FOOD:
This is a big deal. Being a member of a large family, food never went to waste. And a secondary rule at the table was this, "If you don't eat what is in front of you, you don't get dessert". My father wanted and had gotten the basics and a dessert at every evening meal.
Thus, Mom had accumulated dozens of dessert type recipes, many jello recipes, cake recipes, cookies fell into a couple categories. Chocolate chip cookies. The recipe on the bag was followed faithfully except Mom quadrupled the ingredients with the exception of chocolate chips. We grew up savoring the cookies with very few chips. The other cookie was ten cup cookies; one cup of sugar, oatmeal, raisins, walnuts, coconut, eggs and so on. These two recipes were the standard and appeared frequently. We knew better than to snack on them as they were dispensed judiciously and we were not allowed random access.
CAKES: Were a separate area of much goodness. Mom liked angel food cake and had made many of them from scratch but when she discovered the mix. Instant change and we certainly did not have sophisticated palates. Angel food was always served plain, no frosting, no berries, no nothing.
Raisin Spice Bars, a recipe of a sheet cake proportions. It was a simple batter of flour eggs, sugar and cinnamon. It was always topped with a thin frosting of powdered sugar and water. This cake was made and consumed at home and was ALWAYS the cake of choice for potlucks at family gatherings and went to the local country dance where folks danced until midnight, stopped for the potluck meal, passed the hat for the band and then danced another hour or two.
Once, on a visit to the Cow Camp in Eastern Oregon, my Aunt Fern made a cinnamon pull a part cake. She made little rolls of home made and raised dough, coated them in a mix of sugar and cinnamon and stacked them in a bundt cake pan and baked them in the wood burning stove. It was delicious. Mom got the recipe and tried it exactly once. While it was delicious, the amount of work involved was not worth the effort. Remember this was well before Rhodes frozen rolls, so.
JELLO DESERTS consisted from the very simple, Lime jello and cottage cheese to the annual cranberry relish jello salad. This involved using the meat grinder to grind up the berries, after being washed and bad ones thrown out. Because the jaws of the grinder did not fit on any of the cabinets, it was affixed to a pull out board. The board was put on the table and it took two kids for the process. One to sit on the board to keep it from sliding and one to keep the bowl steady underneath to catch the juice. There was much yelling involved. Also the recipe called for black cherry jello, chopped walnuts, one whole orange with peel was ground in with the berries and that mixture was set aside with two cups of sugar to macerate for an hour or so. Then everything was combined together with the jello having been brought to a boil. This mixture went into the fridge to set. And it has remained my favorite ever since. I have since dispensed with the meat grinder and converted to the blender which works well. One other all time favorite jello recipe was for pineapple jello cheesecake recipe. The graham cracker crust was wonderful. Mom had to hide this from us and it went very quickly.
PIES: My Grandma Horn made the best pies and she had a dab hand with pie crust. My father raved about her pies but Mom's were not bad at all. Pie!! Dad's favorite pie was apple. We lived in fruit country and the apple of choice was yellow delicious. There were no sour apple varieties growing in the valley at the time so yellow delicious was the choice. And it cooked up fine. It was served plain.
Pumpkin pie was my favorite. The recipe came from Grandma Horn who got it on a little cook book she received with her brand new Home Comfort wood cooking range. My sister has the booklet. The recipe was simple, 2 cups pumpkin, 2 eggs, 2 cups sugar, one tsp cinnamon, one tsp allspice. Pie crust of choice usually lard and flour and not worked to death. This cooked into a firm piece of pie when held in the hand could be eaten without utensils and any other pie suffered in comparison. To this day I cannot stand a slightly wobbly pumpkin pie and if the spices include ginger it becomes disgusting. Keep it simple, stupid. Oh yeah 350 for one hour. Whipped cream optional.
