Country/Trailer Park/Childhood Recipe Swap

Cafe Society
41

I make these all the time (in fact, I’m making some tomorrow night!) except my recipe is 50/50 ground pork and beef, onions, rice (I use pearl and often cook it ahead of time to make sure it won’t be crunchy, but if you use minute rice you don’t have to worry ;)), seasonings, worchestershire sauce, roll into massive meatballs (I guess 1-1.5") and set in a deep baking pan. Mix large can of plain tomato sauce with some worchestershire sauce and pour over the meatballs, bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or until done.

Childhood recipes… Goulash!

Brown about a lb of hamburger, add a can of peas (drained) and a can of tomato soup. Heat through, serve with rice, noodles, or by itself.

Sweet and sour meatballs

Roll ground beef into meatballs (we never really added anything, just the meat). Boil water, drop all the meatballs into boiling water and cook for half an hour until done (you can fry them, but they maintain their shape this way). Drain meatballs and pour over it a sauce made of approx* 1 cup ketchup, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup brown sugar and a pinch of dried mustard to taste. Stir and heat until sauce bubbles, serve over rice.

One more, from my Dad. Egg noodles.

Cook a handful of spaghetti noodles, once cooked drain and return to the pot, crack an egg into the pot with the noodles. Put pot back on burner and stir until the egg is cooked. Serve with ketchup.

Another version of dump cake I’ve seen (and eaten!) uses pumpkin pie filling and spice cake mix. Mmmm.

*I do it by sight now and taste it to see if I want more of something or another, this is just a starting point.

42

This is also very good with warm flour tortillas. Tortilla chips are a heck of a lot easier, though.

43

There’s always the walking taco, or Frito pie. Open a bag of Fritos so they are contained in the wrapper, pour over warmed up chili, and I guess grated cheese, chopped onions, sour cream…

44

Okay, I want to understand this, but I’m confused. You create this in the Frito wrapper? You pour the chips over chili? Or chili over chips? Same for the cheese, what gets sprinkled on what? Why is it made in the wrapper? What makes it a pie (and not a god awful mess in a Frito’s bag?)?

Need more info, please.

45

Here’s a visual.

46

Ok then. It is a godawful mess in a Frito’s bag.:eek: Thanks for clearing that up!

47

My version of the cheese dip:
Jar of Cheez Whiz
can of condensed cream of onion soup
jar of salsa

Mix together and heat until blended. Keep warm in crockpot or such like. Open bag of chips.

How about the classic SOS, or more elegantly, Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast?

Hard boil and peel enough eggs for each diner to have one or two, depending on preference.
Toast two pieces of bread for each diner.
In skillet, melt half a stick of butter, then stir in 3 - 4 tbl. of flour slowly, letting it get absorbed in the butter juice. Stir slowly, letting it brown a bit, then add salt, garlic, anything that hits your fancy. Add milk a splosh at a time, stirring to incorporate before adding any more. Too much milk at a time gives you lumps. Keep adding milk and cooking – it will thicken into a roux (white gravy). Add a couple of packages of Buddig beef , cut up into bite-size pieces. Slice eggs onto toast on plate, pour gravy over top.

As my mother learned to cook without measuring anything, that’s the way I learned too. Makes it hard to communicate how to make something from scratch.

48

Kidney beans are a different type of bean than red beans. Look in the canned beans at the grocery; you should find them. They are smaller and more tender than kidney beans. (Also Cannellini Beans are white kidney beans.)

49

Can’t believe no one mentioned this, or maybe I missed it on scrolling through, but if you don’t care how long you live crumble up and brown up some sausage and mix in. Really doesn’t matter what kind, your heart is going to stop soon enough anyways.

Frito Pie - Mom always made the fancy version. In a casserole dish layer fritos, Wolf brand chili, onions, and cheese. Two or three layers is good. Then bake till cheese is all bubbly.

It’s hard to figure out why I need cholesterol medication.

50

I adore the idea of Mom’s who cook with Frito’s! I could never have imagined such a thing!

51

The most repugnant substance I actually like:

Queso Pegamento

1 16 oz. ingot of Velveeta
1 16 oz. jar Best Foods or Hellman’s mayonnaise
1 Small can diced green chiles or jalapenos (not pickled)
2 Tbs. dehydrated diced onion
1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 cup salsa (or 1 small can Herdez salsa casera)

Melt it all together over very low heat or in a double boiler. Serve with chips or in a warn, soft flour tortilla with scrambled eggs.

Most people actually like this until they find out what’s in it.

52

That’s it! the Cool Whip! thnx

53

Oh! Another one from my childhood:

My folks called it “Touchdown Casserole”, and I have no idea why.

[ul]
Shredded cooked chicken
[li]Can or two of Ro-Tel[/li][li]Can of cream of mushroom soup[/li][li]Can of cream of chicken soup[/li][li]Shredded cheese[/li][li]Nacho cheese Doritos[/li][li]Ranch Doritos[/li]
Optional: sour cream, black olives, jalapenos, green onions, garlic powder, etc
[/ul]

Mix the first 4 ingredients together, layer with the Doritos in a casserole, top with cheese and bake until bubbly. Put optional ingredients where ever you want in that process.

No idea on proportions, but I remember it being horrifically delicious.

54

I’m thinking they might be talking about red chili beans.

55

oooooo! Visual aids! :smiley: Up home these were called Petro’s, a new-fangled thANG (lol) brought in for the World’s Fair in Knoxville. They added sliced black olives. We have it a lot now, gooood.

56

Lazy Chicken Enchiladas

A few of the bigger cans of chicken

A few cans of Cream of Chicken

A few cans of green chilies

Layer it all with shredded pepper jack cheese and tortillas (no need to roll up anything in the tortillas, just layer)

Slather on a bunch of the green enchilada sauce, bake and serve

57

Visual aid:

Red beans

58

Okay, I’ve done a little more reading, and discovered that “red” beans may sometimes be the same as “kidney,” but not always. Still a little confused, but basically one is just a bit smaller and more tender than the other. I’ve had both, and thought that one was just a miniature version of the other…

Back to the subject, though:

One of my stepdad’s favorites - the classic Fried Bologna Sandwich (and I still have to sing the Oscar Mayer song to spell both the product and the company name right!) On white bread, of course, with cheap yellow mustard.

And any casserole involving tater tots + Cream of Something soup.

(Oddly enough, I definitely grew up country/trailer park/“po’ white trash,” and we ate almost none of this food when I was a kid. My father fished and hunted a good bit, and we almost always had a bit of livestock and a good-sized garden, plus fruit trees and a plethora of wild produce - blackberries and muscadines and such. A great deal of our food would be considered pretty darned “gourmet” today: Fresh, organic seasonal fruit and vegetables, fresh seafood, quail, frog’s legs, fresh eggs, homemade sausages and jellies and preserves, honey and pecans from my grandparents’ farm, and so forth. I thought we ate that stuff because we were too poor to buy Hamburger Helper and store-bought soups!)

59

I add a can of Hormel Chili when I make this. Normally I wouldn’t touch Hormel chili or Velveeta with a ten-foot pole but when you put them together the end result is something too wonderful to describe!

60

They had these at the snack window in high school (no sour cream though). They were called pepper-bellies.