk. I like to put the milk in the freezer so it is icy cold

hot dog sandwiches- broil hot dogs,split almost down the middle,spread apart on white bread with mayo and catsup,fried balony sandwiches made the same way.

"sweet rice", cooked rice with butter, sugar,milk or cream,nutmeg

milk toast- make toast,while toast is still warm sprinkle with sugar,nutmeg,eat in bowl with milk

fried

[lollya]

my nana made milk toast when she was feeling ill. just plain though.

[sarahvagaca]

We ate hot dog sandwiches, too! Cut in half and split open lengthwise on white bread. Not an easy sandwich for our little hands to hold--half of the hot dog would always flop out. No mayo on ours though, ketchup on mine and mustard on my brother's.

My dad also made us peanut butter and bacon sandwiches which he still eats often. His favorite (and my most hated) meal was simply called Hamburger and Beans and I think consisted of browned hamburger meat cooked with a can of pork and beans served over plain white bread. I hated beans (still do, sadly) and the sweetish taste it had grossed me out.

My dad also used to drink Coca-cola with peanuts floating on the top!

[MSK]

"My dad also used to drink Coca-cola with peanuts floating on the top!"

There is a touching reference to this unique preference in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd. Worth the read either way.

[lollya]

we were a hash family too! Only shredded roast, potatoes, onions and lots of pepper. sometimes we put it on buttered bread and poured gravy over it.

[DawneeBabe]

WooHoo!!..I wondered if anyone else's Gram/Mother made what you call 'Hash'..I absolutely love this...to this day I make a big enough pot roast dinner so there's leftovers..and we call it Slumgullion :-D Total comfort food....

[alkapal]

oh yeah! HASH from leftover roast beef, sliced, cooked in a cast iron skillet with onions and sliced potatoes. often then, this was "finished" with some ketchup.

i love the stuff! it really takes me back in time.

time to make a pot roast!

[NiKoLe1625]

My grandmother's chicken soup with mini meatballs in it. I guess its almost her take on an Italian Wedding soup, but it doesn't have escarole in it and the everything else is exactly like traditional chicken soup. She also puts orzo pasta in it! SO good!

Also, there is a recipe in my family for an Italian bread that we call "chamellone (i really don't know how to spell it)" Its i guess considered to be an Italian easter bread. It has a texture more like a cake and it is made in a large round shape with hole in the center. I know that the recipe has anise seeds in it as well as flour, egg, and maybe sour cream? It is then topped with those little round sprinkles. It is one of those recipes that has been in my family for decades, but i've never seen or heard of it anywhere else!

[charmedgirl]

Wow! I did a double take reading this. My mom claims that the name for our family's Italian easter bread is "cham-BA-llone." (But she is also infamous for mispronouncing Italian words because she says them the way she remembers old Italian relatives pronouncing it.) Anyway, it is also a round, cakey-slightly-sweet-a-little-dry-bready pastry. No anise though. This past easter several recipes were posted for Italian easter bread cooked in a ring, but those all had the whole eggs baked in and no one indicated it was called anything that even remotely sounded like "chamballone" so I figured it wasn't the same thing. I'm so excited to hear someone else's family makes this bread too!

[QueenB]

Sour cream noodles - broad egg noodles mixed with sour cream, butter, parmesan cheese and black pepper. I've introduced these to a number of my friends and they've all fallen in love.

Chicken nuggets made with pancake batter.

[piccola]

Same concept: a babysitter used to deep-fry pancakes. Not pancake batter, actual cooked pancakes. So wrong, but so good.

[chicgail]

Some spaghetti dish that my mother always made as a side to breaded, fried veal chops. It was spaghetti noodles with a can of stewed tomatoes and bits of americn cheese. Sounds disgusting. Probably was. I've never had the urge to re-create it.

[chicgail]

I forgot cream cheese and chopped (green pimento-stuffed) olive sandwiches on rye bread. The kids at school all said "euuuw,: but I loved it.

Also "eggs-in-a-mess." I think it came from a Dorothy Parker children's book I read. It combined soft-boiled eggs out of the shell with chopped up cooked bacon and cut up toast.

[Put a Sake in it]

I totally ate cream cheese and green olive sandwiches when I was growing up. I also got the same ewww at the lunch table, but that didnt stop me from eating those sandwiches.

[HillJ]

love your screen name PASII!

[Put a Sake in it]

Thanks!

[aggiecat]

Go look in my in-laws fridge right now, today, and you will find both the black AND green olive versions of this as a sandwich and cracker spread. I like it if you use the really flavorful greek or itallian garlic olives, otherwise it's a little too bland for me.

[wekick]

Very delicious. If I am using black olives sometimes I will add toasted pecans.

[alkapal]

add some rare roast beef to that cream cheese and olive sandwich, on pumpernickel. YUM!

[Leucadian]

I never had a name for the egg dish, but that was going to be my contribution. It was my father's favorite breakfast, and has been mine as long as I can remember. I had it this morning. You have to get the eggs just right to moisten the toast, and the bacon needs to be crisp. Toss to evenly coat the toast, and season with salt and fresh ground pepper. Do you know what the book was?

[PhoebeB]

My daddy always made us the same breakfast and it sounds a lot like yours: a soft-boiled egg cracked over a piece of hot toast and smooshed with a fork to the edges so it covered the toast, then cut up in little bitty squares, S&P, crisp bacon crumbled on top. We loved it.

[Leucadian]

I always wondered if this was a regional thing. My father grew up in Georgia, but lived in NYC and Boston before he got married. I can't find any references to eggs-in-a-mess anywhere.

[PhoebeB]

My daddy grew up in Georgia, too: N. Georgia; Calhoun, Hill City. This was the only meal he ever fixed that I can recall, and not often. Probably the only thing he knew how to make. I'm sure it was a childhood favorite of his.

[Leucadian]

Hi PhoebeB. Next time I have eggs and bacon and toast, I'll think of Pop, at breakfast in Hamilton as a young boy, with his mother making it for him in the kitchen. It's not so odd that food has such emotional strings to pull, because I just found another one. It would be fun to trace this little treat back to Georgia roots. Thanks.

[djhnyc]

I love this thread... This brings back fond memories of breakfast with my father (recently deceased...) - rye bread, fried or poached eggs (no bacon in this version). Tear up the bread into bite-size bits, put into bowl with eggs, add salt/pepper to taste, mush and eat. Wonderful.

Another father/breakfast memory: when he left the table, he usually left a little bit of coffee in the bottom of his cup. I would take some sugar and pour it slowly into the cup until the sugar just soaked up all the coffee (the sugar turned moist and brown)...and then slowly eat the coffee-sugar. My introduction to coffee, and a wonderful morning treat.

Since I'm here... more stuff I remember fondly:
--spaghetti with butter and ketchup (my boyfriend thinks this sounds gross, but it was/is a wonderful comfort food)
--frozen spinach (creamed or plain) with melted cheeze whiz or velveeta. This was the only way we would eat veggies - with melted cheese on top. Of course, my mother had never heard of fresh vegetables (except corn on the cob), so I didn't get into the good stuff like fresh, steamed broccoli until I left home. She still doesn't like vegetables much.
--best comfort food ever - plain yogurt, mushed banana, cinnamon. As a kid my mother made it with cottage cheese and sour cream instead of yogurt, but I like my way better now.
--grilled cheese (almost any kind, but gouda, Jarlsberg or cheddar work really well), open face on good dense bread, heated until the cheese bubbles and turns a little brown and crispy (necessary for the right flavor). Now I add a bit of onion jam under the cheese, fresh tomato, and/or some ham/prosciutto. Great easy meal.

[cathodetube]

Re the comfort yoghurt, I love adding mashed raspberries to the banana and yoghurt and drizzle in some honey. Never tried it with cinnamon. Very comforting.

[Bobierto]

Cream cheese and green olives on an english muffin are a favorite of mine to this day!

[chicgail]

Ok, just one more.

Saurkraut and sliced onions cooked with the drippings of roast duck, turned many times until it was thoroughly caramelized and chewy.

[unturtlesoup]

I am reading this post whilst attempting to dream up a dinner idea.
Strangely enough, all I have in my fridge is sauerkraut (homemade, a gift from my Hungarian Grandmother (nagymama)), artisanal duck fat, and some onions on the shelf that are sprouting quite strangely. Sounds nostalgic enough to actually cook tonight for dinner, maybe with a side of frozen pierogies!

[dbug31]

Not my family recipe, but a friend of the family...

elbow macaroni mixed with ketchup (Heinz) & then layered with the super block of Velveeta & then baked.

[jacquelyncoffey]

Here's one I haven't seen in this thread, it's called "Butter Noodles." My nursery school teached used to make this for us probably when lunch funds were low. We loved it. Just add margerine to hot egg noodles and sprinkle with white sugar while still warm and mix well. I still make this and love it!

[lollya]

FUNNY! We make that too, but with butter, and salt and lots of pepper!

[almond3xtract]

Sounds similarto what my great-grandma called Red Stuff. Boiled macaroni, drained, mixed with a can of undiluted tomato soup and half a block of Velveeta. Served with boiled ring bologna. Yummmmmm.

[fooddiva]

A very fond Saturday morning memory is ground beef with scrambled egg with lots of ketchup. I swear the only place I've ever seen this in the "real" world is DOG FOOD. But it was soooo good!

[Workalot]

- Cheese and strawberry jam sandwisches made with Wonder bread. My mom went "gourmet" on us when I was a teenager and switched from Velvetta to making them with Cheddar. I still love this.

- My childhood friend and I made this up: Hilshire Farm Kielbasa w/ grape jelly rolled up into a flattened Wonder bread "tortilla"

- I hipped my hubbie to this one and it's his favorite breakfast in the world (w/ a side of fried eggs): white rice, chopped up tomato with salt & lots of bacon!!!!

[misohungrychewlow]

Mom didn't cook much and she worked and went to school at night. We were latchkey kids. One thing she did -- she had a wide, shallow clay pot that she put dry rice (Uncle Ben's), some tomato and onions, and topped with thin, bone-in pork chops. I assumed there was some liquid, too, but I don't remember. We would put it in the oven at whatever temperature (who knows? I was 11-17, brother was 6-12) for an hour or two and then ate it. It was pretty good, better than most of the other meals we had.

[cayjohan]

oooooh. Crush a bunch of graham crackers, very (very!) finely. Mix with a glass of milk. Stir well. Enjoy (and scrape the grease off the roof of your mouth if necessary).

Very yummy. Really weird, according to my teenager. Really a pain, vis a vis lactose issues.

But very yummy.

[Emme]

Ha, I used to do this, but it's even better w/ condensed milk.

I used to eat warm rice krispy treats batter; on occasion I made part of a batch upon arriving home from school... Not weird though I guess.

I used to love microwaving and browning mini candy bars in the microwave... 3 Musketeers melted, gooey, and bordering on burnt.

[PhoebeB]

How funny! My kids always FROZE their Snickers/3 Musketeers.

[elance]

Very cold 3 Musketeers bars are utterly fantastic. I bite the chocolate coating off and then eat the delicious gooey middle.

[HillJ]

First time I'm reading this very funny and endearing thread.
My mother in law raised a gaggle of kids on many odd but budget stretching "recipes"

Something like hot dog stew or mashed potatoes stuffed length wise in a hot dog was considered "high livin" during the week.

Although my Dh still enjoys the occasional hot dog, it's gourmand all the way.

Dear mother in law, still laughs at the crazy days of family meals but has offered to make me hot dog stew MANY times...so far....I can't say I've had the pleasure.

[amyamelia]

This thread is a hoot!
My contributions are really gross...
when I was growing up my mom would make "Pizza cheese sandwiches" which were a slice of bread spread with ketchup, topped with a slice of american cheese and a sprinkle of oregano (when she was feeling especially motivated--this was what i hated) cooked in the toaster oven until the cheese was all bubbled up and crusty.

The second thing she passed off as a meal makes me cringe!
stuffed hot dogs: take one hot dog per person eating, slice it almost in half lengthwise, place in 9-13 pan. Squirt mustard in sliced hotdog, cover all with mashed potatoes. Sprinkle with parm cheese from the can, dot with butter and bake until crusty. I actually ate this weekly until I was about 11 years old and my dad had a heart attack. I never saw a hotdog in our house again.

aa

[vanillagrrl]

my mom always ate avocados with Miracle Whip in the pit hollows. I didn't know everyone didn't do this for a long time. (some of my friends hadn't even tried avocados....)

[amyamelia]

Ewwww. Miracle whip. That reminds me that I grew up on grilled cheese sandwiches made with miracle whip on the bread instead of butter. Tasted good then, but I don't think I could eat one now.

[twinks]

People who like Miracle Whip seem to be always from Oklahoma or Nebraska - there is something about those flat sandy areas that make them need sugarized mayonnaise....GACK! anyway, a lot of you have "poor" recipes that are actually heritage foods. MMMM- sorghum!!!!! keep up the good work - this is a great thread!

Fried baloney with american cheese - the curled up balony holds the cheese just great///FRITO PIES! nobody mentioned this yet? Fritos, chili, cheese - all melted and crunchy and salty and HOT - YUM!!!

[PhoebeB]

We made/make our Frito Chili pie with a 3/4" bottom layer of buttered grits mixed w/chopped green chile, then chili/cheese/Fritos layered over that.

If your chili is good, this is a GREAT dish.

My grandkids, as my kids did, love fried baloney cups filled with scrambled eggs and topped w/grated cheese.

[ArikaDawn]

Miracle Whip is also super common in Southern IN. Growing up you could always find Miracle Whip in everyones fridge, but I cannot remember a time when anyone I knew had mayo in their house. Miracle Whip is just the standard there.

[PhoebeB]

Right. I don't think my Texas mother knew there was such a thing as mayonnaise.

[btrswttx00]

Being from Kansas my mom still swears by Miracle Whip excusively. I keep both as I like it for some things and good old mayo for others!

[aggiecat]

For fundraisers you'd get the canned chili ladeled into the split open little bag of fritos then top with sprinkles of cheese and chopped onion. This is still an organization and family fave. My 6 year old adores frito pie.

[chowdawggy]

My aunt and uncle owned a DQ in the Texas panhandle and served Frito-chili pie made in the Frito bag as far back as the 60's. But they called it "pepper belly". They tried it on the menu as "Frito-chili pie" and nobody would order it.

[alkapal]

how popular as a menu item did it become once they changed the name to "pepper belly"?

[Amanita]

What fun! But I feel pretty lucky, because the recipe that immediately comes to mind is my Sicilian stepfather's pizza: homemade yeast crust, usually thick (with admonitions during the kneading process that "the dough is a living thing"); lots of diced onion (about one per pizza), canned plum tomatoes, mozzarelli, a grated Parmesan we used to call Locatelli, oregano, and spritz of olive oil. Also occasionally canned anchovies (broken into pieces). I still make it. Must be made in square pans and cut with scissors to be truly Scafidi.

[PhoebeB]

What a great thread, and there are several dozen things I'm going to try on my grandchildren.

Here are two of our family "mooshes" we still make and love.

Cook the pink out of a half-pound of Jimmy Dean Hot sausage, add a chopped onion and green pepper (the frozen chopped pepper is one of the great leaps forward of modern times; tenderizes so fast), saute til tender. Add a great big can of Pork & Beans and a can of chopped green chile, season with a big splash of Sweet Baby Ray's Hot & Spicy BBQ sauce. (Or Adobo or Taco seasoning or Tabasco or cayenne or dry mustard, brown sugar, catsup, chili sauce; whatever suits you.)

Another skillet-meal we love in the summer with cornbread and sliced tomatoes is this:

In a big skillet or braising pan w/lid, cook most of the the pink from a lb. of ground beef, add a chopped onion and green pepper, saute til tender.
Add 6-8 sliced yellow summer squash (or part zucchini). This will make a huge heap.
Cover and lower heat, let the squash cook down, turning everything over top to bottom now and then. When it's the tenderness you want, season w/S&P, a sprinking of oregano or somesuch. Might want to reduce the liquid a bit. It varies w/the squash.

[skamama]

We had a garden and the giant zucchini would become truly monstrous if we didn't pick them every day. Mammoth zucchini were gutted of the seedy, pithy center, then stuffed with hamburger, cooked rice, green pepper and onion, and baked with tomato sauce and grated cheese on the top.
We sometimes had fried grits or cornmeal with syrup for breakfast (cooked, chilled and sliced into rectangles). Very rarely, my Dad made real scrapple from bits of pork, usually from the head, mixed with white cornmeal, chilled and fried up the same way for breakfast.

[cafecreme]

My mom would make us "decorated eggs" for supper when we got home late after a long car trip or just didnt' feel like a big dinner. Scrambled eggs topped with Wolf Brand Chili (no beans). I grew up in Texas and have never seen Wolf chili in California, where I live now (and not sure I'd actually eat it anymore). But, boy was that a good combo, topped off with a little sour cream and ketchup.

[ArikaDawn]

One of my sister and her fiancees favorite dinners is a bag of seasoned fries cooked per the instructions, topped with a jar of Big-B-BBQ and shredded cheddar cheese and then put under the broiler until the cheese melts and BBQ heats through. They eat it just like that and apparently they've had it the past few Sundays, but it gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

[Cheers]

My mother's family came from northern England and we always had bread sauce with our roast chicken or turkey. Scald homo milk with an onion studded with a few cloves. Add white bread crumbs until thick and let it simmer a while. Fish out the onion and add a dash of white pepper and a knob of butter. Pour gravy over top. Heaven. I make it myself with my poultry but my mom still makes it best!

[MSK]

My mom makes an interesting version of Matzah Farfel that I don't see anywhere else. We ask for it all year round (traditionally it's a Passover dish).

She soaks the Matzah pieces (boxes and boxes) in an egg batter until it's all absorbed.Then she spreads it into a thin layer onto jelly roll pans and bakes it (stirring regularly) until it's dry, light brown and crunchy. Let it cool overnight and hope no one has eaten it all as a crunchy snack instead of popcorn.

The next day brown lots and lots of onions (her words exactly). Bring chic stock to a boil in a large stock pot, add the matzah until moisture is absorbed and then add the onions, stirring regularly until the whole mixture is soft and light brown. Add more stock (preferably hot) if the mixture seems dry.

Salt and pepper should be added for seasoning at any point in this process but traditionally, my mom's was over salty so I hesitate to be more specific. You'll need to experiment.

If I can pin her down to the actual measurements, I'll pass it along but this is the way she generally cooks.

She does make variations sometimes by adding mushrooms or shredded chicken. You can use it like a side dish instead of rice, etc., as a Turkey stuffing or it's even good as the basis for a hash (instead of potatoes) topped with eggs, etc.

Is anyone else's Farfel similar??

[seattledebs]

Yes, this is actually how my grandmother suggested I make matzah farfel for my seder a few years ago. It was great. I can't remember whether it was her embellishment idea or mine, but mine had sauteed onions and mushrooms mixed in.

[Louise]

The eggs make it sound like kasha, the broth makes it sound like risotto. Hmm, matzotto?

[Neuromancer]

My parents made something called "Mexican-American Casserole" that was layers of tortilla, cheese, refried beans, and salsa or tomato. I don't remember exactly, but as a child without a good idea of potential food horizons it was fine with me! ;) I also remember eating a lot of "bologna and cheese and mustard and ketchup" sandwiches, but I don't know whose idea that was originally!

[Feed Me]

Bananas and SOUR CREAM ---> Not yogurt, LOTS of rich sour cream that will give you a stomach ache because its not supposed to be eaten in large amounts

[ksmms]

My mother used to make open-faced burgers that she called "(insert family name) burgers". My kids used to love them too. Ground beef combined with chopped onions, diced Velveeta, and held together with Heinz chili sauce. Spread on open-faced hamburger bun, and bake or broil in a hot oven until done. Yum!!

[bitsubeats]

My mother is korean, so lord only knows where she got these recipes:

When I was younger, my family never topped our spaghetti with the stuff from the green can. Instead we each took a slice of yellow processed cheese and mixed it into our spaghetti and sauce. When I think about it now....ughh

My mother also used to take ritz crackers, mix them up with some melted butter to form a kind of mealy paste, and then sprinkle/mix them up with steamed broccoli. I love this simple side dish .

Also in highschool my mom (or me) would make me a sandwich with toasted white bread and smashed avocado on it. By lunch time, the avocado was brown, but it was still really good.

Rice + soy sauce + furikake sprinkles + butter all mixed up = disgusting now ): I tried to recreate this dish a few months ago out of nostalgia and I felt pretty sick to my stomach.

I also remember in elementary school getting the worst thing ever. My mom would take a flour tortilla, spread it with creamcheese, add sliced cucumber, and then roll it up. When you sliced it, it made gross pinwheels and I had to eat it all.

not a dish, but I loved cookie crisp cereal in chocolate milk or those cinnamon square cereal (forget the name) with lots of cinnamon sprinkled in the milk.

2nd time I've edited this post:

sauteed green beans or boiled (very very quickly - prob 5 mins) and tossed with cream cheese - it makes a nice sauce when you add the cream cheese to the green beans. I have tried green beans and goatcheese, but I think I like the original version better

pork chops fried in a pan with slices of tomato and onion on them and cream cheese added on top. We had this like once a week growing up

childhood favorite: boiled squid tentacles and body dipped into ketchup. Its traditionally dipped in chojang (sugary chile sauce), but my sister and I used ketchup because it wasn't spicy and it had the same color

[Me so hungry]

I love freshly made hot white rice with butter and soy sauce! Or rolled up warm tortillas with butter and salt! My friends used to think I was so wierd. The pepsi with milk didn't help either!

[amethiste]

Hot white rice with soy sauce, hot sauce and butter is one of my all time favorite comfort foods. My grandmother would indulge me by letting me eat that for dinner. I still eat it occasionally as a hangover remedy

My Mom would make Texas Hash - a rice dish with ground beef, stewed tomatoes, chili powder, onions and I guess some sort of liquid baked in a casserole dish.

[lollya]

cinnamon toast crunch!

[janethepain]

I'm Korean too, and my aunt used to fry up rice with butter and soy sauce, too - man is that good. That and cooked spam?? Gooood. I just don't eat it now because I'm afraid of all the fat in the butter.

Haha and we still do eat squid cut up and dipped in ketchup. Thinking about it now, I guess it IS weird.

[soypower]

Another Korean here...We used to do a lot of weird things with rice...

hot steamed rice w/ butter and kimchee
hot steamed rice mixed w/ a raw egg and a drizzle of soy sauce
hot steamed rice in any kind of soup we ever made, especially ramen

and when we owned the deli:

-dollop of tuna salad on a saltine w/ a few alfalfa sprouts and a slice of pickled jalapeno

steamed rice (we also served teriyaki) w/ bacon and pepperoncini peppers

and from my aunt:

pita filled w/ thick slices of hillshire farm smoked sausage, tomatoes, lettuce and monterey jack cheese. nuked until cheese is melted and lettuce is wilted and warm.

thick slices of hillshire farm smoked sausage sprinkled w/ pepper, put on a plate w/ paper towel and nuked til crispy. sometimes we would wrap these in romaine lettuce leaves or just eat them w/ rice and kimchee.

[bitsubeats]

still love to eat hot steamed rice mixed with raw egg and soy sauce.

another weird thing I ate growing up was something called coffee soup. My half italian grandmother served this to my sister and I when we were little and we loved it.

take a slice of white bread and put it in a bowl. Add coffee, milk, and sugar to the bowl and eat with a spoon. Sooooooo good

[elance]

Avocado sandwiches! I love them. My mother always put lemon juice in the avocado to stop it from going brown, and the sandwiches also had cheddar cheese and mayo on them.

[ajkm]

LoL we did that with our freshly steamed rice too!! My brother used to love hot rice, I can't believe its not butter, and kimchee "juice" all mixed together. Sometimes we'd add chopped kimchee to the mix, throw it all in a hot pan, and let it get caramelized and crunchy in a hot pan.
My mom also rolled pickles and cream cheese with sandwich meat and we ate it with lettuce. Kinda like an Americanized "ssam"
We also did the same thing with squid but mixed 1/2 ketchup 1/2 chojang!

[neobite]

My beloved gramma used to fry up a bunch of bacon, crumble it, then mix a cup of Helman's mayonnaise with some sugar - god knows how much - into the hot grease. This, with the crumbled bacon, would get poured over iceberg lettuce until it wilted. This is what she called salad. Which may very well explain my grandfather's need for a triple bypass...

[PhoebeB]

Made right, this is a "Wilted Lettuce Salad" and one of the best salads on earth, and it has no more fat/oil than most other salad dressings. I can eat the whole bowl of it and not care if there's anything else on the table. (Except maybe some cornbread.)

Mama made it (and the kids and I still do) with leaf lettuce torn up in a bowl with sliced scallions. (We do it sometimes with baby spinach or a mix.) She fried about 4 slices of bacon crisp, crumbled it and set it aside, added to the drippings about 2 T. of cider vinegar and the same of water, brought it to the boil and poured it over the lettuce & scallions, added the crumbled bacon and lots of black pepper, tossed to coat/mix/wilt, garnished with sliced hardcooked eggs.

When I noticed your post I was about to post something I just remembered, so I'll just tack it on here.

I invented a fantastic summer treat for the kids back in the 80s in hot Dallas: Reconstituted frozen limeade mixed with a can of cold pear nectar and poured into glasses over a dip of either lime or pineapple sherbet. O my, is it good and refreshing!

