Mom's Recipes

Mom was a very good cook. Some of the dishes she made were unique to her, as she had adapted them from English ingredients, or made them up.

Mom used to say that the only thing she knew how to make when she got married was white sauce. She said if one could make that then one could make anything. She made sure that all of us knew how to make it. Take butter and melt it. The amount depends on how much sauce you want. Add flour (enough so it feels right, Mom never measured) and salt and pepper. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly over medium heat until it is cooked and boiling.

Dad loved pastry, but for years Mom could not make it. She used to try to put a pastry topping on the steak and kidney, and it always sank. Dad used to tease her about it, and she grew very discouraged. Then one day she discovered a recipe for never fail pastry in a cookbook Susan's grade 5 class put together for a fundraiser. She used that recipe from that time on, and made great pastry. Every Christmas the house was filled with mince tarts, pies, and other good things. Dad was particularly fond of custard pie.

Pastry

1lb lard (crisco)

5c flour

1/2tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 egg

3/4 c water

Sift salt, b. powder, flour into large bowl. Cut in lard until fine like bread crumbs. Add egg and water. May be kept in refrigerator until ready.

Baked pie shell 400 8-9 min.

Custard Pie

4 eggs

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 c. milk

nutmeg

Beat eggs. Add sugar and salt. Gradually add milk. Sprinkle nutmeg on top after pouring into unbaked pie shell.

450 - 15 minutes

325 - 25 to 30 min.

Something else Mom made at Christmas was chestnut sauce. I don't know where she got the recipe. She made it in England and in Canada. It was something she always made, and seemed to be unique to our family. No one else I know makes it. Getting chestnuts in Canada was a bit of a struggle. Mom used to buy them as soon as they came into the store and store them in a cool dry place as they seemed to spoil very quickly in the store. Here's how she made it.

Take a few pounds of chestnuts. Pierce them with a paring knife and boil them in a pot of water for about 20 minutes. Then peel them while they are still hot. This is painful, and they get under your fingernails. Cut them up, and simmer them in milk until tender. Be careful not to boil them in the milk as they will curdle. You will have to keep adding milk as they cook as they thicken. When they are soft and ready, add the juice of a lemon and serve hot with the turkey. Chestnut sauce is also very good cold.

In England Dad used to roast chestnuts in the fireplace on a shovel. They were a treat in the early winter.

Mom always made a trifle at Christmas time. She would take a jelly roll sponge cake, cut it up and put it on the bottom of an 8X8 glass dish. Then she sprinkled a fairly liberal amount of sherry over the cake and let that soak in. Then she added nuts and a can (drained) of fruit cocktail. Then she mixed up a recipe of Birds Custard powder and poured that over, and then covered it with red jelly made with the drained juice from the fruit cocktail as the liquid. She let it set, then covered it with whipping cream and decorated with mandarin oranges, cherries, nuts etc.

She made mince tarts using a jar of mincemeat, but adding sherry, and jam and lemon curd tarts as well.

Mom always did as much of the cooking for Christmas as possible the day before, so she could enjoy Christmas Day with the family, not spend the whole day in the kitchen.

Christmas Dinner

Another dish unique to Mom was Skinny Pancakes. These were a favourite, much preferred to the usual thick pancakes. My kids would not eat the thick ones, only these.

3 eggs

3/4 c. flour

1 c milk

pinch salt

Beat eggs slightly with salt. Add milk and beat again. Sift flour into milk and egg mixture. Beat a little. Let stand 20 min to 1/2 hour. Pour small amounts at a time into hot oil, moving the pan around to cover the bottom of the pan with the mixture. Turn when brown. Sprinkle with lemon juice and sugar, roll up with a fork and eat immediately.

Fritters

3 eggs

1 c milk

1 1/4 c flour

pinch salt

Beat together and dip bananas or apples in and brown in hot oil.

Mock Roast potatoes were another Sunday dinner favourite. She would peel potatoes and boil them, then brown them until they were crunchy and crisp in the deep fryer. Probably not the healthiest, but really good.

We also enjoyed parsnips roasted alongside the meat.

Mom made stuffing for the turkey and cooked it in a casserole with the meat, not inside the bird as we did not like it soggy. She took breadcrumbs, onion, celery, apple and applesauce. Added an egg, sage, thyme, poultry seasoning, salt pepper, parsly flakes. Mixed it all up and poured some drippings over and baked it for about an hour.

Steak and Kidney was another favourite. People in Canada thought eating kidneys was disgusting, but everyone who tried steak and kidney liked it.

Take a beef kidney, cut out the white stuff and cut it into bite sized pieces. Cut the fat off a largish piece of round steak and cut it into bite sized pieces. Dredge both meats in flour and put into a casserole dish. Cover with water and cook in a very slow oven for several hours until tender and brown. It also works well in a slow cooker for 10 hours or so. Just before serving, add some frozen peas if you like, and salt and pepper to taste.

If you want a pastry top, put it in a casserole dish with something to vent the steam. Cut pastry to fit the dish and bake in a hot oven until the pastry is done, about 15 to 20 minutes. Mom used a white ceramic elephant to vent the steam. It stood on four legs and the vent was his trunk turned up. I loved it and looked everywhere for it but it was not to be found.

Sweet Bread is the thymus gland of young beef. Canadians thought it disgusting to eat, but to us they are a treat. Mom used to boil them, then remove them from the membrane that encased them, and cook them in a thin white sauce with some mushrooms. They were hard to find, and I haven't seen them in years.

Mom never threw out a chicken or turkey carcass without making stock out of it. She would use the pressure cooker to get a rich stock that she then used in a number of recipes.

Mom made a delicious and unique chicken or turkey curry. She would make a roux of butter and flour, add curry powder (Enough to make it spicy), and add chicken stock to make a thin sauce. Then she added onions, celery, apples, raisins, and leftover chicken or turkey.

Another use for leftover chicken or turkey was pilaf. She would saute some chicken livers in butter, add celery and onion, and chicken or turkey stock. Then add about a half cup of rice and simmer until the moisture was absorbed. Then she would usually add a can of cream of chicken or mushroom soup to cut the bitter taste.

The family favourite for the leftover chicken or turkey was stew. She would make a roux of the fat and some flour, add stock, salt and pepper and whatever spices she felt like using (parsley, sometimes sage etc) until it was a thin gravy and tasted good, and then add potatoes, peas, carrots, leftover gravy, leftover vegetables, meat, parsnips, and sometimes a can of cream of chicken soup, or other cream soup; and serve with bread and butter. Mmmm good.

In England Mom used to grind up the leftover roast beef and mix it with mashed potatoes and some spices, make patties, brown them and call them rissoles. They were very good. In Canada she browned hamburger to make them.

She also made fishcakes in much the same way with leftover fish and mashed potatoes.

Shepherd's pie was another favourite. Mom would brown hamburger, mix it with a can of mushroom soup, and some frozen peas. She would mash some potatoes, beat in an egg and some butter and milk and put it on top, dob it withsome butter and sprinkle it with parsly and put it in the oven at about 350 until it was hot and brown and crispy on top.

One of the favourite desserts was rice pudding. Mom never measured anything. She would sprinkle some short grain pear rice in a pan, add milk, butter and sugar, and put it in a slow oven until it cooked. Every once in a while she would add some more milk if it was drying out, and stir it around under the crust. It developed a rich brown crust on the top, and tasted absolutely wonderful. I have tried and tried to make it, but it has never turned out as good as Mom's.