What Did Mother Cook?

Shake’n Bake.

And I helped!!!

My mother made a killer roast beast. I still use the dutch oven she used the Sunday after after JFK was killed and she cried all day. And she was a Republican.

Fried chicken and swiss steak were her specialties. She also made an oyster dressing for holidays which looked dreadful but was delicious.

My mother would dump some dead cow into the crock pot along with cream of mushroom soup and serve it with instant potatoes and canned vegetables. She no longer cooks and for that I am grateful.

My mother fed us McDonald’s.

My mother made almost everything from scratch, and I can credit her with my resistance to taking shortcuts when cooking. The main thing I remember her making for me was a dense milk chocolate cake for my birthday every year. I couldn't find the recipe after she died, but a couple of years ago, I happened to find it in a Hershey's cookbook at Goodwill.

R6---Is it a recipe that calls for hot water?

My mom made custard for me when I was sick.

Reservations

Tuna Cassarole

My gran made beautiful delicious bread and mouth watering apple pie.

R7

Yes. The first time I made it, I forgot the hot water, and the result was edible but rather unfortunate.

Thank God my mom never went in for those atrocious 70s colors

My moms cooking was shit-like.

R12---One good thing about the interwebs is how you can remember just a little detail about something and still track it down.

My mom made excellent meatloaf, fried chicken, veal cutlet, and spaghetti and meatballs. A passable roast beef. Roasted an amazing turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas. But anything having to do with steak, barbecue or burgers, that was dad on the grill.

Slowly it all changed. Friday night became pizza night. Hamburger Helper happened. Tacos took over. But dad still ran the grill.

My mother didn't prepare anything special for me, because my brothers and sisters all liked the same things.

She'd make popcorn for Saturday night horror movie watching, and then we'd have ice cream sundaes. Her favorite was banana ice cream with chocolate syrup.

We loved her spaghetti and meatballs, her tuna casserole (ahem, illiterate "white-trash Jew" at R10), Mickey Mouse pancakes, quiches, beef Rouladen, pork chops, her fried fish (Dad fished), roasted wild turkey (Dad hunted), fried chicken, bean soup, beef vegetable soup, chicken noodle soup, chili, chicken and Spaetzle, and her specialty for outdoor get-togethers, "Barbecued Ribs Aloha." She loved trying "novelty" recipes and we went through eras of Catsup Cake, Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake). She loved making cream puffs and we loved eating them.

She would sing Andrews Sisters songs for us and dance with us. "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree."

When we had to go to the doctor for a regular checkup, she'd give us a choice of taking the bus (with a transfer) or walk the five miles roundtrip and use the bus fare for treats. (We didn't have much money.) We always agree to walk, but she always had to have an equal share of the candy.

Her mottos were "All for the love of Jesus," "This too will pass," and "Be quiet or you'll wake your father." (He worked shift work.)

I feel a bit better seeing mine was not the only mom who was a dud in the kitchen. My mom used to claim she was known for her spaghetti and meatballs and for her brisket. In fact, both dishes were an oily mess. But way better than the Swanson’s dinners we often ate. I love my mom but I really don’t have an answer for OP’s question. I honestly cannot remember anything special she did for me.

Feces

R17. Your Mom sounds like a hoot ...

Mom as a whiz with goulash and chili.

She called it 'Sukiyaki'. She cooked a mess of steak, cut it into strips, added a couple cans of La Choy canned vegetables. The we ladled it over minute rice.

It was good. Fed five people, and it was an exotic change over our usual bland midwestern flyover fare.

Dad.

Sickening sweet yam souffle topped with pecans and mini marshmallows. Yum!

my mother thought opening a can of dog food and putting a scoop of it in a bowl covered in hersheys syrup so it looked like ice cream when everyone else had ice cream was funny.

she also would put lentils and sliced hot dogs in the crock pot. sometimes she'd really break out her culinary show of love and mix macaroni noodles with canned peas and mayonnaise.

Yes. Cooking was a serious hobby of my Mom’s, and she was an incredible cook. We are a lot of French dishes growing up. She was Texan, so she could also make a mean chicken fried steak. I love good food and cooking because of her.

