Food your parents made you've never heard of anywhere else

"But I creamed it, honey!"

another time a friend from hawaii was all now im gonna make u guys a genuine hawaiian meal and i got all psyched cause that sounds amazing - it was layered in a bowl rice/spam/fried egg/gravy

My mom had a dish called "Hawaiian haystacks" which was like pineapple/coconut/gravy/shredded leftover meat on rice. I had no idea this dish had any basis in Hawaiian reality.

WmC, will your mom still make it for you?

I get that way about creamed chipped beef on toast. It was one of the first things I ever learned to cook - my dad's girlfriend (later my stepmom) taught me. Has to be white bread toast. Best on a Sunday morning, after staying up too late watching wrestling and scary movies on Saturday night.

My stepmom also made this great bar cookie/cake thing we called Peanut Butter Junk - tasted exactly like Reese peanut butter cups, except as a cake. I asked her for the recipe though and she doesn't remember anything about it.

my dad used to make us dishes he picked up from his mom with weird names like "shrimp wiggle" (tomato-y sauce, macaroni, shrimp) or "chinese spaghetti" (i don't remember what was in this one, but it wasn't horrible). there was probably some canned soup involved somewhere, too.

I had chinese spaghetti in a chinese restaurant once. It was chow mein noodles in tomato sauce and tasted exactly what it sounds like. Was that it?

no, think grosser and more 50's econo-cooking. it was normal spaghetti noodles with some kind of sweet n' soury sauce.

"food storage candy"

I think I had this as a kid and loved it. Sorta like peanut butter fudge but more crumbly?

One of our weeknight staples was pizza casserole: ground beef, egg noodles, tomato sauce, baked with lots of mozzarella on top. Not very interesting and hardly pizza-like. It only occurred to me a few years ago that my parents probably eliminated the pizza topping ingredients since that's something we never could agree on.

Someone I went to elementary school with used to bake cupcakes in ice cream cones for class parties. I guess it makes them easier to hold, but how often do you eat a cupcake and wish you also had a dry, flavorless wafer cone to munch on?

I'm excited that I just got my mom's recipe for pomanders, which she always made for Christmas. They're sort of like truffles, but with crushed Nilla wafers and nuts stirred into the chocolate. Then they're rolled in red and green sugar. I need to make them soon though since the recipe says they're best when they've "ripened" 3-4 weeks. :/

"chinese hamburger" - it was ground beef, probably cream of mushroom soup, and fried wonton noodles on top and and baked casserole style.

"supper on a slice" - this was ground beef, kind of meatloaf style, spread on top of a halved loaf of french bread and baked with some grated cheddar on top of it.

"cowboy beans" - ground beef, BBQ sauce, and a couple of cans of baked beans all baked in a casserole dish and then topped with exploding tube biscuits and some grated cheese

I posted this somewhere once upon a time but my mom also has a crazy-ass dessert involving apple slices wrapped in pillsbury crescent rolls, with a bunch of melted butter and a can of mountain dew poured over it all and baked until gooey. This dish actually is pretty great but so utterly horrible and it makes people mad when you tell them what it is.

Y'all lived in the Lileks universe or something, barf.

The only thing I can think of that I guess is odd, is dad's brains on toast breakfast. Sheeps brains with bechamel sauce.

yr dad was a sheep? but i thought u were AUSTRALIAN

My mom used to make Impossible Cheeseburger Pie, which was like ground beef and Bisquick, but I think that was from a book

Also she makes meatloaf with oats innit.

Wow, some of these sound revolting!

I've never seen my Mom cook dinner - ever. My dad is a chef and did all the cooking in our house so I sort of lucked out in this area because we had awesome cooked from scratch meals every night. That said, because he's lol foreign we did get some weird shit sometimes like pig knuckles (BLECH) with sauerkraut and Leberkäse which, despite its name, is neither liver nor cheese. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leberk%C3%A4se. Most of the time though it was awesome but I still loved going to my BFs house and having Mac and Cheese because it was different and orange and I fucking loved it.

The only thing I can think of that I guess is odd, is dad's brains on toast breakfast. Sheeps brains with bechamel sauce.

O_O

all I wanna do is eat brainz for breakfast

"exploding tube biscuits"

when the apocalypse comes, the people eating canned soup casserole with potato chips on top will have a head start on the rest of us, i guess.

