RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (Full Version)

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LinnaeaBorealis -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 12:10:44 PM)

I have no memory of my paternal grandmother's cooking, so it must not have been fabulous. And the last time she cooked for me was when I was in my 20's.

But my Norwegian Granny!!! Oh my, she was the best cook ever! She cooked the dishes she had been taught to cook in Norway for the most part. I could always tell when she was making Rullepølse because it scented the entire house! And not in a really pleasant way. It's sort of like a lunchmeat that she would do in layers & then roll up & tie. Then she would set it on the counter with one side touching the frig & a brick on top & to the other side to make it square. It had mutton in it. And once it sat on the counter for the proper number of days, it was ready to chill, slice & eat. Oh how I wish that I'd learned how to make that!! One thing she didn't make, but bought at the butcher in Ballard--Norwegian part of Seattle--was bloodring. It's actually made of blood vessels & bone marrow & such. She would slice it & fry it in butter, then put it on bread & smush it & it was a sandwich. Very rich in iron, of course. And ohhhhh so good!!

She also made rommegrot which is this delicious pudding that she would drizzle homemade raspberry sauce over. We'd always eat it out of these special bowls. And her potato lefse was a staple. I loved helping her make it because I could always have one or two hot off the iron with melting butter & cinnamon sugar.

They had laying hens & I got to go out every day & collect the eggs & then she would soft boil one for me & put it in a special egg cup for me. Every now & again I'd be there when it was time to kill a hen who'd gotten too old for laying. I'd help with the slaughter, cleaning, etc. Then Granny would boil the shit out of it & make the best dumplings!!

The only things I really learned how to make from her were the cookies. The krumkake, fattigman, sandbakkels, & berlinerkranse were all staples at Christmas time. There isn't much sugar in Norwegian pastries, just lots of real butter! So I never learned to enjoy very sweet things.

Most of the things that I cook now are things that I sort of developed along the way. When one is poor & creative one can eat very yummy meals. I don't buy spices at places like the dollar store because I've found that they tend to be stale. The fresher the herb or spice, the stronger the flavor & the less one needs to use.




LaTigresse -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 12:19:27 PM)

This is probably not exactly the same but it might give you a start.

http://www.heritagerecipes.com/main-dishes/rolla-pulsa.htm

here is another I found...

http://www.blazinghotwok.com/2011/04/danish-rulleplse.html




LinnaeaBorealis -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 12:55:56 PM)

Thank you so much for finding those recipes for me. They're not exactly how Granny made it, because she used mutton. Most of the recipes I've seen call for lamb or veal. I don't eat baby animals, so I'll just keep looking.




hlen5 -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 1:23:51 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: LinnaeaBorealis

...................And her potato lefse was a staple. I loved helping her make it because I could always have one or two hot off the iron with melting butter & cinnamon sugar.


Do you make lefse still? My siblings and I all get together around Tgiving to make our Xmas lefse. We can't make thin and soft lefse!! Argh!!




LinnaeaBorealis -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 2:13:52 PM)

My sister does. Our mother's recipe was all approximations. If you'd like, I can get her recipe from my sister. Are you making potato lefse?




hlen5 -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 2:18:53 PM)

We have our Mom's recipe, but it doesn't turn out like hers did. Is your sister's lefse soft?

I didn't know lefse was made from anything but potatoes.




DesFIP -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 4:16:34 PM)

My grandmother did her best to take her recipes with her. If you asked, she left things out. Her matzo balls were incredibly light and fluffy. Asking her got "It's the recipe on the box". However when I said "But you separate the eggs and beat the whites stiffly" she would confirm it. If you didn't know how to do it, she wouldn't tell you.

And I've given up trying to duplicate her iced tea, it was the best.




DomImus -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 4:35:29 PM)

My grandmother was an incredible cook. She was born and raised in Hungary (my father's step-mother... I have no Hungarian in me). I can remember watching her slicing her homemade egg noodles on the kitchen table for chicken soup. Her apple strudel was the living end. The only dish she made that I ever learned to cook myself was her chicken and dumplings. Very different from any other chicken and dumpling recipe I have ever had. Mine is a bastardized version of hers (and nowhere near as good) but I do the best I can.

