Something Old, Something New

As those who know me understand, I am so homesick for things that simply are no longer there. Like some others here, I relive some memories through recipes and food. So I offer a challenge: Make something old that will remind you of good times. Then make something new to give you a good memory for now!

I know that I plan to try to make my grandmother's baked BBQ steak for my something old. She made it on weekends in the summer and the entire house smelled of BBQ (even though she cheated and used a BBQ sauce. The steaks were incredibly tender. Mashed potatoes and string beans often accompanied it. We always had side salads in the summer, and we would eat together outside in the shade. The dog would lay hopefully within tossing distance of the table because he knew my sister was an easy touch for sad eyes. Like me at times, my grandmother loved her dishes and would use many for each person. Once "Aunt" Gertie, her best friend, said, "Thella (short for Martha Ellen), you need a dishwasher." Her reply as she pointedly looked at my mother, my sister, and me was, "Pshaw, Gert, I have three."

For something new, I have always wanted to try to make a fresh fruit tart with a glaze. Within two weeks, I'll post my results.

I really hope that others will hop on this band wagon with their own something old and something new.

I like this idea. I don't have a lot of food memories of grandparents because, my grandparents lived in Scandinavia and I only got to visit them a few times while growing up. My mormor (mother's mother) was renowned for her slow roasted chicken with slow roasted "brown potatoes". I'll pass on trying to make that. It was pretty good, but I was not one of the cousins raving about either that pale looking, fall off the bone chicken or the brown potatoes. The best part of those meals was getting together with a bunch of cousins. There are a lot of cousins. Mormor had 12 kids who survived to adulthood and only one of those didn't have any kids. But, now that I think about it. I should try to replicate my farmor's (father's mother) cabbage rolls. She was a good cook, but no one raved about her cooking that I ever heard of. She only had three adult children, so not nearly so many cousins on that side of the family. I usually can't stand cabbage rolls. I can't even stand to be in the same room with cabbage rolls. But, my farmor's Swedish cabbage rolls were delicious. I don't have her recipe, but I do have a Swedish recipe for kåldolmar (cabbage dolmas, yes, Swedes learned to make cabbage rolls from a visiting Turkish diplomat).

I make new recipes all the time, so picking something will be interesting.

My mum was an excellent cook, but I have already incorporated most of my favourites among her recipes. The one I never tried to make that comes to mind is a holiday dish. It's stuffed bird (chicken, duck, turkey, whatever). The stuffing is a meatloaf and I learned to make meatloaf by watching her. I have tweaked it a little bit, but it's basically the same thing.

My mother was not a good cook, so I have no happy memories of family dinners. However, my uncle's mother-in-law was a great "country" cook, and made the best liver and onions in the world. When I asked her if I could watch her make it (I was about 10 years old) she walked me through the entire process, then wrote it down for me to keep. I still have that tattered, stained piece of paper.
Our recent happy memories are chicken piccatta. Husband loves it, and I love seeing his grin when I tell him what we are having for dinner!
Kathleen, thank you for starting such a nice post!

Marlingardener said:

My mother was not a good cook, so I have no happy memories of family dinners. However, my uncle's mother-in-law was a great "country" cook...

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Same here. Mom was not a good cook, although there are a few things she could do well. Lasagna, her MIL's recipe, was good.

We only ate together aa family for Sunday dinner. The rest of the week, my sister and I ate together, then my mom and dad ate their dinner together.

My ex-MIL was an outstanding country cook and baker. When we went to her house in Oklahoma, I'd gain about a pound per day we were there. She baked one each of everyone's favorite pie. Ten people, ten pies.

CD

It's cheating to use BBQ sauce?

My parents were in their 40s when I was born. They immigrated to the USA in the early 20th century and became part of the Armenian community in Eastern MA. I was born and raised in an Armenian household in Boston, spoke Armenian, was surrounded by Armenian relatives and attended Armenian functions. My parents socialized with other Armenians. I was fed Armenian food (it was just food to me) and had a hearty appetite then as I do now. I assumed everyone ate the same stuff as I did.

Mom was a great cook. I've shared some of her recipes here. I've learned to cook some them and have shared them with my daughters.

When I learned to cook myself, a lot of what I learned was from the Food Network, Julia Child, Jacques Pepin and various other cooking shows. Now I cook foods from around the world and have acquired recipes and techniques from this site. I can't imagine my parents' reaction to some of the foods I've learned to cook.

HeyItsSara said:

It's cheating to use BBQ sauce?

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Was that supposed to be a reply in a different thread? It seems to be a bit of a non sequitur here.

edited to say:

Oops, my mistake. BBQ sauce was previously mentioned in this thread.

Kathleen mentioned '(even though she cheated and used a BBQ sauce.'

So, No, Sara, I don't think it's cheating - if you "say" you made it but used bottled, then that's cheating! LOL!!

and as Andy quotes - "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -Carl Sagan

dragnlaw said:

Kathleen mentioned '(even though she cheated and used a BBQ sauce.'

So, No, Sara, I don't think it's cheating - if you "say" you made it but used bottled, then that's cheating! LOL!!

and as Andy quotes - "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -Carl Sagan

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Oops, you are right that BBQ sauce had been mentioned in this thread. Sorry Sara.

@taxlady I hope you make and share your cabbage rolls! I also miss those big family dinners.

@Marlingardener Does he also have the same reaction for the liver and onions? (I love good liver and onions!)