Grandma makes green bean casserole with Cream o' Mushroom. I was sent back to college after one visit with a few bags of groceries from her perpetually-overstocked pantry, and so had all the ingredients (1 can green beans, 1 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom concentrate, 1 can French's French Fried Onions).

I tried making it (v simple, obv), but it came out really watery and bland. So I asked my mom a little while later what I did wrong, and apparently you're not supposed to dilute the concentrate. Just eat the green beans with the concentrate on top of them with a thick layer of french fried onions over that.

Thing is, it's actually really good, despite the fact that it and grandma food like it will obviously fucking kill every last one of us.

veg friendly too!

fried eggs draped over mashed potato. if only my girlfriend would let me cook it.

That actually sounds pretty tasty!

en, I saw so many cooking blogs try and gourmetify the green bean casserole dish around Thxgiving this year. It cracked me up. Obv. the dish could be improved by using real or frozen green beans but you can't really alter the dish that much & have it retain its '50s cannedness. I don't even know how you could make something like those canned onions at home.

Perhaps my future children will find me disgusting for using frozen green beans in curries. Actually, my mom raised me to be a snob about canned veg...she'd use canned corn every once in a while, but not often.

dishes he picked up from his mom with weird names like "shrimp wiggle" (tomato-y sauce, macaroni, shrimp)

SHRIMP WIGGLE IS, LIKE, AN ACTUAL RECIPE IN THE BH&G COOKBOOK, I'm pretty sure! Except I think it's fettucine primavera but sort of Americanized -- um angel hair spaghetti with a cream/parmesan sauce, chopped tomatoes, snow peas, shrimps, uh...whatever vegetables, I guess. I totally love that! I don't know where the tomato sauce version comes from.....

I don't even know how you could make something like those canned onions at home.

My brother-in-law got me hooked on making the Cook's Illustrated version of green bean casserole, which basically has you using fresh beans and making your own mushroom and cream base instead of using canned soup. I think they tried a bunch of homemade onion options before saying fuck it, just use the canned ones.

WmC, will your mom still make it for you?

I need to ask for this while she's still fairly active in the kitchen, yes. She'll get a laugh out of the request, that's for sure.

Also I do love things divan, since this basically means "with cream sauce", which, you really can't lose.

I cheat and do chix with broccoli and then pour alfredo sauce over it, top w shaved Parmesan, and bake. Mmmm.

we used to have that green bean casserole every thanksgiving. over the years have gradually moved into less soup... fresh green beans... fewer onions on top.... til now we generally just make a nicer fresher green bean dish (at least i do... haven't had thanksgiving w/ the rents in many years). but it was my favorite as a kid. we never used canned gb though, only the frozen ones (those little weird shreddy ones).

Yeah! Those "french cut" beans! My mom would make green beans almondine with those too - green beans and sliced almonds and some kind of sauce (possibly cream of celery soup?).

Campbell's soup has so much to answer for.

I rly like French cut green beans, because otherwise the short cut ones are too thick -- do they grow them on the vine longer, or just feed them tons of fertilizer/growth hormones? And the little seeds squirt out when you bite into them, and it's gross.

If you buy like farmers market green beans, they're longer and thinner and they cook through faster and the insides aren't so squishy. But the frozen kind are too thick and there's too much...bean flesh. Matter. Whatever.

OMG Abbott all that Mormon food brought back vivid memories of my childhood years in Utah.

A couple of months ago Mr. Que and I were watching an episode of "Weeds" on DVD and tamale pie was mentioned. I almost spit out my wine. Mr. Que was like "what the hell is tamale pie?"

Mormon funeral potatoes are imo the ultimate mormon dish.

Oh duh it was "Big Love," not "Weeds".

We had the chicken, rice, celery, and water chestnuts (which I hate) with cream of something (mushroom?) soup to hold it together and crunchy onions on the top. Not a favorite, though.

New entry: "Camper stew": Basically a hash of ground beef with frozen green beans, tomato sauce, egg noodles, um I forget what else but I never could stand it.

funeral potatoes! that's what i was trying to think of.

i think my uncle makes green beans almondine, but no soup involved, just almonds and a little olive oil.

One of our weeknight staples was pizza casserole: ground beef, egg noodles, tomato sauce, baked with lots of mozzarella on top. Not very interesting and hardly pizza-like. It only occurred to me a few years ago that my parents probably eliminated the pizza topping ingredients since that's something we never could agree on.

