I have tried to make this my FB theme..

Today, Oldest, told me what he is eating...He dropped out of FB so the concept is lost there.

He told me that he has been eating his favorite childhood snack...We called them Peanut Butter Boats...(Cut an apple in half, core the center and fill with peanut butter, then skewer a triangle piece of cheese as a sail...when you put it on the plate it bobs about like a boat on the sea..

Seems he has been preparing them as they bring back good memories..Whoo hoo! As a Mom, I am so happy!

What child memories are you following during the pandemic?

I made an asparagus tart...Asparagus is one my best memories of my grandmother who passed in 1965.

What are your food memories?

We do all have those favorites, don't we?

Mom used to make Creamettes with butter and Kraft parmesan cheese (from the green shaker can) when I was sick with a cold or my annual bout of strep.

I still turn to that same dish (though I use Italian Parmesan, not Kraft) when I'm feeling a little under the weather, physically or emotionally.

1. I made lasagna and also just regular pasta with meat sauce, using my Italian grandma's and mother's recipe. So for me, these dishes are definitely family.

2. My cousin just sent us (in the mail) what we have always called "Easter pizza." He made it himself, following Grandma's recipe! This Easter pizza is not what people (Americans) usually think of as pizza. Before you cut it, it looks like a calzone. The filling can be just ricotta cheese, or it could have ham or other meats in it. This one was just ricotta though. It was so good, that is definitely a taste from my childhood at Grandma's!

Here's something I would love to have, but can't right now recreate. When my grandmother used to bake bread, she would braid it and do other kinds of loaves, and she'd always have some dough left over. So she would take that dough and fry, maybe like how you'd do a donut? I don't know, but we always just called it fried dough. It was the best thing in the world! She would do it a couple different ways. One, just fry it and then roll it in powdered sugar. Others she would put something inside, often anchovies or maybe some pepperoni with a dab of sauce... She also used to make something I don't even know how to spell it, with peppers and tomatoes from her garden, so sometimes she'd put that in there.

Anyway, BL, this probably isn't what you had in mind. But if I could recreate my grandmother's fried dough, that would be my comfort food for sure!

quote:

Anyway, BL, this probably isn't what you had in mind.

This is exactly what I was thinking..spill it..and better yet, provide recipes!

I can give you my sauce recipe and the lasagna recipe... I'll see if I have anything on fried dough. After my Grandmother passed away, my aunt (the one who is just now recovering from covid!) collected handwritten recipes (Grandma's handwriting) and photos and put them together in a book, and my aunt had copies made for all of us. So I have all of these recipes, except they were for how my grandmother cooked. And she did not mess around. You know how a cookie recipe might call for 3 eggs, so if you were going double or triple it, you'd obviously add more eegs? My grandmother's recipes are all "12-egg" recipes!

SK, if I’m not mistaken those bits of fried dough are called “hush puppies” in the South. The story is that the dogs would congregate at the kitchen door and whine, and southern cooks would fry up a little dough and throw the pieces out the door keep them quiet. MaryAnna can surely provide more background.

For me it’s soups and stews and casseroles. I’ve been thinking about it and I think it’s a depression mindset, or maybe the Zombie apocalypse. Or maybe I have a whole lot of time on my hands and can spend the time it takes to make cheap ingredients taste good. I’m being more careful now, more deliberate. I want to turn out something really nice.

Meantime, my quarantine goal is to master each of the 5 French “Mother Sauces”. Sharon is skeptical, but the ingredients are cheap and God knows I have the time. I may also start messing with roux.

quote:

SK, if I’m not mistaken those bits of fried dough are called “hush puppies” in the South

According to google — because I don’t know what they are — hush puppies are made with corn meal.

The ones my grandma made were made from left over dough from her Italian bread making activities, so very different .... I think they should be called Italian doughnuts

Ok, I googled again, maybe this is a thing... I can’t decide if it’s the same as fritta, frittelle, or Italian fried bread, but it would appear that my Italian grandma wasn’t the only person to throw bits of dough into a big pot of boiling oil after making bread!

Re roux, do you like Japanese-style curry?

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Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
Re roux, do you like Japanese-style curry?