I haven't made it for years because I've not been able to find pear nectar in my part of Maine. But I think I saw some recently at our natural food store and I'm going to make this again if the durned weather ever warms up.

[lgss]

We had wilted lettuce salad, too, though not often, but I think it was with leaf lettuce from the garden. As kids we used to fix various floats including a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a tall glass of oj.

[chicgail]

Neobite, your post about your gramma's weird salad reminded me that my grandfather's idea of a great salad was a wedge of iceberg lettuce topped with red cocktail sauce (the kind that they used to put on shrimp cocktail). Wow, weren't the 50s exciting!

[neobite]

Shiver...

Yeah, I can almost see that in the glaring four-color photo of wege lettuce with cocktail sauce in, like, the Better Homes & Gardens book. Right next to the tomato-and-pineapple-in-aspic salad. Yowsa. And then everyone drinks some Blue Nun and picks a random set of keys out of the bowl...

Although, given PhoebeB's support of it, I can kind of wrap my head around the idea of a bacon grease salad. Like a BLT, minus the T and the bread. Though something about my grandmother's addition of mayo makes me go gackk.

[archangelcat]

Kivarita, I've seen the recipe for sloppy joes like you enjoyed in old midwest church basement cookbooks and could never figure out the purpose of the chicken gumbo soup in a sloppy joe! but here goes my unlikely favorite: Mom made hamburgers like this: lean south dakota beef mixed with onion and ketchup and salt and pepper, then the raw mess was spooned into burger bun halves and broiled, I don't know why it was so good, but it really was.

[seattledebs]

Our quick/easy meal was my favorite as a kid is still a comfort food I love. We called it "tuna fish munsch." Sautee onions and tuna, and add tomato sauce. Cook together until the flavors mix. Add in peas (optional). Serve over pasta with parmesan.

I even like it cold the next day.

[kawachi]

My father used to take chopped liver, spread it between pieces of bread dipped in egg/milk (life French toast) and fry it in a skillet in chicken fat. It was a heart attack in a frying pan, but it was delicious!

[Pakkai]

What fun topic.
When I was a kid. . .
- I ate and loved fried boloney, fried salami or fried hot dog sandwiches with mayo.
- Grilled Hamburger patties with Cambell's cream of mushroom soup with lot's grated cheese to make a superb gravy ALL OVER fresh or day old rice. Yum Yum!
- Philly cream cheese on sour dough bread served with spaghetti.
- Dennison's chili over day old rice.
- Fried tacos made using crumbly hamburger.
- Fried wontons made with hamburger meat.
- A bowl of hot steaming rice with a raw egg mixed in with a splash of soy sauce.
- Oscar Mayer Baloney rolled up in a warmed tortilla.
- Fried rice made with eggs, bacon and shredded cabbage.and lop chong(chinese sausage)
Cholesterol problems? Nah!
I've been dead for years : )

[Sam Fujisaka]

Pakkai, some of these sound like standard Japanese-American fare.

[Pakkai]

Isamu,
Indeed they are!

[janethepain]

Inspired by the comments to this post, I made two of these "recipes". Last night I took some leftover brown rice, drizzled soy sauce on it, and sprayed it with butter spray - it tasted like I remembered my aunt making it (though admittedly, making it with fresh sticky rice and real butter and decent soy sauce like my aunt made it would obviously taste better). But for a spray butter and funky-looking soy sauce, not bad. I can hear some of you barfing right now.

Today I had a piece of Wonder bread spread with margarine (hey, it was the only thing my office's cafeteria had) and sprinkled with Splenda. Not quite as successful. Bleh.

[havi]

"Sloppy Lentils"

Cooked lentils with pwd. garlic, chili pwd and prepared mustard.....we'd eat it on bread or tortillas and often with extra mustard and cheddar.....

[pickychicky1979]

Strawberries rolled in sour cream and then brown sugar.

[sarahvagaca]

My mom would do this when having people over for brunch with whole strawberries and/or fresh pineapple cubes. I was apprehensive of the sour cream as a kid (I guess anything with 'sour' in the name wasn't too appealing!), but it was really good. Haven't had it in years!

[hungry329]

We had something called Love Soup. Don't know where it came from but I make it all winter long. Best the day after it's made.

1 can of kidney beans
1 can of cannellini beans
1 package of frozen spinach
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
1 whole keilbasa
Enough chicken or veg stock to cover.
put it all in a big pot and cook until warmed through.
It's really much better the next day.

[fara]

I guess I was pretty lucky growing up. some things my mom made that i've never had elsewhere:
-chicken or shrimp "curry" with vegetables and organge juice
-"five spice" pork, which was diced pork glazed with ketchup, soy, and chinese five spice powder
-my jewish grandmother's chicken: fry bone-in, skin on chicken pieces in oil until brown, add cream of mushroom soup, possibly sour cream? and bake until the chicken falls apart. serve with egg noodles.
-my italian grandmother's mollenban soup: i've never seen this anywhere - chicken soup with farina "noodles" grated into it.
- my parents version of tacos: onion, ground beef, ketchup, worcestire, soy, same thing again with beans instead of meat. serve over fried corn tortillas, guacamole, sour cream, tomatoes, lettuce, grated cheese and tabasco. i still make this.
-this i've heard of, but never had anywhere but with my dad: fresh berries with heavy cream and sugar.
-pork chops with tomato and onions, baked forever.
- my favorite sandwich - alfalfa sprouts on toasted white bread or pita with lots of mayo. nothing else.

[TessCooks]

my dad made this outrageous sauce on perciatelli pasta called bersalieri. You take onions and genoa salami and saute (like you would sautee pancetta and onions for amatriciana) andd tomatoes. Then you cut finger sizes pieces of sharp provolone,WHile the past is cookign you add the cheese to the sauce. ITs gets nice and melted and on top of the perciatelli outrageous!!!

[fara]

that sounds good! i've never had provolone in pasta.

[eileenmary]

I still eat this....make 2-3 slices white toast. Heat one can cambell's condensed tomato soup (do not add water) add 1 slice processed american cheese. Heat to melt cheese and soup and stir. Tear up toast and pour the soup mixture over. Serve with cold milk. My comfort food since I was a child. Everyone else in my family hates this, mother, husband, children, sisters...oh well.

[amethiste]

This is not so much a family thing as a regional thing. I grew up in Hampton Roads, Virginia. In this area many Chinese restaurants had something called "Yat Ga Mein" on the menu. Locals called it "Yock". I'm visiting home and had it for the first time in about 20 years. The dish consists of noodles with a brown sauce, onions and a choice of shrimp, l chicken, beef or pork. I think it tastes suspiciously like a combo of ketchup and soy sauce. In this area even the 'Chinese' restaurants that are owned and operated by Black people have 'yokamein' on the menu.

Has anyone else ever heard of "yat ga mein''?

[violabratsche]

I know what dish you are looking for, and a search found me a recipe.

The brown sauce is likely an oyster sauce. Unless you are going to use the sauce, it's hardly worth buying a bottle, the size is available in the stores. the recipe I found has chinese mushrooms, meat, bok choy, bean sprouts, green onions, the noodles and the sauce.

It IS yummy!!

AnnieG

[amethiste]

Sounds good. Is it possible to post a link to the recipe? Thanks :-)

[chocoannie]

My mom used to make "fried cinnamon buns"--she'd take those boxed white-icing-yellow cake cinnamon buns, slice them into about thirds and fry them in a skillet of butter (lots and lots of butter)--it was absolutely a heart attack on a plate (but truthfully worth it!).

[Seldomsated]

Two more memories are now dredged up from reading this thread - which probably should have stayed there in the abyss! "Heavenly Hash" - Cool whip with flaked coconut, drained fruit cocktail, and chopped walnuts. << shivers >> "Hawaiin Smiles" - Spaghetti with "doctored" ketchup on it, topped with squares of Velveeta. Mom usually did much better than this, but at least these made me appreciate her other efforts even more!

[crosby_p]

This is such fun...I really should have been working instead of reading all this though! It just inspired a one hour office conversation!
I used to clamor for my Dad to make me scrambled eggs. Still don't know how he did it, but they were half fried, half scrambled, with the whites separate...guess he just didn't stir it much before putting it in the pan!

I also remember olive loaf sandwiches on white bread with ketchup...do they even make olive loaf anymore? My fav which I try not to ever buy...german bologna on white with ketchup. Did they even have anything other than white bread? I don't remember anything else at our house, and as a result...I still love it.

My mom put together a simple dessert that is still good today...a can of crushed pineapple, slightly drained, some heavy cream, and those mini marshmallows...mix em all up and it's great, if fattening.

She also did things like others have mentioned...french dressing in avocados, usually served on a "cold plate" for hot summer days...occasionally with shrimp salad made with canned shrimp, a real treat in those days, sliced cucumbers and hard boiled eggs.

Mom made porkchops the only way I will make them today, although I've doctored it. She bought the thin ones with the bone, browned them with s-p and then added carrots, potatoes and mushroom soup! I do it by adding shitakes, white wine and thyme...but it's still my go-to comfort food. She also made New England boiled dinner...a porketta (smoked pork shoulder) with potatoes, cabbage and carrots and onions all in one pot...just boiled the heck out of it. That reminds me...I've got one in the freezer!

In our office conversation this morning I was asked what I ate differently as a child that I don't eat today. I lived in Teheran Iran for two years in the late 50's, and when my Mom and I would take my Dad to the airport for business trips, we would by a three pound tin of Beluga Caviar.........for 5 bucks! We would go home and eat it with chopped egg and onion, with a spoon. THAT is something I don't do today...at $150 an ounce!

[meatn3]

Finally had time to read this - so much fun!

Our school system served a scaled down shepherds pie thing called Potato Turbait. The local newspaper recipe request column would get people asking for instructions, no idea where the name came from. Was the only way I would willingly eat canned peas.

My ex used to take a deep bowl and smash up a can of chopped up Vienna sausages, a can of sardines and masses of saltines. Looked like dog food & was quite smelly. Talked me into to trying it once and it was much better than it looked!

[MobyRichard]

My mom used to make something she (and her sisters) grew up calling 'scratch beans.' Old-fashioned flat string beans (Romano string beans) were thinly cut on a diagonal, then sauteed in a little oil and salt and pepper added while the bean slices were still very crisp. Just before serving a beaten egg was stirred in until cooked. Simple but delicious.

[marfa]

fascinating! This inspired me to make my mom's version of hamberger cassarole the other day, delicious.

My mother also made plenty of "___ baked with Campbell's cream of ___ soup" including frozen spinach & cream of mushroom which I loved.
Also:
- casseroles topped with canned fried onion rings (ew!)
- a dessert she called "Depression Ice Cream" with evaporated milk frozen in an ice cube tray, anyone heard of this?

[jessi20]

my mom used to use leftover pancakes to make sandwiches.... bologna sandwiches of course. i used to hide in the school yard to eat them as they were so good, but so embarrassing. she also used to make weiners and saurkraut which is just what it sounds like....served hot, only two ingredients.

[piccola]

I do this too, with sunnyside eggs as the filling. Although I'm dying to try it with a veggie sausage patty...

There's a breakfast chain in Canada called Cora's that serves a crêpe wrapped around an omelette with whatever breakfast meats/sides you want shoved inside. It's definitely a post-marathon meal.

[AlaskaChick]

How great that this thread has been around for a year - great to read everyone's replies. But I didn't see this one - Fried Mush. Leftover oatmeal chilled in a square dish overnite, remove and slice. Fry in butter, serve with more butter and syrup.

[FFood]

FFood's dear mother puts a sprinkling of tomato juice and white vinegar over her potato chips, along with salt and pepper. FFood says don't gag until you've tried it.

[goodhealthgourmet]

hey FFood, you sound uncannily like jfood.

and for the record, nothing about that makes me want to gag. salt & vinegar potato chips with a little tomato & pepper for added kick? yum!

[elgordoboy]

Yeah..it's cracking me up, wish I'd thought of it

[laliz]

we did the dame as alaska chick, only with cream of wheat

[vvvindaloo]

wow, i can't believe i never thought of this... it sounds great.

[SgtStens]

Going on the snack food line, I had a friend in college who turned me on to putting the vinegary red pepper sauce (think Frank's Red Hot, not Tabasco) onto crunchy Cheetos. Douse them good, then add a squeeze of lemon. Wow. Adds a whole new level to a snacky staple.

[vacationmomma]

We had fried mush in Central PA...only it was made with cornmeal.....fried and then topped with syrup. Like scrapple without the meat in it.

[AlaskaChick]

Kinda makes me want to whip out a batch right now.....

[Jeri L]

I wondered when someone would get around to fried mush. We'd usually have cornmeal mush for dinner and then fried mush for the next day's breakfast. Sunday our big meal was mid-day (usually some kind of roast) and sometimes we'd have popcorn and apples for the evening meal. Another special dish was suet pudding--a steamed pudding with custard-like sauce. It's so rich that would be the whole meal.

[hotmexi]

i just found this thread...i love it! I remember "Fried Mush" from an old (1930's) series of children's movies called "The Little Rascals"...I believe it was made with cornmeal though.

[Mother of four]

Hard Spaghetti!! My Mother made it, and I made all the years my kids were growing up. In fact,my youngest son just asked me how to make it a few weeks ago. I pk. thin spaghetti, one or two cans tomato soup, s&p, a little butter to top. Cook spaghetti, drain, add soup, s&p, put in a two qt.baking dish, dot with butter, pop into a 350 degree oven for at least an hour, or until the top gets hard.

[goodhealthgourmet]

my mom's [and grandmother's] holiday stuffing recipe was unlike any i've ever seen.

oats, crushed cornflakes, grated carrots, onions, canned mushrooms, chicken broth, pepper, garlic powder , and the 'secret' ingredient...schmaltz! [known to the goyim as chicken fat]. cooked inside the turkey, always with an additional huge batch baked in a casserole dish.

sounds bizarre, i know...but it's beyond delicious. my friends would always call to find out when she was making it around the holidays so they could come over and chow down.

now i make my own [healthier] version of it for thanksgiving, and everyone inhales it.

[Jcooks]

french toast with sour cream - I didn't even know people ate it with syrup until I was in 6th grade or so. Also we ate our scrambled eggs with syrup!

[vvvindaloo]

Dad used to make a "breakfast drink" for my brother and I- egg yolks blended with sugar and espresso. We were barely even school age.

[MysticYoYo]

I grew up in NYC and my Italian/Sicilian dad scorned bottled pasta sauces. He would make his own from canned tomatoes and it would cook all day. We had some sort of pasta with red sauce (we called it "gravy") EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY WITHOUT FAIL. If it was a holiday or special occasion, we'd have a pork roast AND pasta.

Sometimes as a special treat my mom would make squid. She would carefully clean the squid and separate the tentacles from the body. She would toss the tentacles (or legs as we called them) in seasoned flour and fly them up. They were delicious and we all fought over them! She would then mix seasoned bread crumbs with a beaten egg until it was the texture of oatmeal, and stuff the squid body with the breadcrumb mixture, seal it with a toothpick, and then pan fry them, set them on a paper towel to drain, and then she'd pop them into the huge pot of gravy simmering away. By the time dinner was ready, the squid was so tender you could cut it with a fork. The sauce had gently permeated and seasoned the breadcrumb mixture. And the squid lent the sauce a subtle marine flavor.... mmmmm. Heaven!

[goodhealthgourmet]

sounds fantastic! i love those dishes made by old-school new york italians...my college roommate's mom made the BEST 'gravy,' and whenever she came to visit she'd cook us up a huge batch & we'd freeze it.

crap, now i'm craving it....

if i can track down the recipe i might have to try it with your mom's squid addition.

[walker]

Once, my mother (born in US of Italian parents) decided to cook squid in tomato sauce. The smell was so terrible I had to leave the house for a few hours. I still won't go anywhere near squid; I consider it "bait."

[goodhealthgourmet]

it's such a shame when an experience like that turns you off to a food forever. squid is fickle. when overcooked or improperly prepared, it can easily take on the texture of rubber tires. BUT, when handled with care, it's so good! grilled, stewed, fried...the rings, whole bodies, tentacles...whatever. i'll take it all :)

[starbucksbrew]

I read most of this thread, and I don't think this has been mentioned. When I was six, I "invented" Cool Whip ice cream. My first attempt was cool whip mixed with Hershey's syrup, because I wanted chocolate Cool Whip (which they now make, but they didn't then).

In college, I made peanut butter Cool Whip ice cream, which is just sinful. You have to make sure the Cool Whip is thawed in order for it to mix well.

I also do mint chocolate chip Cool Whip ice cream. Add a half teaspoon peppermint extract, mini chocolate chips, and a few drops green food coloring and mix.

They are all better re-frozen after mixing, and they are great with fat free Cool Whip. It makes a nice low-fat summer treat.

[sgarland]

Pasta and egg anyone? This dish is irresistible to anyone under the age of five in my family and has sustained countless scores of "too skinny" cousins for generations. My economical grandmother basically boils pasta, saves some of the water with the noddles in the pot, and then wisks in an egg.

Gross to all who have passed puberty but for some reason the kids can't get enough.

[goodhealthgourmet]

actually, it sounds like a simplified poor man's carbonara...without the cream, parmesan & bacon/pancetta.

[mrschef1]

Sorry, no cream in proper carbonara. The reaction of the fat and pasta water make it creamy.

[jackietreehorn]

My mother devised a tasty strategy for removing any nutritious qualities from romaine lettuce. This culinary staple, wilted salad, entailed taking a basic romaine salad and pouring bacon grease and pieces over it. I can't tell you fondly I recall this meal and this period of my life, when I had no qualms or second-thoughts about consuming undiluted bacon grease. Oh, and buttered noodles and buttered white bread after school, a Southern equivalent to the European's supremely decadent Nutella and bread.

[Querencia]

"Ground Ham": Cut baked ham off the bone and grind it or chop coarsely in Cuisinart with a lot of sweet pickles. Add mayonnaise, a little mustard, and some pickle juice. Eat in sandwiches or on saltine crackers. Drink Vernor's Ginger Ale with this. Huge tradition in my husband's family, and now in ours.

[starbucksbrew]

We called it ham salad (b/c it's kind of like chicken salad). That's what we did with leftover ham after Thanksgiving.

[pikawicca]

My mom made sandwich spread just like this, using any leftover roast. I still do. Rereading this old thread has got me craving some very strange food.

[Antilope]

My grandfather was from Utah. He would make something the called Milk-Toast. He would toast white bread, butter it and break it into bite size pieces in a cereal bowl. He would then pour warm milk over it and add salt and pepper. For him it was a comfort food.

[piccola]

That's a really British food. It's traditionally fed to sick kids or old people - thus a comfort food for pretty much everyone.

[divamon]

Whenever we had a ham in our family, the next day my mom would make a concoction of cooked elbow macaroni, cubed leftover ham that had been sauteed in butter with an onion , them mix in 2 eggs and a little bit of milk, put plenty of pepper on top and then bake for about half an hour until the top is crusty. I still love it and can't cook it because I'll sit and pick at it until the whole casserole is gone!

[Chew on That]

My mom made salmon patties a lot. I never really found it weird but I realize now that I've never heard of or seen them anywhere else...they were good! Funny thing was, I hated when she made plain salmon, but salmon patties I devoured! They're made in a skillet. Anyone else make them?

[goodhealthgourmet]

sure! kinda like crab cakes...but with canned salmon. it's not unusual at all. i've seen recipes for them in numerous magazines & cookbooks over the years.

[jamesm]

My mom made both the macaroni casserole described above, as well as the salmon patties. I used to like them with ketchup. God I was a gross kid. Ketchup on everything.

[amy_rc]

Love it! We always ate them with a side of baked beans.

[DishDelish]

We did this too! And we put sour cream and salsa on top. It was a fav. of mine. =)

[Mame16th]

My mother still makes tuna cakes (same thing) but I never much liked them until a few months ago when she accidentally put in an extra teaspoon of baking powder. They were much puffier and crunchier and a thousand times better. You have to have them with baked potatoes and a green vegetable, of course.

[alkapal]

i LOVED salmon patties. my mom made them in a cast iron skillet. they were made with a little flour, an egg, and some finely minced onion. i loved them made thin, so they got extra crispy. my mom would place them on the paper towel next to the skillet to drain the fat, and i'd hover like some hawk ready to swoop in as soon as one got cool enough to put in my mouth.

[woodleyparkhound]

My mom made salmon patties too - in a cast iron skillet. I think she used egg and saltine cracker crumbs in them.

[amy_rc]

My mom used to make Sunshine Pears. Canned pear halves with a little bit of real may in the center and some shredded sharp cheddar.

Our "family" recipe is Hot Cabbage Slaw. My Grandma says it is an old Pennslyvania Dutch recipe. It is course cut cabbage boiled in a little water with salt, sugar and butter added. Then you add heavy whipping cream and flour and, finally, a some vinegar. It is definitely an acquired taste. I've eaten it every major holiday or family gathering for my whole life, so it isn't a special occasion without it. All family members like it and newbies to the family are about 50/50 on it.

[chocchipcookie]

This thread is so much fun,only took me 2 hours to read but I had to finish! I have not seen this yet:
Chipped chopped ham from the local Isaly's or Dairy Bar in my case.(I used to live in PGH) Mix in saucepan with ketchup and relish and serve hot on a bun. (an earlier post used BBQ sauce)-Boy do I miss that Hormel Chipped ham-nothing I mean nothing like it down south!!!

My mom used to make a dish she called Ta-made-EE-OK-ta-may? I have no idea how to spell that one. She used noodles and pork and soy sauce and I think just heated it through-maybe a little tomatoe sauce too?Anyone heard of it?

I'm going to use some of these ideas in my arsenal!! Thanks

[Morganna]

I've never heard of anyone else who has heard of this, let alone tried it, but my brother (a big guy, into sports, and a teenage eating machine) came up with this when we were kids. Every reaction I've had has been a shuddering "EEEEWWWWW".

White or wheat bread (we always had Wonder or Roman Meal Wheat)
braunschweiger (liverwurst OK, in the midwest, all we had was braunschweiger at the time)
mayonnaise (we always used Hellman's)
Peanut butter (we always had Jif Chunky, my brother's favourite)

Spread mayo on one slice of bread, peanut butter on the other, put slices of braunschweiger between in the the sandwich and eat. Usually with a huge glass of whole milk.

This is something that sounds disgusting, and smells horrible when someone is eating it in the room, but it's REALLY good. I've had this later in life and still enjoyed it, and I've even added bacon to it. Though this is obviously something you can only eat once every three or four years. :)

[trishy]

Okay, my husband and son LOVE banana sandwiches made with sliced bananas and mayo on white bread. I will make it for them, but not eat it.

[sueatmo]

What a great thread that keeps on going. I've seen references to bread, crackers or cornbread in milk or buttermilk as a snack. Both my grandad and my mother did this; you ate this right before bed. I always thought it was rural thing, but maybe it was an Arkansas or Oklahoma thing.

My mother used to bake pork chops in milk. I'm sure she used whatever milk she had, perhaps even evaporated milk. I think we all thought it was good. I believe my Dad put lots of pepper on his serving.

And she made something called Spanish rice. I have no idea how she made it. She was wishing for it several years ago, and I couldn't duplicate it. Of course her memory is so bad now, she couldn't tell me. Apparently her cousins made it for her when she was a little girl.

Did anyone else eat mayonaisse sandwiches? In our family it was Miracle Whip, but you get the idea. White bread and mayo.

And my family loved wilted lettuce salad. Hot bacon grease, sugar and vinegar poured over leaf lettuce, hard boiled egg, radishes, green onion and bacon. This is good! I still make it once a year in the spring.

[chef chicklet]

yes I don't eat Miracle Whip now,but sure did love white bread and miracle whip sandwiches. I would beg my mom to make them for me, she wouldn't eat mayo of any sort, but I would pester her for them.

[skamama]

My Mom's Spanish Rice was good, and there were nine of us, so I'm sure it was economical. She used white rice, a pound of hamburger, chopped onion, garlic, and a couple of cans of tomato sauce. Sometimes, she'd use bacon if we didn't have hamburger, and sometimes she threw in a little of a dried Italian herb mix. One key was to put the rice in a heavy deep pan in a little oil to toast for a minute before adding the hamburger and the rest of the ingredients, or use the bacon grease to toast the rice after taking out the bacon, then add the onion and rest of the ingredients. She threw the water in there, put the lid on tight, and that was supper with a green salad and maybe some dessert, like bread pudding (yum!) or Crazy Cake (a moist chocolate cake without eggs or milk --- see attached photo of recipe card).

[SilverlakeGirl]

Yes. A salad that I still find refreshing but I do not serve it to anyone but me as it is too simple: Shredded iceberg lettuce but into a bowl, lots and lots of sliced green olives. Then add enough Best Foods mayo to bind.

Icy cruchy from the lettuce, tangy vinegar from the olives and creamy from the mayo. This dish cannot be stored.

Also, one I used to replicate but no longer do: Slice bananas lengthwise onto a salad plate, cover each banana with a thin layer of mayo [I love mayo]. Sprinkle lots of fresh chopped walnuts on top and dig in.

[sueatmo]

The iceberg salad sounds like a treat. Don't know about mayo on bananas, though.

