JULY... ON OUR DINNER MENU

Barbara101 wrote:Oh btw it wasn't Swedish meatballs it was Greek pastisio

Understand the Greek one, but I am familliar with the Swedish meatballs one.

That was going way back to sob ( remember her ?) Sharon. I liked her.
Then there was Randy.... and a Chuck guy. He worked for W Sonoma and was the one in charge of the Italian section threads.
And Bob Ballantine the chef. .....

Before me.

Beth wrote:I don't know about the 'no lid' rule.....but I know if you don't over-cook they stay nice and green. I cook my broccoli in the microwave with just a Tbsp. of water for 2 - 3 minutes (in a bowl covered with plastic wrap). Doesn't over-cook and stays bright green. No salt added until after it's cooked may help also.....JMO

I do the same thing with the same results, Beth. The microwave is a nice way to cook (or par cook) a lot of vegetables.

And, Norm, re your Southern mom overcooking green beans... My mom was a great cook; she primarily cooked the local Creole-style and local dishes she grew up eating. She really wasn't "into" cooking like I was, but really appreciated good food. But she had the hardest time accepting fresh vegetables cooked properly, and would often ask me (once she got older and had a bit of dementia), "Michelle, do you like your vegetables cooked 'hard' like Ed (my BIL who cooks) does?" I would laugh and explain that that was really the right way to cook them. Then she'd go on to say, "Well, we sure never ate them cooked like that."

When you think about it, a lot of veggies keep their color if they're not cooked to death.

Nothing like a pot of southern style green beans cooked with side bacon and add a few small potatoes. Served with corn bread baked in a hot cast iron skillet. Love love it. As do many many happy folks!!!!!!

Going to make some today thanks for the idea. Not a thing wrong cooking country food like my grandma did . I am not a food snob .

I just did a search on Foodily for Swedish Meat balls. There were 149 recipes. When I added lamb to the search, only 3 had lamb. Two were 50% beef and the other one was 75% beef. My recipe is half beef and half pork.

NormM wrote:I just did a search on Foodily for Swedish Meat balls.  There were 149 recipes. When I added lamb to the search, only 3 had lamb. Two were 50% beef and the other one was 75% beef.  My recipe is half beef and half pork.

Great research Norm. Thanks.
I thought the arguing was over using lamb but it may have been some other ingredient. All I can remember was the Quote " Well that's not Swedish " ( if a certain ingredient is in there.)

Mainly, I think, it was June who had determined if a food was or was NOT proper. I realize she was a trained chef and that's all well and good. However, it does not affect the way I cook: foods we LIKE and cooked the way WE like it.

One time I posted a recipe for a copy cat Zuppa Toscana (the Olive Garden sausage/potato/kale soup). The restaurant finishes their soup with heavy cream and I had substituted a canned no-fat evaporated milk to cut down on the calorie count of the recipe. She informed me that 'NO TUSCAN CHEF WOULD EVER ADD CREAM TO THEIR SOUP".

I simply said I had never visited Tuscany (as obviously she had) but I had been to Olive Garden and they DEFINATELY had cream in THEIR soup! Then I laughed and laughed.

It was the same as when I said in a thread about latkes that I made German potato pancakes and normally served them with grilled brats. She said latkes would NEVER be served with pork sausages (because, of course, the latkes were a Jewish meal to her.....). But I didn't make latkes. I made German potato pancakes just like the old German women did at the German-American Festival I attended every year. They were made the same way as Jewish latkes, just without the dietary restrictions.

Tonight was a 'Jake meal' because he'll be leaving in a few days and I want to make things he likes so he doesn't forget me.....NOT likely! LOL

So, crispy grilled boneless chicken thighs, mushy fried zucchini/yellow squash/onion side and crispy-on-the-outside-tender-on-the-inside fried potatoes. He LIKED it!

another great recipe from  my grandma..banana pudding..

