Cooking at home every night is getting challenging. What to cook? Do you have the ingredients? Are you tired of that food yet? I have been turning to cook books, tried and true standbys, and the foods my mother cooked.
My mother was a very good cook - and she was adventurous in her culinary efforts. I remember the time she made biscuit tortoni, a delicious Italian ice cream dessert with amaretti cookies and cherries on top, and the time she made sauerbraten and red cabbage - all delicious accomplishments for a young woman from Lynchburg Virginia. Her mother was an adventurous cook too who made souffled omelets and cooked squirrel too. The memories of my mother's culinary adventures into other cuisines are great, but the foods I remember and cherish are not the ones from cookbooks but the every day foods - the stuffed peppers and Spanish spaghetti casserole made of ground beef, cheddar cheese, onions, celery and Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti. At least four or five times a year I make her baked chicken with mushroom soup and white wine that she served my dad as a newly wed four or five nights in a row - because he said he liked it the first night! Her chili is some of the best I ever have had and using her recipe for spaghetti sauce gets me rave compliments - even though I have no Italian genes in me.
Then there are the recipes that I didn't get from her because I thought she would always be there to share them with me. I still am trying to reproduce her macaroni and cheese which was a delicious custard consistency that held together beautifully - and her chopped steak with pan gravy and biscuits on top. I dreaded dinner when she cooked that because the steak wasn't really steak but some piece of beef that was so hard to chew that my jaw hurt before dinner was over - but the truth is - it was REALLY good. I would love to recreate that meal - with a slightly better piece of beef.
So..... Will you share a recipe of your mother's with me? I will put them together and send them all to whoever sends me a recipe. If you want to include your memory of the dish, a little about your mother or whatever you would like to share, including pictures, that would be grand. I look forward to hearing from you - You can post it and then include a link here in the comments! I can't wait to read your recipes and start cooking! Happy Mother's Day to all our mothers! We are lucky to have been at your tables!
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