Around the Kitchen Table: Still-Good Childhood Foods + 6-Book #Giveaway!

MADDIE DAY here, delighted to kick off this month's discussion around the kitchen table. Hello, November! That means tomorrow is my birthday. Last year at this time we chatted about birthday meals we have known and loved, so we're not going to repeat that topic. (We're not even going to delve into the controversial topic of the time change and at which end of the day you'd rather have darkness....)

But my birthday always makes me think about my childhood with my family. When I was a kid in southern California many, many years ago, I would have said my favorite foods were avocados, canned tamales, fresh peaches, Twinkies, roasted chicken, pumpkin pie, and homemade thick chocolate milkshakes, in no particular order. Eclectic, right?

David, Edith (now aka Maddie), Janet, and Barbara in age order

My mom, Marilyn, wasn't an accomplished savory cook. Her mother never let her into the kitchen. My father's mother did give Marilyn gentle lessons after she married my father, but they had different cooking and eating styles.

Marilyn and Allan as 1946 newlyweds, San Marino, California

On top of that, my mother had three picky children and a husband who didn't like onions (he was a sweetheart, but not into complicated foods) to feed. I was the only non-picky eater and shared that with my mother. On our table, canned and frozen foods shared equal billing with fresh. A head of fresh garlic never entered the kitchen, and pre-packaged seasonings were big. The pressure cooker got a lot of use, and most meats were baked to a dry version I would never eat today. 

Still, Mommy put dinner for six on the table every night, always with protein, starch, vegetable, and salad, plus glasses of milk. Being a woman with a sweet tooth, dessert afterwards was never neglected.

So today, let's talk around the table about foods you ate as a kid that you still enjoy today. Which meals have withstood the test of time?

For me, I'd have to say roasted chicken is very much still in the rotation on my dinner table. My mom used a seasoning packet, but I have a great dry rub recipe I use, and we always spatchcock the bird to let it roast more evenly. I shared that recipe here a few years ago.

Pumpkin pie survives, too, except I use butter instead of the Crisco my mom made her crusts with. I generally follow the recipe on the Libby's pumpkin can, but I cut down on the canned milk and double the spices, a trick from one of my grandmothers. Yum!

My Thanksgiving pies from last year

Our family regularly had spaghetti with meat sauce, which Mommy made with ground meat, a can of tomatoes, and a seasoning packet. My version usually has homemade meatballs and home-roasted tomato sauce with home-grown garlic and basil. I should add that Twinkies fell off my menu before I turned eighteen and have not returned!

MLKers, which childhood foods do you still eat, 
and how have you revised the recipe?

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VMBURNS: I never thought of myself as a picky eater. There are very few things that I don't like. I pretty much ate everything except tomatoes, beets, and avocados. My sister on the other hand, was extremely picky. She doesn't like eggs, cheese, or chocolate. My mom tried to find things that everyone liked, which meant she never made meals with a noticeable amount of cheese or chocolate. My sister learned to skip egg dishes and I am a master at removing bits of tomatoes from everything. It was fun when we ate out because I would remove tomatoes and scrape them onto my sister's plate as I pilfered any cheese that landed on hers.

One meal that we all enjoyed as children that is still high on my list is my mom's sweet potato pie. My sister's pies come closest to the way my mom's pie tasted. Over the years, I've tweaked the recipe. My mom's pie had more spices. She included cinnamon and nutmeg. I just use nutmeg and added evaporated milk. Either version is delicious and always reminds me of home and family.

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KIM DAVIS: Growing up in Southern California, Mexican food was often served at home for dinners as well as our chosen cuisine when dining out. My dad grew jalapeños in our backyard garden and then pickled them when they matured. No matter what dish was served the jalapeños were frequently offered alongside, and I readily piled them. Tacos—with fried corn tortillas—were in a regular rotation for dinners along with my request for them for my birthday dinner. My mom often made homemade refried beans and Spanish rice to serve alongside. When she had extra time, she made Chiles Rellanos Casserole, which turned into another one of our favorites. But we found out the hard way, while entertaining guests no less, that you really should remove the seeds and membrane from the Anaheim green peppers unless you want to scorch everyone’s mouths, lol! 

My family always had dessert too, and my mom was partial to fruit-based pies and cobblers, like this Busy-Day Blackberry Cobbler. 

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LESLIE KARST: My mom was a pretty darn good cook--especially given the decades during which she was making dinner every night for a family of six. Since both my parents grew up in Southern California and then we moved back there in the mid-'60s, we ate a lot of Mexican food when I was a kid. And stir-fry, too (which my dad called "broke back wok," given his job of chopping up all the veggies).

I still adore both of those cuisines, but nothing brings me back to 1968 Santa Monica like my mom's easy-as-pie quiche Lorraine.  She had a "cheaty" recipe using evaporated milk which I still use to this day, as it's simply scrumptious.  