BEAN DISHES: One time Dad purchased a 100 pound sack of Pinto beans. He purchased if from a farmer who was going to use it to feed his calves. Dad gave him a few bucks and remarked that he had some calves of his own to feed. Every once in a while Dad would say that it was time for chile. So he would go get a three pound coffee can worth of pinto beans and bring it to the table. He would spread out the beans and we would spend a few minutes picking out small rocks and debris. Mom would rinse the beans and set them to soak over night. The next day she would heat the pot of beans and let them cook until done. Drain and add a little salt, pepper, tomato sauce and that was pretty much it. Spices such as Chile powder or chiles themselves did not enter into it because we always heard the refrain, that Dad had an ulcer in the army and could not have spices. Didn't matter, we ate it
Mom found a recipe for the 1963 Hungry Boys casserole winner. It was three kinds of beans, lima, kidney and garbanzo. Ground beef was browned and a can of tomato paste was added. Chopped celery was sometimes added depending on how many veggies Mom could sneak into a dish. One top the recipe called for biscuits filled with the ground beef mixture with the addition of chopped green olives and almonds. This particular combination lasted for one dish. We gobbled it up like a house a fire. The next time Mom made it without the biscuits. I have since adapted the recipe to use peel and stick bickies and it cooks up just fine. Yummy.
RICE DISHES: There were three basic recipes. One was just simple rice cooked and we treated it as dessert. Put some rice in a glass, pot on some sugar, pour in milk and that was dessert.
Spanish rice: Mom would cook rice, ground hamburger and add a packet of Spanish Rice mix. It fed the ravening hoards.
Mushrooms and Rice: Mom had no idea she was cooking risotto but basically she browned the rice in some butter until the rice was slightly brown, then added some chicken stock and opened a can of mushrooms. Fresh mushrooms were not ever purchased. The whole thing came to a boil and there was the dish.
PASTA DISHES: Consisted only of spaghetti and meat sauce. Very plain, very simple. At no time did garlic enter the picture. Salt and pepper only. Oh wait occasionally macaroni and cheese, boiled mac and cheese added, baked in the oven. None of the boxed stuff.
SALADS: The only fresh salad we ever had was wedges of iceberg lettuce with salad dressing of choice usually Thousand Island.
Potato salad was simple boiled potatoes, eggs and mayo and mustard. The addition of chopped dill pickles was considered fancy.
MEAT DISHES: We had turkey or ham for the holidays. Dad would purchase a steer from the local auction house and get it butchered and from that 400 hundred pounds of ground beef, steaks and roasts. Nothing fancy. However occasionally Mom would cook the calf brains which we universally reviled. It tastes like chicken! No it tastes like nothing! You eat it and they did. One time I came home to a giant boiled cows tongue sitting on the table. I asked Mom what she was going to do with it. She actually ground it up and mixed with mayo, pickles and it made a very good sandwich spread. Fortunately I was the only one who saw the original ugly organ. Erg.
FISH DISHES: Consisted of trout caught locally or fish sticks not so locally. One time my brother caught dozens of catfish and his wife fried them up. They were delicious.
EATING OUT: Dad and Mom took us everywhere with them. Granted most of the time we sat in the car while they shopped for what ever. But when it came to eating out it was Chinese, Smorgasbord or a couple fast food places. The Chinese place was in downtown Boise called Louie's Golden Dragon. Dad would order a dish of short ribs that fell off the bone in fatty dark sauced goodness. There was fried rice and some noodle dish and we thought we were in heaven. The Smorgasbord was buffet style of exotic dishes and there were FROG legs as well as some pickled fish in sauce. Nope, didn't want them. Occasionally we went to McDonalds, one of the very early ones in Boise.
I also must address the food we ate when we traveled. Driving around with hungry kids involved pretravel purchase of food items. The travel was usually an aimless Sunday drive and usually started with the purchase of a gallon of root beer, cans of Vienna sausages or occasionally a whole roasted chicken. Dessert was always maple bars. It was a strange mix that kept us fueled. We also sang in the car as the radio reception was spotty.
FRESH VEGGIES: Occasionally we were served Spring onions trimmed. The teaspoon was filled with salt and the onion was dipped into that. Also radishes. No idea where that came from.
BREAKFAST: I almost forgot the best. Mom had a starter of sourdough. We knew we were getting pancakes the next morning because the starter had to be put in a bigger bowl and have sugar added and allowed to sit out and bubble up. Next morning Mom saved some starter in a container and mixed the rest into pancakes by adding eggs, milk, flour and to the frying pan. These were lovely pancakes and my favorite way to eat them was with butter only. That was fabulous. The rest of the time we would eat boxed cereal or oatmeal.
HORSE DUVERS: Dad loved to get a box of Ritz crackers, a bottle of cream cheese mixed with bits of pineapple and sardines. He would put these together and eat them. We preferred the crackers without the sardines. Bon Appetit!!!
