Hello, reader. How are you doing? Happy October. My close friend mentioned having trouble finding dinners her whole family would eat, so I started thinking about foods my mom made.
Here’s a list in case you’re looking for ideas. She was a meat eater, so there’s a lot of meat. But if you’re not a meat eater, you know what to do.
foods my mom made
I used to like taco salad. That was a nice build-your-own thing. Back then I loved the sour cream and shredded cheese the most. But it was ripped up iceberg lettuce as a bed, then options of seasoned ground beef, diced tomatoes, diced onions, sliced olives, salsa, tortilla chips, and maybe some dressing I never added.
My mom made rice casseroles that I liked. One was chicken and onions with cream of mushroom soup. (Back then I hated onions and picked them out, believing they were not food.)
The other was rice with hamburger meat which had been seasoned with delicious Mexican spices and maybe salsa. She added onion and garlic, and there was scrambled eggs too. This became comfort food to try recreating vegan later.
She used to make something like chicken cacciatori where she baked chicken in a tomato sauce. Then she served it with plain white rice.
She used to make chicken and dumplings too, with Bisquick dumplings.
When I was a kid I really liked the beef stroganoff, then later, mushroom stroganoff. So creamy, with wide egg noodles and tangy sauce.
more foods my mom made
She made flavorful tomato-oregano-basil-garlic-onion spaghetti sauce with tiny bits of green bell pepper. I try to make a similar sauce for Ming these days, although I can’t eat concentrated tomato anymore.
She made great lasagna. I loved to hang out with her in the kitchen and snag an extra cold noodle from the metal colander where the crinkle-edged noodles drained. Sometimes a crinkle edge would fall off the main noodle, and I would eat just the edge.
She made delicious cheese enchiladas which I would ask for on my birthday. She served them with special rice and refried beans from a can. I would ask for brownie nut cake with cream cheese frosting also.
Mom made wonderful beans– pinto beans cooked all day with veg. (She added pork when I wasn’t around.)
She made delicious rectangular cheeseburgers with French rolls for buns. The combination with iceberg lettuce leaves, pickle slices, ketchup, and mayo was thrilling.
Also she made delicious french fries. That seems old-fashioned now. Does anybody make french fries at home now? I think it’s rare.
She made potato salad and macaroni salad when my dad BBQed. And cut up melon. She loved watermelon and cantaloupe.
sweet
The cookies we called Mexican wedding cakes, other call Russian teacakes. She made delicious soft snickerdoodles, chocolate chip with walnuts– any cookies were good.
Crepes were a thing. My parents liked them with lemon juice and powdered sugar, Nutella, or fresh strawberries. I think the crepes were more about my dad.
Pancakes and muffins my mom made the longest. She stopped cooking savory foods at some point, but she kept making pancakes almost until the end. She made plain pancakes, blueberry pancakes, banana pancakes, pecan pancakes, and strawberry pancakes. Delicious!
And muffins were something to do with overripe bananas.
happy birthday
It was just my birthday, and I miss my mom so much. When you really know someone for a long time, there are so many parts to miss.
Today I miss most about my mom
- how she always wanted me around– I was always welcome
- her enjoyment of the oranges that hung over the fence from the neighbors’ tree
- when she told me to breathe (which I hated at the time)
- how she asked me to dance
- when she was proud of me
- hugs
- holding her hand
- her song for everything
- how much she cared about my health and well-being
- the sound of her voice
Thank you for witnessing how much I love my mom. I would love to read a list of foods your mom made also.
