Cooking loved ones' recipes

[MamaBelle4]

Is there some dish that makes you feel connected to a loved one?

Like I always feel connected to my mom when I make her ham & bean soup or her chicken pot pie. And my dad when I make his baked apples.

But this summery morning, I'm making my grandmother's sour cherry pudding and it's like opening a moment in time where I'm a little girl in her kitchen and she's pitting a giant bowl of cherries.

What dishes bring you close to your family/loved ones?

 

[SandyinMonterey]

I don't make it very often, but my Mom's pumpkin custard pie. My Dad loved it, would practically eat the whole pie himself. It was my father's Mother's recipe. I remember my Mom telling me, she remembered going to my father's Mom's house and she'd be making it, usually at least 8 or more (large family, 12 kids). Also, vegetable beef barley soup. Been making it for years.

 

[Meriweather]

I make a lot of my mother's foods.
Pasta sauce, cheesecake, avocado dip (this does not have arecipe....DD loves it, so needs to learn it)

Oh....and her pumpkin bread, and carrot cake

 

[BlueStarryHat]

Every once in a while I'll make a dish my family calls "Potatoes in the Oven." It's mostly potatoes, five pounds of them. The potatoes are sliced thin and layered with American cheese, onions, tomato sauce and slices of bacon for flavor. My great-grandmother used to add "if you have it" in regards to the bacon because she had made this dish up during the Depression when they couldn't always get bacon. You're supposed to discard the bacon after baking it because it doesn't get crispy but my great-grandmother always fried it.

I don't associate the dish with her, though. She did not like me, and the feeling was mutual-no, I think of my grandmother when I make it because I had it most often at her house and it was always a treat. It was a way to make 'potatoes again' taste good during the Depression, but it became a beloved staple at my house.

If you want to try it, you take five pounds of potatoes sliced thin. Two large cans of tomato sauce, two onions, 2 pounds of cheese, and a 1/2 pound of bacon. Layer it in a large baking dish like you would a lasagna, starting with the sauce-then a layer of potatoes, a layer of sliced onions, a couple of bacon slices, then you cover that with slices of cheese. Repeat, ending with a layer of cheese with sauce ladled over the top. Salt and pepper each layer. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven covered with foil for an hour, then uncovered for another hour until the potatoes are fork tender.

You may have enough ingredients for two pans.

 

[ronandannette]

Mostly at Christmas when I pull out the cookie recipes. Coconut macaroons will always be a "'Grandma thing".

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Corn chowder, peppers and eggs, meatloaf, potato salad, egg custard. Lots of things, really.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

I grew up on Shake ‘n Bake pork chops, white bread bologna sandwiches, and Hostess cupcakes which don’t exactly lend themselves to being beloved family recipes.

 

[ronandannette]

I grew up on Shake ‘n Bake pork chops, white bread bologna sandwiches, and Hostess cupcakes which don’t exactly lend themselves to being beloved family recipes.

Particularly not for a vegan. I'm betting your own kids though will think fondly of you every time they celebrate Christmas with Chinese rice congee or Latvian biesu zupa!

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

My mom's spaghetti sauce (baked in the oven for hours); her pumpkin pies, fudge, yeasted and cake donuts.
My dad's smothered burritos (w/red sauce or green)

My kids always ask for me to make: meatloaf, pot roast, braised short ribs, turkey and ham dinners; lemon chicken soup; oatmeal cinnamon chip cookies, lemonade cookies. They also want dad's chili (he does make amazing chili).

 

[TipsyTraveler]

Particularly not for a vegan. I'm betting your own kids though will think fondly of you every time they celebrate Christmas with Chinese rice congee or Latvian biesu zupa!

Ah, yes. My children will certainly have fond memories of floating the walnuts and decorating the boat before tucking into a meal of kutia and Jansson's Temptation.

 

[evilmommie]

Love this thread!

