Mom's home cooking....Mmmmmmm!

NOT!

My mom was an absolutely wonderful person.  If she had been Catholic, I'm sure she would have been made a Saint years ago.  The only blemish on her resume might be her cooking skills.  (Do Saints have to cook or are they assigned a personal chef?)

This photo in the newspaper today pointed out that casseroles are making a comeback.    I'm still traumatized by the "casseroles" my mom tried to feed me when I was  a kid.  I still have to approach casseroles like a dog sniffing something new in his food bowl before he actually tastes it.

Anything mom tried to cook never seemed to be able to hold its shape on the plate.  Everything seemed to just run together into a giant glob.  She tried to cover herself by calling it a "casserole".   I always thought "casserole" was just a French word for "glob".

Back in the day all her casseroles had two main ingredients:  Cream of Mushroom soup and soggy green beans.  To this day when K gives me a grocery list and it mentions Cream of Mushroom soup, I recoil.  And green beans still cause me to cringe, too.  

Chunky, tasteless tuna was also a common ingredient.  And that crusty stuff on top?....I think it's supposed to be crispy bread crumbs or something, right?  Mom's tasted like slightly charred sawdust.

Mom didn't like to cook and didn't want to learn.  (I'm not talking behind her back.  She laughed about her lack of culinary skills, too.)  The highlight of her day was when my dad would come home from work and ask her / us, "Where do you want to go for dinner tonight?" 

WooHoo!

She did manage to hit a home run with her spaghetti meat sauce, and she could slice a mean tomato.  Oh, and she made her own barbecue sauce.  It was so good the little hometown newspaper did a story about it / her.

K is an excellent cook.  She's served up a casserole or two, and despite my original trepidation, they were actually very good.  Maybe time does heal all wounds.  :)

Love you mom.  :)

S

Iron Chef Scott

Several days ago K told me that meal planning was the most stressful thing in her life.  I can remember my mom telling my dad the same thing years ago.  

Is it like that little light on the instrument panel of your car....after a certain number of miles it automatically comes on to tell you you need to change your timing belt? At a certain point in a woman's life does meal planning automatically become stressful?

I don't get it.  First of all, K is an excellent chef.  Rarely does she prepare anything I don't like.  (Of course, she knows to never prepare me things like Brussel's sprouts or asparagus.)  I'm a pretty easy (and grateful) customer.

So I put my thinking cap on and thought about meal planning.  How hard can it be?  I always have a ring or two of sausage grilled and in the freezer.  Same with prime hamburger patties.  She makes delicious spaghetti sauce a pot at a time.  Some artisan bread and you have perfect grilled cheese sandwiches.  Beef/chicken quesadillas....tacos....several excellent prepared frozen Stouffer's pasta dishes are in waiting....I even like breakfast for dinner on occasion.  Eggs with bacon or sausage, or an omelet....Mmmm.

And then there's the crock pot.  That thing is amazing!  Ohh....Ohh.  *idea forming in head*  I'll cook something in a crock pot....my first time ever.  I like beef brisket, but all they had at the store were the size of an old Volkswagen Beetle.  How about a pork tenderloin?  I found a recipe that called for dry onion soup mix, white wine, soy sauce, minced garlic, and coarse ground black pepper.  Four hours later....

It was so tender it fell apart when I tried to pick it up.  Doesn't it look good?

Served on a bed of rice or with a potato (MAN vegetables) I think it will be a winner.  Pffftt....piece 'o cake.

Of course, as soon as I press "publish" and this goes viral, I know what K will say.  "You think it's so easy?  Fine, then YOU handle meal planning from now on!"

*Gulp*  I'm suddenly feeling stressed.  ;)

S

Late edit:  Just remembered....I did cook something in a crock pot once before.  A brisket I think it was.  It turned out excellent.  A crock pot is a sort of "can't miss" appliance.

My (very) unsophisticated palate

My palate is almost Neanderthal-ish in it's simplicity.  Meat, potato....eat.  

Scott like.

Well, maybe not quite that simple, but you get my drift.

I'm a product of my childhood.  My mom was an absolutely wonderful person.  She would give the shirt off her back to help someone....anyone.  She loved kids, and was a prolific volunteer for anything involving education.  (At the time of her passing she was a 50-year Life Member of the PTA.)  About the only thing she couldn't do was cook.*  It was an absolute mystery to her what a stove had to do with making water boil.

She couldn't cook because her mother never taught her.  That's because her mother was never taught to cook.  That's because her parents (my great-grandparents) were well off (for their time) and had people to do all those mundane chores for them that life required....cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing, etc.  Food just somehow appeared on the table.  That's all they knew.

I can remember mom getting all distraught when she knew she'd pushed her luck about as far as she could getting dad to take us all out for dinner (for about the fifth evening in a row).  She was going to have to break down and....*gulp*....cook something.

With big 'ol crocodile tears in her eyes she'd lament, "Meal planning is just so stressful for me."  Then she'd retreat into the kitchen for what seemed like hours and finally emerge with a bunch of heated up corny dogs and some tater tots, all of which were frozen solid 15 minutes earlier. 