On the Italian front, my aunt's mother in law was from Italy and man could that woman ever cook. My aunt learned from her and is an astounding cook, as well. To this day growing up with all of those different ethnic cooks has spoiled me rotten. I cannot eat any sort of Italian food in restaurants because it simply pales in comparison to anything Nona made. I could never understand a word she said but it didn't matter. I understood when she said "dinner time".




VaguelyCurious -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 4:39:40 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesFIP

My grandmother did her best to take her recipes with her. If you asked, she left things out.

OH MY GOD MINE TOO.

Whenever mum asked for recipes Nana's English would mysteriously deteriorate. She'd give really vague instructions and then say 'it's cook itself', and if mum pressed for details Nana would look at me and say 'why your mama she is so es-tupid?'

Eventually mum gave up and asked my great aunt everything instead. Which is sad, because she will never be and has never been as good a cook as my Nana.

ETA: until your post I'd completely forgotten about that, DesFIP. Thank you. [:)]




tiggerspoohbear -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 4:59:47 PM)

My mom wasn't that great a cook or baker, it was meat and potatoes for supper every night.  Pretty bland but back then we didn't know it.  Baking was from a box unless it was her chocolate chip cookies.  She'd have to make 12 dozen a week to make it between my sister, my dad and me.  He'd take a dozen every day to work.

My grandmother made the most delicious chicken, and friends would ask to come over with us on Sundays to have some.  No one has ever been able to replicate the recipe, although my dad insists it was just plain ole shake & bake and done in the electric fry pan.  I know that's not the case, I've tried it.  And her "sucre a la creme sure", French Canadian fudge was the best thing ever.  I still haven't learned to make it.  My aunt makes a great one that she does in the microwave, but the one time I tried to make it, I had to throw out the glass pan.  It hardened like cement and wouldn't even melt with boiling water.

My sister and I both love to cook and bake and have learned on our own.  I prefer baking to cooking but can do both equally well.  I love to make my own Chinese food, well, everything but eggrolls.  My spaghetti sauce is to die for and it has to simmer on the stove for 2 or 3 days before I'll agree to serve it over pasta.  I've tried to make bread but have given up on that.  It either blows up to unbelievable proportions, that's what happened to the soda bread, or hard as a hockey puck, the time I tried to make bagels. 




littlewonder -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 5:14:40 PM)

BotBoi
Haluski
Halupkis
pickled beet eggs
Amish potato salad
cucumber salad





LafayetteLady -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 5:53:11 PM)

Wow, this thread is making me HUNGRY! My current living situation doesn't have me cooking at all, which sucks because I love to cook.

My Italian, paternal grandmother had one dish that she made on the stove with chicken and peas. I don't know if she ever taught her kids how to make it and she didn't speak English, but as far as I know, I'm the only one who was ever able to duplicate it (no idea how, just did it). Haven't made that dish in years.

My maternal grandmother had actually worked as a cook (not a chef) in resort hotels up and down the east coast when she was a young woman. She never taught me how to make a thing though. Sucks because she made THE best shortbread cookies. When she was older and stopped driving, I would take her on errands, and she always tried to pay me gas money. I finally got around it by just asking her to make me shortbread cookies. I was young and foolish. Should have asked her to teach me how to make them.

My Dad was a cook in the Navy. I don't know how everyone on his ship survived, lol. He always told you that the black stuff in front of you was good for your teeth! Both of his brothers were good cooks though.

My mom was a good cook, depending on what it was. Her sausage stuffing was amazing. I have never replicated it, even though she tried to teach me. I still can't make a ham as well as her. For both dishes, I have learned how to cheat and get close. Other things my mom made, she taught me, and I have since improved on her recipes. I'm grateful she lived long enough to see that happen. She made this great potato salad that had no mayo, but instead just salt, pepper, oil, tomatoes and celery. I adjusted things a bit and added a couple things, mine is better, lol.

I started very young experimenting in the kitchen cooking dinners for my dad (I was totally daddy's girl). God Bless my father. While most things came out ok or good, there were a couple that really went wrong. He ate them anyway without complaint. Although we did discuss that I should NEVER make those things again, lol.