One time someone asked how everyone made their tartar sauce.  I gave mine and June informed me that was NOT tartar sauce.  I said to her that I'm glad the French didn't invent BBQ sauce brcause if they had, there would be only one kind. Ever since then I call my tartar sauce Nottartar.

She said mine was more like chili sauce. Chili sauce is red.

I laugh whenever I see a recipe for "German" potato salad in which the skin is left on the potatoes.  Trust me, the older generations of Germans would never eat a potato skin.  Their reasoning always is "During the war, the Russians ate the potatoes and left us only the peelings."  

My dinner was some veggies done in my Calpahalon grill pan, (Yellow pepper, a really thick slice of a large onion, some zuccini slices) and a pork schnitzel.  Yumm!

Barbara101 wrote:


another great recipe from  my grandma..banana pudding..

My grandma's banana pudding was close, but we didn't have the Vanilla Wafers in ours. She would make her pudding and add a mashed banana or two to reinforce that flavor with the vanilla and then layer it all with lots of bananas.....all topped with the glorious fluffy cloud of merangue. How she NEVER burned her merangue is still a mystery to me. I don't usually have a fail with it, but I have had a couple times when it was black on the edges instead of that golden brown her's always seemed to be.

When I moved to Florida I decided to make the traditional Southern banana pudding WITH the addition of the wafers. To my taster, it just wasn't 'right'. So I've decided it's definitely a matter of personal taste and I no longer criticize anyone's version of ANY recipe.

***************

Love the potatoes, beans & bacon. I usually make it when the beans in the garden are mature and not those tender little ones....you know, when the beans are much more pronounced in the pods. I normally use homemade ham or hock stock and cook everything until it's nice and tender. I'll add a piece of chopped ham about 3/4 of the way through the cooking so it's heated through but not so the flavor is cooked out of it. First time I made it I can remember I served it right out of the pot ~ set it right in the middle of the table. Dane & DD#2 took one look and both glanced at each other with 'that look' as if to say, "What has she made now? This looks awful!"

Before the meal was over the entire pot was empty and they had a changed expression on their faces! LOL

NormM wrote:One time someone asked how everyone made their tartar sauce.  I gave mine and June informed me that was NOT tartar sauce.  I said to her that I'm glad the French didn't invent BBQ sauce brcause if they had, there would be only one kind. Ever since then I call my tartar sauce Nottartar.

She said mine was more like chili sauce.  Chili sauce is red.

I remember that exact exchange. Funny, but I don't remember her telling us any 'recipe' for tartar sauce, only listing the reasons why OURS was NOT correct. I think she said tartar sauce was never white. Hell, I worked at Howard Johnson's Restaurant ~ THEIR tartar sauce was definitely white with sweet pickle relish. But, alas, Howard wasn't French, was he?

Crybaby wrote:And, Norm, re your Southern mom overcooking green beans... My mom was a great cook; she primarily cooked the local Creole-style and local dishes she grew up eating.  She really wasn't "into" cooking like I was, but really appreciated good food.  But she had the hardest time accepting fresh vegetables cooked properly, and would often ask me (once she got older and had a bit of dementia), "Michelle, do you like your vegetables cooked 'hard' like Ed (my BIL who cooks) does?"  I would laugh and explain that that was really the right way to cook them.  Then she'd go on to say, "Well, we sure never ate them cooked like that."  

When you think about it, a lot of veggies keep their color if they're not cooked to death.

When I think back to my Grandma's cooking, as well as my mom's, I remember all the time devoted to canning vegetables to store the garden produce for the long winter months. Canned green beans were always kind of an 'Army Green' color and soft and mushy even before being reheated, let alone "cooked" in a casserole for any period of time. So I think that was the norm they grew up with and was accepted that vegetables should all be soft and not 'hard'.

When their children were growing up there was a 'new' thought of how vegetables should be cooked. There was an emphasis on cooking just enough to tenderize but not loose the vitamins. That idea was really foreign to Grandma. Oh, she loved her fresh-out-of-the-garden vegetables, especially in the Spring, but for most of the year she cooked with the canned vegetables out of the basement cold cellar.