Grandma's recipes: Swedish meatballs, swedish tea cookies, mystery sandwiches, all kinds of coffee cakes, all kinds of casseroles, her mashed potatoes, boysenberry pie, her amazing salad dressings...she had an fantastic veggie garden and made the best salads...on and on! She was a great cook and I inherited her recipe box. Love seeing her handwriting on her recipe cards.

My Mom: Thanksgiving turkey, best combo of herbs and spices. Pumpkin rolls, yeasty little balls of heaven...Enchilada pie...so many more.

 

[AustinTink]

My mom's fried chicken was legendary. I always think of her when I try my best to replicate it. It's an all-day process and I can't imagine how she made it seem so easy. She would cut up and fry at least 5 chickens to feed our family of nine. We didn't make it easy by stealing pieces from the platter every time we would walk through the kitchen!

 

[QueenIsabella]

My mom was known for her blueberry pies. I have her crust recipe, but I never got the hang of it. I use store-bought instead. My sister, OTOH, has the pie gene--she made a dozen blueberry pies to serve at our mom's funeral.

I really love my mom's baked chicken recipe, but I use thighs instead of a whole chicken. My kids don't care so much for the potatoes and onions that I cook it with (like my mom did), but the soup I make from the leftovers is a family favorite.

And I miss my grandmother's cooking! She was Old World Italian--you just can't beat it. It was funny--years ago, I was on a business trip with a colleague. We had some time before our flight home, so he suggested an early dinner in Little Italy (Baltimore). After, we strolled around, eating gelato (because, you know, Little Italy). It was the funniest thing--I was getting all these sense memories of my grandmother's house and all the childhood memories of spending holidays with her. I think it was the smells that were triggering the memories. I was going back 20 years, things I hadn't thought about (and I was only ~25 at the time).

 

[Kitty 34]

I think of Mom when cooking roast and mashed potatoes.

I think of one of my sisters when making cheesy potatoes.

 

[MamaMermaid]

My great grandma was Austria and made the BEST strudel and sugar cookies. We always make them at Christmas and it's wonderful.

My dad died suddenly in 2020 -- he didn't cook a lot but made the best chili, pancakes, grilled cheese, and orange chicken. My mom and I try to replicate but he whatever he did was just magic and we can't seem to make it like him.

 

[Marionnette]

Nut roll and poppy seed roll. The recipe is my grandmother's but it goes back generations before her to Slovakia. Every time that I make it, I feel a connection to all of those women who kneaded the dough for minutes on end, patiently waited for it to rise and ground the poppy seed or nuts by hand.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

My grandmother used to make some amazing dumplings. Unfortunately I cannot duplicate them, nor can I go to any restaurant and find any that will measure up.

 

[Walt's Dream]

Mom's walnut stuffing...every Thanksgiving. Also lentil soup, chocolate, oatmeal, sweetened condensed milk, and walnut cookies (yum), homemade Italian dressing (oil, red wine vinegar, slices of garlic and red onion) and cheese sandwiches with butter. And so much more.

My aunt's "Creamy Beef Bake Casserole".

 

[superme80]

My grandma on my mom's side, Pistachio Pudding Salad, also known to the public as Watergate Salad. It was at every family gathering. As a teenager she would keep it in the fridge knowing we would stop by frequently.
My grandpa on my dad's side, his biscuits and gravy and turkey soup. My grandpa was an amazing cook.
My grandma on my dad's side her rolls. I made some for a holiday and almost cried. They tasted almost exactly like hers!
My mom makes this brown sugar and walnut pie. I haven't got the exact hang of it yet, but I am going to keep working on it.

 

[2letterwords]

My paternal grandmother (I called her Gram) was German, and the only dish she ever spoke about was her mother's rouladen (Gram liked to bake but rarely cooked beyond basics). I was able to pull enough information from her and recreate my great grandmother's recipe (she made it without pickles). I will never forget the smile on Gram's face when she tried it; said it tasted exactly like her mom's. It will forever remind me of her (and NY cheesecake with fresh whipped cream).