Coq au Vin Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and brown gravy, all homemade Chicken Marsala Pan-fried pork chops Excellent homemade potato salad This really good Chinese dish that had brown sauce and peanuts, but I forgot what it was called Manicotti Macaroni and cheese from scratch Grilled and seasoned portobello mushrooms Cheese quesadillas Bean and cheese burritos with salsa, hot sauce and sour cream Deviled eggs

I couldn't eat every single item on the above list because I was pretty much born vegetarian with meat and fish aversions that I still have. I'm a strict vegetarian and lifelong anorexic so she was always willing to make me vegetables and have tea around.

When I was a fetus, I detached the feeding vessel that came down into the uterus and plugged it back into the cavity that led to the colon. My mom kept eating cheeseburgers and other things that had too much ground beef when she was pregnant with me and I thought it was utterly disgusting. She gave me my first food aversions before birth, so I had to take action. I was born weighing zero lbs(at a normal height for a newborn)even though I wasn't premature.

Dead serious. I wasn't a stupid fetus.

Oh dear! What happened to my formatting?!

Correction from r27

Coq au Vin

Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and brown gravy, all homemade

Chicken Marsala

Pan-fried pork chops

Excellent homemade potato salad

This really good Chinese dish that had brown sauce and peanuts, but I forgot what it was called

Manicotti

Macaroni and cheese from scratch

Grilled and seasoned portobello mushrooms

Cheese quesadillas

Bean and cheese burritos with salsa, hot sauce and sour cream

Deviled eggs

...much better.

Her fried chicken was bomb too, but I couldn't eat it.

And "1-2-3-4 Cake". I thought she was old-timey because everybody else's mom used cake mix, storebought icing or just said fuck it and bought the whole unit premade from the Walmart or Giant baked goods section.

Eggplant parmigiana to die for! She let us choose a dinner for our birthday, this is what I always chose. We weren't even Italian.

[quote] She did the best she could.

R18, that's enough. I hope she had no regrets, because that's all any of us can do -- some people won't even try and they're the losers.

Short ribs with Yorkshire pudding. She was a great cook. We live in the U.S. and our antecedents are from the U.K., but not from anything that anyone can remember, so from awhile ago. Also, we were pretty poor, so this was not a very often meal.

Hi, R33. I’d say she did the best she could with the hand she was dealt. A sometimes tough life, though with (more than?) its share of high points. I think she would have agreed that she had few regrets.

She was hanging tough ‘til about a year ago, when her Alzheimer’s really started taking over. I’d hoped she could die peacefully before that happened.

Let’s just admit it, moms are pretty doggone special. They somehow managed to feed and clothe their kids on very tight budgets. They put their kids first most of the time and tended to us lovingly even when we were being little shits!.

Meh R36....not everyone’s mom was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

At least I don’t remember any Norman Rockwell paintings with mom sitting at the local bar getting hammered.

Mom as a girl

The ham and white bean soup she makes with leftover Cumberland Gap ham after Easter. I don't know what the he'll she does because I tried to make my own and had to throw it out. Hers is so, so good with a piece of corn bread. Her stuffed peppers, stuffed pork chops, and baked beans are good too. A very hearty cook. Chicken soup!

i love hearing all these family favoites

r55 you seem like you wanted to provoke.

R42 can see into the future.

She made biscuits with hamburger gravy on my birthday. I loved it.

My mom didn’t have any signature dishes. She was disorganized and didn’t plan meals in advance.

But she let me stay home from school practically whenever I wanted.

My mother was a great cook, despite not always liking to cook. Not gourmet dishes. I still have never tasted pork chops as good as hers. She could make you scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast and they were perfect. Years later when she was older some of my cousins would ask her to make chicken salad, if they were coming over. It was so delicious. Or neighbors would love to come over and have her corn chowder. She was half Italian and her Italian food was great too. She had a gift.

Milk pudding desserts, coconut ice, fudge, ginger snaps, great roasts and killer egg and chips.

Spaghetti surprise, jarred sauce, pasta, cooked ground beef and onions, add black olives and a drained can of corn, some butter and top with Parmesan.

Turn any savory leftover into a Bisquick bake! Use any canned soup you have on hand -doesn’t have to be a cream one. Gee this looks familiar....

Breakfast for dinner. Pancakes with sausages. cereal, eggo waffles.

Turkey thighs in the slow cooker all day with Lipton French onion soup mix.

