Kitchen

[Carmie]

My mother was the best cook in town according to everyone.She was German and made PA Dutch meals.  My father was Italian and she made Italian meals just as well.  

I grew up on everything home made. No canned soups or frozen dinners.  Even the pasta  was home made and the sauce was made from tomatoes in our garden.

My two sisters and I cook like my mother.  We are a family who does scratch cooking.

What I miss the most is my mother's meatballs.  She would get up early on Sunday mornings and fry meatballs while she made the sauce.  That smell got me out of bed.  I used to wait for her to turn her back, then stick a fork in a meatball and run.  IMO, they were too good to put into the sauce.  

Once in a while, my meatballs taste like hers, but only when I ask her out loud to help me.  She has been gone for 38 years.

In the winter time, I make a lot of soups, strews, roasts,pork and lamb chops,roasted whole chicken,  Sarma, my favorite spare ribs and different types of potatoes.  I bake a lot too...breads and desserts..  A hot oven is a good way to add extra heat to the house.

[PamfromCT]

It is wonderful to read all these happy memories.  My mother was a good cook and an even better baker.  I so remember a very big and special Sunday dinner, which we enjoyed after mass every Sunday.  And always music playing in the background.

Her cooking greatly evolved following my father’s massive heart attack.  She was so devoted to him and never once complained.  What an example of devotion.  You can love with food you serve, and love with food you don’t serve.

I hope no one finds this too depressing.  

[GCR18]

We pretty much had the same meals all year.  My father was a meat and potato eater, so that's what we ate every night.  Beef, chicken, pork.  My mother made simple meals with no frills because my father was a picky eater and didn't like sauces, spices, etc.  My mother was good at making the simple meals. 

[BeccaLou]

@CrazyKittyLvr2 Homemade bean soup, with fresh soak the beans, and my Dad and I would go to our Hungarian Bakery and get some Vienna Bread, fresh from the oven. So good.!!! Hungarian Soup.Man Alive !!  

[Toppers3]

My Mom made the best soups when the weather would start to get colder. 

We have German ancestry on that side of my family. She could make a great pot of beef Oxtail soup, and her beef barley and veggie soup was also really good.

Her roasts were also very good. She could make a really great pork roast, and a really great pot roast, too. Her gravies were always homemade, too.

She cooked from scratch without using recipes many times. I have tried to duplicate what she did, and I haven't come close to the way that she would cook. 

She was also a good baker, too. She used to like to bake cakes and cookies when I was little. 

I got my start helping her when I was 4 years old. I used to help her stir the batter and then she would let me help her frost cupcakes or cookies.

[AngelPuppy1]

My mother was such a great cook.  Of course, probably everyone feels this way.  She was not a fancy cook, but she just had that special touch with seasonings to make everything tast yummy.  I especially loved her stuffed peppers, cabbage rolls, baked steak with mushroom sauce, vegetable soup with ground beef, spaghetti with meatballs, and potato soup served with little apple pan pies.  She had no recipes written down so I can't try and replicate anything.  I miss her and her cooking so much.  One of the ways she showed her love to everyone was by preparing tasty dishes.  No one ever left her house hungry --- and usually left with a doggy bag!!! 

[house_cat]

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@CrazyKittyLvr2 wrote:

My MIL was just an ok cook.  She had a lot of kids and quantity was the name of the game.  When she fried pork chops she cooked them to death.

The first summer we were married my parents came to visit.  My MIL was gone for the day and we invited my FIL for dinner.  Mom made pork chops, mashed potatoes, a couple of veggies, rolls.  My FIL inhaled those pork chops, he loved them.  He had never had them when they didn't clatter on the plate from being overcooked.

He mentioned that meal to my DH for days afterward.

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This brought back a funny memory. I don't think my mom ever owned a meat thermometer (were they invented yet?).  Her way to be sure any meat was done was to cook it until there was no question about it.  My dad would often tell the story of their first fight as newlyweds.  He came home from work in a grumpy mood and said, "Not those dried up pork chops?" That was it, she dumped the entire meal into the trash and he had a PB&J sandwich for dinner. He said it was much better than the pork chops, lol.  He was a wonderful husband, so that must've been a bad day.  After he retired she gave up cooking and he took over the kitchen.  Dad became an excellent cook and baker and Mom never felt the need to reestablish her old territory.

[shoptilyadropagain]

My mom's cooking didn't change a whole lot between the warmer and colder months.  She would, however, make chili & goulash more in the fall & winter and we would grill out in the spring and summer.  My dad was a meat & potatoes person so we would have fried chicken & mashed potatoes/gravy, Chicken (or beef) & noodles with mashed potatoes, spaghetti, etc.year round.

[JYWilliams]

Home made soup.

[RedTop]

I can remember riding the noisy school bus home in late fall, and the cold of winter with chains on the tires, topping over the hill and seeing the coal smoke billowing where mom had just stoked the fire in the furnace.  

My brothers and I would cautiously cross the slick road, walk down our sidewalk, stomp, and take our boots off on the front porch, then open the front door and feel the heat, plus get a whiff of supper.   If we were having chili, homemade vegetable soup, or moms special potato soup with corned beef and peas added, we could have a bowl right then, and we were usually more than ready to eat!