And where Grandma would can 99% of her produce, my mother would 'flash freeze' most to retain some of the 'texture' of the vegetable. She had two chest freezers stored out in one of the sheds on the farm, one devoted to meats and the other for garden produce which would get blanched, frozen on trays and then stored in large plastic bags in the freezer. A freezer was something my grandmother didn't have ~ she had an 'ice box' in the refrigerator and the ice man had to show up on time or everything got warm in a hurry!

Agreed Beth.Same here. I hold on to the old days of my family. I happen to like vegetables cooked to "death ". Some. No one will ever tell me that isn't good.
I do like an cook vegetables just steamed and love roasted and grilled and raw .

I don't have to ever give up on the old version.

I didn't have any wafers lol Lol I used left over yellow cake.

I remember canning with my grandmother....OMG, what a PROCESS! My least favorite was peas and lima beans. You had to pick 'em (and be careful to NOT pull the whole plant out of the ground ~ that was the ULTIMATE sin!) and then you had to shuck 'em and then you had to fill the jars (we only used pint jars for the peas & limas). Then Grandma would add the prescribed amount of salt and pour in the boiling water. Then the jars got wiped to be sure there was nothing on the edge and the lids were added, then the jar rings ~ tightened just 'right'.

Into the big blue canning kettles full of boiling water, lowered carefully so the jars didn't touch and crack, processed for the correct number of minutes and then pulled up and carefully set on a towel covered countertop to cool. The best part was listening for all the jars to 'POP'!

And even though it was a lot of work, Grandma took such pride in the way her jars of produce looked. Most Blue Lake green beans got cut into 1 - 1/2" pieces but some would go in whole, all lined up in the jar with the little 'blossom end' tails pointing down. They were all selected because they were the same length and size so they looked good in the jars.

One of my favorites that she made was her sweet mixed pickles with cucumbers, cauliflower, carrots and red peppers. I can still see those beautiful, slightly yellow tinged vegetables mixed up in the Ball jars. She also did up (remember that phrase ~ 'did up' ?) little gerkin sized cukes in a wonderful dill brine, fabulous bread and butter pickles, corn relish, green tomato relish, onion relish ~ oh, my, but the variety went on and on.

I don't know how she 'made' the time to do it all. I can't remember in my adult life having that kind of energy or desire to do so much work when it was so much easier to just go to the grocery store and buy whatever. But I also know I do NOT have small dishes of pickles or relish on my dinner table (noon and night) simply because nothing I can purchase ever tastes as good as Grandma's did.

((sigh))

Yellow cake with buttercream frosting..
Made a few days ago...

I don't know how she 'made' the time to do it all. I can't remember in my adult life having that kind of energy or desire to do so much work when it was so much easier to just go to the grocery store and buy whatever. But I also know I do NOT have small dishes of pickles or relish on my dinner table (noon and night) simply because nothing I can purchase ever tastes as good as Grandma's did.

Me too.I canned a few times and it was to much work lol..I make jam time to time with fresh fruit but I only make a small amount.I make chutney too. Just a jar or 2..

I make butter.I make yogurt and mayo..have made ricotta so freaking easy lol..Think I made mozz once or twice..
Pasta I have made but I dont have the room really,so I buy fresh if I can find it.
oh I used to make pickles all the time but since I found Wickles that will never happen again..

I make so much from scratch I cant even think how much..However I do like lots and lots of store bought like European butter and cheese.

the thing that gets me is I can make a million biscuits and they are never like my grannys..

Barbara101 wrote:Agreed Beth.Same here. I hold on to the old days of my family. I happen to like vegetables cooked to "death ". Some. No one will ever tell me that isn't good.
I do like an cook vegetables just steamed and love roasted and grilled and raw .

I don't have to ever give up on the old version.

We ate all veggies soft. Any hard ones, then someone would say..."These are not cooked, they are R A W !"..... Sheer Panic; especially grandma.