Specialties of your house - food oddities

[FairyChatMom]

Back in the olden days when I was a kid, my mom used to make some dishes that seemed to be peculiar to our family. As I think back on it now, it was probably her way of stretching her grocery budget by being "creative" - but we didn't care - it was good stuff.

There are 3 in particular that I remember.

Long before Beenie Weenie showed up on the grocery store shelves, we'd take care of cookout leftover thusly: Slice and fry up some onions. Cut up leftover grilled hotdogs into rings and dump in with the onions. Dump in the leftover baked beans. Mix, heat thoroughly, eat. I even made it a few times in college, not with leftover but as a meal itself. Fortunately I lived alone so the beans didn't bother anyone else.

Slop - we kids named this, and I'm sure we thought we were oh so clever. It was spaghetti sauce over white rice. I'm guessing it became supper when Mom ran out of pasta. We used to ask her to make it, but I guess the idea of spaghetti sauce on something other than spaghetti was not to be the norm.

The third is something my dad did on the rare occasions when we had leftover spaghetti sans sauce. He'd melt butter in a frying pan, then dump in the spaghetti, fry it till it was crisp, then flip it over and fry the other side.

None of this was ever served to company and I never encountered it anywhere else (even beenie weenie didn't have the sliced onions.) I wouldn't be surprised now to find that other people ate similar dishes, but in my world in those days, these were family specialties.

Did your family have creative leftovers? Or did you come up with unique dishes when you were living on a shoestring budget?

[Missy2U]

For flank steak we always marinated it for at least 24 hours in Wishbone French Dressing. We all still do it to this day (my husband found it strange but he's become a convert.)

Originally Posted by FairyChatMom

The third is something my dad did on the rare occasions when we had leftover spaghetti sans sauce. He'd melt butter in a frying pan, then dump in the spaghetti, fry it till it was crisp, then flip it over and fry the other side.

My grandpa would take leftover spaghetti and do something kind of similar - he'd make up a white sauce, the spaghetti, and a ton of cheddar cheese and bake it. I have not been able to duplicate it though (and I've tried!!)

The only other thing I can think of is this rice thing my husband likes me to make sometimes. It involves cooked rice, chopped onions, cream of mushroom soup, a lot of cheddar cheese, a bowl and an oven. It's kinda like comfort food I guess. Being from the midwest, just about anything and everything that involves cream of mushroom soup is comfort food. Hmmm - wonder if the spaghetti thing my grandpa made involved cream of mushroom soup? Hmmmmmmm.

[cher3]

Ah, cream of mushroom soup. One of our winter "I'm tired and hungry" specials is cream of mushroom soup over rotisserie chicken. My husband and son like to tear up a piece of bread and put the soup "gravy" over that, too.

[Motorgirl]

Originally Posted by FairyChatMom

Long before Beenie Weenie showed up on the grocery store shelves, we'd take care of cookout leftover thusly: Slice and fry up some onions. Cut up leftover grilled hotdogs into rings and dump in with the onions. Dump in the leftover baked beans. Mix, heat thoroughly, eat. I even made it a few times in college, not with leftover but as a meal itself. Fortunately I lived alone so the beans didn't bother anyone else.

Whoa whoa whoa, Miss Fancypants! You put onions in yours? Well laaaaa-teeee-daaaaa! We ate it regularly, I now feed it to my husband sometimes but not too often because the results are alarming.

[WhyNot]

Originally Posted by Missy2U

My grandpa would take leftover spaghetti and do something kind of similar - he'd make up a white sauce, the spaghetti, and a ton of cheddar cheese and bake it. I have not been able to duplicate it though (and I've tried!!)

Sounds like a kugel. There's a recipe for kugel in every Jewish grandmother's head, and they're all the best one.

Ground pork, chopped onions, peas, shredded romaine lettuce and a couple of packs of Ramen noodles make a dish almost, but not entirely, unlike lo mein. It was one of my go-to dishes when cash was tight.

Carb Overload: One box generic stuffing mix, one package mac-n-cheese, coupla hot dogs, some frozen peas. Throw it in a pot with enough water to cook the pasta and hydrate the stuffing mix. Add cheese powder and butter. (I think I actually found this on a box of StoveTop as a legit recipe once.)

And yes, cream of mushroom soup with some sliced potatoes can be added to any cheap ass cut of meat you can find, and it's actually pretty tasty, in a pale Midwestern kind of way. Bonus points if you have a splash of sherry or white wine left in the bottom of the box to add while it simmers.

