"One Big Table" by Molly O'Neill
We’re giving away an autographed copy of Molly O’Neill’s newly published cookbook, One Big Table. It’s our way of celebrating her appearance on Charlotte Talks and the launch of WFAEats. We hope you’re as excited as we are!
To enter the contest, simply answer the following question in comments.
What is your favorite family recipe? Is it your mom’s brisket? Your sweet Aunt Jan’s chicken noodle soup? Or Uncle Teddy’s carrot cake? Let us know!
The Rules: One entry per person, please. Valid email address required. Contest ends Sunday, November 14th at Midnight. A winner will be announced Monday morning here at WFAEats. Good luck!
Roger That 
We’re a dessert family so it’s a hard call between Mom’s Pound Cake and Aunt Pine’s Gingersnap cookies.
Congrats on the new blog!
That’s a tough one. We don’t cook at home much and when we do they are not complicated dishes. If I had to pick one that we go back to over and over I’d have to say Hamburger Stroganoff. It was one of my favorite foods as a child.
My mom’s lasagna — which was from her mom and, before that, her mom’s mom (who was from Italy). Those Italian recipes can survive generations! : )
My favorite has to be a dish my grandmother made. Its hard to pick just one. Such good memories! I will go with her pizza. It was always such a treat. She even made a pizza no one ever heard of. A white pizza! Years later trends changed and its a common pizza variation!
I’m Japanese and from Hawaii and probably one of my favorites was my mom’s homemade Teriyaki type marinade for chicken thighs (it has to be chicken thighs as Japanese tend to use that cut the most) that we’d grill. Along with other things, the marinade has sesame oil, miso and sake. Now as a “grown-up”/wife/mom when I make it, it still gets rave reviews. Loved the show with Molly O’Neill!
My mother makes an amazing swirled pumpkin cheesecake strictly for the holidays, so I wait with anticipation each year for Thanksgiving and Christmas to arrive.
My paternal grandmother’s cheese rolls are expected at every holiday event – often accompanied by her scratch baked beans. When I can tweak her “little of this, little of that” properly, the rolls are wonderful
My grandmother’s ravioli will always occupy a special place in my heart. Beef, pork, veal, spinach, and parmesan cheese, all coming out of a hand grinder attached to the kitchen table. Two days of work for one meal, but well worth it.
Just heard about this site on the radio. Very neat! My favorite family recipe has to be my mom’s German roulanden
Very difficult choice…..Grandmother’s chocolate candy (okay, I admit to a huge sweet tooth!) and mother’s pepper steak. Both get raves every time!!
“SILO”
This from my paternal Grandfather. It is a ground beef, potato and tomato casserole loved by three generations of our family.
Hi Marian – I’d love to try Silo – would you mind posting a recipe? Thanks!
My husband’s mom makes the most amazing Swedish Meatballs ever. We’ve taken over the tradition, and while they aren’t as good as hers, my husband appreciates that his daughters are working on continuing the tradition.
My Aunt Cecil’s pickles and chow-chow.
My father was a profilic gardener with tomatoes and cucumbers being his specialty. Each summer, my mom, brother and I canned the bounty of that garden. (Every closet in the house had wall-to-wall cases of canned tomatoes and we had a second fridge in the garage for the pickles!) My Aunt Cecil (Mom’s sister-in-law) had grown up on a farm in the midwest and she gave Mom her family’s pickle recipe. To this day, my brother continues the tradition each summer, although he gets his pickling cukes and green tomatoes from a farmer’s market. Biting into one of those pickles always makes me think back on those summers growing up.
Granny’s spaghetti! Every year on her birthday the family girls get together for a batch of the good stuff and some wine in her memory!
I love love love my mothers homemade buttermilk biscuits with pork chop milk gravy on Sunday mornings. Nothing beat it on a cold winters day to wake up to that smell on Sunday mornings. It didnt happen every weekend but when it did and you could smell the aroma as soon as you woke up you didnt waste any time getting out of bed and getting your clothes on. My Mom was a wonderful cook and she did everything by scratch. She now has dementia and does not cook and even though me and my 2 sisters gave biscuit making all we could we could never master it like she did. When I try really hard I can still relive those home cooking smells in my head.
It’s what should be a fairly easy to duplicate recipe, but Mom seems to know the secret key. It’s a combination of ground beef, cooked rice, tomato soup and a few other ingredients, subtlely named “rice delight”.
My mom cooked that dish too. It was a family favorite called “Texas Hash” from the old Charlotte Jr. League cookbook. What might have been the secret ingredient was that you browned the ground beef, did NOT drain (ugh!) then added tomato soup, water and rice, put the lid on the pan and cooked on low heat until the rice absorbed all that grease, soup and water and was done!