R32 Neither is eggplant parmigiana

My mom made up for what could of been the bleakest of childhood, as my dad was a enraged alcoholic. As I got older, I learned that my mom was a lousy cook. She overcooked everything. Canned green beans? Cooked till they were falling apart. Broccoli? It must be putrid green, and mushy. Steak? Well done, and tough. But she could do a fantastic Thanksgiving! She would also make beef stroganoff with homemade noodles, my favorite. We were a family of 6 once my cousin came to live with us. Our family would go to the 'fields' in Florida and pick tomatoes, green beans, cabbage, beets. We would then can all weekend long, making tomatoe sauce, pickled beets, and sauerkraut. It was a lot of work, but fun. She worked very hard making great times, amongst all the drunken fighting. On many weekends, we would go to a beach park for an entire day picnic, cooking breakfast, all the way to dinner. We played softball, badminton, horseshoes; most picnics with other families attending. Mom's macaroni salad was the best. I can not get the exact taste.

As a youngster, on many Friday nights, my father would cook german potatoe pancakes. Usually he didn't get drunk on this one night. We'd grate a ton of potatoes, and onions. To this day, I can not get the exact same potato pancake taste. I did find this box version in the store that has the closest taste, but the mix was too powdery.

My mom gave me the love of movies. Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, The Sound of Music, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Haunting, The Birds and more. If we were sick, we were allowed to stay up late and watch a movie with her. Often during movies, usually the weekend, one of us 3 boys would lay our heads on mom's lap, and she would pour peroxide in our ears and clean them. I can only equate that feeling with probably what the kittens feel curling up to momma cat and having their heads and faces licked.

As mom has gotten older, our relationship has gotten contentious. I've learned she just wants it her way, and she is not cooperative in her declining years. I wish it was like laying on the couch, having my ears cleaned.

My Mom was a great cook. She's now 93 and lives with me and suffers from macular degeneration so I have to cook for her. And I'm not a good cook so it's hard.

Mothuh was always making this absolutely delicious pate.....

My mom had worked in a "tea room" in the '30s and so could make all kinds of pastry, including chou, which meant we got homemade eclairs and cream puffs, plus divinity, fudge, etc. Otherwise, cooking bored and harassed her, so we'd get the typical canned vegetables and overcooked meat most nights. She made a mean candied ham, though, with the clove and pineapple slices.

Thanks, Mom, for the two fucking million meals you had to cook!

Agreed with R53, and thank YOU for reminding us just now. Everybody, let's give a nice big thanks for Mom's cooking.

THAAAAAAAAANKS MOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!

Mrs. Pence makes a delicious meatloaf.

"My mother fed us McDonald’s."

At least your mother fed you.

The best: slow cooked scrambled eggs on Sunday morning. She would make the bacon first, then remove the bacon and scramble the eggs in the grease. The worst: Sunday night, New England boiled dinner(corned beef, carrots, potatoes, cabbage all boiled). Just awful.

Mom made the best pot roast. The beef was tender and delicious and the vegies (carrots, onions and potatoes) were slightly burned, caramelized and sweet. We'd fight over those sweet carrots!

R57 We had N. E. boiled dinner, I didn't really like it either though my dad made this one when we had it. Made it in the pressure cooker. He loved it. Cabbage, turnips, carrots, potatoes and corned beef. You put Gulden's spicy mustard on it which helped. Now I like it but as a kid I didn't. Afterwards my dad made hash in the meat grinder with the corned beef.

R49, I grew up in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, eggplant parmigiana is Italian. You gotta problem wit dat?

- R32

Mom picked and chose from The Joy of Cooking. She made her own hot dog rolls and great roast beast. She had a strict food budget so we ate the cheapest cuts of meat drenched in some sort of sauce.

Around 1970 she discovered “health foods” and things were never the same. Inspiration came from Diet for a Small Planet. You knew you were eating all right but could not describe the food as delicious, although Mom’s homemade yogurt and granola was good enough to be eaten as a rich dessert. Tabouli and Greek salad were mainstays and I love them to this day.

In the 1990s and 2000s she became proficient at hearty soups created out of anything. To me, this was her golden age of cooking. She didn’t shy away from any ingredient and had a knack for balancing out the different flavours.

Mom worked hard and saved every penny and now lives in great comfort. And she loves the food in her retirement home and praises the chef/cook often. She was still making soup up until she was 85!

R2 Roast beast??

R62 I'm not R2 but we called it Roast Beast in our family because we didn't know what it was!

R63 And what was it?

My mother made about 5 pie crusts and baked each one in an oven safe bowl. She cooked a creamy sort of cherry pudding on the stove, lots of cherries. Then she had a huge crockery bowl that she layered with pie crust then cherry mixture then pir crust etc. Then she would bake it in the oven. It was crazy delicious.