[perfectparanoia]

When I was a kid we had Mom's Muck - leftover potatoes sliced and fried up with leftover sausages, green pepper and onion. Awesomeness!

I don't think I make anything weird for my kids. There is a chicken recipe involving three different kinds of prepackaged soup that could be considered strange.

[Dung Beetle]

We used to have soup over bread…a ladleful of Campbell’s Chunky Soup over a slice of white bread. Mom was surprised some prosperous years later when I asked her why we never had it anymore.

[tdn]

My mother used to make taco salad, but it was unlike anything of the same name that I've had anywhere else. It was romaine lettuce, ground beef, and beans, topped with Fritos and french dressing.

We also have something called kringle every December. I've had something by that name, but it was not what we make in my family. It's a really sticky dough, unsweetened, with a lot of sour cream, rolled out and shaped into a figure 8, then baked. I can't imagine Christmas morning without it. I don't know how many generations back it goes, but my mother always made it. Years ago my sister learned, and last year my niece tried her hand at it. The results were... interesting.

[Little Nemo]

Something my family did was eat leftover popcorn as breakfast cereal. As in, pouring yourself a bowl of popcorn and eating it with milk and sugar on top, like you would a bowl of cheerios.

I grew up thinking this was normal but when I've mentioned it to other people, nobody else seems to have done this.

[Rocketeer]

Eggs and gravel: Break hamburger into crumbles, fry, add eggs and scramble together. Best with ketchup. Even better if you use ground pork sausage.

[Annie-Xmas]

Mom's recipe for "sludge": Open can of soup. Add 1/2 can of water. Heat to boiling. Add mashed potato flakes while stirring until it looks like sludge. Add cheese or butter if desired. Eat.

[Moonlitherial]

Our traditional post Thanksgiving meal is fried mush. Mashed potatoes, carrots, stuffing, sweet potates, turkey and gravy fried together until warm and mushy and served topped with chilled cranberry sauce.

Dad was famous for hobo stew. Whatever leftovers he could find in the fridge with a can of vegetables added and usually seasoned with worstershire sauce or steak sauce. It almost always turned out surpisingly tasty.

[Eleanor of Aquitaine]

I grew up eating "Ham and Egg Pie", which other people seem to find weird. It's cubed ham and sliced boiled eggs in a white sauce, covered with either pie crust or a layer of croissants. This is how we always used up our leftover holiday ham.

[Lynn Bodoni]

My mother used to grate up an apple and add it to a box of cake mix, with everything else the mix called for. Apparently, it stretched the mix.

I've been known to throw about a quarter cup of lentils or brown rice in with a can of vegetable beef soup and a can of water. My husband doesn't care for this, but I like it when I'm not feeling up to cooking anything more ambitious.

[sitchensis]

Our post Thanksgiving meal was, and still is, huge American style omelets filled with stuffing, turkey, gravy, and Velveeta cheese.

[Antigen]

Originally Posted by FairyChatMom

The third is something my dad did on the rare occasions when we had leftover spaghetti sans sauce. He'd melt butter in a frying pan, then dump in the spaghetti, fry it till it was crisp, then flip it over and fry the other side.

My dad also loved fried spaghetti leftovers. Instead of heating up the sauce and noodle mixture (because the leftovers were always sauce-and-noodles-together, never just sauce) in the microwave, he'd butter a pan and dump the spaghetti in. So, so, so good.

I also used to eat pink mashed potatoes when I was a kid. Add a couple of tablespoons of ketchup to instant mashed potatoes, and they become about 400% more palatable to a picky 6-year-old, evidently.

Originally Posted by Eleanor of Aquitaine

I grew up eating "Ham and Egg Pie", which other people seem to find weird. It's cubed ham and sliced boiled eggs in a white sauce, covered with either pie crust or a layer of croissants. This is how we always used up our leftover holiday ham.

This sounds so delicious.

[Rachellelogram]

Fried clams! ahhhhh, memories. It was my stepdad's budget specialty. It wasn't fried, so I don't know why we called it that. The recipe was: boil cheap noodles, drain, add a can of clam bits, toss with olive oil and some kind of green spice (sage? cilantro? oregano? idk). Then consume. It was so tasty! We had to feed 5 people on one and a half salaries, so clams were a good way to fill up. He also had a really good, hearty, extraordinarily fatty and salty chicken and noodles recipe that took ALL DAY to crock (oh the hours spent smelling chicken but being unable to eat it yet!). But damn, it was freakin' good.