Family tradition hands down…Mom’s Fruitcake!
This year mom has asked me to ‘cover for her’ due to Lewy Body Dementia. So this weekend my daughter will join me in the kitchen as we attempt to make mom proud.
To all reading this blog…give your mom a hug every chance you get…you never know what’s ahead.
Congrats on the blog!
Dad’s ham BBQ sandwiches. The key is chipped chopped ham — and grape jelly!
I was born in Germany, but grew up in the States, so many of my favorites come from the kitchen at my Oma’s house in Zweifelsheim. Making dark German bread is one of my fondest memories from growing up. We’d spend the summers in Germany, covered in flour and excited to watch the bread rise before it got placed in the fire-fed brick ovens in the basement.
Love the new blog! Excited to watch it flourish! 🙂
-Stella
@urbnadventuress
That’s not fair to only pick one! A number of years ago I collected the most memorable recipes from my grandmothers (German) as well as my cousin’s grandmother (Czech) and had them calligraphied and framed. They are murbetig dough, vanilla kippferl, and creme caramel.
Bless her heart but my mom was an awful cook! As funny as it sounds I can still remember her tuna fish casserole – silly I know, but I recently made it and felt so at home!
Hands down, my grandmother’s flapjacks, which resemble crepes more than pancakes. Sprinkled with cinnamon and topped with maple syrup they are simply delicious!
My Mom makes the best homemade cinnamon rolls. She rolls the dough on Christmas Eve, wakes up before dawn on Christmas Day and they are ready for eating after presents have been opened. They are yeast rolls with cinnamon, sugar and homemade icing. They are to die for. My family lives 8 hours away and now that we have young children we rarely spend Christmas at my home, this year we will. I’ll be so excited to have those cinnamon rolls this year!
I grew up in Wilmington and picked up the following recipe, for chicken steamed with clams, from some flounder-gigging buddies.
Clean about a dozen large quahog clams and arrange them on the botton of a stew pot, so that the shells will open towards the top of the pot. Cut up a chicken into about eight parts and put the pieces on top of the claims. Put a layer of thin-sliced onion rings on top of the chicken, a layer of thin-sliced boiling potatoes on top of the onion, and one more layer of each. Season with salt, pepper, and parsley. Pour in about 6 0z of lager beer, cover, and cook on stove (or, better yet, a campfire, while you and your friends are floundering) over low heat for 1.5 hours or until done. The chicken, potatoes, and onions will absorb clam flavor from the clam juice steam.
Mom’s macaroni and cheese — crusty, gooey, delicious. I can’t eat the boxed stuff having been raised on that.
My mother’s homemade lasagna was always my favotire meal. All the gooey cheese and noodles were just wonderful!
My grandmother’s handmade cinnamon twists. It was one of her super secret recipes that she passed on to me that I now make for my family
Dad’s christmas eve chili
Porcupine Meatballs. My mom came of age in the canned food era, so this recipe probably came from the back of a can but it is what I go for when I have something to celebrate or to pick me up on a bad day.
My grandmother’s stuffing made vegetarian with fresh herbs from the garden is always a favorite. Also, my dad’s cheesecake with cherry topping.
My grandmother’s “pretzel salad.” Yummy, yummy, yummy!!
The first thing that comes to mind is my mom’s meatloaf. It’s nice and saucy, not dry. It’s one of the few things that I cook that I can make really well.
My favorites is my grandmother’s steamed pudding recipe. It was a special treat on Christmas night.
Hi, Bill! I’ve never had steamed pudding, but I’ve always wanted to try it. Would you mind sharing the recipe?
My fave dish is one my Mother made on the spure of the moment-We call it Slop-Its pork chops stewed in tomato sauce and onions and peppers served over rice.
I would say my favorite would be stuffed grape leaves. Ground lamb, rice and some salt and pepper, lemon. I can sit down to a dozen or so easily and remember times rolling them with my grandmother and mother.
My Mom’s gingerbread cake and warm lemon sauce. Her sage and sausage stuffing is right up there as well.
That warm gingerbread with warm lemon sauce was my dad’s (still is!) absolute favorite dessert too. Also my mom’s spice cake (use baby food prunes) with vanilla ice cream was a favorite.
My Mom’s gingerbread cake and warm lemon sauce or her sausage and sage stuffing!
My grandmother grew up on a farm along the Chesapeake Bay and made the best crab cakes I have ever tasted… and I’ve tasted a lot!
