Do you cook the same style meals you grew up eating?

[jdb in AZ]

Nope. Mom was a great cook but now that I live in a mecca of Mexican-food, I really cook differently. I once mentioned corn tortillas vs flour tortillas, and mom looked at me like the deer in the headlights.

Mom often cooked mixed veggies with lima beans -- yuck. She fixed liver occasionally (double yuck) so when DH and I want to tease dinner guests we tell them our specialty is liver and lima been casserole.

I also took classes from a Chinese chef and learned a lot, but I'm rarely that ambitious any more.

 

[wenrob]

Yes and no. It’s complicated.

My dad was a chef, a really good one.

When my dad got together with my stepmom she was a single mom who worked a lot of nights on a very tight budget so there were a lot of canned, boxed, crockpot type meals.

My mother is a horrific cook who never had a fresh vegetable in her life and decimated any food she cooked. Fortunately I only had to live with that every other weekend and some holidays for a handful of years.

I use WAY less fat and salt than all of them. If dad made Chicken Parm he’d fry it in a ton of oil and use probably a pound of cheese. When I make Chicken Parm I bake it at a high temp to get a nice crust and use maybe 6ozs of cheese. My stepmom would put a whole stick of butter into a can of veggies. I don’t butter veggies and I don’t use canned. Things like that.

I’d say I cook mostly like my dad but in a much less heavy handed way. I make quite a few of the same meals but they are lighter. With a handful of exceptions I don’t make much that my stepmom did but she did teach me how to “make something from nothing” and to keep things like pasta, rice and beans stocked so that no matter what we’d always have a meal. I do use convenience food on occasion but rarely the things she did because we had them so often as kids, I just can’t. Cook nothing like my mom. Honestly, I’d have to try really hard to cook that bad.

 

[wenrob]

American fried (in Crisco no less) potatoes 4-5 nights a week....I am pretty sure I would be dead if I ate like that.

Although occasionally I do miss a big glass of Cherry Kool Aid with fried potatoes and Kielbasa.

My parents do not eat like this anymore either lol

My mom never had anything but Kool Aid in her house to drink, not even milk. As a result my kids have never had Kool Aid. Another one of those “I just can’t” things.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Things like blue box mac and cheese with peas mixed in .

 

[barkley]

the shake-and-bake pork and chicken were usually ok

shake-n-bake

The kids do love shake-n-bake pork chops

elder adult child mentioned shake and bake pork chops recently as a 'great childhood memory' so i grabbed what i thought was a box of it to make when she came over. ended up being the chicken type (yeah, i know it's interchangeable but i wanted the right kind) so i grabbed the right stuff on another grocery trip.

elder RAVED about the pork chops, and then younger adult child raved a week later when i used up the chicken type on some drumsticks from the freezer. both have asked when they can have it again................. to think about the mom guilt i felt over feeding them it to save time when they were little kills me

 

[kimblebee]

Pretty much the same. My mom is a great cook and we hardly ate anything premade or out of a can. I cook pretty much from her recipes except for a few things.

 

[kimblebee]

elder adult child mentioned shake and bake pork chops recently as a 'great childhood memory' so i grabbed what i thought was a box of it to make when she came over. ended up being the chicken type (yeah, i know it's interchangeable but i wanted the right kind) so i grabbed the right stuff on another grocery trip.

elder RAVED about the pork chops, and then younger adult child raved a week later when i used up the chicken type on some drumsticks from the freezer. both have asked when they can have it again................. to think about the mom guilt i felt over feeding them it to save time when they were little kills me

Home made shake and bake is so much better. I use panko breadcrumbs and whatever spices I feel like that day. Mix in a bowl, dunk the meat in egg wash, then in the crumbs and cook as usual.

 

[neverlandsky]

Way different. We love to cook though.

We do a lot of made from scratch and semi homemade meals. Very little dairy if any. I’m lactose intolerant. Very little red meat. No pork. No canned veggies.

 

[cjbcam]

If it wasn’t some sort of casserole it was breaded and fried. I hate casseroles and hate breaded anything. I also never fry anything.
Come to think of it she also cooked all vegetables and my family loves raw vegetables.