He wasn't a fabulous cook, in retrospect; however, unlike my mother, he actually liked cooking. And he was ok at it. So his relatively-simple dishes were some serious gourmet shit to us. :D

[zoid]

Originally Posted by Rocketeer

Eggs and gravel: Break hamburger into crumbles, fry, add eggs and scramble together. Best with ketchup. Even better if you use ground pork sausage.

LOL - we did this ALL the time
My mother called it poor man's barbecue.

[phxjcc]

Originally Posted by FairyChatMom

Or did you come up with unique dishes when you were living on a shoestring budget?

Onion Stew over mashed potatoes

6 Large yellow onions, saute for ~ 5 minutes in 2 tbl's salted butter, then add ~ 1/2 cup water, cover and simmer for 20 mins. Pour off water, S&P to taste and then serve over mashed potatoes.

So good.

Served with Oscar Mayer Smoky Links, boiled, of course.

Must have been a Polish thing from Indiana where she grew up.

Back in the day, it probably cost what?...$1 to feed the entire family.

I guess I have to go to the store now.

[ThisSpaceForRent]

My kids 21 and 24 grew up with me about a 1/4 of the time. Their whole life I have been a chef, baker and general manager. My oldest liked escargot and med rare tuna at 11...but their all time FAVORITE meal was/is Mac and cheese with frozen peas and canned tuna.

WhyNot We also did the hotdog thing but I never thought to add stuffing mix...sounds, umm, interesting!

[Troppus]

Sweet n sour weinies, which may have been my dad's method of introducing his daughters to adventurous foods. Mix 2/3 cup ketchup or BBQ sauce, 1 can of chunk pineapple, 2 green pepper and 1 sweet onion cut into large chunks, pack of hot dogs cut into bite sized pieces. Simmer until vegetables tender and serve over rice. Sounds disgusting now, but my mouth is watering. Very tangy, and made the transition to Chinese buffet easy for picky little kids.

[applebetty]

"Spanish Rice" - white rice with a jar of home-canned tomatoes dumped over it.

Taco salad - some ground beef browned, mix with a head of iceberg lettuce shredded, a little shredded cheddar cheese, catalina dressing, and a small bag of Doritoes. To feed a family of six.

Sunday night was popcorn while watching Wild Kingdom and Walt Disney programs. A special treat would be rootbeer floats.

My mother was a very good cook and always had a garden no matter where we moved. We didn't get many luxuries but we never went hungry.

My specialty is that I can casserole anything with some "cream of" soup, and have it turn out delicious.

[Cub Mistress]

Fried leftover pasta. When I was a kid it was always spaghetti because that's all there was, as far as we knew. Fried in butter until brown in spots and doused in Maggi sauce. You can use any pasta, but spaghetti is still the best.

My odd food dish is called cabbage balls by the family but it is not exactly the dish that usually goes by that name. Mine is: mix lean ground beef with onion soup mix, form into 1 1/2 inch meatballs, place in the bottom of large heavy pot, add 1 head cabbage cut into chunks about 1 to 1 1/2 inches, cover this with several potatoes peeled and cut into chunks. ALL AMOUNTS VARIABLE! next add another envelope onion soup mix and 1 cup water and cover and cook until all is done. Serve by dishing out some of everything on a plate and adding a spoonful or so of the juice. Dig in! Not a pretty dish but my whole family loves it!

[ASanders]

We fried leftover pasta too, but for some reason it was called "refried" spaghetti in our house. And it was breakfast.

My mom's version of everything-in-a-pan was called "mish-mash." It rarely had the same ingredients more than once.

[brainstall]

French toast with cheese. Cook one side of the egg soaked bread and flip. Place cheese slices on top - works with process cheese, but is much better with a nice cheddar. As the other side cooks, the cheese melts. Slide off the pan and serve. Do not add syrup.

I had never eaten French toast any other way until I was well into my adult years. People looked at me like I was crazy when I told them about it. Thanks Mom. Now I like FT with either maple syrup or cheese, depending on whether I want sweet or savoury for breakfast. Either way goes equally well with bacon.

[ThelmaLou]

These are great! My mother would serve seashell noodles in a bowl of tomato soup. Or plain white rice with milk and sugar.

Creamed beans: make a butter/flour roux and pour in a can of pork & beans, stir til thick, serve over toast.