This kind of casserole is sort of one of my staples too (I don't use meat, usually, and add vegetables), but isn't it just "baked ziti" basically?

Cowboy beans sound kind of tasty, actually.

my grandmother always made something very similar to it and actually, i think it's really popular around buffalo because i've had it at lots of catered events. i never thought anything of it until a friend from utah mentioned 'funeral potatoes' as this big mormon thing. they call it something different in buffalo, though. but my aunt would always bring it to christmas eve.

xpost

I had to know what's in Mormon funeral potatoes, and found this Essential Mormon Cookbook! I love the review stating it's the only cookbook I'd ever need :)

(which, finding that one, led me to the I Can't Believe It's Food Storage! cookbook - jackpot!

hahahaha people also bought

http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Believe-Its-Food-Storage/dp/1935217178/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Do you have a three-month supply of food for your family? Are you building up and using your long-term food storage? In I Can't Believe It's Food Storage , author Crystal Godfrey explains how to transition common food-storage items (such as powdered milk, whole wheat, and dried beans) into your own recipes.

lol @ needing a book to figure out how to incorporate beans into a recipe.

that is what's making you lol???

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705276685,00.html

Also, please use plain cream of chicken soup. Don't use the herbed kind or the kind with allegedly roasted garlic. And please do NOT use the Healthy Request variety. Seriously. What's the point?

Exactly! These ARE funeral potatoes, after all!

i can't imagine going to a funeral and bitching about the food served. that just seems really rude/inconsiderate.

can't imagine having my own planet full of ~~ladies~~

Oh man that "treat" with the dried milk + honey + peanut butter soooooooo Utah.

xpost to Que: I am not sharing our bathroom with another chick, just sayin'

Funeral potatoes sound delicious! I need a church cookbook, I think!

Oh man that "treat" with the dried milk + honey + peanut butter soooooooo Utah.

― quincie, Thursday, December 10, 2009 4:57 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

I think I made this in 6th grade home ec

My mom made a lot of amazing food, too. She'd make her own pasta + stock + etc for chicken noodle soup, make her own barbecue sauce (from a recipe that called for coffee grounds – she used Pero instead), freestyle a great ginger salad dressing, make a perfect pizza crust, insanely good creole shrimp/black beans + rice, shit I can't even step to. OTOH there are seven people in my family & I can't blame her for taking some occasionally questionable shortcuts from time to time. I don't want to misrepresent her mad cooking & baking skills, tho.

I'm amazed she can make anything at all, given what my Grandma makes. She took care of us for two weeks once while my parents went on vacation. Most memorable dish was stirred-together flavorless tomatoes & stew meat with rice (of the baffling/amazing gloppy/crunchy texture combo). She told my parents, "Your kids sure eat a lot of cereal."

I mean I love making risotto but I don't think I'd want to make it for seven people.

my mom made a wide array of utterly bizarre casseroles. mostly ground beef based but there was also a tuna/canned peas/potato chip number. my favorite was the ground beef w/tater tots and I think cream-of-mushroom soup as a binding agent. worst was our neighbor "mrs. yerina's casserole" a ground beef w/noodles and MAYO monstrosity. I loved my mom's take on chili -- very mild w/lots of green pepper -- served over spaghetti cincinnati-style. and these "corned beef hash sandwiches" on english muffins, from I guess a can. her deserts were dynamite, not uncommon but stuff I don't see much anymore like snickerdoodles and bundt cakes. she considered herself a healthy eater and was always pushing fresh fruit on us but I look back at all that hamburger...and canned vegetables...and mayo...and think "why did it occur to anyone that these foods should be eaten together." it was the 60s, man!

so glad i grew up a NYC jew. we don't eat casseroles.

Dude what about kugel? Kugel is TOTALLY a casserole!

kugel is not made with canned cream of mushroom soup and potato chips.

M. Coleman, the snickerdoodle (a fine food and the only reason I have cream of tartar around) is alive & well. Especially on this site, where she has recipes for snickerdoodle muffins, snickerdoodle tarts, snickerdoodle sortbread, and snickerdoodle 'blondies',

<3 kugel
i am also really glad i grew up withe a jewish bff and tons of jewish family friends because i learned about the wonders of brisket and kugel and lox and whitefish salad and latkes.