Here's to moms, for all the cooking they did for us over all of those years!  

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VICKI DELANY: Childhood food memories, what a great topic. The meals our mothers (very rarely fathers in my generation) cooked for us and the gatherings around the kitchen table are some of the most memorable moments of anyone’s childhood.  My mom was considered an adventurous cook: she made ‘Chinese food’, which today we’d just call stir-fry (and an overly sweet stir-fry at that).  Shows you what an ‘adventurous’ cook meant in my childhood  – we never had Mexican food, or any pasta other than spaghetti with red sauce. And so many dishes made with cans of tomato soup. Spaghetti made with Campbell’s tomato soup, pork chops or meat loaf with mushroom soup sauce.

I rarely, as in just about never, make any meals as my mother did when I was a child, with the clear exception of the holiday turkey and stuffing, but I do cherish many of her baking recipes and still use them today. For example, this family eternal favourite for Christmas cookies. Mom always just called them Christmas cookies, but I adapted the name Stained-glass Cookies when I started sharing the recipe.

Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: Vicki Delany’s Stained Glass Cookies #Christmas #Christmascookies

BTW, at almost 102, my mom is still around and still lively, and still looking forward to her yearly treat of Christmas cookies. 

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LESLIE  BUDEWITZ: Like Vicki, I rarely cook the kinds of dinners I grew up with -- heavy on the canned soup and vegetables, and "hot dish" casseroles on Fridays that were the perfect solution to my father's unpredictable work schedule. (He was a traveling sales rep for a furniture company, on the road 4 nights a week, and we were not always sure when he'd cross the threshold on Friday afternoon or evening.) But my mother was a terrific cookie and pie baker, and I often use her recipes, though with some adaptations. I could never convince her that her banana bread wouldn't sink in the middle, which she often complained about, if she added an extra tablespoon or two of flour to adjust for the altitude of our Montana home -- even though she would happily add more flour to a boxed cake mix if the instructions suggested it! 

We were People of the Pie, though I now claim Clan of the Cake as well. But my mother's Classic Cherry Pie is, well, a classic. And so pretty! (I tell tales on myself in the original post!) This recipe uses the oil crust I grew up with, but now I would use the classic butter crust from Williams-Sonoma. Her Christmas cookie plates were legendary, and I do make several of her recipes, using butter instead of the margarine or Crisco that were in every kitchen in the 1960s. I'm a more adventurous cook and eater, but also freer the herbs and spices -- she would never have thought of adding lavender or rosemary to her shortbread. While I'm a purist about not decorating for Christmas, let alone eating for it, until December 1, I never mind sharing a Christmas cookie recipe, like these Russian Teacakes (aka Snowballs or Mexican Wedding Cakes) that I grew up with and used in As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles, where they provide a clue to the mystery -- but only if you know how they're made! 

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DARCI HANNAH: Happy birthday, Maddie! And thank you for this wonderful topic of childhood favorites. There is something very special and nostalgic that happens to us when we think about those wonderful family dinners from our childhoods and the foods our mothers took the time to make for us. 

I was especially lucky to have a mother who was an outstanding cook, and a father who not only adored her but everything she made. Because my mother was such an accomplished cook, and really took entertaining to heart, every meal was treated like an event. Since my parents had started their lives together in the Navy, and my father had been a junior officer, table manners and etiquette were a must in our household. Every meal was served in the formal dining room, the proper cutlery was laid in the proper order, and there was always an eye catching centerpiece created for the table by my mother, usually themed around the dinner or the holidays. My brothers had to remember to pull out my chair for me or my dad would make me leave the dining room and enter again, this time with one of my brothers ready with my chair. We always made fun of this part of the meal, including the fact that neither of my brothers ever fought for the honor of pulling out my chair, but we all gladly complied to our strict code of manners because the food was that good.

My 85 year old mom set this table!

Regarding conversations, they were always interesting and often hilarious. The only rule there was no swearing. The dinners we had were very well balanced, because my mom not only read cookbooks like novels, and collected china and cookware, but she also really knew her food pyramid! There was always a starch, vegetable, sometimes fruit, dairy( milk or cheese), protein, and fat. We loved butter, especially on bread! I caught my dad, who I should tell you was always very fit and active his entire life, eating butter and peanut butter sandwiches. Even I had to say, Yuck! Of course, our favorite part of the food pyramid was...(we were shocked to learn it wasn't a part of the pyramid!) dessert. The gooier the better. My dad had a real sweet tooth, and dessert is where my mother shined. My dad was very partial to hot fudge brownie sundaes, or ice cream cream puffs, I mean, who isn't?