@caseydog What was your favorite pie? I'll bet she had a great time making a special pie for each person.

@Andy M. Do you find that making those Armenian dishes take you back?

@HeyItsSara I think it depends on who you ask. Some here pride themselves on their sauces!

@dragnlaw Yes...but...it was OpenPit original that she used to slather and cook. Of course, options for bottled sauces were pretty limited back then.

Great topic for a thread @Kathleen !

A coupla months back, I made Chunky Applesauce, which conjured up memories of my maternal Great Grandmother, who was the school districts "head lunch lady". I loved whatever she made, but chunky Applesauce was so good with anything or even all by itself.



As to a new dish to create a new memory for our household:
Andy and Joey got us hooked on Cast Iron Skillet Rolls!

"Andy and Joey got us hooked on Cast Iron Skillet Rolls!"
Ditto that!

Something old would definitely be my Grandma Rosie's Vegetable Soup. She was born early 1900's and lived through the depression, so her soup was simple, used inexpensive ingredients combined with whatever you had in the house. She used to make enough for herself, and to give a jar to us ( which was usually an old Sanka coffee glass jar with the orange lid). When she got sick, and was in the hospital, I was actually living out off state. I came home to visit her ( see her for the last time) and I asked, " Grandma, what's the recipe for your soup?". She dictated the recipe to me, which I wrote down. Later that week she passed away. I really wasn't into cooking at that time, but Im glad I got the recipe to pass down as her memory of her. Is it the greatest soup, not necessarily , but when making/ eating it, it provides a spoon-full of memories. I often will make it and bring it to some family gatherings and kinda feels like she s there with us. It really makes my mom ( her daughters) day every time I do it. I now do the same with my father's pickles. Although still with us physically, his memory is not all that great so I was able too get the recipe before it was lost forever. Every fathers day, I make a batch with him then distribute jars to the family.

As far as new, I always wanted to make donuts, but for whatever reason, I had this fear of deep frying. Not for safety reasons, I just found it intimidating. I then took a virtual class on donut making and put it on my bucket list. This past father's day, I finally got the motivation to do it. Got my self a deep fryer an went to work. Although not perfect, I can finally cross it off the bucket list.

Those doughnuts look perfect! Just like my mom's! well, not with the icings because with 5 kids standing around they never lasted long enough to get any icing. Matter of fact, "back in the day" icing was not a normal thing for doughnuts. Only when bakeries started supplying them on a regular basis - you know, the fluffy squishy kinds, did we start to see them with icings. As I remember....

My next donut adventure will be in the fall, when I'll attempt to make Apple cider Donuts.

The donuts in the pic were good, but not what I'd consider great. Maybe I'd give them a B+. Im probably being too hard on myself, but I think we all are when t comes to cooking. More important than how they came out, is that my daughter ( who is now 26) helped me make them. We always cooked together when she lived home, so it was a throwback to the good old days. Plus, I now can blame her on why they were a B+ and not an A +

Ahhh -- I just read somewhere that the ability to focus the blame on a junior for your mistakes shows great management skills.

Kathleen said:

@Andy M. Do you find that making those Armenian dishes take you back? . . .

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Sometimes. Some dishes I make regularly so they don't take me back so much. But when I make some of the "special" recipes I do think of her more.

Kathleen said:

@caseydog What was your favorite pie? I'll bet she had a great time making a special pie for each person.

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Well, I was caught off guard when asked what my favorite pie was, and said "lemon meringue." I do like those pies, but about one slice a year satisfies my desire for lemon meringue pie. But, it stuck, and that's what she always baked for me. Everyone liked it, so I only had to eat a few slices... and it was really good lemon meringue pie. Every pie she made was good, although I can't eat pecan pie. Not a food allergy, it's just WAY too sweet for me. My ex-wife, on the other hand, had a giant sweet tooth. I gave her the nickname "Dessert Hound." She was like a bloodhound when it came to finding good desserts.

I just don't have a big sweet tooth, so there is no pie that I just go nuts for. The rest of the family loved her pecan pie, and another pie I just didn't like, a Chess Pie, which is another Southern pie that is mostly sugar.

CD

caseydog said:

Well, I was caught off guard when asked what my favorite pie was, and said "lemon meringue." I do like those pies, but about one slice a year satisfies my desire for lemon meringue pie. But, it stuck, and that's what she always baked for me. Everyone liked it, so I only had to eat a few slices... and it was really good lemon meringue pie. Every pie she made was good, although I can't eat pecan pie. Not a food allergy, it's just WAY too sweet for me. My ex-wife, on the other hand, had a giant sweet tooth. I gave her the nickname "Dessert Hound." She was like a bloodhound when it came to finding good desserts.

I just don't have a big sweet tooth, so there is no pie that I just go nuts for. The rest of the family loved her pecan pie, and another pie I just didn't like, a Chess Pie, which is another Southern pie that is mostly sugar.

CD

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I don't have much of a sweet tooth either. I do like a sweet dessert once in a while. I agree that pecan pie is overly sweet, but it still might be my favourite. I can't imagine eating it more than once in three months though and I like to have it with sour cream. Quebec has a similar, extremely sweet pie, tarte au sucre, AKA sugar pie. It's very much like a pecan pie without the pecans.

I like Butter Tarts either with or without pecans - all pretty much the same thing. But I agree, tarte au sucre/sugar pie/pecan pies are a bit much. Maybe it's the ratio of crust/pastry to filling?