<show of hands> Who called weenies "tube steak" and baloney "Kentucky round steak"?

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

Egg noodles, still warm, mixed with cottage chesse and cinnamon-sugar. Yummy.

[Drain Bead]

A bowl of piping hot pinto beans cooked with garlic and bacon, topped with a scoop of cottage cheese.

[Chimera]

Bagels with both cream cheese and a slice of regular cheese, usually swiss, heated about 30 seconds in the microwave to soften or partially melt the cheese without ending up with a flaming hot sticky mess.

When I was a kid our family put cinnamon sugar (mix) on waffles before putting syrup over the top. I still do it, and keep a salsa jar with some mixed in the cupboard. Don't hear of too many people doing this.

I used to cook up a blend of refried beans (black bean or both kinds together), hamburger and melted cheese with chili spices, and then eat it with chips for dinner. Haven't done that in a while now. Maybe this fall when it gets cooler.

[zoid]

Originally Posted by Cub Mistress

Fried leftover pasta. When I was a kid it was always spaghetti because that's all there was, as far as we knew. Fried in butter until brown in spots and doused in Maggi sauce. You can use any pasta, but spaghetti is still the best.

Originally Posted by ASanders

We fried leftover pasta too, but for some reason it was called "refried" spaghetti in our house. And it was breakfast.

Hell, pour a few scrambled eggs and some cheese in the pan and you have a classic dish of frittata di spaghetti.

[Troppus]

My SO's childhood comfort food: potato soup. Peeled, cubed, and boiled a ton of potatoes, chopped onion and added bacon and cheddar. Nope. Roasted garlic and smoked gouda: no, not even close. Chunks of ham, onion, celery, and American cheese? Nope. Exasperated, dumped a bag of freezer burned hash browns into boiling water with a cube of chicken bullion: bingo. Best since Granny made it for him.

[FairyChatMom]

Reading these postings reminded me of another meal-stretcher my mom used to make - creamed ground beef. She'd brown the beef then add a white sauce of some sort, and serve it over toast or mashed potatoes. I don't know if she or Dad liked it, but the five of us kids inhaled the stuff.

Imagine the unpleasant surprise when, years later, I tried creamed chipped beef on toast. No one warned me it was so salty!!!

[grude]

My father had a dish he liked to make for himself, because he was the only one that would eat it!

He would crumble cornbread into crumbs, add diced onions, then pour buttermilk over it all until it was the consistency of soggy cereal and eat it with a spoon. I tried it a few times and it was horrible, he claimed it was a recipe his family would make as a child.

[Ellen Cherry]

Dishing this thread up at Cafe Society. From IMHO.

[Ponch8]

My family would make cheese blintzes with no sugar or other sweetening ingredients whatsoever. We'd make huge batches of them every December 25th when there'd be absolutely nothing else to do.

Now it's always a disappointment when I get them in a restaurant and they're loaded with sugar. They're supposed to be savory!

[Ellen Cherry]

I don't know how we arrived at it, but my mother once mixed cooked rice with crumbled, browned ground beef. We called it Snowy Mountain and requested it all the time.

[peedin]

Originally Posted by Ellen Cherry

I don't know how we arrived at it, but my mother once mixed cooked rice with crumbled, browned ground beef. We called it Snowy Mountain and requested it all the time.

I recently found a recipe based on this but with the addition of sauteed onions and spices. I believe some beef broth was added then simmered. It was called Egyptian Rice and dang it was good.

[ThelmaLou]

Originally Posted by FairyChatMom

Reading these postings reminded me of another meal-stretcher my mom used to make - creamed ground beef. She'd brown the beef then add a white sauce of some sort, and serve it over toast or mashed potatoes.

We had this. Called it "creamed hamburger on toast."

Originally Posted by grude

My father had a dish he liked to make for himself, because he was the only one that would eat it! He would crumble cornbread into crumbs, add diced onions, then pour buttermilk over it all until it was the consistency of soggy cereal and eat it with a spoon. I tried it a few times and it was horrible, he claimed it was a recipe his family would make as a child.

My father did this, too. Or just plain white bread torn up in a bowl with buttermilk poured over. A girlfriend's father ate this, too, and it always struck me as kind of a rural-country-farm thing.

[Ellen Cherry]

Originally Posted by peedin

I recently found a recipe based on this but with the addition of sauteed onions and spices. I believe some beef broth was added then simmered. It was called Egyptian Rice and dang it was good.