I thought of another family dish which I don't know of anyone else making, and that is my mother's fruit salad. She started with a can of fruit cocktail--remember that--added slices of banana and nuts and bound it with some sort of whipped topping. Seems to me it was Dream Whip. We ate that often for more festive occasions.

[OldDog]

Another simple salad a friend from North Dakota made...

Half head of iceberg lettuce, chopped or torn bite size, two or three sliced barely ripe bananas. Dressing is half a cup of Best Foods and heaping tsp sugar thinned with tblspoon or so of milk, mixed well and tossed with salad.

I like to add a handful of raisins, craisins or dried blueberries, and sometimes nuts.

[mercyteapot]

A friend of mine in Minnesota makes her sloppy joes the same way as you. I always assumed it was a Midwestern thing. No?

[mercyteapot]

My Mom used to make hot dog hash... cubed hot dogs fried with potatoes, green pepper (I don't think we ever had red bells when I was growing up), onion and cubes of American cheese.

My grandmother was known to make bologna salad, similar to the way she made ham salad- meat put through the grinder and mixed with mayo and pickle relish.

My Dad didn't like ricotta cheese so we always had our lasagna, stuffed shells, etc. without it. I think my Mom used mozzarella and colby cheese to make them- whilst visiting my sister this summer, I discovered she uses the same recipe. I make it the more traditional way, using ricotta cheese.

[chilibaby]

My brother invented the "B_______ Family Loaf". One Thanksgiving with friends, he was tasked to bring a traditional family recipe. He layered together a casserole of Spam, canned green beans, Campbell's mushroom soup, and Durkee fried onions and baked it up. There may have also been stuffed green olives, hot dogs I'm not sure. He proudly presented the B_______ Family Loaf for all to marvel. It was about halfway through the meal when a gracious but repulsed friend noticed he hadn't eaten any, that he was pushed to confess that he had invented it; we hadn't been eating it all these years in our house!

I will, however, attest, that 'hot dog pizza' was on the menu. Yep, normal pizza dough, sauce, and cheese; we just sliced up hot dogs for toppings. Why? I have no idea.

[MazDee]

That's a Mexican recipe! Where I live, topping pizza with hot dogs is way too common. They call hotdogs "salchichas" here, which means sausage, but we foreigners learn the difference in terminology pretty fast... Like, don't order sausage and eggs for breakfast unless you really like hot dogs!
I am glad you bumped up this thread. What a fun read. In my family, I grew up with something called "tough cake." My grandfather was Welsh/English so the roots may be there, but I have never seen another recipe. It is a really stiff dough of flour, shortening, a bit of sugar, currants, milk to moisten, and baked in flat cakes on a griddle. Tough they are, and chewy and I think delicious. Not too sweet. Last "forever" in an airtight container. I have the recipe an aunt developed using Bisquick, but haven't made them for about 20 years. Might do so this week!

[ajkm]

My family used to put Kimchee on top of our pizza and let it caramelize in the oven. The combination of salty, spicy, gooey, and crunchy was soooo GOOD- Eveyone should try it! Now that I think of it, we ate Kimchee with everything, including spaghetti! It's the balance of something rich and pickled that made it so perfect.

[alkapal]

i like that kimchee on pizza idea! salty, hot kimchee against the rich mozzarella! mmmm.

[mercyteapot]

Just wanted to add my thanks for a wonderful thread. I've only been able to read about halfway through so far, but I intend to come back and finish!

[btrswttx00]

I spent the whole day yesterday reading this great topic! What fun! Here are my family favs.
Wonder bread with Miracle Whip and fresh sliced tomatoes from the garden! Yum
Toasted Wonder bread, lots of butter, sliced garden tomatoes with lots of salt and pepper. My son once brought a friend home to spend the night. The next morning we had the toast and tomatoe sandwiches which he turned his nose up at. I told him that was what there was to eat. He tried it and loved it! His mom called me a few days later to tell me how he was raving about toast and tomatoes! Ha!
My mom made me Penny Gravy - thin sliced hot dogs sauteed in butter, then made into a cream gravy over toast! Really good! I was not so wild about the creamed tuna! Yuk!
We had peanut butter mixed with syrup or molassas on bread.
Scrambled eggs always with ketchup!
My concoction of saltine crackers with Miracle Whip and slivered raw onion! Awesome!
My Gram made her ham salad as usual with mayo, pickles, onion,,,but the secreat was ground up hot dogs! Good!
My uncle with his large unsliced deli bought piece of bologna that he grilled till nearly charred! Just yummy!
Then finally Chocolate gravy served with biscuits! Can you believe it!
2 cups milk
4 tbsp cocoa
4 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp flour

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Slowly bring Milk to just below boil. (Do not boil!)
Whisk in Dry mixture. Stir almost constantly until gravy thickens.

And my mom did make the gumbo Sloppy Joes too! Now I have copied and pasted a whole list of new things to try!

[amy_rc]

I love Wonder bread! We grew up with it around the house until middle school then we switched to Iron Kids. I used to take the crust off and smush the middle into a ball before I ate it. Once a year or so I make ham salad (my mom's secret is 50% Ham, 50% Bologna) and I buy Wonder bread. It is the only time I keep it in the house and it feels like a luxury.

The other thing Wonder bread is good for is cinnamon toast.

The two recipes I can't wait to try from this thread are 1) the glazed donut with american cheese warmed in the oven 2) chocolate gravy

[Raymondo]

My dad used to make hot dog pancakes on weekends when we were growing up. Pour out pancake batter on the griddle and then put sliced hot dog rounds in the batter - sometimes in a happy face design or sometimes just random. Wait till cooked on one side and flip. Butter and syrup just like regular pancakes. Still make them occasionally to this day.

[fredamoon]

Amazing! I just posted the same thing, almost word for word, before finding this one and realizing our odd family tradition of hot dog pancakes isn't so out there after all. Hilarious.

[im_nomad]

for holiday or fat-worthy breakfast occasions.....in our family we make our scrambled eggs with the addition of a large dollop of real mayonnaise. Although i think this came from the inlaws.

When we were kids, Mom would make "sloppy joes" but with canned corned beef (i think) instead...and i think ketchup for the sauce or something. Also when we had chili, it was made with canned tomato soup instead of real or canned tomatoes etc. I remember having tacos on certain occasions, and the corn tortillas were made soft in oil, and the whole thing was swimming in orange grease, but so good.

The hamburger-macaroni thing alot of people make and some people call goulash....Mom always made it with rice, and called it Hungarian goulash.

"Baloney stew" ...i have maybe found one or two people even in my home province that ever had this growing up , i think it is specific to one very small island. Basically it is chunks of balogna, maybe a bit of onion, chunks of potato, all boiled, and a gravy made off the whole lot. I remember it being really good...surprisingly.

A dessert we had every x-mas ( and had this past x-mas!).."Broken Glass" ....it is a graham cracker crumbly crust...a whipped cream/pineapple juice/crushed pineapple mixture with gelatin i think...and mixed in are chunks of red, green and orange or lemon jello that has been made with a little less water to retain the firmness of the cubes....a little more graham is sprinkled on top....basically when it's cut, the slice is supposed to resemble stained glass or church windows.

[btrswttx00]

Nomad..my mom made the sloppy joes like that too! But these were really BBQ Beef sandwiches. She helped make huge quantities for school fun nights too! It was just canned corned beef and BBQ sauce all mixed together and then heated! Serve it up on soft buns Really good! I have not thought of these for years! Really easy! I'm trying this one!
The orange grease reminded me of this brick type chili we would buy in the meat case. Who know what was in it! It was supposed to be mixed with other ingredients and served like regular chili. But he loved it slice cold on saltine crackers! Good again!

Brick Chili Mix (for freezer)

6 pounds lean ground beef
****** fry and then add water and cook it down till water is gone
***add 2 large onion -chopped fine
____ and cook till done...then add in
1 1/2 cup chili powder
6 Tablespoons cumin
6 Tablespoons garlic powder
1/2 cup paprika
Mix in 3 cups of saltines (soda crackers) fine crushed
****** Add some water to make it sloppy and cook down

When it is the right thickness cool and place in loaf pans..about a pound to each pan.(I use the aluminum small disposable pans) Freeze and bag..
To use..thaw add tomato juice and there you have a chili soup....

[polyhymnia]

It's interesting to read all the stuff with processed food in here that people find so hilarious. I'm in my 20s so some of this stuff is a bit foreign to me! However, I remember that a favorite dinner conversation in my family was when my sister and I would beg my parents to tell us about the "gross" stuff they would eat as kids, alot of which is making appearances on this board! A few favorites that I have:
My grandmama used to get out a block of cream cheese and a bag of corn chips and scrape off bits of cream cheese with the chips. It's really tasty!
My mom spent a year in Germany when she was just out of seminary and brought back Poppelmeyer stew, named after the family she lived with. It's essentially ground beef, onion, cabbage and potatoes and used to be one of my favorites.
My fave comfort food, which i had for breakfast this morning is cream of wheat, but my parents used to not pay much attention while cooking it so it got huge lumps in it which my sister and i LOVED. i still try really hard not to stir too much when I cook it in an attempt to get really big lumps.

[amethiste]

I used to love lumpy Cream of Wheat too! However when I made Cream of Wheat I could never get it lumpy. I woulod make lumps with Cream of Wheat and water and drop them in like dumplings

[Stern Lecture]

I loved the lumps too!

[kmills9408]

My fiance's family makes "Syrian hotdogs". It's ground beef mixed with raw onion, garlic salt, and parsley, rolled into hotdog shapes and then grilled. They are delicious! Although I tease them all about calling it a hotdog, why not make it flat and call it a Syrian hamburger? They don't think I'm funny! Haha. I'm sure I'll be making this for our future children and laughing about it with them too.

[critter101]

Okay, I've read all these posts, and no one has mentioned my mom's icebox pudding. This was in New England in the '50's. She'd make chocolate pudding, and layer it in a Pyrex loaf pan (about a 9X5), with whole graham cracker layers in between. She'd start with the crackers, then the pudding, then the crackers, etc. About three layers later, she'd top the whole thing with pure whipped cream. Stick it in the fridge overnight (just enough time for the crackers to soften), and voila...a taste memory that can't be beat!

[hungry329]

Oh I love this thread.
I used to make PB and Tomato on Toast. Mostly because we had a LOAD of tomatoes at the end of the summer.

Also Iceberg lettuce, 1000 Island Dressing, and Cottage Cheese, with Sunflower seeds on top. Still eat it all the time.

My mom's version of spanikopita is my fave. More like a calzone because she used whole wheat bread dough with some spinach, garlic mixture inside. Still have her make it everytime I go home.

[meatn3]

I forgot about that! Spent the night at a friends once, her mother made it & called it Chocolate Torte! But she used cool whip...We still licked the platter clean!

[Smileelisa]

Oh I remember that! sometimes she would make ganache for the top instead of whipped cream. Oh to be young again!

[rednails]

I made something like this. One time I had the fixings for hamburgers, but no hamburger buns,so I rolled the meat into a hot dog dog shape and called them "hamburgerdogs." Made them a few times cuz I kept forgetting to get the regular buns. Sometimes you just have to improvise...

[burritobelle]

Every time my family ate mashed potatoes -- there had to be pickles. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and pickles were a common combo.

Whenever my mom breaded chicken, she would take the leftover seasoned bread crumbs, mix them with an egg and a little milk and fry it into a patty. My sister and I would always fight over this!

My dad also did the noodles & sour cream combo -- he's from Romania, and I think its an eastern European thing. I like to add grated Parmesan. It makes it kinda satisfyingly gluey. Great comfort food.

[mercyteapot]

You know, every time I look at this thread, I remember some other dish we ate when I was growing up. I remember two cheese and toast dinners- one was melted cheese, probably American, I honestly don't remember ever having cheddar, served over hard boiled eggs on toast. The other was a deviled cheese dish, Welsh rarebit-ish, except again it was probably American cheese and "corrupted" with the addition of canned corn and black olives.

Does anyone else remember when Kraft sold American cheese in blocks like Velveeta comes in? The boxes were blue.

[meggiesgm]

I remember the Kraft American Cheese in the blue box. We used that and Velveeta when I was growing up. My granddaughter often spent a few weeks with me in the summer when she was in grade school. I often made her velveeta and miracle whip sandwiches on white bread and she loved them because none of those foods were in her kitchen at home.
Reading through all of these made me realize that most of the things that we thought were unique to our family, actually weren't. I tell friends how I loved to make sugar sandwiches with white bread, butter, and white sugar and they've never heard of it. My mother's chili was a lb of hamburger browned and crumbled, opened 2 cans each tomato sauce, tomato soup, kidney beans, and 1 can whole tomatoes, drained the beans, and mixed everything in with the hamburger, salt and pepper, and a little bit of chilli powder. We thought it was delicious but we all outgrew it. Leftover rice with milk, cinnamon and sugar was a great treat before bed. A friend said her family ate that also, and called it rice pudding. My grandma's goulash (or what the kids called macaroni soup) was browned hamburger and stewed tomatoes mixed into cooked elbow macaroni. She always served it with soft buttered white bread from the market. Another treat was potato soup. she boiled a couple of potatoes until just tender, added about 3 T butter, then stirred in a beaten egg. She added 2 or 3 cups of milk and heated it just until the milk was hot. She added salt and pepper and we thought it was great My favorite sandwich is scrambled eggs on white bread with miracle whip, ketchup, salt, and pepper. One last treat that I've not seen here was to pour 2 T white Karo syrup onto a small dish, stir a tsp butter into half of it and a tsp of peanut butter into the other half, then dip pieces of white bread into one or the other. I still do that; not often though.

[cathodetube]

My grandmother was from Ohio and she used to make me sugar sandwiches after school. Never had them anywhere else. She also used to fry apple slices in butter and then sprinkle sugar over them as a treat. Another thing she did was boil potatoes and then squeeze yellow mustard over them, again as a snack. She said her mother used to give her those. She also made goetta (spellling?) a kind of sausage shaped pork thing with pinhead oatmeal and fried it in the morning with eggs.

[ajkm]

My Korean-American family never did sugar sandwiches/toast but my mom did something similar. She took refridgerated pilsbury biscuits, stuffed each one with a mixture of brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, and toasted sesame seeds, flattened them out into disks and grilled them on a hot pan with a little butter until the sugar melted inside. YuM!
As a kid, I also remember having leftover sticky rice with warm milk to help me sleep. Until now, I thought my family was the only one that did this!

[arlenemae]

I used to get sugar sandwiches (or rather, sugar toast) too! My mom would toast the bread, spread butter on it while it's warm so it melts, and then sprinkle some white sugar. I loved that as a kid.

[Smileelisa]

My mom made a cheese and toast dish. she would butter slices of toast on both sides and put them in a baking dish. she fried hamburg mixed with mustard, s&p onions till browned then layered the meat mixture alternately with 1 cup of cheddar cheese. then she would mix an egg, dry mustard and milk and pour it over layers in the pan. baked till golden brown and bubbly and it tasted soooo good. I haven't thought of that dish in years. I will have to make it soon.

[kmills9408]

I remembered another one: My family makes "Heavenly Hash". It's diced pinapple, diced marchino cherries (with all thier juice), cracked pecans, marshmellows, and lots and lots of whipped cream all mixed together. We have this every Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Anyone ever heard of this or something similar?

[MlleYeuxBleus]

My sister makes something similar, that she learned from an ex's mom... she calls it Banana Split Pie. Think it has bananas, pineapple, strawberry, nuts, whipped cream, some kind of sweetened cream cheese mixture, all in a graham cracker crust. It's pretty tasty stuff!

[thedragonlady]

My mom and her sisters have this recipe called "Pretzel Jell-o." Have you heard of it? It's a layered dessert made up of pretzels, creamed cheese and (you guessed it) Jell-o. As a kid I loved this dessert (still do!) because my job was to break up 3 cups of pretzel sticks into small pieces. Then you spread the pretzels in a 9x13" pan, pour melted butter over it and bake for 20 minutes. That was the crust. Then you mix sugar and creamed cheese and carefully spread it over the cooled crust. The last layer was strawberry jello dissolved in pineapple juice and 2 boxes of defrosted strawberries. You then pour it over the well-chilled creamed cheese layer. After you let it set overnight, you're left with a sweet and salty, crunchy and creamy Jell-o dessert my mom and her sisters loved making for family gatherings. When I first described it to people, they looked at me like I was crazy! But after I made it for them...they quickly changed their opinion. Now I don't even tell people what it is, I just make them eat it before they make up their minds! Sometimes the best things are made up of the oddest combination of ingredients:)

[JEN10]

that sounds so good, I love salty sweet goodies (think Payday candy). I will give this a try!!!

[brian874]

Sweet Manicotti.

My grandmother always added cinnamon and sugar to their manicotti filling. Serve as you would regular manicotti (tomato sauce, meat, and all), but a nice combination of sweet and savory. Delish.

[jcattles]

How about a white bread sandwich with margarine and potato chips. My dad loved saltine crackers all broken up and covered with milk. That was his favorite late night snack. My mom made a stew out of beef cubes, rough chopped vegis, and covered with Italian Salad dressing. She'd cook it all afternoon. It was so greasy and the vegi's turned to mush. Funny I haven't had it in over 20 years and my stomach still curdles at the thought of eating it.

[Antilope]

How about a breakfast burger? When I was a kid I used to make these. Once in a while I still do.

2 slices of buttered toast made from white bread
Ketchup on one piece toast
Strawberry preserves on the other piece of toast
1 cooked plain hamburger patty

Assemble as a breakfast burger and enjoy.

[lhb78]

My mom swears that Bologna Boats were served when she was in grade-school- one slice of bologna stuck in the bottom of a cupcake pan with an egg cracked in the middle- then baked. It actually looks like a South Beach diet recipe a friend made with canadian- was rural WV ahead of the times in the 50's?

My husband makes cheesey spaghetti- 1 lb of pasta, 1 lb of velveeta, 1 lb of ground beef, 1 large can of peeled whole tomatoes- they must be broken up using scissors while still in the can (diced tom. "just aren't the same"), and 1 med. onion. Cook/drain the pasta and saute the meat and onions. then dump everything into the pasta pot until the cheese is melted.

It is so unhealthy but tastes pretty good.

[miss_bennet]

I used to spend summers at my grandma's house with my aunts and uncles, along with my family. My big family thing is called "Stovies." You take left over boiled potatoes and peas, and cook them in a pan with salt and pepper. I loved these!

Or there's "Hamburger Stew," which is essentially the same, but with ground beef and carrots. I hated it.

But with the 15 people at my grandma's house now on weekdays in summer, we don't even cook the peas anymore. In fact, if any make it to the table, we're happy. We just serve fresh peas in a bowl, and people spoon them onto their plates and eat them. My pre-teen cousins have even been known to eat them on ice cream, or snack on them throughout the day. So there just aren't any leftovers for Stovies.

[elance]

There's a dish called Stovies in Scotland which is mashed potatoes with corned beef - fantastically good, even though I don't like corned beef.

[Billow Fair]

What a fun thread! I haven't read it all but have to contribute and hope I'm not duplicating. As a kid one of my favorite things was cinnamon toast - 4 thin slices of butter, which just fit on a slice of white bread, sprinkled with sugar and a little cinnamon and placed in toaster until the sugar starts to caramelize and butter has soaked through the bread, still makes my mouth water.
My wife from the other coast used to love "noodles with sand" just noodles with bread crumbs in browned butter sauce - actually not bad, but I've never heard of it anywhere else.

[Billow Fair]

Oh yeah! I forgot my current favorite sandwich: BLT on sourdough toast with egg salad and a few slices of avocado...amazing.

[tatertot]

We used to drizzle condensed milk on untoasted white bread. Mmmmmm.

[Isabella]

we did too. As well as toasted & buttered white bread with condensed milk.
If we had French Bread, we used that.
I'm wondering where you are from. I'm from New Orleans.

[MazDee]

My mom did something like that, I had forgotten about it. White bread covered with condensed milk and coconut and baked. It was delicious!. She called it angel something.

[content]

I still like condensed milk on both toasted and untoasted bread for breakfast sometimes - yum! And steamed bao (bun) dunked in condensed milk is a Chinese thing. I'm in Boston.

[jeanmarieok]

My mom's 'pork chops cacciatore' - browned pork chops and sliced onions, topped with equal parts ketchup and water, simmered for about an hour. It was kind of good, I get cravings for it once in a while.

[Smileelisa]

My mom would cook shell pasta (the small ones) and add a bit of butter then mix in a can of tomato soup grated parm cheese. I haven't read all the posts so I don't know if anybody else had it. I don't remember if it had a name or not but we loved it. I still make it every now and again but my husband won't touch it. shrugs

[bastet212]

Dont know if anyone else mentioned this as this thread has gotten LOOOOOONG, but one of my moms favorites ( and now mine)

Scrambled egg on buttered white bread with sweet bread and butter pickle slices.OMG i want one right now.....

[Antilope]

Yogurt and plain pasta noodles. My wife would make this for our young children (about 15 years ago) and they loved it. She said her mother made it for her when she was young. My wife is half Armenian and called it Madzoon and Noodles. Madzoon is the Armenian word for yogurt.

[lgss]

Mung sandwich (had never heard of mung beans in the midwest back then). It's an open faced peanut butter and jelly sandwich tasted in the oven to melt the pb&j. The name comes from what yum or mmmm! sounds like with one's mouth full of it. Haven't had a mung sandwich in 35+ years.

[paso_gurl_100]

My mom is from the Philippines. With 5 picky kids (I hated RICE as a kid), she got pretty creative.

A can of corned beef, a fresh tomato and a hard boiled egg all smooshed together eaten with rice with bare hands (I hear it's a provencial thing) you grab a bit of rice, a bit of the corned beef stuff, and eat it. Used make me quesy, now I think it's pretty good.

Dinty Moore's beef stew over rice was one way she could get me to eat rice. Another way was any kind of soup over rice.

She also made something she called "Swiss steak", cube steak dredged in flour and fried, then covered in Campbell's tomato soup -served with mashed potatoes.

She used to cooked an eggplant (Japanese variety) on a fork held over the stove burner , peeled it and ate it with rice. Our favorite thing was the fried wontons with ground beef and cabbage, served with a sweet and sour sauce she made with ketchup, vinegar and I think pineapple juice.

[Smileelisa]

I have finally read the entire post and had to add a dish nobody else mentioned. When we would visit my polish uncle he would make EVERY MORNING for breakfast scrambled eggs and polish kielbasa. I hated it as a kid and still do.

I favorite of mine that my Italian noni used to make was Polenta topped with homemade tomato sauce and fresh grated parm cheese. She would spread the polenta out on a huge board and top it with the sauce and cheese. Still one of my fav foods although my husband doesn't share my love of it!

In his family growing up they used to have shrimp gravy alot. I had never heard of it till we got married and he made it for me. I had actually googled it and no recipe came up for it so I think maybe his grandma invented it. He would cook bacon and onion together in a dutch oven till the bacon was crisp then he would make a roux cooking the flour till it browns. add 1 can of cream of mushroom (we use chicken), old bay seasoning, oregano and curry powder (optional). Add shrimp and a little water if seems to thick and cook just till shrimp turns pink. serve over rice. If anybody else has made this before please post, I am curious.

[elance]

Your Polenta dish sounds a lot like the Polenta Pizza that I thought I invented! Basically it's Polenta topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and the pizza toppings of your preference (black olives, green peppers, mushrooms, and chorizo sausage for me!)

[buckeye.mary]

My mom would serve the following 4 items as a meal when we were kids:
gingerbread
bacon
baked beans
cole slaw

Her mother used to serve the same meal back in the 50's-60's, but she doesn't know how combination came about. I wish my grandma was still around to ask. It's a strange meal, but good stuff!

Oh yeah, and one of my favorite sandwiches Mom made up is simply muenster cheese and chili powder stuffed in a pita and microwaved until melty.

[Antilope]

My grandmother would eat fresh, mashed strawberries, between two slices of buttered white bread.

[Lilli62]

My mom used to make "Beanie Wienies" - saute an onion in oil, add some chopped hot dogs - saute that a few minutes. Add salt and pepper and 2 cans of Pork & Beans. Heat through. Yummy!

[dkenworthy]

My mom didn't make Beanie Wienie, but the elementary school cafeteria had it regularly (1965?). It was one of the few edible dishes there (in my 3rd grade opinion!). I still make it sometimes when I absolutely can't cope, although I tend to use something like the Hillshire Farms cocktail sausages rather than hot dogs (since I don't even have to cut those up). Enough Tabasco and it is fairly edible.

[akq]

Cold peanut sauce noodles. They have a basis in common recipes, but it was our "twists" that make them strange:
The sauce was peanut butter, sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce and hot sauce (mix and add boiling water until it's the consistency you want). Chill sauce to room temp or colder and pour over:

- cold spaghetti noodles
- cold julienned cucumbers, chopped lettuce, cabbage, other veggies you have on hand, and
- cold strips of an assortment of Carl Budding luncheon meats (the really thin, cheap luncheon meats - it's not the same with better meat!).

We'd arrange the noodles, veggies and meats on a platter - take what you want, cover in sauce, toss and eat. YUM.

Also - not a strange food so much as a strange name: my godmother always called frozen grapes "lollygobbleblissbombs". And speaking of frozen foods - I've always loved frozen sweet corn nibblets. I eat them frozen while watching tv. YUM.

