Reflections 19: Favorite Meals

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. ~Voltaire

What was your favorite meal when you were a child? What made it your favorite?

Okay, I am going to try and scale this back, but there were a LOT of meals that I really loved that my Mommy and Daddy and Granny made for me.

1) Mashed potatoes with hamburger gravy. Freaking delicious. My mom makes the best mashed potatoes, I don't know why mine are crap comparatively. I also really love mashed potatoes and hamburger patties with Worcestershire sauce all over the hamburger. Fantastic.

2) Bubbles and Squeak was this dish my mom usually made in her gigantic cast-iron skillet. When I was growing up, I heard those jokes of beating your husband with a skillet when he f's up, and I always thought mom could really kill dad with that slugger of a skillet. Anyways, bubble and squeak is Eckridge sausage, cabbage, and potatoes all..skillet-ed together. It's wondrous.

3) Taco salad, which is super different than the one Michael grew up with. It was Doritos, catalina dressing, ranch style beans, lettuce...I think there was some other stuff in there too, but I was a big fan.

4) Spanish rice--I didn't appreciate this as much until recently, but my dad would make regular Spanish rice, then load it down with hamburger and velveeta and rotel. We would eat it rolled up in corn tortillas or with chips, and it was so so spicy that we couldn't eat it, but so delicious that we couldn't stop, lol.

5) Tamale casserole--another one of dad's creations, it was tamales and corn tortillas (for some reason...), and chili and onions and cheese...soooooo goood.

6) Cabbage Rolls were my Great Grandmother's specialty, and she made them every time she came into town. They were soft pastries stuffed with cabbage and maybe hamburger...I loved them so so very much.

7) Chili. My parents grew their own vegetables and seasonings out in the yard. It was really awesome...anyways, Mom went out of town when we were little and Dad took out this party sized pot and made chili with fresh cilantro, which was surprising and delicious. Mom was gone for a week, and we ate that chili for at least two meals a day, every day, until Mom got back, lol.

8) Spaghetti was really awesome, but Mom would bring in Spaghetti Squash from her garden and we would have the sauce over the stringy squash. Delicious. Which brings me to--Fried Squash. That is alllll the hell yeah.

9) Venison! Venison steaks, venison sausage, venison jerky, venison spaghetti, venison shepherd's pie......Papa and Uncle Robbie and my cousins would all go hunting, even Amber went at one point...and they would bring home tons of deer and turkey....mmmm, I grew up on venison

10) Last one (I hope): Summer sausage, smoked out on the smoker, with crackers and cheese. Classic and oh so fantastic.

I will stop there, but now I am just starving and I need to go call my mama for recipes =) Other meals I can think of that I won't talk about yet are hobo dinners, homemade salsa, goulash, fried potatoes and cornbread, stew, tacos with raspberry sauce, and eating out at Taco Bueno and Ponchos!!

~Andie~