I've tried to teach my son how to make some things. He's rarely in the mood to learn, although he is able to cook a good steak and eggs.




DesFIP -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 6:04:24 PM)

I make an astounding banana bread learned from watching our Ecuadorian cook. And this woman did not believe in measuring, unless it was a true cake.

Blintzes, if I have the energy to do them. Which is rare. Grandma did a great noodle kugel if you like sweet kugel, I prefer a savory potato one myself. And actually I always prefer a potato to a noodle.

I will say about my mother, she didn't have access to a lot of spices, and almost all vegetables came frozen or canned. Once a week in summer an Italian gentleman from Brooklyn came down the block, selling fresh vegetables from his van. The sides rolled up and there were the bushels of tomatoes, the boxes of mushrooms. My mother was the only woman on the block who ever bought mushrooms, that I do know. For some reason that escapes me, everyone wanted the box the mushrooms came in. But as we were the only mushroom buyers, we were given them.




peachgirl -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 8:39:46 PM)

I had completely forgotten about this apricot cake my Nana would make. I tried to get her to give me the recipe, she said, you make your cake and I'll make mine! I've tried to get the recipe out my great aunt (her sister), she keeps promising to give it to me, but haven't gotten it yet!. The closed I've ever gotten is a cream cheese type cake with apricot preserves. So delicious.

My mother is an excellent cook and gave me her recipes for Puerto Rican food (her side) and Persian/Armenian food (my dad's side). My rice with gandules is kick ass, so and so is my lule kebab and rice pilaf.




peachgirl -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 8:44:23 PM)

I love this thread, it reminds me of a story from when I was a kid. It's called, the day I went hungry. My choice for dinner that night was the squid my mother had made for herself, or the rooster soup my grandmother had made from the rooster that my dad had brought home. My grandmother had been raised on a farm, so she had no problem strangling the rooster, and then gave my brother one of his feet. My brother found the nerve in the foot and chased me all around the house with the rooster toes clenching and unclenching...




LinnaeaBorealis -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 8:47:54 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: hlen5

We have our Mom's recipe, but it doesn't turn out like hers did. Is your sister's lefse soft?

I didn't know lefse was made from anything but potatoes.


In the far NE of Norway it's just wheat flour. I found out when I was chatting with a man on the other side who lived up there. I guess maybe even potatoes didn't grow up there. LOL

Yeah, my sister's is soft. You want the recipe?




LinnaeaBorealis -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 9:07:58 PM)

I may not have learned to cook like my mother--thank God--or like my Granny, but I became a really good cook in my own right. By the time I was in my 30's I only saw recipes as general guidelines to give me ideas for dinner. I couldn't follow a recipe to save my life. One day I decided to prove to my family that I could follow a recipe. I selected one that had about 10 ingredients. I did fine through the first 6 & then I couldn't stand it anymore & changed everything around & put different herbs & spices in it & it came out totally awesome!

I don't measure much. In order to hand my recipes down, they'd have to be video, because I put "this much" of this & about "that much" of that in. And depending on the day, I may not put any of that in at all, it might be the other thing. I am at my most creative in the kitchen. The way that I know what spices & herbs to use is by smell: I smell the dish, then smell the spice bottle. If the smells go together, I put some in.

I tried to tell my son-in-law how I make perfect rice one time. He couldn't handle the imprecision. Here's my recipe:

Put the right amount of rice in the bottom of a saucepan. Add cold water till the water reaches your first knuckle on your finger when the tip of the finger is on top of the rice. Put the pan on high & boil it until the water boils down to the level of the rice. Put the lid on, turn the burner down to simmer & cook till it's done. He asked how that could possibly work no matter how much rice you put in the pan. I said I didn't know, but work it did. Then he asked how long I cooked it after I put the lid on it. I said till it's done. He said, "No. Do you cook it for 10 minutes? 30 minutes? How long??" I said, "Until it's done." He said, "How do you know when it's done?" I said, "I don't know, I just seem to know." He walked away in disgust. But that really is how long I cook it for. And it comes out perfect & flavorful every time.