[Mame16th]

My niece eats still-frozen corn and peas! I've never heard of anyone else doing that.

[angusb]

My Aunt Ruby used to make a dish in the mid-70's that I've never heard of before or since. It is called "Ribble and gravy", and it is eaten for breakfast. It is basically rubbery nuggets of cornmeal that you top with a fried egg and cream gravy. The actual ribble pieces are made by stirring hot water into salted cornmeal, and then frying that mix, stirring pretty much constantly, until it is broken up into many little nuggets of differing sizes. The egg is always over-easy or sunny side up, so that you can cut into the yolk and let it ooze down into the ribble pieces along with the gravy.

My aunt lived in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California, and I remember that she told me when I was 6 or 7 years old that this was a recipe that the gold miners would make. It's kind of like a cornmeal hardtack, so I could actually believe that. I'd love to know if anybody else has ever had this dish!

[cal_rascoe]

We have something my Nan-Nan called "Pink Sandwiches" Cream cheese, a little mayo, chopped maraschino cherries. On white bread only(don't even try wheat!) She took this to every shower, church gathering, family gathering, whatever. It was always raved about by everyone. And I was so surprised as an adult to realize there are people who have never had it. What could be wrong with it? It's essentially dessert on bread. Yum! We miss my Nan-Nan but we'll carry on the pink sandwich tradition.

[Antilope]

My wife is Armenian and we are always making Armenian Pilaf. One time we
had some left over Pilaf and some left over spaghetti sauce. I mixed them
and the result was really good. I now make it all the time. Give it a try. I call it.......

Spaghetti Pilaf

4 Tbs butter
1/4 cup vermicelli (uncooked), broken into small (1/4") pieces
1 cup white rice, (uncooked)
2 cups chicken broth, heated almost to boiling.salt to taste
1 (32 oz) jar your favorite Spaghetti sauce

In a 2-qt saucepan melt butter over medium heat.

Add broken up vermicelli, stir well to coat with butter.
Saute in butter until vermicelli is toasted a golden brown,
stirring frequently, about 5-minutes. Don't allow to scorch
or burn.

Add rice, stir to coat and simmer in butter a minute
or two.

Add heated chicken broth to rice. Stir rice a few times.
Bring chicken broth to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer.

Cover and cook on a low simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.

Remove from heat. Stir with a fork. Cover and allow to rest
for 5-minutes.

Mix in 2 or 3 cups of your favorite spaghetti sauce.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve warm.

[coll]

I think spaghetti sauce is a great addition to almost everything. I like to mix it half and half with pesto sauce and put it over pasta or vegetables, or poach eggs in it, it seems normal to me but I don't know if anyone else ever does it. Great on spaghetti squash with lots of parmesan.

[teacher1]

My mom would make potato pie. Chunks of hotdog and potatoes in a double pie crust with dots of butter, pepper and salt. We would put milk on the finished product. We loved it. I have made it since and didn't like it. Perhaps the hotdogs should have been removed for better health. :)

[puddin head]

My Polish farm family would finish perogie by sauteeing them in browned butter breadcrumbs. Later I found the rest of the world eats them sauteed with onions and served with sour cream. I prefer my grandmother's method. delicious!

[notyourmomma]

My grandma did the buttered bread crumbs for her dessert prune piegogi. She did the sauteed onions with the savory potato or mushroom pierogi. If we were really lucky she would do 3 flavors of pierogi for our supper and the prunes for our dessert. Awesome stuff, I agree delicious.

[wallyz]

Tuna Bake:

Baked potatoes, scoop out the innards and mix with cheddar and canned tuna. Re- stuff the potatoes, then top with beaten egg whites and more cheddar. Bake for about 15 min.

Disgusting, but my brother loved em and asked for them all the time.

Also, mac and cheese with Worcestershire sauce. Love it, always grosses people out.

[Cynsa]

I love mac and cheese with Heinz 57 sauce. Yum!

[aggiecat]

Guilty pleasure: Mashed potatoes or baked potatoes with Steak Sauce. I picked the habit up during sunday steak dinners, you know the sauce gets on the potatoes and it's good. So why even wait to have steak, just sauce up the taters. Yum.

[amy_rc]

Spaghetti Red: Fry bacon, crumble. In bacon grease saute diced onions. Boil spaghetti. Add all ingredients and ketchup to taste. Enjoy!

My sister and I loved this and asked for it all the time.

[beggsy]

Macaroni and tomato juice (and a little butter). Absolute comfort food and I still eat it today (as do my kids). My husband doesn't get it. Elbow macaroni is traditional but Iike it best with the little Catelli alphabets!

[TMT1977]

My grandfather made us Cream of Wheat topped with butter and parmesean cheese before he sent us off to school in the morning. I've never heard of anyone else eating this. I still get a craving for it sometimes.

[cmocva]

When I was a kid my mother used to fry up slices of cold leftover Cream of Wheat in butter and then we would sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top. I loved the really buttery and crispy edges!

[alkapal]

we had the same fry up with cold grits (sans cinnamon sugar). crispy, buttery edges!!!! (or done in bacon grease, of course). mmmmmmmm good!

[shortribsfordinner]

That sounds great! And I just got a fresh box of Cream of Wheat yesterday! We would slice up cold corn meal mush and fry it up and eat it with maple syrup, but that's not exclusive to my family; it's quite a traditional recipe. At Dominick's stores in Chicago they used to sell bricks of cold corn meal mush for slicing and frying. I dearly miss it.

[buzzy715]

My grandmother would dip saltines in egg (it MUST be thinned with some water) and fry them up in oil. We'd put them in chicken broth. I still make it for lunch on a Saturday occasionally. The broth pools up in the little bubbles of egg and the crackers get a little bit soggy after a minute or so - it's really quite wonderful.

[SouthernFoodie08]

Reading these recipes makes me smile and makes me a bit sad. . . My Mom used to make a delicious dish when I was a kid with leftover blue crabs that she called "crab sha la". Now that age has caught up with her, she cannot remember her recipe (and never wrote it down), but it was crabs in a thick and chunky sauce of tomato, peppers and onions. She served it over rice. I know I am missing the particulars, though and I was never one to watch my Mom cook. . . still remains in my memories, though!

[unturtlesoup]

Thanks SouthernFoodie, for this post! One of the most beautiful things about this thread is to see how food intimately connects people to their most cherished memories...
I have been thinking a lot more about how I need to learn family recipes from my grandmothers, and soon. My maternal grandmother, who is 93, has just scheduled a time to teach me to make "jong," (zhongzi in Mandarin Chinese) a special food made in the 5th month of the lunar calendar, with sticky rice, yellow mung bean, preserved salted pork, boiled peanuts, chestnuts, chinese preserved pork sausage, and a preserved duck egg, all wrapped in a bamboo leaf, tied with string, and boiled. Strangely enough, like all of the midwesterners who eat white bread with sugar, this wrapped rice is eaten with....white sugar! When I was given these for lunch as a child, I was absolutely humiliated to have to ask the lunchlady for scissors to untie my leaf-wrapped lunch, which curiously looked like a hand grenade!
Incidentally, I've been reading a book about memory, and food, called "Second Rising"....an excerpt of the cover:
"Who knew that a grandmother kneaded sorrow into each loaf of bread she baked, or that her memories were preserved along with the pickles she and her granddaughter made?" Cheers to the memories of home cooked food, and the memories that follow!

[hoosfoos]

Unturtlesoup? is that name because you only like mock turtle soup? What a lovely post, pointing out the fond memories of food often inextricably linked with the cooks who came before us, many now gone. Most loved these masterpieces as children and now think they're not for us, not healthy, too unsophisticated. And I loved your story about the jong lunches you brought to school, being embarrassed to ask the lunch lady for scissors to cut them open. What a universal emotion for a kid -- never do a thing to make yourself stand out from the rest! I've spent three days reading this thread and yours was the last and most meaningful. I'll be back when it has grown another half mile or so.

[mrschef1]

I'm running out to look for that book! Sounds touching and wonderful. Thanks.

[lollya]

i feel your pain. i was raised partly by my grandmother and it's very difficult to see age catch up with them. at the time you're so concerned with that and all of it's emotionalness - you don't even think to get information from them - it feels weird. consider this a challenge to get it close to her recipe, maybe even make it with her or for her to taste, it might spark "this needs a little..." i found that sometimes the thoughts are there it, it's just finding new ways to bring them out. good luck to you.

[casalbore spirit]

This sounds close to the Crab Shala your Mom made.You can just serve it over rice instead of spaghetti for a trip down memory lane:
http://www.online-cookbook.com/goto/c...

[casalbore spirit]

This sounds close to the Crab Shala your Mom made.You can just serve it over rice instead of spaghetti for a trip down memory lane:
http://www.online-cookbook.com/goto/c...

[vicsailgarden]

A very simple thing I'll fix for myself when my husband isn't home is simply elbow noodles cooked and mixed with a regular size can of chopped tomatoes (Muir Glen is the best). But first I take my little hand blender and run it through the tomatoes so there are no big chunks of tomato (canned tomato sauce is just too thick). I put the pureed tomatoes in a bowl; nuke them til they're hot, then pour over a bunch of cooked macaroni. You must eat it right away or the noodles with absorb the tomato sauce to quickly and then the texture is all wrong. This is sooooo good; I really crave it sometimes! (My husband insists on putting grated Parmesan on it! which ruins it in my opinion even though I LOVE Parmesan)

[crowing]

My grandmother used to serve us on occasion a spaghetti recipe of which I've never seen replicated. She supposedly learned it in Italy on a trip abroad, but it's very different than any normal pasta dish.

She would take several large tablespoons of saved bacon grease and saute 1 diced medium onion until soft and translucent. Next add the majority of a can of tomato paste (not sauce) and melt into the onion/grease mixture. Follow by adding cooked and drained spaghetti noodles and coat. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

I would love to know if anyone else has heard of something like this!

[pplachno]

I'm from West Texas and grew up eating macaroni and tomatoes. It was cheap, mainly, and we liked it. Sauted onion in bacon grease, add canned tomatoes, salt, pepper, and already boiled macaroni. I still like this, particularly with home canned tomatoes.

[ssp2]

I had to reply ot his thread. My mother used to make "beanburgers" All of us kids loved them. She would take a hamburger bun, top it with pork and beans, a fresh slice of tomato, a slice of purple onion, and a slice of american cheese. (The individually wrapped kind) Then she would put it under a broiler to melt the cheese. It was great, I loved it then and now.
My sister used to take biscuits, roll them out flat, place a tuna salad like mixture in the middle, fold them up, pinch them together with her fingers and and place them in the oven. When they were almost ready, she would take them out, criss cross them with two slices of the same chees and call them "tuna bunwiches"... Beanburgers and tuna bunwiches...Man, I think I am gonna go see what I have in the kitchen right now!

[karenfitzsimmons]

My favorite cake when I was a child was a strawberry cake, my mother made it. I don't
know the recipe but it had angel food cake, strawberry jello and frozen strawberries.

[maydaycolorado]

I have made that cake when my daughter was little. She told me it was her favorite birthday cake ever (she's 30 now). It was from the back of the cake mix box. I know i have it somewhere. I'm gonna find it and make it again...thanks for the reminder...it's really a wonderful cake!

[doviacres]

When my sister-in-law came into our family nearly 50 years ago, she brought with her some weird and wonderful recipes. One of my sons favorites is grilled chocolate sandwiches - sounds gross and very bad for you but delicious. Just place chocolate bars (Hersheys is the best) between butter (on the outside) bread and grill like grilled cheese sandwiches. One of my favorites was potato candy - boil one small starchy potato til tender, peel and mash. Then start adding powdered sugar (it will take a lot) until you have a thick dough. Sprikle powdered sugar on work surface and roll out to about 1/4 inch thick, spread with peanut butter then roll up. Place on dish in a horse shoe shape, cover and refridgerate til firm. Slice and eat.

[doviacres]

just thought of my favorite peanut butter concoction when I was a kid - spread peanut butter on a slice of bread, slice banana on top of that and then cover with minature marshmallows, broil until golden. Yummy!
Also loved, and still do, peanut butter and bacon on toast. First came across this when I worked in a restaurant as a teenager in Ohio

[hollyd]

I eat this for lunch all the time now!

I'll add to this: my gramma used to mix an opened tea bag with sugar and give it to my brother and i to pretend it was chewing tobacca. Note: we lived in tobacco country NC, so EVERYONE chewed tobacca, and this way, we could fit in!! Crazy?!

[Soozcat]

For at least four generations, quite probably more, my family has made a Dutch mashed root vegetable dish called geschtomtepot (I'm guessing this is how it's spelled, as I've only heard it pronounced aloud). Potatoes, carrots, sometimes turnips, and onions, all boiled together until soft, then drained and well mashed with butter and cream (or evaporated milk). It was always served piled high in the serving bowl, with a sprinkling of nutmeg or paprika (but mostly nutmeg) and a pat of butter. Hubby has added garlic to the recipe, which is tasty but not particularly authentic.

There are related Dutch dishes called stamppot and hutspot (same basic ingredients, but chunkier), and a Swedish dish called rutmus, but I have never come across the name "geschtomtepot" outside my family. Anyone else?

[Caffeine826]

Canned hominy in a white sauce (like for mac and cheese, but no cheese) with lots of pepper. When I was little, I would snarf down entire cans of hominy by myself. Maybe it's a weird southern thing?

[pplachno]

I grew up eating hominy (yellow and white) where my mom fried diced bacon and onion, then added a can of chopped green chilis, some Velveeta, and canned hominy. It's really good! My mama is 74 and still cooks for the whole family every Sunday dinner.

My favorite thing she makes is swiss steak, frying lightly floured little strips of round steak, then adding lots of julienned carrot and celery, sliced onion, and V-8 juice. She simmers it until the steak is tender and the gravy is thick. YUMMY with mashed potatoes.

[YAYME]

This green jello mold that my grandmother makes is straight from the 50's. It has lime jello, mayonnaise, horseradish, pineapple, walnuts, and cottage cheese.I thought she was the only one in the world who made it but have since discovered that it is a standby for women of her generation.

My Stepfather's potatoes which are mashed potatoes with sauerkraut that's it but they are so good.

[amethiste]

My mother makes lime gelatin salad in a Tupperware mold with a center design that could be changed for the season (Christmas tree, valentine, star, four leaf clover etc...). It consisted of lime gelatine, cream cheese, pineapple, pecans and a teaspoon of miracle whip. We used to make it in cherry too. :-)

[alkapal]

wow! that mold must be at least 30 years old, huh? (seems like a '70s thing).

[meatn3]

I recently found a mold like this at a thrift store - judging from the type of plastic it seems to be from the '50's. Clever design and very space-saving!

[alkapal]

meatn3, you've gotta make some wild mold and show us a picture! ;-).

[amethiste]

I think you are right alkapal. I was born in '71 and remewmber Mom having that mold when I was a little kid. I still like lime gelatin salad...

[aggiecat]

Tupperware still sells them! But I haven't seen the festive holiday centers. My mom had one too. i wonder where it went? Garage sale?

[AlaskaChick]

sweetie still requests a similar dish at Thanksgiving - but with veggies in it - shredded carrots, celery, etc. Its a standing joke - will he get the lime jello this year or wont he?

[lara.colleen]

My mother still makes something only my immediate family loves, and everyone else thinks is revolting: orange carrot jello salad. Lots of shredded carrots molded in orange jello. I hate almost all processed food-type things, but boy oh man do I love that weirdo "salad".

[lulubelle]

My mom makes this too, only she also adds a can of crushed pineapple, and the drained juice to make up some of the water in the jello. Sometimes there she tosses in a can of mandarin oranges too.

[alkapal]

it's not revolting -- it's carrot salad within jello (esp. with the pineapple). and pecans.

i think i've seen it with mayonnaise, too. (or some creamy stuff).

[buttertart]

While we're on the topic of carrots, my MIL's "Vitamin Salad" - grated carrots, diced celery, raisins and salted peanuts with enough mayonnaise to hold together and a bit of lemon juice to perk it up. Actually pretty darn tasty.

[alkapal]

yep, i like carrot salads! did you ever see my carrot thread? i can't recall if you were on that thread..... http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/535586

[christy319]

Oh, we had the orange jello-carrot "salad" growing up. It's disgusting. And weird--it seems like an effort to hide carrots so your kids will eat them, but we would eat carrots no problem.

[DishDelish]

Mmmm, I grew up on lots of different German foods. We used to do Spareribs, sour kraut and mashed potatoes. We always spooned our kraut onto our potatoes. Yum!!

[jscrow]

My grandmother would make a "Shepherd's Pie" of sorts with a few cans of vegetable beef soup (Campbell's condensed - without adding the water) and top it with canned biscuits and my stepmother used to make this tater tot casserole that was something like ground beef, onion and bell pepper, a bottle of ketchup and topped with frozen tater tots and cheddar cheese and baked til golden brown and bubbly.

[alkapal]

jscrow, will you be able to identify the suspect tater tot casserole from a photo line-up? ;-)
http://images.google.com/images?clien...

darn it, now i'm wanting tater tots. but plain. maybe squirted with some frank's hot sauce.

[MSK]

this is too great! thanks for the laugh.

[nvcook]

must. buy. tater tots. soon.

[alkapal]

nothin' could be finer than to eat a tot o'tater in the mor-or-or-nin'!

[aggiecat]

Ok, a little off topic but this thread made me think of my all time favorite Christmas Card....front is a Cartoon of 3-4 tator tots inside it said "tater tots, with their eyes all aglow...." I still smile thinking about it. It's in an album somewhere.

[alkapal]

aggiecat, just wait till fellow hounds "tatertotsrock" or "ilovetatertots" find out about that! ;-).

[jscrow]

OMG. All of those look like her tater tot casserole, except for that last one on the 3rd row with the peas on top. *shudder*

[Sam Fujisaka]

Genius, pure genius! I bet it was great!

[shanagain]

:: hanging head:: we've made, and enjoyed Tater Tot Casserole.

I even like saying it. Take my gourmand card now, I don't deserve it.

[amy_rc]

Our neighbors regularly enjoyed it and I always wanted my mom to make it but she wouldn't indulge. Their recipe had a can of green beans, cream of mushroom soup, beef, ketchup and, of course, the tots. Lucky ducks!

[shanagain]

No ketchup in ours, but corn and green beans. 'Cause I'm a good mom, see? See how I did that? ;)

[lollya]

hahah. no need to surrender your card...we all enjoy a few things from the past. :)

[MissMichal]

Nope, hold on to your card. In every chef interview, they ask the chef what he or she makes at home. If the chef mentions a foo-foo vertical recipe and says that he makes it for his kids, he's lying right through his nostrils. Foodies of the world, claim your tater tot casserole, bologna sandwiches, and recipes involving canned cream soup. Hold your spoon up high and be proud!

[almond3xtract]

Even Anthony Bourdain has stated that his guilty pleasure is neon orange macaroni and cheese.

[DishDelish]

One of my favs growing up was my Mother and Grandmothers tater tot casserole made with Campbell's golden mushroom soup, ground beef, onion, and canned green beans. I loved it!

[maydaycolorado]

My mom was the hors d'oeuvres queen and I think I may have inherited the title...my daughter says if you are eating something off a toothpick, chances are I've made it! We take tater tots, cut a slit in them, insert a piece of cheese, top with a dash or two of Tabasco, wrap half a slice of bacon around them roll in brown sugar and bake until the bacon is crisp...sooo yummy!

[shanagain]

I just thought of another one: cantaloupe with gravy. Here in the south (TX, specifically) a cook was always measured by her cream gravy, and my Grandmother, coming from Georgia to Texas, was the stereotypical great Southern cook. One of the funny accidents we discovered was that cream gravy on salted cantaloupe is absolutely delicious. (Most things are, come to that.)

My stepmother turned me onto using mayonnaise in mashed or whipped potatoes, though my mom throws a bloody fit if I use it in her presence. LOL

[aggiecat]

Texas (and southerners everywhere) All hail the power of cream gravy! It and pan gravy were the first two things my Mom taught me to cook. Seriously. I've been called by friends on Thanksgiving day to talk them down off a gravy ledge. Of course, I did have a Grad school friend who didn't quite undertand how butter was made. City girl from Baltimore. I thought she was joking when she said she thought it was cooked, with flour or something. She was serious.

[pikawicca]

I don't believe that anyone has mentioned tomato gravy on biscuits. Never see this anymore, at least not here in the Midwest.

[wendyb964]

OMG, I'm new to this site but have't laughed this hard in years. My English-Irish grandmum used to make my (very skinny) mum chocolate bar sandwiches on buttered brown (probably sweet date-like) bread.

[notyourmomma]

My husband will eat "no lie" white bread, peanut butter, cold butter, mayonnaise, grape jelly and sliced american cheese sandwiches.....quite regularly at least until he had the stroke. It totally grosses me out.

Grandma used to take slices of deli ham, spread it with ballpark yellow mustard, roll it around a ripe banana, put it in a buttered casserole, top it with cheese sauce and broil and eat. Always with canned asparagus on the side, chilled with vinagrette and chopped hard cooked eggs. Same food stuffs put together, never to vary. Ham rolls and cold asparagus. Shudder.

We fry pepperoni slices in a skillet, pat them dry, they crisp nicely and use them on white bread with tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise. A PLT if you will. Spicier version of a BLT. Amazing how much grease is leached out of a fried pepperoni slice.

Daddy used to make big bowls of large chunks of white bread toasted quite dark, unbuttered and topped with scalding hot milk, a chunk of cold butter and lots of salt and pepper. Milk toast was his "supposed" hangover cure. I can remember sitting on his lap as a toddler and sharing a bowl. I have a most treasured picture of us perched on the picnic table looking out at John's Pass, slurping away our hot milk toast. God Bless you dear Daddy.

[bunnyshank]

I'm making the gumbo sloppy joes right now!

[ajcraig]

Yup, that was sloppy joes in my house too. I looked it up and It was called "Sunday Night Sloppy Joes" and was originally from Better Homes and Garden...Probably 40+ years ago because I remember eating them as a child.

[LaDonna]

another from the Sargent home is a bologna sandwich, with white bread, mayonnaise and sweet gherkins sliced in rings all over the sandwich!

[LaDonna]

oh yes, here are a couple:

Egg in a Cup, All Beat Up
Great comfort food when you are sick.

two or three very soft boiled eggs.
salt and pepper
real butter slices
soft white bread (no crust), torn in bite size pieces.

Gently stir together.
yummy.

[buttertart]

Especially good if the butter isn't all the way melted, and there's a lot of it. In our family no bread in it, toast on the side, cut into soldiers (strips) if my (English) dad was at the helm.

[Pat Hammond]

Creamed eggs on toast. Hard boiled eggs, chopped. Stir them into a white sauce spiked with cayenne and salted. Put the whole mess over toast.

[debrobillard]

In my mothers' family (they are English) they had a special treat for dessert or a snack that we called "doorsteps and fruit" .......you slice off a very thick slice from a loaf of homemade white bread (that's where the doorstep part comes in) and put it into a soup bowl .....then you open a can of canned raspberries in juice...pour that over the slice of white bread in the bowl and let it soak in for about 30 seconds....then slather it with whipped cream!!! It's to die for......it's kind of a quickie version of English Summer Pudding, I guess. We always thought it was quite the special treat!
Deborah

[buttertart]

We lived with my great-uncle who insisted it was lethal (too much acid) to eat any fruit for dessert without buttered white bread. An excellent combination, actually.

[cmocva]

My family's stuffing recipe is really simple, very few ingredients. Slice up yellow onions, maybe three or four and sautee in butter until soft but not brown. Add good quality white bread like Arnold's or Pepperidge Farm, about twice as much bread as onions then add maybe 2 teaspoons of rubbed sage and some salt. If the stuffing seems dry, moisten with more butter. We use this recipe to stuff turkey, chickens and to make stuffed pork chops. Somehow this stuffing seems to taste like more than goes into it.
Another family "recipe" was to fry up leftover boxed mac and cheese in butter. My kids now love this too!!

[cmocva]

I make a quick "ice cream" in the food processor. I take frozen berries, raspberry work well, and put them in the bowl of a food processor. I add sugar (lately i've been using confectioner's sugar) and heavy whipping cream. I whirl it in the processor until it turns into ice cream. I adjust the sugar and usually add some lemon or lime juice. I serve it immediately. It's a soft serve dessert but the flavors of the berries really shines. Sometimes I will use flavored yogurt in place of the cream for a frozen yogurt.

[alkapal]

what a nice easy summer dessert, cmocva!

[alibeck]

"Frog Eye Salad" I know this recipe exist outside of my family because I have to google it whenever I make it. No one has ever heard of this salad and always hesitant to try it - but when they do, they love it. Frog eye salad is a staple at my house during any holiday. I never add the marshmallows but I'm sure they can't be bad.

Cook Acini Di Pepe macaroni: Bring 6 cups water to a rapid boil in 3 quart saucepan. Add 2 teaspoons salt. Slowly add 1 cup Acini Di Pepe. Return to rapid boil, stirring to separate. Boil only 2 minutes. Cover and remove from heat. Let stand 6 to 8 minutes. Drain immediately and rinse with cold water to chill.
3/4 c. sugar
2 tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 c. pineapple juice (from canned pineapple shown below)
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. lemon juice
In small saucepan, mix sugar, flour and salt; stir in pineapple juice and egg. Cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly until thickened (or cook in microwave). Add lemon juice, set aside and cool.
Combine cooked, cooled mixture with cooled Acini Di Pepe. Cover, place in refrigerator until chilled. Add the following:

2 cans (11 oz. each) mandarin oranges, drained
1 can (20 oz.) pineapple tidbits, drained
1 can crushed pineapple, drained
1 carton (8 oz.) dairy whipped topping
1 c. miniature marshmallows
Stir lightly. Chill at least 1 hour before serving.
Serves 8-10.