One night my dad was in the process of bitching me out for some dumb ass thing I did and my mom put a dish of her "cherry casserole" in front of him and winked at me. Dad completely lost his train of thought and I was spared.

Apple pie 🥧

I used to love my Mothers stuffed peppers and she made pork cutlets breaded with Wheatsworth stoned ground crackers! The holidays were always a special time when fast food places had great gifts! Her Christmas glassware came from Long John Silvers! Dishes came from Eagles grocery stores. I still have all the ornaments Hardee's and Mcdonalds gave out.

My mother couldn't cook. If her mother wasn't around (she was a wonderful cook) we went out to dinner a lot when we were kids - takeout and fast food not being then what they are today - and we were fine with that.

I do remember the first McDonald's I ever saw, though, sometime around 1960 when the sign on the arches said "Over 10 million sold."

hilarious how many moms seem to be inept cooks, was it a generational thing? or just a bunch of bitchy queens complaining?

My mother was an okay cook. She was a fantastic cookie baker.

Her specialty was lasagna. It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized how slim the resemblance was to the actual dish.

The rest of the family still follow her recipe to this very day.

R60 that was funny! Tee hee.

Did any of you actually call your mother "mother"? I thought only rich white people did that.

R72, I don't know of anyone who calls their mother "Mother." I called my mother "Mom."

Anyway, my mom was a housewife and, in retrospect, she was a bit too frugal for my dad's taste, food-wise. Me, I enjoyed all the frugal dishes like creamed tuna on toast. Another dish that was probably frugal that I liked was hamburger stew.

R72 R73 Norman Bates called his mother "Mother."

My mother-in-law called her mother "Mother" and was disappointed when her sons called her "Mom" and her grandkids called her "Grandma" instead of "Grandmother". She was a petty person (and a mediocre cook).

She had a special way of cooking food — black on the outside & raw on the inside. Good old mom

Leg of lamb was a big treat as was the Christmas Eve menu: Ham(plenty of cloves), scalloped potatoes and green beans, with relishes and tons of cookies.

When I was ick, I would get Mrs. Grass' chicken noodle soup, from a foil envelope that included the "golden nugget" (probably bouillon and chicken fat). Never had this any other time. Otherwise, it was Campbell's (whose chicken noodle soup was barely ok).

R77, did you pretend to be ick so that you'd get Mrs. Grass' chicken noodle soup more often?

No.

R75 My husband insists his grandchildren call him Grandfather, not grandpa.

Having a fussy gay grandpa is my worst nightmare. Poor children.

My Mother, yes I call her Mother made a decent meatloaf. She cooked every night. At the time I thought she was a great cook but as I got older and began cooking myself, I realized she couldn’t cook worth a damn. At least one can of soup was put in nearly everything. Once she made a congealed salad out of lime jello with onions and cucumbers. Who the fuck puts onions in jello?

Leg of lamb. My favorite, r77. My favorite. My Swedish grandmother was married to a Greek, and leg of lamb was a huge treat, and didn't happen often. I got the recipe and cooked it once. Delicious, but took me the whole fucking day.

Beef Barley Soup & fresh hot rolls...all from scratch! My mother was a wonderful cook, and taught me a lot.

r57 i love corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots although i save it for St. Patrick's Day. Boiled? Nope...crockpot cooked, easy peasy. with some nice sweet rolls.

I'm the yorkshire pudding cooking mom poster from earlier. i have to say my mom (and my dad for that matter!) were excellent cooks. we never had enough money for things like beef roasts or leg of lamb (and i have to say, lamb is so damn gamey, much like venison), but my mom was very experimental and would regularly make things like mu shu pork (with the homemade crepe wrappings), estafado (very spicy spanish beef stew), Lot u car n'gow (pretty sure i'm spelling that wrong, but it was Cantonese beef with peppers). Her marinara sauce was never bottled and often served over homegrown spaghetti squash. She didn't really do baking - that was pretty much my department from age 10 on. Dad made the best, most inventive salads every damn night with homemade dressings of all sorts. Ah, the good old days when we had a different meal every night, altogether and all at the table and everything was homemade because it was cheaper to do so back then and we had a huge garden and our own eggs and raised pigs as well, so lots of good protein - good times :)

My mom was a corporate climbing 80s yuppie boomer. She didn't cook shit!

It was called hot dish. We usually requested it for our birthdays.