My all-time favorite recipe is, hands-down, my Mom’s carrot cake. Unbelievably delicious, thanks to the cup of oil called for in the recipe! When I was a kid and not worried about fat/carbs/cholesterol, we would wolf that cake down in one day. Today, when I’ve made it, I cut the oil by 1/3 and use applesauce for the balance. Just as delicious and way healthier (for cake!).
Very tough question to answer! It would have to be my mom’s banana bread recipe. I believe the secret to it is to use overly ripe bananas.
I just got a new recipe for banana bread and I loved it. Besides the very ripe banana, melting the butter and NOT over mixing are key things.
I also like raisins or chocholate chips in mine instead of nuts
Dad’s Swiss Venison – living in Michigan, our whole family is deer hunters. One brother’s family in the Upper Penisula is particualry prolific. We celebrate our family together time at Christmas with Dad’s Swiss Venison. Christmas Eve Dad’s thaws the frozen venison steaks, pounds them and browns them in flour. This can take a lot of time as we eat a lot of venison! The next day he hauls out the old pressure cooker and starts layerin the browned venison with onions and horseradish – lots and lots of horseradish. The he covers it with water and sets it on the stove over a slow burner. A few hours later, fork-tender venison with a wonder creamy crust emerges and we sit down to a great dinner with all the fixin’s. Swissing the venison sweetens it a bit and removes any gamey flavor – although most of the venison we get is corn-fed anyway. We love this family tradition and it’s migrated to us children and our families. My Upper Penisula brother gifts all of us frozen venison for the holidays so we always have the necessary ingredients even if we dont’ hunt it ourselves.
I also have to give a nod to Jennifer Fowler above as my Mom does the same thing, Christmas morning cinnamon roles, although minus the icing. Sweet memories of Christmas morning!
My mom’s navy beans and ham with homemade cornbread! I might make it this weekend! Thanks for reminding me!
Beef on ‘wick!
My husband makes a terrific clam chowder. It is good enough to have as a meal with some oyster crackers. Yummm. It is thick ,but not too thick and has great depth of flavor. The potatos are just the right size and a batch usually does not last 24 hours in our house.
His mother taught him the basics of cooking and he picked up the rest from working in restaurants, watching cooking shows, and taking a few classes that Johnson and Wales give on Saturdays.
He makes many other wonderful foods and we enjoy cooking together, I am his “Sue chef” Ha Ha
Mama’s turkey dressing and gravy. Too good to only have at Thanksgiving!
What a hard first question on the blog! I think it’d have to be Mother’s vegetable soup. Combine that with hot fresh cornbread or a toasted cheese sandwich and nothing says “welcome home” like that does.
If you ask my family, they would say either my stuffed shells or lasagna. If you ask me, I would have to say my Aunt Ethelyn’s ginger cookies, warm and slightly soft. They remind me of the wonderful summers I spent at her farm each time I taste one.
My mom’s Lemon Meringue Pie is my favorite.
Our Dutch grandmother’s meatball and vegetable soup is both delicious and a bowlful of history. My mother preferred this soup to the one her own mother made and we’re all thankful she learned how to make it from her mother-in-law before mom and dad emigrated to the United States in the mid-50’s . I still make an annual trip to a Dutch grocery in Grand Rapids, Michigan to pick up a year’s worth of the essential spices and noodles. Smakelijk eten!
My non-Italian mother-in-law made the best meatballs in spaghetti sauce most people have ever tasted, and that has become our family’s traditional Christmas Eve meal. None of us can make them quite the way she did, but that doesn’t stop us from trying (most recently grandson Travis has taken on the 2-day project)! Bubba directed the making of homemade meatballs and sauce until age 90, and her loving family will continue to honor her memory by enjoying them at least every December 24th.
Nanny’s Chicken and Dumplings. They are served at every holiday meal regardless of how many other meats are at the buffet and is a staple in my comfort food selection.
All her children can make them and there was never a recipe written down (I’ve asked) but for some reason everyone knows how to make it just like she did.
My Grandmother’s Prune Spice Cake with cream cheese frosting. My mom made it for us as kids. It was the family favorite birthday cake. I will be baking it for my brother’s birthday over Thanksgiving.
My mother’s pecan pie. It was wonderful!
My favorite family recipe is my mom’s chocolate pies. The chocolate is made from scratch and is absolutely delicious. But, the best part is the made from scratch crust.
It would have to be my mom’s city chicken in which she took ground veal and ground pork and wrapped meat balls on skewers. It was always made in an elecric fry pan with a simple gravy.