[cmocva]

Frog eye salad is the ultimate in comfort food. Sweet, tangy, mild and yet bursting with flavor. Marshmallows are good in it. Some recipes have coconut in them. I leave out the coconut, I don't want to interupt the soft texture.

[cmocva]

couldn't find acini de pepe when i made this last week, i subbed orzo and it worked just fine.

[kmb]

My mother-in-law from Northern Iowa used to make this.

[BernalKC]

Polka Dot Pie

Graham cracker crust
Vanilla pudding for a filling
chololate chips pelted into the partially cooloed pudding
topped with whipped cream

Oh yeah. Nothing wrong with that. Always gone in a flash with five kids in the house.

[lisafaz]

"Barf & Needles"

Mom made sure we'd like it because of the gross name. She simmered chuck roast for hours, then added potatoes and carrots (sometimes cabbage). This hot mess was served on a bed of mashed potatoes, with just enough of the broth to make it good & sloppy.

[miss margie]

Dutch Salad It is very simple. It definitly speaks of summer. Cut up tomatoes, sweet onions and sweet peppers. Add salt sugar oil and vinegar. Mix and serve. Where as my family never added cucumbers I add them now that the English cucubmers are so available.

[kmb]

I make the same Sloppy Joe's (so did my mom). Growing up one weird thing was peanut butter, lettuce & mayo sandwiches.

KMB

[Boonowuno]

Has anyone ever heard of Tomato Soup Cake? It was made by my great-great Aunt and apparently came from a soup can label. I'd love to try to revive a memory for my Mom. Thanks, Hounds.

[coll]

I used to make it all the time in the 70s, it tastes like a spice cake, you don't taste the soup at all. Here's the basic recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Tomato-S...

My Mom's favorite 70s cake is Black Russian Cake!

[Boonowuno]

Thanks, coll. You're a doll. Sure seems easy enough. I think my Mom will cry tears of joy.

[alkapal]

mmmm, coll, black russian cake! hey, the '70s had some good stuff! ;-).

[Davedigger]

Wonderous Bread, butter, ketchup. I hear I liked it as a kid and my nephew sure does now.

[heathermm]

Yummy. Still loving that!!

[jlgarret]

My Grandma Helen, who just passed away, used to make me Heavenly Rice. It was cooked rice + cool whip + mini marshmallows + crushed pineapple. Delish! I continued to eat this by the pile even after I became vegan. You can't hardly tell grandma that you're no longer into Heavenly Rice, now can you?

Incidentally, my Grandma Sylvia used to make me special vegan matzah ball soup. One time I asked her for the recipe (I was doing my own seder and hadn't figured out a vegan version as good as hers). She told me "oh, honey, when I'm done I just take the regular matzah balls out and put them in a special container for you. I didn't figure you'd mind if you didn't know." That always cracks me up when I think of it.

[alkapal]

and you never wondered why grandma sylvia's matzoh balls tasted better than anyone else's? ;-)).

[jlgarret]

No kidding. I guess there's no substitution for schmaltz. I miss her.

[vlnmom1]

I have never found ANYONE that knew this one:
Mom would score hot dogs, skewer them on small sticks, roll them in ketchup, then bread crumbs. They went into the broiler and cooked until hot and crispy. Ohhhhh yum! We loved these as kids--salty dogs, sweet ketchup, soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside...

[almond3xtract]

My great-grandma made a type of shepherds pie that was ground beef layered with frozen green beans, a can of undiluted tomato soup, topped with leftover mashed potatoes. Not the classiest recipe but it's total comfort food for me.

[almond3xtract]

I thought of a couple other recipes.

Chicken and Biscuits. Chicken drumsticks/breasts in a cheddar and dill weed sauce, baked with a can of Pillsbury biscuits.

Chicken and Rice. Chicken drumsticks/breasts and white rice cooked in a rich mushroom/onion sauce.

Pork Steak & Cucumbers. We dredge the pork steak in flour and simmer for an hour or so with onion, quartered peeled potatoes and LOTS of caraway seed. The cucumber salad is thinly sliced cucumbers, raw onions in a light sauce of Miracle Whip, sour cream and sugar. Traditional Polish, but I've never known anyone else who ate this meal.

Spam & Cheese Sandwiches. Open-faced. Hamburger buns or kaiser rolls, each topped with a slice of Spam, some sliced white onion and Velveeta. Baked til the cheese is melted. Perfect for football Sundays.

Happy Shack Sandwiches. When I was little, I used to pretend my great-grandma's kitchen was my own little restaurant, and I called it the Happy Shack. My signature dish (as an eight-year-old) was a white bread sandwich with Miracle Whip, a slice of American cheese, and iceberg lettuce. A lot tastier than it sounds!

All recipes courtesy my great-grandmother, a true doll of modest means.

[MissMichal]

My mom used to make "eggs goldenrod"--boiled eggs, chopped coarsely and stirred into a pan of bechamel, then poured over toast. Kind of goes with the "sh** on a shingle" saucy-thing-on-toast concept. My dad made a dish he called "Hawaiian school lunch" becasue they always served it to him in the cafeteria there: Ground beef or sometimes beef tips, sometimes with frozen veggies, with brown gravy over rice.

[amy_rc]

My mother makes these eggs every Easter and uses dyed eggs from the holiday, which is lovely. She got the recipe from her Grandmother and calls them creamed eggs. Egg whites are coarsley chopped and the yolks are crushed up and sprinkled over the top.

[wineman3]

I grew up in Western South Dakota, I know I know not many of us from there...However we used to hunt Pheasants in the fall and they would go into the freezer and throughout the winter my Mother would make Pheasant Chow Mein. She would slighly fry the bird with celery and onion and then add canned bean sprouts and water chesnuts, simmer and then add a little cornstarch to thicken. We would then heap this over crispy chinese noodles add soy sauce and that was supper. Gourmet food on the high plains
Sour cream rasin pie and her angel food cake are to die for.

[vkmcgee2]

The trouble with trying to think of something like this is that you seldom can see what you do with the eyes of others and none of it seams odd to you.
One thing I do remember doing as a little girl that seams odd to me now is my Sweet and Sour Sandwich. White bread, Jelly of choice and yellow mustard. I loved them then but can't get myself to try them now. My youngest son loves to mix flavors. One of his experiments is my favorite juice, OJ and Raspberry/Cranberry juice. Can't get enough of this.
His favorite drink was called Swamp Water or Suicide. Just mix what ever you have together. All your sodas and a dash of coffee.
Last but not least, my husbands New England comfort food.
Take a can of fish, I use makeral, Take out the bones and crumble it into a sauce pot.
Add water, about 4 cups to 6 cups depending on how much you want to make.
Add some garlic, celery, onions, dill, marjoram, parsley, salt, pepper, maybe some oregano, what ever sounds good. Bring it to a boil and add some frozen baby peas.
Drop in a cube of chicken bullion and bring to a boil again, then thicken with some
corn starch. Ladle this over buttered mashed potatoes.

[suites]

To Kivarita - (I'm just now getting this) Wow! My mom made the same sloppy joes (with the chicken gumbo soup) growing up (in the 70s and 80s) ! and I make them now for my four boys! I usually make them Saturday morning and put it in the crock pot so everyone can just help themselves during the day. Of course I put worcestershire sauce and garlic powder and lots of black pepper in there... I try to tell people about this concoction but they just look at me funny - I guess sloppy joes without the tomato sauce is weird to most people. ~

[Ms Fab]

Wow. 758 replies so far, and I'm just finding this now. Awesome thread!! It's actually taken me three days to read through all these, off and on. I just got off the phone with my mom and was telling her about some of the concoctions, so she shared one more with me: slice of baloney filled with stuffing, rolled up with a toothpick and baked in the oven. And I will never forget her story of going over to her cousin's house and being served toasted onion sandiwches with a mug of beef bovril to drink. Now that I'm pregnant, it actually sounds appealling to me....but I'm sure in another three months the thought will cause my stomach to curdle once more.

I've heard a few things so far that make me feel like I belong :^D and a few I've not yet seen. My mom and grandma would alsoways make me aa "Sickie Egg" when I was sick, obviously. It was a soft boiled egg mashed on top of a piece of grandma's buttered homemade white bread with s&p. I've got my hubby onto these now. :) I was waiting for the ubiquitous jello salad. Canned peas and carrots in lime or orange jello. That was at least palatable , the tomato aspic my other grandma made was not. (barf!)

My poor mom can't handle spice if her life depended on it, so everything was plain plain plain in our house. Her favourite dish I have since discovered the true name of: baked ziti. Growing up, it was just "tomatoes and macaroni." To make it truly gourmet, we'd take a slice or two (again of grandma's buttered homemade bread) cut it into squares and bake it on top - crispy coutons, I guess. HEr best recipes are chili and butter tarts. They are THE BEST because of her 'secret' ingredient: white vinegar. Gives the most amazing flavour.

There are so many things I wanted to add here, and now I can't think of half of them. I rememeber an old roomate of mine making "banana milk", which her grandpa (?) used to make: blend together a banana, milk, some nutmeg, and maybe some ice cubes? I keep trying to make this, but I never seem to get it right. And another friend refuses to eat potatoes (outside of chip-stand poutine varieties) because growing up, her Austrian dad would serve her and her sister a bowl with one or two cut-up boiled potatoes in plain yoghurt. No seasonings, no potato skin, just those two ingredients. I'm pretty sure that qualifies as child abuse.

Luckily I grew up with a grandma who worked as a cook in a hotel and she was famous for her doughnuts (which she had stopped making by the time I came along - poor me) and other baked goods. My mom picked up her ability to bake, but meals were never anything special. Thankfully, granny would come and stay with us for a few weeks each month or so, and she'd make bread, muffins, cookies, and pies. With the left over pie cursts, she'd roll out a piece, slather it with raspberry jam and fold it in half before baking. Divine. But her signature dish, and a recipe I've only ever shared once - and never again - was for buttermilk pie. Up here (Eastern/Central Canada), no one else has ever heard of it, but I have seen it in a cookbook once from the States. I made it for my hubby's friend's bday after he'd had it at our thanksgiving party one year. He still raves about it.

[alkapal]

buttermilk pie is a southern golden-oldie, born of thriftiness ** and relative poverty, but delicious.

