My family was of British origin. Most dinners were prepared in a pressure cooker. Vegetables were cooked to baby food consistency and recognizable only by the color, green, purple, off-white, yellow, orange. Meat, if not pressure cooked, was fried or baked to hard crack. We were often served boiled beef tongue (identifiable by the taste buds), beef heart, kidney and calves’ liver. The only food my mother under cooked was oysters, which she coated in crushed saltines and fried for 5–10 seconds max. The gag reflex was tested regularly in our house. Far too often, those slimy (sometimes sandy) globules were cooked up on Halloween and mandatory consumption before permission granted to go out trick-or-treating.
The English are big fans of rutabaga, turnips, squash, beets and Lima beans, so we had plenty of those. Sometimes my grandmother would get creative and mix up a couple cans of green beans with stewed tomatoes, which later on, after a little tweaking, became one of my favorites… but I’ll save that recipe for a future column.
I began pleading for mom to teach me how to cook in sixth grade. Her response was to hand me a bag of potatoes and a peeler. Those we ate every night, boiled.
Back in the day, Home Economics was a required course for all girls from eighth grade forward. Although going to junior high was a thought too terrifying to dwell on for more than a couple seconds, I would finally learn how to cook and that thrilled me! I didn’t make the first semester cut, so in late April of 1964, after struggling through the sewing segment, we cooked!
We cooked “Welsh Rarebit.” My first thought was we were cooking a rabbit and my mom and grandmother would want the recipe. To this day, I can’t recall exactly what Welsh Rarebit is, and have yet felt compelled to perform a google search.
Having said all that, the inspiration for this column lies in the notion that there might be a few teenage girls out there who want to cook something, or working moms, stay-at-home moms, or even some dads for that matter, who find themselves approaching the proverbial dinner hour without a clue what to make. The idea is looking no further than your weekly newspaper to find tried and true, quick and easy, down home, feel-good recipe when the mind goes blank. This “Share your Favorite Easy Recipe” column aims to fit that bill.
The Bible says there is nothing new under the sun, but if you have a recipe that you’ve made your own and your people love it, by all means, send it in! We’d love to add a neighborhood favorite to our recipe box! We’re looking for recipes that don’t call for a shopping cart full of ingredients and directions easy to follow. Also, a brief intro would be wonderful! Send us also favorite recipes for entrees, desserts, breakfasts, lunch, brunch, appetizers, any recipe you know is “all that!” submit recipes to [email protected].
SLOPPY JOES
1-1/2 lb. ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped 1 tsp. garlic powder or minced garlic equivalent 3/4 tsp. salt (or Lawry’s is good)
1 tsp. lemon pepper (it’s magical!) 1 16oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 – 2 small cans of tomato paste 1 cup liquid (water, tomato juice
or beef broth) 3 Tbsp. sugar
Large Hamburger buns, buttered and toasted
Cheddar cheese, grated
Instructions:
Brown ground beef in a large skillet, drain. Add onion, peppers and seasoning, then sauté for a few minutes. Stir in tomatoes, tomato paste and sugar. Add water slowly, making sure the mixture does not become runny. Sloppy Joes should be a thick consistency, but not gummy thick. Toast buttered buns under the broiler or in a frying pan. Top with grated cheese, serve immediately with salad greens on the side.
Reader Comments(0)