This is a big deal. Being a member of a large family, food never went to waste. And a secondary rule at the table was this, "If you don't eat what is in front of you, you don't get dessert". My father wanted and had gotten the basics and a dessert at every evening meal.
Thus, Mom had accumulated dozens of dessert type recipes, many jello recipes, cake recipes, cookies fell into a couple categories. Chocolate chip cookies. The recipe on the bag was followed faithfully except Mom quadrupled the ingredients with the exception of chocolate chips. We grew up savoring the cookies with very few chips. The other cookie was ten cup cookies; one cup of sugar, oatmeal, raisins, walnuts, coconut, eggs and so on. These two recipes were the standard and appeared frequently. We knew better than to snack on them as they were dispensed judiciously and we were not allowed random access.
CAKES: Were a separate area of much goodness. Mom liked angel food cake and had made many of them from scratch but when she discovered the mix. Instant change and we certainly did not have sophisticated palates. Angel food was always served plain, no frosting, no berries, no nothing.
Raisin Spice Bars, a recipe of a sheet cake proportions. It was a simple batter of flour eggs, sugar and cinnamon. It was always topped with a thin frosting of powdered sugar and water. This cake was made and consumed at home and was ALWAYS the cake of choice for potlucks at family gatherings and went to the local country dance where folks danced until midnight, stopped for the potluck meal, passed the hat for the band and then danced another hour or two.
Once, on a visit to the Cow Camp in Eastern Oregon, my Aunt Fern made a cinnamon pull a part cake. She made little rolls of home made and raised dough, coated them in a mix of sugar and cinnamon and stacked them in a bundt cake pan and baked them in the wood burning stove. It was delicious. Mom got the recipe and tried it exactly once. While it was delicious, the amount of work involved was not worth the effort. Remember this was well before Rhodes frozen rolls, so.
JELLO DESERTS consisted from the very simple, Lime jello and cottage cheese to the annual cranberry relish jello salad. This involved using the meat grinder to grind up the berries, after being washed and bad ones thrown out. Because the jaws of the grinder did not fit on any of the cabinets, it was affixed to a pull out board. The board was put on the table and it took two kids for the process. One to sit on the board to keep it from sliding and one to keep the bowl steady underneath to catch the juice. There was much yelling involved. Also the recipe called for black cherry jello, chopped walnuts, one whole orange with peel was ground in with the berries and that mixture was set aside with two cups of sugar to macerate for an hour or so. Then everything was combined together with the jello having been brought to a boil. This mixture went into the fridge to set. And it has remained my favorite ever since. I have since dispensed with the meat grinder and converted to the blender which works well. One other all time favorite jello recipe was for pineapple jello cheesecake recipe. The graham cracker crust was wonderful. Mom had to hide this from us and it went very quickly.
PIES: My Grandma Horn made the best pies and she had a dab hand with pie crust. My father raved about her pies but Mom's were not bad at all. Pie!! Dad's favorite pie was apple. We lived in fruit country and the apple of choice was yellow delicious. There were no sour apple varieties growing in the valley at the time so yellow delicious was the choice. And it cooked up fine. It was served plain.
Pumpkin pie was my favorite. The recipe came from Grandma Horn who got it on a little cook book she received with her brand new Home Comfort wood cooking range. My sister has the booklet. The recipe was simple, 2 cups pumpkin, 2 eggs, 2 cups sugar, one tsp cinnamon, one tsp allspice. Pie crust of choice usually lard and flour and not worked to death. This cooked into a firm piece of pie when held in the hand could be eaten without utensils and any other pie suffered in comparison. To this day I cannot stand a slightly wobbly pumpkin pie and if the spices include ginger it becomes disgusting. Keep it simple, stupid. Oh yeah 350 for one hour. Whipped cream optional.
BEAN DISHES: One time Dad purchased a 100 pound sack of Pinto beans. He purchased if from a farmer who was going to use it to feed his calves. Dad gave him a few bucks and remarked that he had some calves of his own to feed. Every once in a while Dad would say that it was time for chile. So he would go get a three pound coffee can worth of pinto beans and bring it to the table. He would spread out the beans and we would spend a few minutes picking out small rocks and debris. Mom would rinse the beans and set them to soak over night. The next day she would heat the pot of beans and let them cook until done. Drain and add a little salt, pepper, tomato sauce and that was pretty much it. Spices such as Chile powder or chiles themselves did not enter into it because we always heard the refrain, that Dad had an ulcer in the army and could not have spices. Didn't matter, we ate it
Mom found a recipe for the 1963 Hungry Boys casserole winner. It was three kinds of beans, lima, kidney and garbanzo. Ground beef was browned and a can of tomato paste was added. Chopped celery was sometimes added depending on how many veggies Mom could sneak into a dish. One top the recipe called for biscuits filled with the ground beef mixture with the addition of chopped green olives and almonds. This particular combination lasted for one dish. We gobbled it up like a house a fire. The next time Mom made it without the biscuits. I have since adapted the recipe to use peel and stick bickies and it cooks up just fine. Yummy.