look at this beauty of a buttermilk pie!
it's simple deliciousness from a few pure ingredients. http://www.sugarpiefarmhouse.com/sister-lizzies-southern-buttermilk-pie
~~~~~~~
**
""Buttermilk History

In days gone by, nothing went to waste in the standard homestead, and this included the liquid leftover after churning butter. Combined with natural airborne bacteria, this liquid thickened and soured, taking on a pleasingly tangy flavor. The resulting buttermilk made an excellent addition to biscuits, pancakes, and baked goods."" http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodh...

[Ms Fab]

I'm having a huge family party this weekend and those pictures are making me re-think my cake offerings... it's the tang of the buttermilk that I can't get enough of. And the extra bit of watery-something that collects at the bottom of the pie plate after the pie has sat out for a few hours. Whenever our extended family gets together, we have to count up who all is going to be eating a piece of the pie to ensure that there is enough to go around. For some reason, we never seem to think to make more than one pie!

I was thinking of more things I've eaten in our family that I haven't had elsewhere, and I remembered perhaps the most strange mix: my granny made this often, too, but swore it was my aunt's recipe. Mix a (half or whole) bottle of Kraft Russian salad dressing with equal amounts mayo, and bake chicken thighs in the oven. Between the fat in the dressing, the mayo, and the thighs, you'll be sure to have a Exxon-sized disaster on your plate and in your arteries, but it is surprisingly tasty. It's getting harder and harder to find "russian" dressing, though. And the last time I found it, I used plain yoghurt and skinless thighs along with a mix of veggies and chickpeas in the crockpot. Delicious!

However, the recipe that takes the cake was my mom's lunch offering for me when I was in grade two;shortly thereafter I took to making my own lunches. I opened my sandwich one day to find cheez whiz with raisins. While I will eat raisins now, I refused as a child and well into my teens. Hey, it's not my fault they look like flies! And since Cheez Whiz is food of the gods, you can imagine my horror when I discovered this abomination in my lunch box. I went hungry that day - no one would trade with me. (boo hoo hoo)

[alkapal]

ms fab, i had to laugh at " For some reason, we never seem to think to make more than one pie!" you know, a skinny piece of pie (against one's choice) is a very mean thing to do to someone. ;-)).

as to the russian dressing and mayo sauce, there was a similar discussion (on this thread) involving french dressing and mayo. i broke down the ingredients to their individual components, and it was perfectly fine, imo. (but some hounds will never be happy if you use shortcuts). here's the discussion: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6175...

[roxlet]

I wouldn't eat this on a bet, but I used to babysit for a family who had some truly nauseation culinary specialties. One of the kids would take slices of bologna (why is it always bologna?), spread them with cream cheese and then wrap the slices around watermelon pickle. Yeech! His mother would saute calves liver for breakfast, deglaze the pan with cooking sherry, and pour the whole mess over plain yogurt. This was straight from Adele Davis, who was the "health food" guru at the time. Liver. Health food. Yeah, right.

[hadleymamma]

oooh mymyymmyymymymy!

[dagmar]

My turn:

* Cottage cheese with sliced radishes and chopped chives (YUM!)

* Tuna corn fritters: Bisquick, can of tuna and a can of creamed corn fried like a pancake

* Hobo eggs: use a shotglass to cut a hole in bread, toast the slice in a pan w/ butter, put egg in hole, flip and eat while egg is still runny

[hadleymamma]

creamed tuna on toast ( tuna mixed with cream sauce)
rice with butter and salt
emergency supper( basically spam fried rice)
texas hash ( baked hamburger rice and tomato dish)
peanut butter and mayo sandwiches
egg rolls who's main ingredient is french cut green beans
cottage cheese with crushed potato chips or fritos
yum yum

[Divalicias]

Cream cheese on canned Boston Brown Bread.

Tuna salad: Tuna expanded with chopped boiled eggs, mayo, watercress and soy sauce. Serve on toasted bread.

Jello cake: Angel food cake, torn into bits, layered in a tube pan with fruit cocktail, mini marshallows, sliced walnuts. Prepare jello and pour all over cake mixture, refrigerate until completely firm. Unmold and slice, top with whipped cream or Cool Whip.

Pineapple Cheese Casserole -- Pineapple chunks, grated sharp cheddar cheese, Ritz crackers and butter. Bake in oven until all melty, bubbly, browned and crunchy.

Dates stuffed with cream cheese and topped with walnuts.

Jello toast --- Schmear butter on bread, sprinkle Jello mix on top, broil until the Jello is melted. Like cinnamon toast -- but fruity.

Cuban chicken -- Brown chicken pieces in olive oil in dutch oven, remove and set aside. Add in onion and garlic, saute. Add in rice and saute until browned. Add in enough beer and chicken broth to cook rice. Add in green and black olives. Tuck chicken pieces back in rice, cover and cook until rice is cooked and chicken is cooked through.

Fried sliced potatoes and onions cooked until very brown then sprinkled wirh vinegar and soy sauce.

[mattwarner]

Holy crap! The pineapple cheese casserole sounds amazing! I wonder if you can make it in a Crock Pot...

[shanagain]

My Southern roots tell me that the Jello cake is probably awesome.

[neutie88]

My all-time favorite meal from my grandmother - Garlic Noodles (don't let the name fool you!) She grew up in Illinois, so I am guessing that is where this came from.

Basically it was glorified Mac and Cheese. Homemade egg dumplings, cooked in a stewed broth made up of garlic, stew meat and tomato paste, then a WHOLE BOX of Velveeta was cut up and dumped in! The house smelled amazing for days, and the heartiness of this dish was so comforting in the wintertime. I crave it about once every 3 months or so and have to whip up a batch. I have yet to meet someone who has tried this dish and not gone crazy over it!

I always wonder if there are other recipes out there similar to this, but I have never found one as of yet.

[alkapal]

a whole box of velveeta? i've only seen velveeta in a box about 10" x 3" x 3". is this how much your grandma used? wowee, indeed! ;-).

[linzertart]

I second (or one-hundredth..?) all the responses about fried bologna sandwiches and cream cheese & jelly on sandwiches. Here are my other top wacky recipes that I still love to this day that I've never encountered elsewhere:

1) Roll Pillsbury or similar crescent dough out flat on a cookie sheet. Bake till golden. Top with tons of cream cheese, then shredded cheddar (bagged kind) and some fresh chopped veggies like broccoli and red bell pepper after it cools. Cut into squares and serve at room temp. Oddly delicious!

2) (As a kid, I haven't had this one in years): I'd roll up deli salami or bologna into a tube and fill the inside with mayo. Ick! Interestingly, my husband, who is Mexican, ate something similar - bologna or ham rolled up, stuffed not with mayo but potato puree! Intriguing!

3) My favorite: casserole or lasagna Pyrex filled with parboiled pearl onions, topped with massive quantity of cheddar cheese and Campbell's cream o' mushroom, baked until gooey and bubbling and brown in some corners. Amazing contrast of flavor and texture. I don't care if it's weird, I love it! Has anyone else ever eaten that? I have to imagine it came from a soup can recipe... most of my grandma's recipes did. :)

[Mame16th]

The delis in the local grocery stores in southern Ohio where I went to high school always had those veggie pizzas for sale. They weren't bad, especially with a little ranch dressing mix in the cream cheese.

[aggiecat]

Ok, I haven't seen this one and it doesn't seem weird to me but a family fave is and has always been, Biscuit and Sausage with mustard for breakfast. Seriously, I can't eat it now but used to get one at least once a month from Mickey D's or Whataburger and they always acted like I was out of my mind for wanting buscuit, sausage, and mustard at 7:00 am. Still, love bacon spread with jam, or baked with brown sugar, or drizzled with syrup.

Not a family recipe but a regional one from New Mexico is green chili on everything. You can get it at all the major chain burger restaurants so I'd get green chili on the biscuit, sausage and mustard. Oh yeah. Oh and who can forget the green chili and grilled cheese with mustard combo. Super yum.

[dingey]

Wow, what a great thread! Scanning the whole thing, I think I only saw one other mention of one of my dad's favorites: mound up cottage cheese like mashed potatoes and pour maple syrup into the "well." I honestly never knew that people ate cottage cheese with fruit or savory things until I went to college.

Another one that I only remember seeing in my dinky hometown, so I wonder if it was somebody's personal recipe: Oley Bolens. These were basically a modified donut; a sort of fried sweet dough ball dusted with powdered sugar that one couple used to make occasionally for church functions.

And one from a college roommate: SCREAMING ORGASM DELUXE: crumble up oreo cookies and combine with melted butter. Press into the bottom of a big baking pan. Cover with chocolate pudding. Sprinkle with more crumbled oreos. Cover with butterscotch pudding. Sprinkle with MORE crumbled oreos. Top with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Serve. She was also famous for coming up with amazing spur-of-the moment food combinations like an entire box of sugar corn pops mixed with a 1-lb bag of peanut M & M's. Such was the stuff dreams were made of at certain hours of the night in certain states of mind.....ahem.

[buttertart]

Small town US? Holland, MI, or Pella, IA? somewhere with a big Dutch community I bet.

[dingey]

Ha! You are very astute. I come from a small farming town about an hour south of Holland, Michigan in the southwest part of the state! And yes, my lord, there are many Dutch in the area. Dutch, Poles, Germans, and Latvians. So the Oley Bolen is a Dutch treat? I remember them being COMPLETELY DELICIOUS!

[buttertart]

I'm from southwestern Ontario, where there are also a lot of Dutch people, a good number of them farmers. I only know of the "oley bollen" (under another spelling I can't call to mind) from cookbooks though. Always remember my father driving past farms and commenting "must be Dutch owners" when he saw one that was particularly well kept.

[Blush]

That dessert sounds very similar to one that was popular around here (just across the border in SW Ontario) called Sex in a Pan. Usually it's made with chocolate and vanilla puddings instead of chocolate and butterscotch, and there's cream cheese in there somewhere too. I remember as a kid thinking how fun it was to eat something with such a scandalous name.

[ITry]

My dad married a woman with strong dutch roots when he remarried. When we were all younger and skinnier, she and her mom would make oley bolens at Christmas time. They were delicious!

[alkapal]

i like the sausage biscuit with the grape jelly at mickey d's.

[soyummmy]

a fried egg on an english muffin with butter and grape jelly

[vicork]

Sorry if the TEXT is way too big, I don't know how to change it....

oh wow to be the 800th person on here, after reading all these high fat but no doubt delish recipes baked, fried, broiled, cooked, by generations .... I became nostalgic for my mom's mom and what she would make my sister and I back when she was 60plus. God bless her soul at dying at 81. I can recall three things not mentioned here, one that is a variant of something I have read so far.

Nana would make scrambled eggs, but it would always be a bit watery, and it was this watery base would be so yummy with the even yellow colour of the eggs that I would love it on buttered toast.

She used to talk about how hungry she would be during the depression that she would eat banana and orange PEELS! So when bananas would go really ripe, she would make banana fritters, using sugar and vanilla and would drop them in hot oil, and they would come out all brown and all yummy (I couldn't understand how some kids wouldn't touch bananas that had a spot of brown on the peels or even on the inside) She made us like them any way they were

She used to make a 'modified stew' which I loved with rice or alone, which was canned stew with some spicy sauce added, garlic, onion, coriander and some cilantro. So good.

My mom:
Was and still is a real champion cook. She can make italian food, chinese food, indian food that makes people salvate. I often say that I need to marry a man who will be here all the time to eat her stuff. My fave as a kid was 'toad in a hole' which was essentially mashed potatoes (sometimes made with Cheese Whiz) and ground, spagetti sauce style beef in the center

I myself used to and still like to eat cooked spagetti with salt and butter, thats it. Sometimes parmasian if its around. Never thought of bread crumbs though.
I like tuna melts, which my Aussie roommate used to make that was too good (buttered toast, tuna, melted white cheddar in the broiler till crusted over) Yumm

My mom also makes these awesome fish cakes (only started recently) and she uses canned salmon and canned tuna, boiled potatoes plus the usual seasonings, including cilantro and coriander formed into small patties and fried on a pan on both sides. So good, but I came up with my own sandwich using these that are to die for...my recipe

Butter toast and spread a thick layer of Renees Mighty Caesar dressing on the toast, top with warm fish cake and thick slice of cold tomato, with S and P and devour. This is too good and so filling (due to the anchoives in the dressing). MUST TRY AND POST RESULTS FOR ALL

This post is coming from Toronto from parents who are of Indian background (40 plus years here)

[alkapal]

vicork, i'm always up for a great fish cake idea! please do share.....

welcome to chowhound. we have a lot of fun, learn a lot, and....well... "develop character."
;-)

no, seriously, jump in!

[lawhound05]

Wow, what a great thread.
One of the things from my childhood is scrambled eggs mixed with leftover mashed potatoes. Very filling on a cold winter morning.
Another is something called barbecued hot dogs. The hot dogs were cooked whole in a sauce made from ketchup, onions, mustard and pickle relish. It was served over rice. I've never seen it in any cookbook, but my mother wasn't very inventive in the kitchen, so I suspect she got the recipe from somewhere rather than made it up. Anyone else ever had it?

[DishDelish]

We made Sloppy Joshes. Created by a health conscious 12 year old boy named Josh back in the 80's. He included Bulgar Wheat and shredded carrots in the recipe. Mmmmm-mmm. It is actually VERY good. My kids love it.

[lalatina15]

Sloppy Joshes... is this it? http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1626,...

[DishDelish]

A couple more:
Dilly dip made with lowfat cottage cheese. The absolute BEST dip EVER on raw veggies!!!

Dumplings made with leftover mashed potatoes. You just add flour, mix really good, then form into large balls and boil in water. Then you add lots of butter after draining almost all of the water. Mmmmmm! Ultimate comfort food! Some times we would do gravy too, but I always thought butter was the best. Sometimes we would also fry left-over dumpling slices the next day in a cast iron pan and serve with sausage and eggs. There aren't words to describe!!! I think I'm making mashed potatoes tonight so i can make dumplings tomorrow. I have such a craving for them now!

[raqy]

Rice milk anyone? Leftover rice in a bowl of milk and sugar, warmed in the microwave and eaten for breakfast. I got this from my Jewish grandma who grew up very poor during the depression, but I'm not sure if the Jewishness or the depression has anything to do with it at all....

[DishDelish]

My Mom did that for us all the time, except we added cinnamon as well. I loved it and still do. It kind of reminds me of rice pudding.

[Emme]

My mum cooked white rice in milk and sugar. Rice to milk to sugar was 1 part to 2 parts to 1 or 1 1/2 parts... It formed this heavenly brown crust on the bottom of the pot... we fought for this lovely delicacy.

[Joyfull]

What a great thread, I'm seeing so many food memories! We too had mustard sandwiches and cinnamon sugar sandwiches, my fave! In our house each night of the week was the same meal as the week before. Did any of you do the same?
Some of my childhood faves. Mashed potatoes with canned stewed tomatoes over top. The potatoes were mashed with tons of butter and cream. That went into a lovely big soup bowl, another big blob of butter went atop the mashedpotates, then the hot stewed tomatoes were poured over the whole lot. Another big blob of butter went on the stewed tomatoes then lots of salt and pepper. It is delicious, I still have it to this day when I crave some comfort food.

Another favourite was Sunday morning breakfast. My father would fry up bacon and eggs then once the bacon was done, thick slices of bread would be fried up in the bacon fat till nice and crisp. Oh my what we didn't know back then!

Rice pudding was always baked, never done on the stovetop. Raw rice, milk, and sugar were put into a small glass dish then nutmeg sprikled on top. When the pudding was baked the nutmeg made the loveliest brown crust!
Mum would also make what she called Pob whenever my brother or myself were sick. Hot milk, sugar and bread cubes with a sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon. I've no idea why she called it Pob as I've not been able to find a recipe anywhere that similar too her Pob.
One more is french fry sandwiches with a sprinkle of malt vinegar. Have no clue where Mum got that one but it was a favorite. She'd make a big batch of home made fries then out came her white bread and some butter and the malt vinegar to sprinkle and we'd have lovely french fry sandwiches for lunch. Yum!

[cathodetube]

My mother used to give us canned stewed tomatoes on top of toast with an egg, poached or fried on the side. Lots of cracked black pepper. It is really good with nice granary seeded bread. I also do it now with brown sauce, like steak sauce spread on the bread beforehand.

The English put malt vinegar on their french fries. If you go to a fish and chip shop and ask for 'chips' they always ask if you want salt and vinegar on it before they wrap it up. Or you can have the bag unwrapped so you can walk down the street munching away. The shops always sell white soft rolls to take away A chip sandwich is delicious and tastes better on white bread.

[pasuga]

One of my favorite comfort foods when I was sick as a kid - only Mom made the savory version - rice and milk with lots of butter and salt or grated cheese. I still make it for breakfast sometimes when I have leftover rice. My mother wasn't Jewish, but she grew up dirt poor during the Depression - it's kind of a logical recipe - cheap, filling and hot. I remember her talking about meals where all my grandparents had to ate was what the kids left on their plates.

[Paddler]

Okay, I have one that I bet no one else has: Celery Consomme over toast points and a hard boiled egg. When I was broke and in college (or both), my mother used to remind me of this recipe she served us. My response: I will never, ever, eat that again.

[alkapal]

i've never even heard of celery consommé. cream of celery soup, sure....but ....consommé? as in...broth?

[purpledove]

Strawberries, sour cream & sugar. Cut up the strawberries, sprinkle sugar on top, let stand in fridge till sugar draws out juice, spoon into small bowl, spoon sour cream over top, mix and enjoy!

Hard boiled eggs and anchovies on toast. Mash up eggs, spread on toast, put on as many fillets of anchovy as you like.

[DishDelish]

So funny, my Mom just came up with the strawberry one with my daughters a couple years ago. Except she gives them whole strawberries, a little pile of sugar and a scoop of sour cream for dipping. They love it! It makes them feel like they are making their own desert. We never did this when I was growing up though ... but it is pretty good. =)

[coll]

We used to roll strawberries in sugar to coat them and eat like that. Sometimes with whipped cream. Sounds similar to your Moms.

[DishDelish]

You'll have to try the sour cream now, it is the right amount of tang mixed with sweet. ;)

[coll]

Mom is a whip cream addict, me not as much. Nowadays I put some Greek yogurt on top, with a sprinkling of granola, it's like dessert for breakfast!

[DishDelish]

My daughter and I did this all last week when my hubby was in Hawaii. Mmmmm! It is the best! We also did flax seed.

[maydaycolorado]

My favorite dessert growing up (other than the standard Jello) was sliced oranges and bananas with a cup of sugar on them and refrigerated until there was a thick syrup on the fruit...I'm sure my dentist loved it as well!

[DishDelish]

wow! my jaw dropped!! =) so much sugar!!!! do you still love it?

[shortribsfordinner]

Even better with brown sugar, and best with strawberries sliced in half to allow more juice to come out. After the juice comes out, stir in the sour cream for a great sauce. Strawberries Romanoff - do the brown sugar over the sliced strawberries, but add a little Grand Marnier, Triple Sec, or other orange liqueur. Serve over ice cream or cake.

[DishDelish]

A grown up desert. Sounds good. =)

[wendyb964]

Ahhh, this reminds me of a dessert I had in Paris: a tall stemmed dish of wild strawberries with stems, another of sour cream, and a third of brown sugar. Still one of my guilty pleasures when fresh berries are available at local fruit stands. Another was profiteroles with chocolate sauce----everyone at the table was jealous! BTW, my mum, from London, was not much of a cook once she came to the states and discovered Betty Crocker, but the first thing I learned to bake was not choc. chip cookies but, indeed, pate au choux.

[crislen]

I love this thread!! We've done the cinnamon and sugar toast for sure and the best is my mom who only eats her pancakes and waffles with butter and sugar.

I have 2 odd, but probably not unique recipes that are family regulars that I have never seen anyone else make.

The first is my moms meatloaf : 1lb hamburger browned, 1 c elbow macaroni cooked, 2 raw eggs, 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1 can tomato soup. All baked nice till the top was burnt in loaf pans. I've never seen elbow macaroni used in meatloaf before, but it still is my grandfather's favourite :)

Next is what we call "porcupines" Raw ground beef mixed with uncooked minute rice, rolled into tennis ball size balls, put into an electric frying pan and covered with a can of tomato soup and a can of water. Simmer for 25 minutes. Again, great with mashed potatoes!

My mom and her parents make their own liverpaste and spiced ham (pork belly rolled like a pinwheel with a spice mixture, cured in a brine mixture, then baked) and summer sausage (ground beef and caraway seeds and other seasoning cured for five days then baked)
and they were always eaten on my grandma's homemade rye bread, butter, a layer of meat, topped with a pickled beet. Never did like the liverpaste and beet sandwich!

Then there is my sisters creation: raw ground beef, minute rice, and a can of tomato soup all fried up together.

Hmm... I think my family ate a lot of ground beef, minute rice, and canned tomato soup while I was growing up!

oh... and just remembered, growing up, we never ate pasta sauce (my mom never did growing up either) so we had spaghetti which while boiling, chopped up hot dogs were added in and then when all cooked and drained, smothered in ketchup, our version of pasta sauce. We put ketchup on everything, my mom even bought the 1 gallon tin cans of ketchup for our house! And when we discovered egg noodles, it was always egg noodles with butter and salt. Or minute rice with tons of butter and salt. It wasn't till I started doing some of the cooking in junior high that we had pasta sauce or real rice which didn't need to be covered in butter and salt to be edible!

I sometimes recreate my mom's recipes, but alas can never duplicate them!

[DishDelish]

I have never heard of elbow macaroni in meatloaf. My family has always done oatmeal as a bread substitute though. It is very good. I never met anyone else who did it our way either. The other day I decided to make a meat loaf and realized I only had half the oatmeal I needed, so I mashed up some herb croutons for the other half and it was the best meatloaf I've made yet. I just love the versatility of meat loaf! =)

[alkapal]

>>>>>Next is what we call "porcupines" Raw ground beef mixed with uncooked minute rice, rolled into tennis ball size balls, put into an electric frying pan and covered with a can of tomato soup and a can of water. Simmer for 25 minutes. Again, great with mashed potatoes!<<<<<

looky looky, crislen: http://www.chow.com/recipes/13527

[DishDelish]

Mmmm, my Mom made that too! so ono!

[mandycat]

If you used cream of mushroom soup and then stired in some paprika and sour cream for the last five minutes of cooking, you had "Swedish Meatballs." My mother made this for dinner parties because at the time sour cream was still considered rather exotic in Middle America's kitchens. The era from 1950 to 1975 must have been Campbell Soup's glory years; every other recipe seemed to call for Cream of Something.

[alkapal]

mandycat, i just used some of that soup to make my summer yellow squash casserole (made with ritz crackers or saltines). old southern comfort food!

[p38]

Not really a recipe, but totally comfort food. Our family had relatives with an avocado orchard and we got a tree for housewarming. THE BEST lunch growing up was mashed avocado with salt and pepper on brown bread.

[toojeep4u]

I grew up in California and I always had avocado sandwiches. I did not have them mashed, we sliced them and layered them over mayo with tomatoes, purple onions, and sprouts on cracked wheat toast. Yummy!! I am thankful that we didn't eat a lot of what I read about in the blog?? Ya'll need to get your arteries looked at if you are still eating like that....lol.

[DishDelish]

My hubby's family has a home in Hawaii that had a lychee tree and an avocado tree and his uncle cut them down. Can you imagine? My hubby doesn't know what he was thinking.

[alkapal]

"""Can you imagine?"""

no, i can't. that's almost criminal!

[DishDelish]

Exactly!! Avocados are one of my favorite foods.

[buttertart]

Friends in Alameda, CA had an avocado tree which they loved for the fruit but hated for the mess it made. Imagine overripe smashed avocados all over your roof and deck. And there weren't enough people in Alameda to use up all it produced. Even given this, there was no thought ever of cutting it down. That is an offense against nature. And to cut down a lychee tree breaks my heart, they are such beautiful trees not to mention that they produce one of the divinest fruit on earth.

[JerryMe]

SO grew up in Yucaipa CA - their land was two city blocks of produce and had avocado trees. When they started falling, the "boys" were told to harvest them up! To this day SO shudders at guacamole . . .

[EarlyBird]

My mother was a terrific cook, but in honor of her departed father, each Thanksgiving she made his favorite: lime Jell-O combined with cottage cheese and put into a round mold. Simply horrifying.

[mattwarner]

Dear lord. My mother-in-law made this a couple Thanksgivings ago. All of my generation (my partner, his sister and brother and their spouses) made fun of it through Christmas.

[EarlyBird]

Hah! Good to know I wasn't the only one to have to suffer through it. Thankfully we were not expected to eat it, but did have to look at it as it set next to a lot of otherwise very good Thanksgiving food. My mother set it on the table for her father like certain cultures set out food for their departed ancestors. My mom would eat a little and pretend to like it. Yikes.

[alkapal]

well, just think, for halloween you can have it in the shape of a brain! http://thirteenforhalloween.com/index...

then you can pretend it *is* the brain of a departed ancestor. ;-).

[mattwarner]

That's funny about your mom, because I noticed that my mother-in-law took a huge helping, ate a single bite, then said "this isn't quite how I remember it." I believe the rest went in the compost.

[JerryMe]

My mother made a version with lime jello and cream cheese - chilled in a pyrex cake pan. It was actually edible and not quite tasty but edible.

[mattwarner]

Oh, it is the most horrible pot-luck memory of my youth: Tri-Bean Burger Bake. My kid brother loved it, my mother claimed others asked for the recipe. It still gives me chills. It was the only time my parents bought canned green beans. Take canned pork and beans, kidney beans (rinsed and drained, 'cuz it's classy), and green beans. Mix with ketchup, yellow mustard, brown sugar, and worcestershire. Bake in a casserole dish. Take to church or family pot-luck supper. Ack.

[alkapal]

for some strange reason, just the term "Tri-Bean" itself seems to be a subconscious tip-off that this is a weird dish. but where's the burger?

[mattwarner]

My bad! Brown and drain a package of hamburger, stir it in with the rest before baking. Yes, Tri-Bean is the first tip-off, but the oddly glossy brown sheen of the (ahem) "gravy" is the true marker that something evil this way comes...

[rainier_wolfcastle]

I grew up mostly on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, so most of our only-in-our-family dishes revolved around seafood:

Leftover fried fish filets (almost always popeye mullet), room temperature, with syrup on them for breakfast. My parents brought this idea back from a little motel where they stayed in Florida; it was the motel's sick twisted Continental breakfast equivalent. ;-)

Oysters (naked, not breaded) and small link sausages cooked together in a skillet, served with eggs scrambled in the grease/juices left in the pan.

Large thin fish filet (usually king mackerel) topped with minced garlic, butter, and strips of bacon and broiled in the oven. This was always breakfast.

Ground beef, Campbell's Pork and Beans, chopped onion, generous dollop of yellow mustard, touch of ketchup, Tabasco. As a teenager I could eat my weight in this stuff; couldn't get enough.

Baloney sandwiches with yellow mustard, Tabasco, and lots of potato chips smooshed inside.

We ran a small gill net to catch mullet. We would butterfly and smoke them over pecan wood in an old refrigerator converted for the purpose, then freeze them. One ever-present option for breakfast was to heat up a smoked fish in the oven (those were the pre-microwave days). Great with grits.

[cazkiwi]

Hehe, great recipes, I love posts like this. Funny it's been going for over 3 years!

One of our fave "only in my family" recipes is this grilled cheese fave.

Grated cheese, 2 or so good big squirts of tomato sauce (ketchup) and dash or 2/3 of worchestershire sauce... Quantites are usually to taste, but usually enuf sauce to "wet" the cheese and just a bit of worchestershire sauce to give it that little flavour. Put on toast, then grill until grilled, haha. Great Sunday evening comfort food.

Also the good old Maggi onion soup mix with reduced cream and half a capful of malt vinegar is great, but try adding half a packet of Maggi tomato soup and a teaspoon or 2 of mild curry powder to taste. Divine!!

[aldente1]

My nephews remember the "minestre" that my Italian grandmother used to make when they were kids. It had escarole in it and pork ribs and pepperoni. None of us remember how she made it, however. But I am pretty sure that she used water and not chicken stock.

[Mikeander]

Here are some, that I remember from my childhood and beyond.

Put a large leaf of lettuce in a pie plate. Sprinkle with white sugar. Add as many leaves and sugar as you like. Roll them all up and hold in your hand and eat.

Put a large leaf of lettuce in a pie plate and sprinkle with white sugar. Add more leaves of lettuce and sugar as you like. Pour cream, milk, or clabbered mild on top. Slice with a knife and fork and eat.

Cook a quart jar or a 28oz can of tomatoes in a saucepan. Cover the top of the tomatoes with old dried bread crusts. Delicious.

My wife used to make dish called VegAll Casserole. Boil spiral noodles. Dice a can of Spam. Add a can of drained VegAll. Add a can of cream of mushroom soup and 1/4 cup of milk. Mix all together. Cover and put in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 10 minutes, or until thickened.

Pigs in a blanket. Crescent rolls wrapped around weiners and baked in the oven.

Crackers and milk. Crush saltines in a large glass. Pour warm or cold milk in to fill the glass. Add white sugar to your taste. Let the crackers soak the milk to your preference.

Milk toast. Toast two slices of thick homemade bread. Butter bread. Put a slice in a soup bowl and sprinkle with white sugar. Place the other slice on top of the first one and sprinkle with sugar. Pour warm milk over to the level of the top slice of bread. Let the bread soak up the milk. Cut into squares with a knife and fork, and enjoy.

[mandycat]

Back in the late 1950's and early 1960's when my mother was at the height of her dinner party hostess epoch, anything that vaguely resembled an Indian curry dish was considered pretty darned sophisticated and daring. She frequently served a mild curry sauce (a standard white sauce plus a bit of curry powder) over rice with an assortment of toppings like shrimp, chopped peanuts, green onions and raisins. Very chic.

She must have had some leftovers to unload the morning after one party because for breakfast we had rice, hard boiled eggs and curry sauce. It became a family breakfast favorite, green onions and all. My husband loves it too, especially now that I make the fabulous Apricot Chutney recipe from "The Complete Guide to Home Preserving" put out by the Ball Company.