 

[LongLiveRafiki]

I think the ONLY food I cook that's similar to what my mom cooked for us growing up is tacos, but I still do it differently. She cooked a lot in the deep fryer. I need to throw mine out because I haven't used it in about 5 years. She cooked a lot of grilled bone-in chicken, boxed au gratin potatoes and green beans with bacon. That's pretty much the only vegetable I grew up with other than the standard toppings on tacos or deep fried cauliflower. I'm vegetarian and DH prefers his meat boneless so meats are usually baked or thrown in a crock pot and I cook soy/tofu for me. I do a much larger variety of veggies too. There were so many fairly basic veggies I had never tried until I was an adult because they were never cooked growing up, like broccoli, asparagus, peas, squash, eggplant, zucchini, brussel sprouts, beets. I also cook pasta or rice pretty regularly and my mom literally never cooked either growing up.

I do feel awkward still cooking most meats since I don't eat it and have no idea if the seasonings/spices I'm using are going to work or not. Most of the things I cook that DH and the kids love are things I've never tasted in my life. We never had things like meatloaf, cordon bleu, pulled pork, or Italian beef growing up.

I'm also big on making fruit salads with the less common fruits like papaya, mango, dragon fruit, kiwi, etc. Growing up, mom only ever bought apples and grapes.

 

[DisneyHardin]

My mother prides herself on and will “brag” about the fact that she doesn’t cook. Growing up my sister and I ate a lot of frozen chicken patties, spaghetti-os, Campbell’s Soup, etc.

I’m not a very good cook, but I do fix us something every night. I generally stick to easy things like spaghetti, tacos, baked chicken, homemade pizza, etc. I love my air fryer and fix lots of things in it.

 

[RUDisney]

My parents don't cook the way that they did when I was growing up and neither do I.

I started cooking for my MIL a couple months ago. She has been thrilled with what I've been sending/taking to her house. Even my SILs say that I'm more creative than they are when it comes to dinners.

Both my Mom and my MIL were very good cooks. I just like to take cooking to another level with cuisines and vegetables that neither of them ever thought to make. Thankfully, there are weekends so I can do this.

 

[cabanafrau]

I occasionally make some of the dishes my mother made when I was growing up, but I am not nearly the cook she is and I am not a SAHM, so wouldn't have the time to devote to the meals she made either. A lot of what I cook isn't as heavy, nor are you likely to find several side dishes on a nightly basis.

 

[Kogo Shuko]

I do and I don't.

There are some things my mother did that I would never ever do.

Growing up we ate mashed potatoes and parboiled rice on a constant. I now like to shake up my carb/starch on my plate, and never ever use parboil rice. yuck.

My mother also boiled all of her vegetables. I can't stand boiled veggies. I will usually steam them, and usually avoid my mother's staples, which were carrots, cawliflower and broccoli.

BUT, I also have favourite childhood meals, that I either still love or used to try to get my stepson to try new foods. So we eat tomato soup and grilled cheese on a regular basis, and some kid-friendly but probably not good for me meals as well.

 

[scrapquitler]

My wife and I were talking today during dinner about how we don't cook the same types of food that either of us grew up eating.

We cook a lot of fish and shrimp dishes, something that neither of us grew up eating. Even the chicken and beef we cook is prepared totally different then either of our childhoods.

Neither of us remember disliking our meals as kids, it seems a little odd that we prepare dishes that are so different from our childhood.

I grew up eating TONS of casseroles and canned vegetables, two things that I never cook. Well, I might make some sort of casserole maybe once or twice a year, but that's about my limit.

 

[cinnaminny]

My mom never had anything but Kool Aid in her house to drink, not even milk. As a result my kids have never had Kool Aid. Another one of those “I just can’t” things.

I really can't either, but every once in awhile...I think about kool aid lol. I also used to smoke and every once in a while I think about that too lol Both better left in the past.

I don't think I've even seen kool aid in the grocery store in years. Weird.

 

[cinnaminny]

I grew up eating TONS of casseroles and canned vegetables, two things that I never cook. Well, I might make some sort of casserole maybe once or twice a year, but that's about my limit.

I need to eat tuna casserole at least once every two years. I have to make myself a tiny one because no one else will eat it lol

 

[Eeyore daily]

Not really. I cook gluten free and low sodium for my family so they're typically a lot healthier than how it was growing up. I also don't eat pork which is a staple in my parents house, as is Mexican food. I haven't touched the latter since moving out lol.

 

[fla4fun]

Sometimes.

Holiday meals, like Thanksgiving are almost identical (I say almost because Mom didn’t use recipes so we had to figure some things out by trial and error). The holidays wouldn’t be the same without those meals.

Otherwise, I eat more veggies and less meat than I did growing up, and I don’t fry things as much. I do occasionally make a comfort food from childhood if I am feeling nostalgic.

 

[Floridaman999]

I know I eat much, much less red meat than I did as a child. I think my mom had it out for the cows in our area.