My dad used to be impressed with her chicken and dumplings *blech* until he found a can of them hidden away in the back of the pantry. (No one ever actually saw her cook anything.)

On holidays dad would buy a turkey and take it to the local barbecue house and have them smoke it us for a few cents per pound, and my grandmother would bring the cornbread dressing.  Mom made the mashed potatoes, which were just potato flakes mixed with hot milk, and for dessert we had a store-bought pie.

My point is, I wasn't raised eating gourmet foods.  I'm pretty easy to please, and my bride K can flat cook up a storm.  Lucky me!  Imagine my shock when I read on K's Facebook page that "planning dinner stresses me out".  

Oh puh-leez!  How could meal planning, especially to please me, be stressful?  It's deja va all over again.  Will my future now be endless breakfasts of mom's cinnamon/sugar powder sprinkled on bread and toasted?  And mom's specialty....her baked ball of meat?  (It vaguely resembled a meatloaf, except without any seasonings or taste.)  *shudder*

I think I'm having a flashback.  Could this be PTSD?  You think this might qualify me for one of those "close-up" parking stickers? 

S

*I'm not talking about mom behind her back.  She knew well her culinary shortcomings and was the first to have a good laugh about it.  :) 

Hi, my name is Scott, and I'm a neat-freak

It's true.  It's not something I'm especially proud of, but it feels good to finally admit it out loud.  I'm out.  Please be kind.  I hope this doesn't jeopardize my man card when I say this, but I actually know how to wash clothes, and dishes, and iron shirts, too.  

Strange thing is, my neat-freakishness wasn't inherited.  My parent's house was always clean, but they never worried about every little thing being in its place.  And my childhood was back in the day when it was the women who beat the clothes on a flat rock down by the river....no wait, that was Little House on the Prairie.

What I meant was, the women did the housework, and the men did the yard work.  My dad instilled in me a fear / awe of our washing machine.  We both looked at all the little dials and knobs on top like they were the controls of a 747.  (Make that a DC-6....this was back in the '50's.)  We didn't dare touch anything.

It wasn't until I was married and began my hobby of working / volunteering at airshows that I learned how to use a washing machine.  I would come back from a show with my dirty laundry, splotched with oil and dirt and stink, and my wife would refuse to even touch them, much less wash them.  So, with my stubborn gene being challenged, I dove in. 

Let's see....clothes in here (duh)....soap on top....let's go with "normal" wash....hot?....cold?....split the difference....GO!  Hey.  It worked!  Clean clothes.  Methinks mom (and wifey) had us bamboozled all those years. 

Over time I figured out all the nuances of washing and drying clothes.  Then I moved on to ironing shirts. On those occasions when I needed to look like a civilized human, it was me ironing or going without.   (NOTE:  Most of my shirts to this day are "wash 'n wear", whether the tag says so or not.)

During my bachelor years I really hit my domestic stride.  I had a housekeeper (still do), but things can get pretty messed up between cleanings, so I learned how to vacuum, clean the wood floors with this special little mop thingy, learned which detergent didn't leave spots on my plastic Dickey's BBQ and Fuzzy's Taco's cups, etc.

By the time K came along my domestic skills were hitting on all 8 cylinders.  I could cook enough to keep from looking emaciated, put everything away in it's proper place, dust, scrub, and spit shine....she thought she'd hit the lottery!

I like to keep her thinking that way.  ;)

Have a great weekend everyone.  

S

It's deja vu all over again...again

A little Thanksgiving story from my past:

I love banana pudding....always have, ever since I was a little kid.  My grandmother was an awesome cook, and every Thanksgiving she would make a banana pudding for "us", although I knew it was really for me. Unfortunately, after my grandmother passed on, banana pudding was rare non-existent around our house as my mom didn't inherit her mother's talent for cooking.  

Fast forward a few years.  While my ex-wife was a pretty good an average cook, she wasn't as enamored with banana pudding as I was.  On our first Thanksgiving together we traveled out of town to spend the holiday with her family.  When we got there my new MIL told me she had a surprise for me....she made me a banana pudding.

YEA!  Finally, a banana pudding.  I purposely went easy on the turkey and dressing in order to leave plenty of room in my belly for dessert.  "Mom" dished me up a healthy portion of BP, and I dived in.

*What's with these little chewy bits in my banana pudding?  Coconut.  She put coconut in my banana pudding!  WHY??  Vanilla pudding, bananas, vanilla wafers....that's ALL that goes into banana pudding.  It's a classic, for God's sake!  Don't mess with a sure thing.*

"I saw this new recipe in Southern Living magazine and it sounded soooo good.  I just knew you'd love it."

Mmmmm....thanks "Mom".  *ACK*

Thanksgiving, 2012.  K said she was going to bake something for dessert to take with us to her family's for Turkey Day, and I suggested a pecan pie. 

I love pecan pie....always have, ever since I was a little kid.  Last night K told me she had a surprise for me.  She saw a new recipe on Pintrest she was going to try for "pecan pie....cake".  Cake?  CAKE??  

Ummm, Sweetheart?  Pecan PIE is a classic.  Remember the other Golden Rule?  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I'm sure I'll love it.  

I'm hoping the swelling goes down by Thursday.  ;)

S