[aggiecat]

I just thought of another one based on canned crean of chicken soup: "Indian Curry" a la middle america. Start with one onion, sauteed in oil, add one large can or 2 cups cooked chicken, add one can cream of chicken soup, 1 tbsp curry poweder (basic Mccormick, not hot) and milk to get desired consistancy. Add one peeled diced small granny smith apple. Heat till hot an bubbly, serve over rice.

Now, this is actually not a bad starter recipe if you use good cooked chicken, really good curry powered half hot and half not add to butter while you sautee the onions and use coconut milk to thin the soup down. The apple is a good addition as the tart sweet of the granny smith is a nice foil to the spicy flavor of the curry. Still, it's a classic example of how to bland out a dish that ought to be spice and flavorful.

[kerryhb]

Two...Hamburger in the Oven and Barfburgers. Hamburger in the Oven is ground beef browned with onions, combined with a can of Veg-all, a can of stewed tomatoes, a couple of squirts of ketchup and a couple of shakes of Worcestershire sauce. I make it in the CrockPot now and it's just as yummy as when I was a kid. The barfburgers are the cheeseburger loaves from the Shredded Wheat box. My brother and I thought they looked like vomit with the bits of shredded wheat sticking out, so we renamed them Barfburgers. They tasted good, though, and my Mom still calls them by that name 30+ years later.

[Jeni Bean]

This is basically how my MIL makes "Bar-b-ques". That is what their family calls them.

[Heart2Hand]

My Mom made Creamed Hard Boiled Eggs and Ham on Toast. This was mainly reserved for the day after Easter Sunday or when we had a lot of leftover Ham. Makes me want some right now!!!

[DishDelish]

That sounds really good!! Do you know how she made it?

[RoseyDazys]

I remember so many foods from the past that I saw on here but not the cod fish in the wooden box in a cream sauce with potatoes.

[SarahKC]

For Hanukah, my husband's (Kmanlove) family makes something called Zaraza. Still haven't gotten the recipe from my mom, but you take a pot roasted chicken that is almost cooked through and then finish it by baking it with some gravy over a couple layers of potato latkes. The fat from the chicken and the gravy mix with the latkes to create a true Hanukah miracle.

[ThEater]

Yes, and I hated it growing up, and it still kills me to think of it, thanks Kivarita. LOL My dad made cream tuna over toast. Because we had to eat what dad made, I would put very little cream tuna on my toast, then scrap it off and left little on to give my toast flavor.

[Espihir]

My Grandma used to make one box of elbow macaroni with tomato soup...

Cook elbow's;
add two can's of tomato soup (+ 2 can's of water);
cook for 10-15 minute's. Let cool and refridgerate over night. The next day, the noodles will have absorbed a lot of the tomato soup and the starch from the noodles will make the remaining soup a little thicker. Rehead and mange!!!

So good, always reminds me of her!

[oracle347]

Oh my gosh!! I thought only my best friend's mum did that, except with was with cream of chicken, and she would throw frozen peas in there!!

Another gem of a recipe - my mom used to make friend rice with ketchup and frozen mixed vegetables, and for my brother's sake -cubed ham and pineapple.... she was convinced it was the only way we'd eat fried rice, and for the longest time, I really thought that was what fried rice was! I used to get teased for breaking out a thermos of fried rice at lunch, but let me tell you, I prefered that to baloney!

[labeille]

What a fascinating thread to read. Some of my family, weird foods have been mentioned -the noodles with cottage cheese & the noodles with bread crumbs.

My all time favourite comfort food is polenta with cheese. There is never any left to fry up later. Now that I've learned how easy it is to make in the rice cooker, I get to enjoy it again.

Some I've not seen yet:
My dad's mother would boil a chicken for dinner, almost every single day. The chicken soup would be eaten as the first course. She always boiled a stick of cinnamon in it, which I love (sadly, my husband doesn't).
That whole branch of the family, when soup was served, would have a small jug of tomato soup at the table and add it as desired to cool their soup. Turning a clear broth to a tomato broth. I've never known anyone else to serve it that way, but if it was missing from the table someone would complain.
Sometimes instead of noodles or rice she would throw handfuls of cream of wheat (semolina) in and they would cook up as tiny grains. Much like couscous.

My mom use to make dumplings but they were nothing tike English dumplings. They were like spaetzle batter ( flour, milk and egg), but also had torn-up bits of leftover bread in them, so they cooked in big uneven lumps. I made them once for room-mates, who loved them. They were cheap and delicious, but took hours.

From my husband's side-he puts jam on cheese sandwiches! Ick!

[Cakegirl]

When I was a kid in the 60's/70's, my mom would melt Nestles chocolate chips, add Apple Jacks cereal, drop spoonfuls onto wax paper and chill. We loved these chocolate & cereal clusters but no one else has ever heard of them. I haven't had them in years but I'm sure I would still love them!

Also, my mom made "chocolate soup"--My-T-Fine chocolate pudding served hot from the stove...she served this for breakfast. Nothing could be better on a cold morning or on any other morning, for that matter.

[LovelyAsia]

Such a great thread and still going strong after more than 3 years!

Being 2nd generation Japanese Canadian, I did not grow up on sushi and other traditional Japanese foods, but rather foods my dad grew up eating on the family farm before WWII and internment camp and going off to war to fight for Canada even though the government took the farm they owned, their truck, and all their worldly possessions and kept his family in the camps.

After the war these recipes were more than food, they were memories of better days.... sorry if I got a mid maudlin there - these recipes sure do bring back memories, even ones that were passed on to me by my father.

One common ingredient was pork shoulder - or other cheap, fatty cuts of pork.

My all time fave is so simple - it is just pork shoulder cut into large bite size pieces fried up in a skillet with lots of sliced potatoes (which stretches the pork to feed many) and add lots of salt and pepper and as much red pepper flakes as you like. Cook until the pork is tender and the potatoes get a nice brown crust from cooking in the pork fat. It is such a simple recipe but whenever I serve it to people outside my family they have never heard of it but love it - the potatoes end up being tastier than any french fry!

Of course we always ate it with Japanese rice which makes for a carb loaded meal!

We also had pork and napa cabbage - which ends up a little soupy and the pork braises rather than crisps. And pork with green peppers simmered in soy sauce, sugar, sake, and red pepper flakes - my husband loves this one!

The one other recipe I have not seen outside my family was my gramma's version of neon orange macaroni and cheese - she and my mother were born and raised in Japan, so she could not read english so she took a box of Kraft Dinner (that is what we call it here in Canada eh?!!) and instead of adding butter and milk as instructed she boiled the noodles with some frozen mixed veggies (corn, peas, carrots) and after draining added the neon orange powder and miracle whip.... at first I told her she did it wrong, but after tasting it, I liked it! Sort of mac and cheese meets macaroni salad!

[buttertart]

That pork dish sounds great, I'm going to try it!

[mse924]

I cannot believe that I just read this entire thread. Such good memories! :)

A few personal family favorites that haven't been mentioned:

-The day care I attended as a small child used to make this snack. Flatten out individual pieces of crescent roll dough. Place cube of cheddar cheese in middle and roll up into a little dumpling. Soak dumpling in bottle Italian dressing and bake until the dough was golden and cheese is melted. I still make these from time to time for parties and they are always well received.

-When my sister and I were old enough to stay home alone we used to melt butter and mix it with Quaker oats, brown sugar and cinnamon. Kind of like the topping for a crisp, except that we would eat it "raw" with a spoon.

-I also would spread pumpernickel rye (there was ALWAYS rye bread in our German household!) with softened cream cheese. Sprinkle with dried dill and a bit of S&P. Also good when used in a sandwich with sliced cucumbers.

[Myrnalee]

Didn't see our family favorite. Still make it. Skinny egg noodles, cook, meanwhile melt butter and let it brown. Crush a sleeve of soda crackers. Drain noodles top with brown butter and cracker crumbs. Stir and enjoy. Has to be real butter.

[weezerific]

Even though I'm sure nobody is reading this far down in this ridiculously long board, I have to add our family recipe... grandma made it, mom made it...
Zucchini Fines Herbes- Saute lots of zucchini with garlic in olive oil. Let cool, then mix with eggs, milk, and dried fines herbes. Pour into a casserole dish and bake until set...Sometimes my mom would add a breadcrumb/butter topping on top. I have been trying to find the exact recipe for this for years and haven't really succeeded...

[alkapal]

in the south, we'd call that a zucchini casserole. and we'd gobble it up. ;-). we *might* use some campbell's cream of mushroom soup in that -- and some diced onions. the topping might also be crumbled ritz crackers! it's comfort food.

and be assured, weezerific, we are still reading this thread after all this time. it has great stories and a lot of "heart."

[brooklynkoshereater]

measurements for eggs, milk, etc? sounds good -

[soyummmy]

I have a recipe for broccoli casserole that is a staple at Thanksgiving.
1 bag of frozen chopped broc (thawed)
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 cup of mayonaise
8 oz grated swiss cheese
1 box of croutons
mix everything ina casserole dish, reserve 1/2 of the croutons. bake at 375 covered til melty and bubbly (45 minutes-ish), remove cover and stir in remaining croutons and bake additional 15 minutes, uncovered.

This is the BEST!!! My best friend calls it broccoli yum yum and calls me every year for the recipe :)

[colby54]

I loved this post! Great to hear how food shapes so many of our memories. When we were kids my father would stop at the bakery after Sunday Mass and buy a pound of Italian bread dough. My mother would pull off individual pcs, stretch them out and fry them in about 1/2 inch of vegetable oil flipping them over when they puffed up. We would eat them with butter spread on top of them. We called them dough dabs...kind of like a poor man's doughboy ..they were delicious. And we always had coffee (1/2 coffee,1/2 sweetened milk). When I think back to those days I think how economical it must have been for 4 kids and 2 adults, but it was the taste that mattered. It still is!

[jeanmarieok]

My mom used to make this pork chop and ketchup recipe, and I make it every once in a while. Saute 4 - 6 bone in center cut pork chops in a little cooking oil, in a skillet with a cover . Remove from pan. Saute one large onion (sliced thinly) in the pan drippings until soft. Remove from pan. Put pork chops back into the pan, and top with the onion. Mix 1 1/2 cups ketchup with 1 cup of water. Pour 'sauce' over chops. Cover skillet, and let simmer for an hour. Remove cover, skim fat. Serve with mashed potatoes topped with the onions and pan drippings.

As my husband says 'it's not bad, and it's not great, it's good enough'.

[reenk]

Two recipes come to mind. My best afternoon snack as a kid was rice cakes spread with Miracle Whip, S&P, and topped with room temperature canned peas. We'd mash teh peas down slightly to avoid them rolling off. In summer occasionally we'd add a thin slice of tomato and in winter sometimes a slice of Jarlsberg, both under the peas. Oddly, whenever I am feeling down I make this and always feel better. To this day I LOVE this combination and I am craving it now. YUM!!

Mom's tuna salad was always tuna, hard boiled eggs, diced pickles and yellow mustard. Amazing on fresh Wonder bread!! Sometimes I will make it with a balsamic viniagrette instead of mustard.

[thedragonlady]

Like all of my older cousins, I spent a good chunk of my childhood at my Filipino grandparents afterschool. My grandma "Lula" (who passed just last year) used to make a dish she called "Torta," (only she pronounced it "thort-tah," so maybe I have the spelling wrong?) It was this simple and homey concoction of ground beef, diced potatoes, diced onions and a half tomato (for moistness) and she'd cook it all together, seasoned with soy sauce and maybe a little patis (Filipino fish sauce). Then she'd set it aside and in another pan she'd make a huge omelette and somehow invert the dish so that the egg sat on top of the ground beef mixture like a casserole. To serve it, she'd scoop out a wedge of Torta and place it right on top of steamed rice. I've asked other Filipino friends about this dish and it's definitely not high on the register like Lumpia or Pancit, so I'm led to believe that she just used whatever was in her pantry to feed us kids. I love making Torta in my own home and I think of my Lula every time I do. I've impressed friends with the delicious simplicity of it's ingredients. Now that I'm a pescatarian, I've substituted the ground beef with Yves ground soy meat and it's just as good as when I was a kid. Even my boyfriend doesn't know that it's not real meat. There's another version where Lula omits the egg part but adds water to the ground beef mixture to make a gravy, thickes with cornstarch and adds a litlte more soy sauce. Serve it over rice with the extra gravy and you've got my heart. Thanks, Lula.

[achamberlin]

I'm in Saskatchewan, Canada with a Filipina mom and Romanian dad and I looove:

* Cheez whiz spread on poppy seed roll
* Cheez whiz on banana bread
* Good Host iced tea mix sprinkled on vanilla ice cream
* Hot dogs, tripe, white beans and peppers cooked in tomato sauce
* Hot dog fried rice
* Fried Klik (like Spam) and lettuce sandwiches on white bread
* Bacon fried, crumbled and dumped into a pot of Kraft dinner (grease included) with lots of pepper (courtesy of my mom-in-law - I'd never heard of such a thing)
* My favourite dish is one consisting of fried ground beef, peas, carrots and potatoes. I asked my mom what her special seasoning was that made it taste so good and she replied, "Ketchup."

[LOLTofu]

My family has a passed down recipe from our Syrian-Lebanese side that I've never heard of any place else. We call it shish butter, but that may be some sort of bastardization. Basically, it's ground lamb with lemon juice, mint, garlic, and allspice folded into wrappers (we use wonton wrappers now), then toasted in a hot, buttered skillet, then simmered in a plain yogurt and butter sauce. We eat it (and its recently developed vegetarian counterpart) over Syrian rice (rice with toasted vermicelli, pine nuts, and allspice). Has anyone else every heard of this, or know its real name?

[cathodetube]

That sounds delicious. .. I love Middle Eastern lamb dishes. Have had the Syrian Rice or perhaps it was Lebanese rice, at a Lebanese restaurant near me in London. I make lamb burgers with harissa, feta, cumin and mint and serve them in pita bread with hummus.

[LOLTofu]

Oh, it is! I haven't eaten the lamb version in years, but I missed the lamb version for far longer than any other meat dish. Even the vegetarian version is a show stopper. I highly recommend it!

[ChristinaMason]

This sounds a LOT like Turkish manti.

http://www.turkishcookbook.com/2005/0...

[Blueayez]

I make a chicken and sausage dish that I've never seen or heard of anyone else making.

[EAH]

My mother use to make an hors d'ouvre that she served at all her fancy 1960's/70's parties.
It was thinly sliced italian salami smeared with cream cheese and a piece of pickled watermelon rind was placed in the middle of the cream cheese. The salami was rolled up and a toothpick held it together.
It was delicious and I still love them today. The jarred pickled watermelon rind is getting harder to find though.

We also have a thanksgiving family tradition of mashed rutabagas. We boil and mash them, add lots of butter salt and pepper and then a good heaping spoonful of sugar ( it's an Icelandic thing).

My mom also used to make something called a Dixie Surprise cake (ironic cuz we lived in the Bay Area ,CA). I just remember it being this massively ugly white cream frosting cake with Heath bars and a ton of other stuff in it. Boy was it good! I wish I had the recipe for this one!

[Stern Lecture]

I don't have the will to read through 950 Replys though I kind of want to.

For breakfast my favorite was hard boiled eggs sliced over toasted wheat bread with cream of mushroom soup poured over. I never really like mushrooms but for some reason this was acceptable.

She also used to make a recipe called something like Suzies Quick Meal or something.
Browned hamburger was added to frozen spinach and cooked then eggs scrambled in the mixture seasoned with a good amount of pepper and salt.

My Dad would eat a whole can of smoked oysters between Cheez Its. Disgusting!

[Smileelisa]

My mom used to make chicken-pork adobo served over rice. Was sooo good. We also used to have scalloped potatoes made with homemade cheese sauce that is seasoned liberally with worchestershire. she would par boil the potatoes then layer them in a casserole dish with tons of carmelized onions and topped with the cheese sauce and baked for appx an hour. To this day I can eat most of the dish myself!

[CookieWeasel]

I can't honestly say this was one of my favorites, but the one recipe I've never heard of outside my family is my grandmother's Prune Whip. It involves beating egg whites into macerated prunes, adding sugar, and baking in a water bath. We had it with whipped cream.

[Cherylptw]

When I was in elementary school (in the 60's) I used to take my lunch (back then they called it "cold lunch" for those who didn't buy the lunch room food; they actually separated the kids; those who had cold lunch ate in the auditorium...anyway, My mother used to make me spam & american cheese sandwiches on Wonder Bread with Miracle Whip. When I'd visit my grandmother on her farm, if we had black eyed peas for dinner, I'd make a black eyed pea sandwich with chopped onions on white bread with mayonnaise or fried fatback (salt pork) on a home made biscuit sandwich...those were so good...

We also ate fried bologna; I liked mine cooked till there was a crust on both sides and slathered with mustard on bread,,,,still eat those

My grandmother used to make burgers out of ground deer meat, fry them in a skillet and then make a gravy, simmering them until almost falling apart...delicious especially with mashed potatoes and a homemade biscuit; same thing with squirrel

Oh, and Carolina rice with milk & sugar eaten like cereal....

[mray]

My paternal grandmother used to take white bread and shed it into a bowl then top it with poached eggs, salt, pepper and mashed it all together when we weren't feeling well. To this day I make the same thing when I need the ultimate comfort food! Just the smell of the eggs and bread together brings back so many memories of my grandmother.

[jawinfree]

My family has had what we call "Wisconsin Sandwiches" for as long as I can remember. Not sure where they came but I think that it was my maternal grandmother, born and raised in Wisconsin. Hence the original name! Now, it is standard fare in my home for a Saturday "brunch" or a cold night's dinner if served with a salad. I love them, but you can't have them too often as the unhealthy factor really adds up quickly. Oh, and you must use Miracle Whip, not mayonnaise. Even my Miracle Whip-hating husband agrees that the taste suffers without it.

4 slices sandwich bread, toasted (broiled) on one side
Miracle Whip
4 slices of onion, whatever is in the house
6-8 slices tomato, sprinkled with salt and pepper
4-6 slices of cheddar cheese, whatever kind you have on hand
8 slices of bacon, cut in half lengthwise and partially cooked

Spread the Miracle Whip on the untoasted side of the bread, thickly. Add the tomato and the onion, trying to have them both covering the bread as much as possible. Place 4 slices of bacon on top and then cover with the cheese (a single layer is usually best). Then place about 6" from broiler and broil till the cheese is melted and the bacon is crisp.

I usually make 2 sandwiches per person as one never seems like enough. Other variations are good too (like avocado, swiss instead of cheddar, artisan bread) but I swear that the original is the best.

And now I am craving one.

[hafalisa]

My mom used to make us "jello water" when we were sick. Just warm, drinkable jello.

[jawinfree]

Oh my gosh, my mom would do that too! And we loved it but weren't allowed to have too much because she was afraid of what it might do to us. No clue what that would have been.

[Julya]

I had to drink that per doctor's orders when I broke my leg in 8th grade! After a couple weeks of drinking that stuff, I couldn't eat Jello again for years! :)

[pandabanda]

I am new to the board and this post caught my eye. I'm an East Texas girl, so a lot of food we ate growing up I have NEVER seen anywhere but home.

Souse Meat---someone mentioned eating this, and we used to eat this jelly-esque meat on crackers with some of that vinegar hot sauce on the top.

Sweet Milk Gravy---sounds not that great lol, but it's awesome, and to this day I've never met anyone else who knows of it or ate it. My great grandmother would make this for us growing up for breakfast, and we'd all eat it with spoons and toast. It didn't really go on anything----it was thick and you ate it by itself. It was just regular white gravy with a bunch of pepper and a little bit of sweet condensed milk. It gives it a tangy sweetness. So freaking good, and it took me forever to get the recipe right after she passed.

Of course I eat chicken n dumplings the only way I know---the redneck way----with canned cream of chicken soup and some refrigerated biscuits.

SOS---You know what on shingles.

Split Pea Soup---was a staple in our home. Ewww. Can't even look at it now.

Hot Water Cornbread---it's definitely a southern thing, but once you eat cornbread this way, you NEVER go back.

My great grandfather used to eat day old cornbread crumbled over eggs.

We call the tostadas growing up, and I guess in a way they are, but basically a fried flour tortilla with ranch style beans and melted cheese. Was a big kid hit.

Thanks!

[Hollyhock]

I remember my dad cutting "sluce" (same thing as your "souse meat") into cubes, adding diced onion, and vinegar, adding pepper liberally. I loved it! My Texan husband never heard of any such thing and 45 years later still won't touch it. (I grew up in the mid-west - only moved to Texas in 1962!) My mother-in-law made fantastic hot water cornbread. Haven't had that in years, thanks for the memory.

[beekeroc]

We had a dish called Tuna Fish Dish. One can tuna, one can mushroom soup, warmed up together then poured over rice. I still make this at least 2 or 3 times a year . Also we had to have soya sauce on top. Yum!, but wow! the sodium levels!!

[Grapelola]

My Oma used to fry leftover rice or noodles in butter or bacon fat, with an onion thrown in for flavour, of course, and then top it all with a couple of beaten eggs. It was delicious. We used to also spread the cold pork fat full of braised garlic and onions that was leftover from a pork roast on rye bread - mine had to be toasted. I also fondly remember kohlrabi poached in chicken stock and evaporated milk, seasoned with Maggi and thickened with cornstarch. Tastes amazing, despite how it sounds. Also, bananas sauteed in butter with brown sugar, and strawberried with sour cream and brown sugar, for desset. And while I love avocados now, my Mom and Oma both used to share one back in the 70s, and eat the flesh out with a spoon after filling the cavity left by the pit with Thousand Islands salad dressing. That, I still cannot stomach.

[The Professor]

Gotta love those old European things...my Grandma (our family is Hungarian) used to do the same fried noodle thing with egg; she liked it best with the leftover soup noodles (the finely cut egg noodles). And the pork fat...don't even get me started on it. I don't have the old pork fat on rye bread thing very often anymore, but I do enjoy it once in a while, sometimes after I've cooked a roast or fried up some bacon. I still fondly remember summer Sundays as a kid, with Grandma and her sisters around a wood fire with blocks of fresh pork belly skewered on the end of a stick, slowly twirling the sticks in their hands to roast the pork belly, and putting the drippings on slices of European rye bread with sliced peppers, onions, and radishes. After the pieces of belly were rendered out, we would fight over the crispy remnants! Simple peasant food that I would choose hands down over most five-star meals I've had in the best restaurants in the country.

[Mahbret]

Does anyone else make "avocado salad," that is, a lime jello/cream cheese/pineapple juice and fruit/avocado dessert topped with whipped cream after chilling? It must have been from the 50s or 60s, we always make it for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

[pattiadleybryan]

I found this Avocado salad recipe in a 1952 cookbook. Here goes:
Grapefruit, Avocado, and Cream Cheese Salad
2 grapefruit
1 avocado
1/2 cup french dressing
crisp lettuce
3 oz. package cream cheese (may substitute with cottage cheese)
paprika
Pare whole grapefruit, removing white membrane as well as skin. Cut out the sections, using a very sharp knife. Peel avocado, remove seed and clice 1/2 inch thick. Marinate both fruits in French dressing. Chill thoroughly. Just before serving, arrange drained fruits on lettuce leaves with a boall of cream cheese in the center of each plate, than add a dash of paprika to the cream cheese. 5 servings.
French Dressing Recipe
2/3 cup salad oil
1/3 cup cider vinegar
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons sugar
1/16 teaspoon dry mustard
1/16 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
Combine all ingredients by beating thoroughly with a rotary beater. Beat or shake well just before serving. Make 1 cup.

[pattiadleybryan]

Cowboy Stew - aka - Mexican Surprise
This recipe is so special to our family and my husband makes it often. It’s a delicious, comfort meal.

My husband, Mark, began making this dish in 1980. It started out as Mexican Surprise because IT IS A MEXICAN DISH. The name change came about one night when the children said they didn’t want Mexican food, so having already started the dish, Mark said he was making Cowboy Stew. He made up a little song….“Cowboy Stew, I love you….” He sang this song while cooking the Cowboy Stew and the children thought he was something else. Even today they will ask him to sing the song.

1-1/2 lb. ground beef
3 clove garlic, minced
6 green onions, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 small can green chilies, chopped
1 regular can of crushed tomatoes (not the large can)
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 can Rotel ‘Mexican’ diced tomatoes and green chilies
1/2 cup salsa
1 can black beans or any bean of your choice
1 package Spanish rice
Cilantro, fresh
Salt & Pepper to taste
Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Brown ground beef and drain, saute garlic and onions, add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes. Top each serving with cheese. This dish is even better the next day….if there’s any left.

We eat this dish with Doritos chips and salad. Plain Doritos are the best!

[pattiadleybryan]

Shrimp Destin - A Sunday evening tradition. Growing up in Louisiana, it was a way to use up left over shrimp.
Sunday evenings are a special time in our home. It’s a time when all the family gathers, discusses their plans for the following week and just catch up with each other. This dish allows you the extra time to spend with the family. It’s simple, delicious, and easy clean up.

Serves 4 -5

2 lb. Large Shrimp

2 French rolls, split lengthwise, toasted, and kind of flattened out

1 teaspoon chopped fresh Italian parsley

1 teaspoon dill

1/8 teaspoon ground pepper

1/8 teaspoon salt

cajun seasoning – optional

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon white wine

1 stick butter (you can use 1/2 stick butter and 1/4 cup olive oil)

2 tablespoons butter (add just before removing dish from fire)

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1/4 cup chopped green onions

Peel and devein shrimp. Saute green onions and garlic in butter (minus 2 tablespoons) until onions are tender. Add shrimp, wine, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes or until shrimp are pink. Add dill, parsley and 2 tablespoons butter. If you want a little more punch, you can add some cajun seasoning. Spoon shrimp mixture over toasted french roll and serve immediately. May also be spooned over rice.

[tonina_mdc]

Okay, I really want to come to your house for dinner on Sunday! I'm from the midwest, but one set of grandparents lived near Biloxi, Miss., when I was a kid. When we would go down to visit them, I would gorge on all the seafood and Cajun dishes I couldn't get in my utterly landlocked home territory. I never knew okra existed until I tried it in gumbo while visiting the gulf area. I miss good Mississippi/Louisiana seafood.

[shanagain]

So, more tuna and cream of mushroom...

Tuna salad in my family involves tuna, diced apples, diced cheddar, onion, celery, mayo, diced gherkins or sweet pickle relish in a pinch.

I've also made a kind of weird but completely delicious dish using tuna, RoTel, drained kidney beans and a bit of chili powder, heated together, then served over hot rice with a layer of sliced pepper-jack in between.

One more cream of mushroom variation: Heat with a splash of milk, add a bit of soy sauce (because what we need here is MORE sodium!), and serve over hamburgers that have also been doused in soy sauce. Worcestershire will do, also.

[rosenn]

This is such a great thread. My grandmother's 'Cheese and Crackers'.

Take saltines, and spread a thin layer of Farmer's Cheese between them. Dip the little sandwiches in beaten egg, and fry, flipping to get both sides golden.

Work-intensive but a wonderful appetizer/finger food. delicious.

[beauxgoris]

"hamburger-eggs". My Grandmother in Ohio made this for me for breakfast. Ground beef browned in pan - then stirred eggs added on top and smooshed around scrambled egg style. Basically made scrambled eggs with hamburger. Cousins added ketchup, I went straight.

[just_M]

Denver casserole:

1 1/2 lb lean GB or ground round
1 lrg or 2 med onion(s) chopped
1 lrg or 2 med green bell pepper(s) chopped (other colors are too sweet)
2-3 cans Van Camps pork n beans
1 sm can tomato sauce
black pepper

In a large casserole dish crumble half of the raw meat, sprinkle with black pepper, layer in half of the onion and bell pepper, then the rest of the meat, more black pepper and the rest of the onion and bell pepper. Pour the cans of beans on, then top with tomato sauce. Bake at 375-400 for an hour with a baked potato for each dinner.

Most of my family will eat the potato dressed and the casserole separately. I usually dump it on the fluffed potato really good for a quicky meal and invented pre-microwave.

[joanna.mcmaster]

My mother used to boil egg noodles in chicken broth, then stir in a scoop of cheez-whiz. Most people look at me like I'm crazy when I mention Cheez-Whiz, lol, my mother put it in EVERYTHING when I was a kid. Anytime we were ever under the weather, that was dinner. I still make it anytime I don't feel well. LOL, it's our cure-all. It's a great way to get some calories into a kid with a tummy bug, as well.

[joanna.mcmaster]

Oh, just remembered something else: My dad would make something he called "hot eggs" on the weekends. he would poach eggs in Pace's picante sauce then pile on cheddar cheese, these were always served with tortillas. My brother would only eat them with Grand's biscuits. Actually pretty good hangover cure.

[alkapal]

i tried poaching eggs in picante sauce, but didn't have success.

[joanna.mcmaster]

What went wrong with it? picante sauce was at a steady simmer, right?

[tonina_mdc]

My mother does something similar to this. She scrambles eggs with onions and green pepper, then throws Pace sauce over them towards the end.

[Restaurant Dish]

Granted, I have not gone through 999 posts here, but my Dad taught us all how to eat sunny side up eggs with salt, pepper, and fresh lemon juice squeezed over them. To this day everytime someone sees me eating them like that they are surprised.

[beauxgoris]

^^Sounds like a deconstructed "hollandaise" sauce.

[alkapal]

yep, add the butter, too! mmmmm.

[ChristinaMason]

My mom only ever made scrambled eggs with little bits of cream cheese stirred in. Whisk a few eggs with a splash of milk and a bit of salt and pepper. Cook very gently and when nearly set, stir in about 2 Tbsp. of diced cream cheese. Stir into the eggs but not completely. There should be melty bits of cream cheese in the eggs when served.

Delicious! I thought this was the only way to make scrambled eggs at least until I was 8.

[The Professor]

Sounds great..I often stir some sour cream into my scrambled eggs but will definitely try the cream cheese.

[ChristinaMason]

It is great! Let me know if you try it.

Also, mom's comfort food for us kids when we were under the weather: chicken broth (always Herb Ox powder) with macaroni or egg noodles stirred in. Still my go-to when I have a head cold or can't keep real food down.