RICE DISHES: There were three basic recipes. One was just simple rice cooked and we treated it as dessert. Put some rice in a glass, pot on some sugar, pour in milk and that was dessert.
Spanish rice: Mom would cook rice, ground hamburger and add a packet of Spanish Rice mix. It fed the ravening hoards.
Mushrooms and Rice: Mom had no idea she was cooking risotto but basically she browned the rice in some butter until the rice was slightly brown, then added some chicken stock and opened a can of mushrooms. Fresh mushrooms were not ever purchased. The whole thing came to a boil and there was the dish.
PASTA DISHES: Consisted only of spaghetti and meat sauce. Very plain, very simple. At no time did garlic enter the picture. Salt and pepper only. Oh wait occasionally macaroni and cheese, boiled mac and cheese added, baked in the oven. None of the boxed stuff.
SALADS: The only fresh salad we ever had was wedges of iceberg lettuce with salad dressing of choice usually Thousand Island.
Potato salad was simple boiled potatoes, eggs and mayo and mustard. The addition of chopped dill pickles was considered fancy.
MEAT DISHES: We had turkey or ham for the holidays. Dad would purchase a steer from the local auction house and get it butchered and from that 400 hundred pounds of ground beef, steaks and roasts. Nothing fancy. However occasionally Mom would cook the calf brains which we universally reviled. It tastes like chicken! No it tastes like nothing! You eat it and they did. One time I came home to a giant boiled cows tongue sitting on the table. I asked Mom what she was going to do with it. She actually ground it up and mixed with mayo, pickles and it made a very good sandwich spread. Fortunately I was the only one who saw the original ugly organ. Erg.
FISH DISHES: Consisted of trout caught locally or fish sticks not so locally. One time my brother caught dozens of catfish and his wife fried them up. They were delicious.
EATING OUT: Dad and Mom took us everywhere with them. Granted most of the time we sat in the car while they shopped for what ever. But when it came to eating out it was Chinese, Smorgasbord or a couple fast food places. The Chinese place was in downtown Boise called Louie's Golden Dragon. Dad would order a dish of short ribs that fell off the bone in fatty dark sauced goodness. There was fried rice and some noodle dish and we thought we were in heaven. The Smorgasbord was buffet style of exotic dishes and there were FROG legs as well as some pickled fish in sauce. Nope, didn't want them. Occasionally we went to McDonalds, one of the very early ones in Boise.
I also must address the food we ate when we traveled. Driving around with hungry kids involved pretravel purchase of food items. The travel was usually an aimless Sunday drive and usually started with the purchase of a gallon of root beer, cans of Vienna sausages or occasionally a whole roasted chicken. Dessert was always maple bars. It was a strange mix that kept us fueled. We also sang in the car as the radio reception was spotty.
FRESH VEGGIES: Occasionally we were served Spring onions trimmed. The teaspoon was filled with salt and the onion was dipped into that. Also radishes. No idea where that came from.
BREAKFAST: I almost forgot the best. Mom had a starter of sourdough. We knew we were getting pancakes the next morning because the starter had to be put in a bigger bowl and have sugar added and allowed to sit out and bubble up. Next morning Mom saved some starter in a container and mixed the rest into pancakes by adding eggs, milk, flour and to the frying pan. These were lovely pancakes and my favorite way to eat them was with butter only. That was fabulous. The rest of the time we would eat boxed cereal or oatmeal.
HORSE DUVERS: Dad loved to get a box of Ritz crackers, a bottle of cream cheese mixed with bits of pineapple and sardines. He would put these together and eat them. We preferred the crackers without the sardines. Bon Appetit!!!
1 comment:
I forgot Chocolate Mayonnaise cake, always served without frosting. And candy category. Made fudge, divinity and peanut brittle.
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