Hmmmmm....I guess I've become the Granny now....




hlen5 -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 10:15:56 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: LinnaeaBorealis


quote:

ORIGINAL: hlen5

We have our Mom's recipe, but it doesn't turn out like hers did. Is your sister's lefse soft?

I didn't know lefse was made from anything but potatoes.


In the far NE of Norway it's just wheat flour. I found out when I was chatting with a man on the other side who lived up there. I guess maybe even potatoes didn't grow up there. LOL

Yeah, my sister's is soft. You want the recipe?


Sure!!




suhlut -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/1/2011 11:28:50 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: LinnaeaBorealis

Most of the things that I cook now are things that I sort of developed along the way. When one is poor & creative one can eat very yummy meals. I don't buy spices at places like the dollar store because I've found that they tend to be stale. The fresher the herb or spice, the stronger the flavor & the less one needs to use.


To be honest.. I havent ever noticed anything in my cheap dollar store spice jars tasting stale. I still buy several new jars of the stuff to add to my collections.. at least bi weekly. lol

It has been a total joy for me.. to be able to afford spices I'd have never been able to justify spending 5 or 6 dollars on in a regular grocery store. Thats robbery.

But, I do notice several changes to my spice "rack" (2 cupboard shelves of spices)
Back before dollar stores came into existance, my few staple spices that made it onto my limited food budget was garlic powder, onion powder, and a bottle of italian spice.
Now.. I've become a bit of a food snob, and wouldnt waste a penny on garlic powder or onion powder. Jars of fresh minced or crushed garlic are my preferences. And if something needs the flavor of onion, fresh is always much better. So, I no longer buy those in dry form as a spice.

Aside from lots more variety to choose from thanks to the dollar stores.. its now so cheap, i can be free to sprinkle happily away without worry that i need to use them sparingly. I love that aspect. I love spices.. and love using them heavily. And I also love that I can afford ones id never have dreamed of owning when I first began living on my own.

And thats the thing.. raising 5 children, I have always had to follow a strict food budget. But that also hasnt stopped me from preparing HUGE meals that require huge dashes of spices... to make them taste right. The dollar store spices and even more so the ones i purchased for 50 cents a jar at big lots... have been a fortunate find for my budget. Deliciously so.




needlesandpins -> RE: Grandmom's Home Cooking (6/2/2011 5:30:09 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: LinnaeaBorealis

I may not have learned to cook like my mother--thank God--or like my Granny, but I became a really good cook in my own right. By the time I was in my 30's I only saw recipes as general guidelines to give me ideas for dinner. I couldn't follow a recipe to save my life. One day I decided to prove to my family that I could follow a recipe. I selected one that had about 10 ingredients. I did fine through the first 6 & then I couldn't stand it anymore & changed everything around & put different herbs & spices in it & it came out totally awesome!

I don't measure much. In order to hand my recipes down, they'd have to be video, because I put "this much" of this & about "that much" of that in. And depending on the day, I may not put any of that in at all, it might be the other thing. I am at my most creative in the kitchen. The way that I know what spices & herbs to use is by smell: I smell the dish, then smell the spice bottle. If the smells go together, I put some in.

I tried to tell my son-in-law how I make perfect rice one time. He couldn't handle the imprecision. Here's my recipe:

Put the right amount of rice in the bottom of a saucepan. Add cold water till the water reaches your first knuckle on your finger when the tip of the finger is on top of the rice. Put the pan on high & boil it until the water boils down to the level of the rice. Put the lid on, turn the burner down to simmer & cook till it's done. He asked how that could possibly work no matter how much rice you put in the pan. I said I didn't know, but work it did. Then he asked how long I cooked it after I put the lid on it. I said till it's done. He said, "No. Do you cook it for 10 minutes? 30 minutes? How long??" I said, "Until it's done." He said, "How do you know when it's done?" I said, "I don't know, I just seem to know." He walked away in disgust. But that really is how long I cook it for. And it comes out perfect & flavorful every time.

Hmmmmm....I guess I've become the Granny now....


the way you talk about cooking there is alot of how i am, and depending what i want the rice for i also cook it the way you say. i wash it first too.

needles




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