[joanna.mcmaster]

LOL, I so crave that soup (scroll up, my mom did the same thing, but stirred in a little Cheez-whiz, people look at me like I am nuts when I tell them the Cheez-Whiz part).

[alkapal]

with the cream cheese, also stir in some torn bits of smoked salmon into the scrambled eggs.

[skamama]

I'm sitting here in an altered state from H1N1, and my fevered mind is reeling from reading all, yes all, the postings. It's a good thing I don't have stomach symptoms (yet?)
I also went back through a CD my sister put together one Christmas, photos of family recipe cards, complete with the stains and side notes. I'm attaching three. One is the chicken/rice casserole Mom used to make all the time. I remembered that it had the ubiquitous can of cream of mushroom soup, but forgot it also included a packet of onion soup mix. Mom made it with chicken legs and/or thighs. I loved scraping the browned crusty bits from the side of the pan.
I'm also including a photo of the recipe card for "No Bake Cookies" that is probably just as bad for you, with the possible exception of the oatmeal. We loved them, though. The Toffee Cookies I still make sometimes around the holidays. They are easy, and taste very much like toffee candy, so I cut the squares small and wrap them in holiday colored saran wrap. In tins with other goodies, they are a great present for people at work, etc.
Finally,

[DawneeBabe]

I gotta try this for Sunday Brunch!!..never would have thought of cream cheese with scrambled eggs!! :-D

[lil magill]

whoooo. i was hoping somebody would hav posted some of the things we ate. was good old mom trying to kill us? we had 'chrysanthemum' which was probably a idea leftover from her mom and the depression -- chopped or sliced boiled egg in white sauce over toast. not bad, but not dinner either.... i know where the name comes from -- the grated white and yolk served with carpaccio, but how did it get so far away....?? My grandmother used the grinder on her stand mixer on Spam and Velveeta, added a bit of ketchup and some cream, spread it openface on white buns and broiled them for us. sometimes i still want anothr one. Then there were better things at the neighbors houses. grilled pbj's. peanut butter and mayo - sometimes with iceberg.

[cycloneillini]

We called them Goldenrod Eggs (different flower same dish). I actually loved them, haven't had them for years, but do still get a craving now and then.

[ebelgian]

take the yellow mustard out and use the same amount of dry ground mustard. it has hardly any flavor but it works as a thickener.

for one that i have never seen or heard anywhere outside the extended family: when the soup is cooked, take out the bone, tap or scrape the marrow out onto pieces of toast or crackers, lightly salt and enjoy. the fattiness on the tongue is pure bliss, if you're not worried about cholesterol and/or mad cow disease. (i still do it and have not developed mad cow yet in spite of what blood banks may say.

[dingey]

Oh, heck YEAH, bone marrow! So delicious! People who've never had it can get squeamish at the description, but MAN that's good eating!

[lulubelle]

From the I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken

Let 'er Buck
Basically it was a loaf a french bread, split the long way, coated with cheese whiz, and then covered with cooked ground beef, chopped green onions, some sort of seasoning (I think it was Italian Seasoning, but it might have just been oregano) and then drizzled with tomato sauce and put under the broiler.

It was really good!

[maydaycolorado]

still have that book and still cook from it! Some of the recipes are old standards for me now!

[IncrediGirl]

I have never, to this day, found anyone else who has seen or tried pancakes or waffles with brown sugar and lemon juice on them. It's the only way I have ever eaten them, the only way I *can* eat them, my whole family eats them this way, and I have no idea where it came from.

[cycloneillini]

I refuse to eat pancakes or waffles with syrup on them and always use brown sugar instead. The lemon juice is a new one on me though it does sound intriguing.

[IncrediGirl]

It makes a nice deep brown syrup, and the lemon contrasts the brown sugar so well. I can't do maple syrup either.

[cathodetube]

The English eat pancakes with lemon and sugar; most traditionally on Shrove Tuesday which is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. English pancakes are much thinner, like French crepes. My mother used to serve them with lemon or orange juice. They are also nice with Nutella!!!

[fredamoon]

One of my all time favorite comfort foods, made by my mother when we were kids, is pancakes with hot dogs.

She prepared them exactly the same way one makes banana pancakes, by pouring batter on the griddle, then pressing sliced rounds of hot dogs into it, so that they brown while the batter cooks.

They taste like pigs in a blanket, but require even less work. Nevertheless, everyone who has ever seen me prepare these has found them completely bizarre. I've learned to only share them with my most trusted friends.

[MandalayVA]

Cream cheese and jelly sandwiches on white bread were one of my favorite things to take in my lunch when I was in elementary school.

My mom used to make this stuff called Mexican casserole--I don't remember all the ingredients but it contained a roll of breakfast sausage, canned tomatoes, elbow macaroni and milk. It tasted good but she used to get the cheapest sausage (I still see it in the supermarkets here, I don't know the name but it has an orange and white wrapper) and it'd be really greasy and I'd get heartburn afterwards.

[lulubelle]

"Cream cheese and jelly sandwiches on white bread were one of my favorite things to take in my lunch when I was in elementary school.'

My mother always packed healthy lunches, but I traded for one of these at least once a week.

[jmerrett]

Our holiday special is a Texas original - Jalepeno Lime Jello Salad. Yes, it is a Texas thing but it surprisingly good. We've been serving it as long as I can remember. Give it a try and it will become a tradition at your house too!

Lime Jello Mix
Iceberg Lettuce - sliced 1/4" thin
Jalepeno Peppers - seeds removed, diced into 1/4" pieces
Celery - chopped into 1/4" pieces

Line a 9x13 baking dish with a bed of lettuce about 1/2" deep.
Sprinkle in some celery and Jalepeno pieces.
Pour chilled jello liquid to just cover salad.
Chill and serve with turkey and ham dinners.

[jacquieF]

I think these are not listed yet (at least not these exactly):
- Cheez Whiz and sliced dill pickle sandwiches
- Noodles and Cottage Cheese - melt butter in pan and soften thinly sliced onions; boil wide egg noodles then drain and toss with cottage cheese - pour butter/onion mixture over top
- sardines mashed up with ketchup and horseradish spread onto Ritz crackers
- fried smelts

[cycloneillini]

My uncle traveled from Iowa to Michigan one time when I was young just to go smelt fishing. I remember having fried smelts after his trip and thought they were wonderful. I think that's the only time in my life I ever had them. I understand they are not nearly as plentiful now as they were 40 years ago.

[skamama]

We used to go smelt dipping on the Cowlitz River in Washington State in the early '70s. At the time, I think you could get 20 pounds per person. We used a big net, and put the smelt in a big cooler to take home. Then we gutted them and placed them (standing up!) in cleaned-out half gallon milk cartons, topped them off with water, folded and taped the tops down and froze them. All through the winter, we would remove a half gallon at night, let it thaw, and dip the smelt in flour and/or cornmeal, and fry them up for breakfast. You zipped them right out of the little bones and ate them skin and all. Crunchy bliss!
Now smelt season has been suspended the last few years due to scarcity. Some blame El Nino, etc. There may be sea lions and terns at the mouth of the Columbia who share the blame. It also could have something to do with silt from the eruption of Mount St. Helens. Whatever happened, smelt dippers really miss those tasty little fish.

[cathodetube]

Sounds really great. A certain of Brits have/used to have smoked kippers or smoked haddock for breakfast. It's the sort of thing you now get in a upscale hotel. Smoked haddock is also used to make kedgeree, which is sometimes served for brunch. I have a friend who likes to get a kipper on Sundays from the local fishmonger and take it home for breakfast. The fish also makes a good pate if whizzed up with cream or cottage cheese and other seasoning.

[alkapal]

are the "real thing" anywhere near "kipper snacks" in the can?

[cathodetube]

Never tried kipper snacks in a can. That appears to be an American thing.

[cycloneillini]

Kivarita we called them Gumbo Burgers (to be distinguished from Sloppy Joes which we also ate). Recipe was exactly the same except it didn't have the green pepper. My ex-husband's college roommate was my source for the recipe, and I assume he got it from his mother. In 30+ years since you are the first other person I've heard of that has eaten them.

[laliria]

Wow, this thread is amazing!

My mom also makes the potato casserole with corn flakes on top... it's heavenly!

My dad always touted making quesadillas with a pinch of salt and a generous helping of sugar. It's awesome. He says it's how his grandmother (who was from Mexico, so who knows) used to make them.

My mom would also take shredded colby-jack cheese, mix it with a little mayonnaise, them plop a spoonful in the middle of a canned pear half. I never ended up liking it, but it was definitely weird.

[alkapal]

oh, the canned pear half with mayo and cheese isn't weird at all. i think it's a staple of the 50's and 60's. at our house it had freshly shredded cheddar cheese on top of the dollop of mayo, and was served on a leaf of iceberg lettuce.

now the morrison's cafeteria would get real fancy and add half a red maraschino cherry on top of that -- and the lettuce was shredded, iirc.

[raidar]

Wow, Canned pear with mayo and cheese. It's most likely my youth, but this is totally new to me.

[alkapal]

here's a little photo, a "recipe" and comments: http://www.grouprecipes.com/5264/mama...
maybe it was a southern thing.

[raidar]

Oh my, I think that's exactly what I pictured. A pretty self explanatory dish I guess. Thanks alkapal; It looks so easy I'm going to have to try it on day.

[christy319]

I've seen people mention items somewhat similar but not quite this..."Grandma's Salad," A horrifying concoction of cream cheese, mayo, marshmallows and fruit cocktail, topped with marachino cherries, frozen and cut into squares. Oh and served WITH dinner (because it was salad!) not as dessert. Everyone hated it but my mom.

She also used to put ketchup in our chicken soup, but after reading all the ketchup posts here that doesn't seem so strange.

[szeglin]

My mom makes awesome frikadeller. It's not something that I knew any other family to make when I was growing up. A pity, because it's delicious. My parents, especially my dad, have a deep fondness for Denmark, explaining why it wasn't uncommon in our house.

I've never made it myself, but I'm going to have to have some soon now that I'm thinking about it. So tasty.

[rcarey]

My grandmother and grandfather (a minister) were newly weds in the Great Depression and had to get creative one Christmas eve when there was absolutely nothing in the house to eat but elbow noodles, canned mushrooms, and 'government cheese'.

We have had that meal (and only that meal - nothing to go with) every Christmas eve since then. It's not a novel dish in itself but having it has meaning, even though that my grandparents are long deceased.

[buttertart]

That's a very sweet tradition, to honor your dear departeds.

[donw9876]

Here is mine, my mom's recipe. This is an hor d'oeuvre or appetizer that is pretty decent. It doesn't taste exactly like the ingredients.

Ingredients:

2 or 3 slices of white bread (wheat is OK but I prefer white)
1 can deviled ham
Grated parmesan cheese

Steps:

Toast the bread slices.

Spread slices with deviled ham.

Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. (My mom always used the stuff in shakers that looks like sawdust to me, and I have used either fresh grated parmesan or Kraft grated parm in a shaker. The better the cheese the better this will be.)

Broil for a few minutes, until the cheese just starts to bubble.

Slice the toasted, ham and cheese covered bread slices into strips and serve.

My mother said that this was an hor d'oeuvre recipe that she borrowed from the bar in the Biltmore Hotel in Dayton, Ohio in the 1930s where she worked as a waitress.

[blackbirdrounds]

For parties in my house (three generations lived together in a big ol house in NH) My Aunt and Uncle would grind bacon, cheddar cheese,and onion together and put a generous amount on a Pepperidge Farm firm white bread and then gril it until bubbly,then cut into bite sized 1x1" pieces.
After doing my first 4H demonstration- "packing a peppy lunch box" when I was nine.. The next year, 1955, I did the Special noodle casserole I think it was from Parade magazine. Cottage cheese, sour cream,Chopped onion, salt and pepper, tobasco, and Worcestershire sauce mixed with cooked thin egg noodles in a buttered casserole with toasted bread crumbs on top.I still make this!

[jeanmarieok]

HEY! I was a 4-Her, too, in the 70's. I am the only one I ever knew! I loved doing those cooking demos - anything for a blue ribbon, ya know? I will never forget the lady who worked with us out of the recipe book. She always said 'par meeeee seeean' cheese instead of 'parmesan' - even as a kid, that cracked me up. I still use my 4-H recipe for deviled eggs.....

[Julya]

My mom made a cold green bean salad that I've never heard of anyone else knowing about. She took a can of green beans, drained them, and mixed them with a sliced banana, a couple tablespoons or so of Miracle Whip or Mayonnaise, and a tablespoon of sugar. That's it; you eat it cold. I knkow it sounds weird, but the combination is really good, or at least it is to me, but I grew up eating it. A few years before she died, my mom talked to someone who grew up Amish and they told her t was an Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch recipe. Seems to make sense because my mom's ancestors were German Immigrants to PA, then WI, then MN, who were originally "Pennsylvania Dutch", and a few of my mom's old family recipes are similar to Pennsylvania Dutch or Amish recipes.

[Julya]

Oh, just thought of another one, but it may already be in the 900+ posts so if it is, I apologize!! Instead of BLTs, we had BPBT's: Bacon, Peanut butter, and tomato on toasted bread. I actually crave this somedays, and I prefer it to a BLT! :)

[Julya]

Kivarita, I boarded with a family during my Junior year (because I went to a parochial high school too far from home to commute) who made sloppy joes that way, and it was the first time I'd ever heard of doing them that way. When the mom asked me to fix supper one night, and she handed me her recipe, at first I thought she made a mistake, but I figured I'd just follow her recipe anyway, and they turned out great!

[ctscra]

My friends Mom makes sloppy joes the same way, but her "trick" is to add a knob of butter to the meat at the end and to paprika the buns where you would normally butter them. These are really good.

[Emmie9999]

From my in-laws: potato stuffing. Just take your usual stuffing recipe with onions, celery, and Bell's seasoning (that's all they use, anyway), and instead of bread cubes, use cubed parboiled potatoes. Right next to the mashed potatoes on the plate at Thanksgiving and Christmas...carb overload, omy!

(And yes, I do think this thread is that interesting!)

[cdnexpat]

No one seems to share these ones? From my mum:

*Canned sardines in tomato sauce, cooked with onions caramelized and sauteed with nutmeg (still my favourite way to caramelize onions). Served over toast (a variation of sardines on toast, I suppose).
*Thinly-sliced spam, pan fried to crispness, served with white rice and a can of baked beans in tomato sauce on the side.
*Also, spaghetti with meat sauce, but with lots of ketchup as the tomato base. Topped with cubes of Kraft singles -- gooey orange, plasticky goodness melting over the pasta "sauce".

I still crave these things from time to time -- but other than the sardines on toast, I have yet to eat them again!

[aninocentangel]

-Peanut butter and bacon on (white bread) toast. I was SHOCKED when I moved out and my roommates had never heard of this and thought it was gross. Still my favorite :)
-grilled PB&J
-Hungarian goulash: browned hamburger with chopped onion, elbow macaroni and canned stewed tomatoes, smother with american cheese. Eliminate the cheese and switch the macaroni out for rice and you can call it spanish rice.

[The Professor]

Sorry, but that is NOT Hungarian Goulash.
Hungarian Goulash is a soup.

[eamcd]

It is sometimes called American Goulash, however it is not Hungarian!

[Kellz]

As a child, I use to love spending Sunday afternoons with my Polish Grandma. She would dice up an apple and serve it to me with sour cream! Yummy :)

[buttertart]

That does sound good - I love sour cream on just about anything.

[verily]

My Southern grandmother had a dish she called mulligan, but it wasn't the "mystery meat" stew variety. It basically consists of ground beef and finely chopped potatoes cooked in a gravy made from shortening, browning, and worcestershire sauce. It's served over cornbread usually with a side of peas. Guaranteed to clog your arteries, but it was pretty tasty.

[jmcd]

This is not necessarily so weird, but my dad supposedly called it "Lady Cabbage" when you cooked the cabbage in milk instead of water. It's the only way my non-cabbage-eating kids will touch the stuff. also cut the sauerkraut with apple sauce and bacon grease.

[egbluesuede]

Thanks Kivarita....I've actually been following this thread for years now and have enjoyed the many postings. It just occured to me going through some of my classic family recipes that I really should mention my families Ham Loaf. It's similar to meatleaf, but made with ground ham. My Grandma's Grandma made it, and it's been a staple at many large family gatherings for probably over a hundred years. I don't think I've seen it anywhere other than my families table, so I'd love to know if anyone else has ever made HAM LOAF.

[foiegras]

I haven't made it, but I've seen a number of recipes for it, in church cookbooks & the like.

[eamcd]

I haven't had it at home, but have had it when visiting Pennsylvania Dutch Country and from an Amish market. That version is made of a mix of ground ham and ground pork, cooked as a meatloaf, sometimes with a ham glaze on top.

[eratosthanes]

I would suggest "Pappa'd eggs," named for my great-grandfather. This is an old family dish that is not fried or scrambled eggs, but a wonderful combination of both.
Fry a couple of pieces of bacon, about one piece per two eggs, set aside, crumbled. In the bacon grease, crack your eggs as if frying. Cook eggs until whites are half-done, then break eggs up, toss the bacon back in, and stir only occasionally until desired doneness.
I have never seen this in a recipe book (too simple, I guess) but it is excellent, though high in fat/cholesterol/guilt.

[chowdawggy]

I'm 61; this recipe has been in my family since before I was born . . . but nobody else I know seems to have ever heard of it. This was made for EVERY special-occasion dinner and also for in-between times. It's a bean salad made with pork and beans. The recipe is easily multiplied, depending on how many you plan to serve. One (14 to 16 oz.) can of pork & beans makes enough to serve 4 people.

Bean Salad:

1 can Pork & Beans, drained
1 hard boiled egg, chopped
3-4 sweet pickles, diced (or you can substitute 1/4 C. sweet pickle relish)
1/4 cup chopped onion . . . I usually use double to triple that amount
1 small to medium raw tomato, diced (can be omitted if GOOD tomatoes aren't available)
1/4 tsp garlic powder (or to taste)
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. seasoned salt (optional)

Mix all ingredients and refrigerate at least a couple of hours. Will be difficult after the first time as people will be dipping into it as soon as it's made, lol.

After I introduced my hubby to this salad, I have to use at least 2 cans of pork & beans to make bean salad for just the two of us . . .it gets better and better as it sits.

[alkapal]

i'd eat that, i think. that being said, i'm a sucker for just about any bean salad.

[Island]

I remember my mom craving sandwiches of fried ground bologna with pickle relish mixed in. UGH, I can smell it now!

[DawneeBabe]

It's been said before..but...this thread is amazing!! I've spent my spare time over the course of 4 days reading this entire thing and I'm awed by it all. So many wonderful, touching, funny (and occasionally wistful) memories from everywhere in the world, not to mention the varied and awesome recipes! I've added very interesting things to my "Stuff I gotta try" list....:-D

Now to add to the list:
*Toast smeared thick with peanut butter and a soft poached egg on top... I couldn't bear to watch as a family member cut into the yolk *shudder*
*Cold pork & beans straight from the can mixed with large curd cottage cheese...odd, but surprisingly tasty!
*My Dads "Dagwood" sandwiches...everything and anything in the fridge..meatloaf, sliced onion, mashed potatoes, baked beans, dill pickle slices, peanut butter, cheese,Miracle Whip, mustard, lettuce, tomato, roast beef.....alllll or any combo thereof...

I hope this thread lives on....*Grin* Ohhhh..and Happy 'May Day" Lol

[alkapal]

i can eat those bush's baked beans (the vegetarian one i like best) right out of the can. in fact, i may even prefer them room temp like that.

[DreamCyn]

My mother used to make this salad dressing with a whole bulb of garlic, lemon/lime juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper, with the occasional splash of vinegar. All thrown into a blender and buzzed into a creamy dressing and poured on top of as many different greens as we could get.
I LOVED it (and still do, i make it at least twice a month) but it's something I know a looot of people wouldn't like; sooo much garlic that I smell for at least a day after I eat it (but then, that's also because i eat a LOT of it).
My best friend was a fan, as well as an ex of mine and a friend of my mothers, but other than that it's rare to find someone outside my family who likes it.

[skamama]

We raised rabbits a number of years when I was a kid, (there were seven of us kids, and they were a 4-H project that got out of hand) and we made big pots of rabbit and my grandmother's Missouri Dumplings.

2 beaten eggs
4 T. milk
1 tsp. salt
2 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder

Beat eggs well, add salt and milk. Add enough flour to make a stiff dough. Divide into 2 pieces. Roll out on floured board until thin. Let stand 20 minutes, then roll up and slice into noodles, or cut into squares (my favorite). If you've made long noodles, drape them on a pasta rack or fluff them up on waxed paper so most of the noodle surface is exposed to air. Dry a little while simmering:
A rabbit or two cut up in salted water to cover with a bay leaf and one chopped onion and two or three ribs of chopped celery. Simmer, then remove the meat to bone. Bring the heat back up, and put in the Missouri dumplings to cook. They don't take long; add the boned chicken or rabbit to the broth when they are done to warm the meat through and serve. Mom always added a little cornstarch or flour to thicken the broth, but it’s great with the broth unthickened, too. My dad would occasionally go hunting and bring home several grouse. Those simmered with Missouri Dumplings make a downright tasty dish. Mmmm, mmm.
I now do this recipe with chicken. I also put in chopped fresh thyme, parsley, maybe a couple of sage leaves, and sometimes I add some frozen peas right at the end.

[sommrluv]

This thread is wild! It's so neat to see everyone's different "made-up" recipes.

I remember growing up and eating apples warmed in the oven with sugar & cinnamon, or honey on toast.

One of the weirder things my mother had done...she made a dish called butter noodles. It was ziti or a similar noodle cooked until very soft, and than she would take a hot frying pan and melt butter, and fry the noodles until they were crispy..halfway dehydrated again. It's so junk foodish, and salty...and not a bad comfort food. I probably make it once a year when I'm sad!

My husband refused to eat this for forever because of the ick, greasy factor. But once he ate one off my plate, and the next time I was sick, he cooked up...butter noodles!

I don't make them anymore because of the carbs. But yum!

[casalbore spirit]

Sort of spaetzle like in preparation.I'll bet some cheese and onions or gravy would make it over the top!

[jvanderh]

Have you tried the dreamfields low carb pasta? I go through like six boxes a month.

[The Professor]

Fried noodles/pasta was always a favorite of mine.
Also, one of our traditional 'family' things was wide egg noodle ribbons (preferably home made) cooked as usual, drained , then tossed with butter and some large curd ("pot style") cottage cheese. Still one of my absolute favorites.

As for the carbs, I don't worry about it.
As long as you don't make starchy carbs like rice, pasta, or bread the focus of every single meal, there is no harm (unless one is in a medical situation where there's a concern about raising blood sugar ...even then, moderation would probably allow it).

[maryhbrock]

best appetizer - one thin slice of bacon, wrapped around a saltine cracker. Baked in a 350 ish oven until the bacon is cooked. i bake these on a broiler pan so the drippings run off. They taste like little puff pastry delicacies!

[link_930]

Putting milk into shin ramyun (Korean ramen). It was horrid and so traumatizing I can still smell and taste it. No idea why parents did that...

[terischu]

Saturday lunches when I was a kid were always something a little weird that my dad liked.
One we had a lot was "slap jack" - fry a slice of Spam or some bacon, top with an egg and a slice of white bread, when the egg white is set flip it and brown the bread- eat it with ketchup!
Then there was a sort of soup called Bacon, Tomato and Corn, which is exactly what it was. Fry diced bacon and add tomatoes and corn, usually canned, but delicious in the summer when we had garden fresh tomatoes and corn!
Of course BLTs were another favorite, but for my brother and sister who didn't like tomatoes Mom would make grilled PB&J with bacon. I'd usually get one of each!

[eight_inch_pestle]

A breakfast egg-and-sausage casserole made in an 8x8 tin. Scallions, eggs, half&half, cooked breakfast sausage, and cheddar cheese on top of slices of cheap white bread. Totally trashy, but family friends still ask me for the recipe.

[ZenSojourner]

Spanish noodles - one lb ground beef, chopped onion, one package of egg noodles (boiled and drained of course) and I forget how many cans of condensed tomato soup. Enough to mix everything together. I loved this as a kid but when I tried to make it as an adult (and I'm the one who did all the cooking in my house so it wasn't because I didn't know how to cook it) I thought it was awful.

Sloppy joes were made with 1 lb ground beef, chopped onion, and one bottle each of chili sauce and catsup. I'd be afraid to make this now, my guess being that again my adult taste buds would shrivel in horror at the contact.

We made something called Milk Toast which was toast shredded into a bowl and then heated milk with butter, salt and pepper poured on top. I do actually still eat this. My son calls it "weird depression-era food-like substance". It was inspired by the need in pre-electrified rural areas to use up milk before it went bad and day old bread (back when day-old bread would quickly approach brick status). It was also pre-cereal - in the days before boxed breakfast cereals became common. I prefer to make this with the cheapest, squishiest possible white bread-like substance. Good bread just doesn't taste right to me prepared this way.

Peanut butter mixed with dark Karo syrup or (preferably real) maple syrup (which you could actually find and afford when I was a kid). Mix it all up and eat it with a spoon. I have heard of other people making this, but again its something I loved as a child and wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole these days.

[don515]

Yes great thread-got a funny story.

Iike many posters Mom could not cook so I to started cooking a very early age. Dad shudder when Mom asked him what he would like for dinner on his birthday. After a long pause he came up with suffed shells. We did not see the cooking process and sat dowm for dinner. Mon said that was a hell of lot of work. Me and dad were a little perplexed until she started serving. She had suffed those tiny 1/2 inch shells !!!! They were damm good.

Mom did get better she make elbow mac and cheeze 1 can tomato soup can of milk and velveta.

Do love this one its's actually on my bio for chowhound

My favorite comfort food:

Noodles and Pot cheese.Kinda like periogi's only faster. Carmelize lg sliced onion in butter. Cook 10-12z wide egg noodles-undercook a bit. Butter noodles add to pan with onion medium heat till hot. Hard to find pot cheese so add 12z container of large curd cottage cheese stir until cheese just starts to melt,plate,salt and lots of black pepper.

DC

[lsmutko]

We had that, only with mushrooms added to the onion and farmer's cheese instead of pot cheese, though I think they're pretty similar.

If we were feeling fancy? A little diced bacon with the onion and mushrooms.

[dumplingdarling]

My momma makes tacos differently than any I have ever had anywhere else. She cooks the ground beef in a skillet and then drains it. She adds her taco seasoning, refried beans, and salsa to the ground beef and mixes it all together. The best tacos ever. Also, she makes something we call Goopy. It is just elbow macaroni, ground beef, tomato soup, and shredded mozzerella. Very yummy. My inlaws do some interesting things, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they are from Eastern Kentucky. My mother in law makes salmon patties with breakfast. Yuck. Also, they insist on eating potato chips with with cake and ice cream on birthdays. Just a few little things that I find odd. :)

[Wtg2Retire]

My husband was from the foothills area of Eastern Kentucky (towards Lexington). His family had fish (including salmon patties) for breakfast, too. The first time I experienced it, I thought it was so odd. I have come to believe that this practice came about from having leftover salmon patties from the night before.

[Mame16th]

My dad's family is from Eastern Kentucky, too, but they never had fish or salmon patties for breakfast. What they DID have, often, was the mysteriously named "turkey back". Just leftover cornbread sliced into roughly finger sized pieces, then fried till brown in oil or the grease from the bacon or sausage we were having. Sometimes we'd have it instead of breakfast meat, but either way it was always served with gravy. It couldn't possibly be any good for you, but it certainly is delicious!

[luciaannek]

I have a friend from Southern Ohio (very close to Kentucky) that does fish for breakfast. They make a white sauce, add a can of tuna and frozen peas, and put it over waffles with parsley on top. They call it "waffles with tuna and peas." I can't stomach it.

[Wtg2Retire]

You know, now that I think of it, don't the English and Scots serve fish for breakfast?

[MsBees]

LOL...my italian american grandmother used to make a boiled dinner on St Patricks day for my irish american father with a stick or two of pepperoni in it. It was DELICIOUS!!!!!

[alkapal]

that story of the pepperoni in the st. patty's day boiled dinner really cracked me up!

[MsBees]

Ahhh Isn't it nice when food makes you smile:)

Really it is my all time favorite Boiled Dinner :)

[MSK]

I am convinced that if I make this Chow Recipe for:

Thanksgiving Turkey Cake Recipe
http://www.chow.com/recipes/29029-tha...

It will be something that my kids will be adding to this thread in the years to come!
(And I do believe that this thread will still be going by then too!)

[kerrough]

My family never really had any strange recipes, but my best friend growing up did! "Sugar Shells" was cooked shell pasta, velveta, and so much sugar it hurt your teeth. Also, "Hobo Stew", which was canned tuna, Kraft mac'n'cheese, and canned peas. I hated eating over their house, but my parents worked nights a lot, so...yeah, gross.

[lunaburning]

Growing up, my dad would always heat up a can of peas with plenty of salt and pepper on the stove, then dump the whole thing, liquid and all over a few slices of wonder bread in a bowl and eat it. That's it. Not really a recipe, just soggy white bread with canned peas. I don't think that any of the rest of us ever tried it but he ate it about once a week.

[Jerseygirl111]

Tuna salad omelette- canned tuna , mixed with mayo, in an omelette with American cheese, serve with ketchup on top
Hot dogs, beans and bacon-fry chopped bacon, saute chopped onion in the drippings, then fry sliced hot dogs in same. Drain, add Campbells canned pork &beans, mix in ketchup, s & p, yellow mustard, garlic powder.
Pepperoni & scrambled eggs
Hot dogs & scrambled eggs
Potatoes & scrambled eggs
Any of the above egg combos on hard rolls for eating on the beach
Elbows & tomato soup-1lb elbow mac, 1 stick butter, 1 can of tomato soup, not prepared, straight from the can
Mish mosh-ground beef, sauerkraut, rice, evaporated milk. Gram used to make it, maybe it was a Depression recipe?
Kielbasa & ketchup- slice kielbasa in large frying pan, cover with ketchup, add small amount of water, boil till kielbasa curls