I like curries in general but I don’t think I ever had Japanese style.

I’d like to try it.

Here’s one that Mr. SK uses:
https://www.amazon.com/House-F...id=1587208011&sr=8-2

Here’s another:
https://www.amazon.com/Golden-...id=1587208076&sr=8-4

Having posted these amazon links, I’m sure you can find them cheaper somewhere else. Also, yes that one that’s called “Vermont curry” is Japanese-style curry roux.

Why is Japan’s most popular curry called Vermont Curry?

Yes, hushpuppies are made with cornmeal.

They're basically a stiff cornbread dough, fried, but most people add grated onions. (I'm not sure how dogs would like that, so the original hushpuppies were probably just dough.)

The best hushpuppies I've ever had were made at a restaurant that also put grated or finely minced jalapeno peppers in them.

I've had them with whole kernel corn (tasty) and with sugar (edible but not my favorite.)

I don't make them often, because cornbread is dead easy and who has the time for another step? Still, they're not hard to make if you don't mind standing over hot grease.

I've been craving a childhood comfort food that reminds me of Beelady's Peanut Butter Boats, but I've been lacking a key ingredient. My father called them Snacky-Whacks.

You spread saltines with peanut butter, put a marshmallow or several mini-marshmallows on top, and put it in a toaster over until the marshmallows are toasty on top. Mama and my sister liked them lightly browned. Daddy and I liked them almost burned.

I was older when I learned about S'mores, and I immediately thought of Snacky-Whacks, but I found that I didn't like S'mores as well. The graham crackers made them heavy and I'd just as soon have my Hershey Bars unmelted and intact. Snacky-Whacks are lighter and I like the sweet-and-salt combination.

Is mixing sweet and salty flavors a Southern thing? I know some Asian cultures do that, but I'm not sure about others. I like salt on my watermelon and cantaloupe, and I know people who sugar their sliced tomatoes. My father always saved a piece of meat to eat with his dessert.

I've been cooking weirdly, hauling out mid-twentieth-century things like chicken spaghetti and Hamburger Helper. They seem to suit the living-in-a-fallout-shelter vibe of the moment.

Until this week, we'd been short on fresh vegetables, because you can wash a can thoroughly with soap, but not a head of lettuce. The idea of all the people who had to handle them to get them here--pick, bag, ring up, and deliver--in tandem with the difficulty in cleaning was weirding me out.

We have a CSA membership, but I put it on pause because of the issues above. Well, they started the summer season and forgot that I was on pause and I got a beautiful bag of veggies and eggs this week. I soaked them for a while in soapy water and rinsed them thoroughly, and I'm going to call them virus-free. Everything survived this treatment but the lettuce.

So far, I've had broccolini, asparagus, mushrooms, and potato salad made with fingerling potatoes and farm-fresh eggs. I made minute steaks (more mid-century cooking!) to go with them. There are collard greens to go with the leftover steaks tonight, and also some onions and leeks.

I'm happier when I'm not eating out of cans and the freezer, but I'm also grateful to have those cans and frozen goods.

Mr. Nina and I were talking last night about how some things from our childhood are forever better than the upgrades. Case in point: (some flavors of) Campbell's soup. Yes, I've had better minestrone, chicken noodle soup, split pea soup made by me or others, but there's something old, familiar and comforting about the Campbell's soup ones. It's probably the salt load.

Same with canned green beans. They are not as good as fresh, but they are a definite childhood memory.

On this theme, this piece resonates!

Call your Mom...

I used to call my Dad to ask how to cook stuff. Now my kids text me about the same. Son1 made shakshuka the other night, because I told him how much I liked it when I made it last week. We have a lot of family favorite recipes, too, but are willing to try new things!

Their Christmas gift to me this year was a book on Hawaiian poke, with the promise to come make dinner. I was super busy at the beginning of the year, so we haven’t done it yet, and now we’re locked down and can’t. I’m looking forward to it, someday.

Cinnamon Rolls made from left over Pie Crust being made, rolled with Cinn mix, and butter. yum!

something like this...https://www.food.com/recipe/pie-crust-cinnamon-rolls-266612