With all that being said, although there was never a shortage of desserts, we didn't have junk food at our house, and therefore we craved it. Peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches on white bread were my guilty pleasure! There was one store-bought coffee cake my mother always got whenever she would find one. It's called Swedish Flop, and I think it's only available around the Chicagoland area. It's both gooey and sweet, and I'm still obsessed with it to this day. I've even tried to make it with varying degrees of success. Oh, such sweet childhood memories!

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LUCY BURDETTE: I see many familiar dishes here--loved loved loved canned tamales and Twinkies. My mother cooked because she had 4 kids, but she didn't love the process. She did love to eat though!

And she loved a party, loved making little triple decker sandwiches and fruit in a carved watermelon 'bowl' and profiteroles stuffed with shrimp or tuna. On normal days, we had meatloaf or roasts with mashed potatoes or casseroles. Our Chinese food was sadly out of a can:(. I probably don't use those recipes these days, though I still love meatloaf and mashed potatoes!

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MOLLY MACRAE: We were a “sit down at six and eat” family. For years that was supper for eight. Mom made the supper and we ate it around the table Dad made out of a door (what a table, but that’s a story for another day). My earliest supper memories are of a weekly rotation of meals. Spaghetti showed up once a week, so did fish sticks, hamburgers, and roast with potatoes and carrots. Creamed chipped beef made frequent appearances, chicken, beef stew, sometimes a salmon mousse (in a salmon-shaped mold which we kids thought was neato), and a dish Mom called chop suey, that we loved, that pretty much had no resemblance to authentic Chinese cuisine. Mom was a good cook, though, and she added new dishes over the years and branched out with real international flair. And Dad got into the act, too, making terrific coq au vin, spanakopita, and . . . drumroll . . . doing the dishes.

Mom relaxing in her Keds after supper.

I think my favorite meals, though, were made with leftovers. I loved Mom’s shepherd’s pie with mashed potatoes at the bottom, a middle layer of vegetables, meat, and gravy, and the whole thing topped with pie crust. I’ve made shepherd’s pies over the years and these days make a vegetarian version. Talk about cozy comfort food. Thanks for bringing back these wonderful memories, Edith! 

Dad doing the dishes in his Levi's apron.
There's the salmon mold hanging on the wall! 

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ANG POMPANO: When you grow up in an Italian family, food is a massive part of your life. But my mother’s cooking was a bit different from what you might expect.

She lost her own mother when she was fourteen, so I’ve never been entirely sure where she learned her way around a kitchen. I suspect a big part of her culinary education began before I was even a thought, back when my dad was stationed down in South Carolina.

As a young military wife living in the South, she picked up a fair share of regional dishes and brought them right back home with her. Growing up as an Italian kid named Angelo, I figured Velveeta with Ro-Tel, grits, and deviled eggs were practically family recipes. I was probably the only boy in our neighborhood who actually liked fried okra and looked forward to black-eyed peas on New Year's Day.

Yet despite all those Southern staples coming out of her kitchen, the dish I remember most vividly was her lasagna. It was something I always looked forward to.

Not long after she passed, my dad was digging through the deep freeze when he stumbled across one last tray of her lasagna. She had assembled it, wrapped it up tight, and tucked it away. It was one last meal she’d made for her family—an unexpected parting gift from a woman who’d spent her whole life feeding the people she loved. We baked it together, and to this day, lasagna remains my absolute favorite.

The lasagna never lasted long enough for a picture, but here are a few photos of the woman who made it. My amazing mom!

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PEG COCHRAN/MARGARET LOUDON: My father's favorite meal was meat (steak, lamb chop, pork chop) and a salad with oil and vinegar so our meals were usually pretty simple although the rest of us would have a canned vegetable like peas or corn as well and sometimes potatoes. Every Saturday night we had steak cooked, in my father's words, so that it was "still moving." I've continued the tradition with steak on Saturday--it doesn't feel right to have it any other night. My grandparents were from all over--Italy, Germany and Hungary so they brought different dishes to the table. My Italian grandmother's pasta sauce was the best I've ever tasted and I wish I could have it one more time. Meanwhile, I make do with my sauce Bolognese. My Hungarian grandmother made my favorite potato soup and I know I'd still love that today. And Aunt Mary's stuffed cabbage--delicious!

 

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MADDIE DAY: I love all these! 

GIVEAWAY!

Readers, how about you? What dishes from childhood do you still eat? And do you update the recipe? 

Join our discussion with a comment below and you will be entered in our book giveaway.

Murder Uncorked by Maddie Day

No Roast for the Weary by Cleo Coyle

Murder at the Christmas Cookie Bake-Off by Darci Hannah

Muddled Matrimonial Murder by Kim Davis

A Poisonous Palate by Lucy Burdette

Simmering Secrets by Ang Pompano

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Comments open through

Wednesday, November 4.

Winner will be contacted

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