Ground beef

Creamed corn

Green peppers

Tomato paste

Ketchup

Looks bad on paper but tastes really good!

Hamburgers and grey gravy.

My dad was a classically trained chef, mom was a housewife. My dad didn’t cook at home so mom did. Did I mention mom was a housewife? We emigrated from the UK to the US and my mom would cook English-American. Roast chicken and roast potatoes with brussel sprouts. Or she’d make toad in the hole; sausages cooked in a Yorkshire pudding. It usually seemed to be a meat and two vegetables. My dad taught me to like offeral; kidneys, tongue, heart. But I haven’t eaten it in years. What’s weird is my mom became quite a food snob when she got older. She did know good food when it was prepared for her.....she just didn’t cook it. There must be something to children learning certain traits from their parents. My two siblings and I are really good cooks and it didn’t come from my mom’s side.

I call mom “ma” and though she worked and never really enjoyed cooking she would make terrific meatballs and sauce twice a week - for Wednesday & Sunday dinners. Now that my parents are both in their 80s she doesn’t cook much - they mostly go to restaurants or get deliveries because of COVID, but she still makes a pot of meatballs whenever her grandchildren request it.

[quote] I know you’re all total tops now, but let’s get emotional and talk about your dear mother.

Thank you for the good laugh, OP!

Mama was generally a good cook. Italians! But when she wanted to "be modern" she made us tuna noodle casserole with Mueller's egg noodles and a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and sprinkled cheddar cheese and crushed potato chips on it. I actually liked it.

My mother was one of the kindest, loveliest people ever. I loved her and many others did, as well. She donated her time and work to help poor people and battered women for many years, and if I have any understanding of what it is to truly be as Christ-like as one can be, it's because of her.

She had many, many gifts. Unfortunately, cooking was N O T one of them.

Mom wasn't the brassy hair and nails type, though she did have a cigarette at all times.

But I've joked many times that this was her in the kitchen. "Voila....breakfast is served!"

OP, great topic. But given the average age of Dataloungers, your picture is a little too modern. This would have bene more appropriate.

A specialty of Mom’s in the 80s when Dad was out of town was a giant pot of chili left too long on the burner without being stirred. Inevitably, streams of gray smoke would rise from the pot to let us all know that dinner for the next 3 days was ready.

The burned parts of the chili were eventually distributed throughout the pot so that everyone got a fair share of crunchy black scorched-tasting bits in every bite.

My Mom was an excellent cook. She was a housewife so she had plenty of time to do it and she was good at it. She spent time with her Mom in the kitchen and learned how to make a lot of good things from scratch. Her chili was to die for! And, yes, it had meat in in it; ground beef, Mexican chorizo, and pork. Perfectly seasoned every single time.

Mom made stuffing from scratch (corn bread patties heavily buttered, white bread squares, celery, onion, and Bells Seasoning.) She also made the gravy with a roux, drippings from the turkey, and stock from the gizzard, heart and neck. Nothing comes close to her gravy. Mom had Dementia and died in 2016. The last good Thanksgiving dinner I had was probably 2012 or 2013.

The books!

Overall my mom was pretty good cook but when it came to pork cops she'd pretty well ruin them by cooking them to well well done and stew in our house was simply meat, onions, carrots and potatoes boiled in water with perhaps a little salt and pepper. Absolutely dreadful.

R98, it took me four hours, but I finally "got it." LOL

[quote] I still use the dutch oven she used

Did someone say "Dutch oven"?

Beef Barley Soup, & homemade bread. But basically everything. My mother was a great cook. She did tremendously with so little. We were poor, but one would never know by what was prepared in oir kitchen.

Also: OP's photo strongly reminds me of Shelley Duvall & Danny Lloyd in "The Shining".

My mother being a bayou gal really gave her a advantage in the kitchen. She is the master of stews and gumbos. She is the master of dark roux. Her ultimate roux recipe is a dark-roux based beef stew “beef tips and gravy” type dish served over rice or mashed potatoes. My mother has made a few atrocities over the pandemic, including a recreation of “school pizza.” Her baked chicken is passable with stove top, our roaster Turkey and gravy is killer and Gordon Ramsay himself would be impressed. We have Turkey on thanksgiving and Christmas, take that you yanks. Easter as well.

My mother made a baked macaroni in a very round bottomed bowl. This made for a lot of crusty top in relation to the rest. The proportion was great.

I wish I had a baking bowl like that.

Crack rocks.