You just made me realize I've made dirty rice a bunch of times, and it never dawned on me that snowy Mountain was just a less Cajun version.

[Dogzilla]

My mom and my grandmother both used to open a can of corn niblets, drain it, and dump it into the pancake batter. Fry pancakes as usual.

Apparently, there was a lot of corn around and not so much blueberries or anything else you'd normally put into pancakes. I was in my mid-20s before I realized that my family are the only people who make pancakes with corn in them. I still think pancakes are just "wrong" without corn in them.

[Dung Beetle]

Mom also used to snack on Saltines smeared with mayonnaise. I know it sounds awful, but it’s crazy good!

[Silver Tyger]

I never ate it, but my mom's favorite way of eating cornbread is crumbled up in milk and eaten like cereal.

And then there was 'special toast' which was bread buttered on one side and broiled.

[FairyChatMom]

Originally Posted by Dogzilla

My mom and my grandmother both used to open a can of corn niblets, drain it, and dump it into the pancake batter. Fry pancakes as usual.

Apparently, there was a lot of corn around and not so much blueberries or anything else you'd normally put into pancakes. I was in my mid-20s before I realized that my family are the only people who make pancakes with corn in them. I still think pancakes are just "wrong" without corn in them.

You're not the only one - we would have these too, but with sugar instead of syrup. If I recall, Mom would make this for supper instead of breakfast - corn cakes.

And when I was in college, I discovered that it worked even better to just take dry pancake mix and add a can of creamed corn - it was richer than just adding corn to pancakes.

[Rollo Tomasi]

My mom and I liked to make meatloaf together, but instead of making an actual loaf, we would use a cupcake pan and make little meatloaf cupcakes.

Sure, it just tastes like meatloaf, but isn't everything more fun in cupcake form?

[Dr. Righteous]

Until last year I'd never met anyone who had this for dinner like I did as a kid: fried salami and eggs. In my house we'd heat up the slices of salami and pour scrambled egg around it and let it set up. My friend's mom did it exclusively with thick slices of Hebrew National salami but we'd have it with whatever was in the house.

[elbows]

Once when I was in Kathmandu, (which is a diner's paradise after India!), I found and ordered some pasta carbonara, (a dish I adore, and was severely missing!), in some cubbyhole, back alley joint. When it came, it had peas in it, which I had never seen before. And it was spectacularly good. I went back half a dozen times, mmmmm.

At my house, pasta carbonara always comes with peas now!

[Sattua]

When I was a teenager I got the idea of using leftover cornmeal breading to make hush puppies by reading Summer Of My German Soldier. It took some experimentation, but my mom and I have it just right now. I don't know of anyone else who actually makes hush puppies.

The secret is some white flour, lots of baking powder, and a minced onion. Add that to the leftover egg wash and cornmeal with salt and Cajun seasoning. Fry up.

[sachertorte]

Originally Posted by FairyChatMom

The third is something my dad did on the rare occasions when we had leftover spaghetti sans sauce. He'd melt butter in a frying pan, then dump in the spaghetti, fry it till it was crisp, then flip it over and fry the other side.

What you describe here is essentially fried noodles, you know, chow mein.

[Sister Vigilante]

Scrambled eggs mixed with tuna. My dad altered the recipe from the original which he ate growing up: scrambled eggs mixed with pig's brains. It's really good. (The one with tuna; I don't know about the brains.)

My husband likes to mix his scrambled eggs with sliced up pieces of hot dogs. He calls it "eggs and wienies" and it was a staple for him growing up too.

I also grew up eating devilled ham and Vienna sausage, with mayonnaise, on saltines. Mr. V bought some to try once and ended up giving it to the dog.

[salinqmind]

Originally Posted by Dung Beetle

We used to have soup over bread…a ladleful of Campbell’s Chunky Soup over a slice of white bread. Mom was surprised some prosperous years later when I asked her why we never had it anymore.

I've seen magazine ad recipes for chunky soup heated and poured over mashed potatoes or rice, as if it was stew.

I remember looooong ago, my father brought home a case of soup that fell off a truck - literally - different kinds, though. And the labels got wet and fell off. So we ate a lot of Mystery Soup, they were all cream-of soups, two kinds picked at random and mixed together! (By happy coincidence, mom mixed tomato and green pea soup, which we later discovered was an actual recipe that made a pretty good mock bisque, if you add some curry powder and sour cream.)