It is my wife’s Spicy Chicken Stew. This is a wonderful adventure in tase, aroma and pleasure. Yum!
great job on the new blog,
My Mom’s from-scratch apple pie was the most delicious treat. When I was 15 years old and working at a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains, she sent me an apple pie which I was to share with my older sister, a counselor there. My friend Jeanie and I received the package, went immediately to our attic room and proceeded to eat the entire pie at one sitting. My sister never knew of its arrival. It was the best meal I ever ate.
With the holidays approaching, I’m focused on family favorites. This year I’m going to attempt to master the family recipe for lefsa — a Norwegian flat bread.
At christmas I make Krumkake’s with my grandmothers Krumkake Iron. They bring a little bit of Norway to the holidays and a lot of memories.
I would love my grandmother’s meatloaf, my mom’s red cake with a cooked frosting, or my dad’s shoo fly pie! Those are just a few of my family favorites!
My favorite lunch is a peanut butter and sardine sandwich (with a cold beer). Just take two slices of bread, spread peanut butter on one and mayonaise on the other, sardines on top of the peanut butter and a slice of provolone or munster cheese on top of that, followed by the other slice of bread and enjoy!
Roger Hull
Hands down European Knoedel, the next day, fried in butter!
I’d have to say that the entree my family gets most excited about is our strange version of stromboli, which is bread dough rolled around sausage, cheese and ham. There are several types of Christmas cookies that I make that get the same reaction.
My family’s favorite recipe is my mother potato latkes. She makes the most amazing ones. First she grates the potatoes by hand, using a wire potato grater. Then she adds only egg, matzo meal and salt. She makes small, thin pancakes and cooks them in oil until they are very crisp. We top them with apple sauce and they are delicious. Everyone loves them!
This is no contest. The sugar cookie recipe from my former mother in law has been a hit since 1964 when I received the recipe. People ask for the cookies all year round. My grandchildren are 14, 13, and 12. We have been making Christmas sugar cookies since they were little. Hopefully, this is a tradition which will never end.
My grandmother’s pumpkin pie, with homemade whipped cream! When she got married and began housekeeping, she asked her mother for her recipe – but my great grandmother was one of those cooks who forego measuring cups and spoons, adding ingredients by experience and intuition, so she couldn’t provide measurements. My Gramma spent a whole weekend and about 12 pies comparing different combinations of ingredients until she finally got the perfect combination – and wrote the exact standard measurements down for perpetuity. I’m so glad she did; I make it every Thanksgiving and Christmas and receive rave reviews.
When I was growing up, my Mom made terrific homemade enchiladas. They were always wonderful and it smelled wonderful when she was preparing them.
Hands down my sweet mother’s made from scratch German chocolate cake. Now 83 years old, she still makes one for me every year on my birthday!
My father’s recipe for Pennsylvania Dutch chicken pot pie. It has chicken, potatoes, celery, onions spices and flat style noodles.
Since I am the mother and grandmother, I’d have to say it is my scalloped oysters served (only) at Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, the tradition began with my husband’s grandmother who brought scalloped oysters to their holiday meals. Can’t beat the Charleston Receipts recipe! Now all the children serve it at THEIR holiday meals–and often call in the morning to be sure of the recipe. How special is that to get a long distance call, starting with “Mom, how do you…….”
My husband’s family recipes from Ukraine are delicious and exotic to my American palate. The things he does with wild mushrooms and soups-mmm. But my favorite is his Ukranian pickles that he makes from our Harmony Gardens cucumbers every summer. The closest thing out there is Billy’s pickles at the Atherton Market in South End. Check them out for a real treat.
I am going to say chicken pot pie, which is a Pennsylvania Dutch stew that is not like the pot pie you get in the freezer section. It made with chicken and big square noodles. Wish I had some right now!
My grandmother’s/mother’s recipe for Pflaumenkuchen, or plum cake, is probably my favorite. It’s very popular in Germany when the Zwetschgen, or Italian/prune plums, are in season at the end of the summer, but I have a hard time finding them here in Charlotte. 😦
Christmas Star Cookies..my favorite family recipe and now made by my grandchildren..very simple but taste better when cut in the shape of a star..my granddaughter says they taste like they are from heaven by the angels..butter..sugar and flour..that’s all..and optional frosting..handed down by four generations
My mother’s lentils. Everyone who tastes them loves them and requests the recipe. They are amazingly delicious !!!
Our favorite family recipe is Cornflake-nut roast. It’s vegetarian comfort food that I learned from my mom and her mother.
Good luck with the blog.
It’s between my mother’s rice or my mother in law’s plum pudding (a.k.a Christmas pudding).
This sounds like so much fun! I have some of my grandmother’s cookbooks and I love going through them and finding the recipes that she has written a comment “the best, sound great, etc. I tried a pumpkin bread that she left a comment by and it’s now our family favorite. Thanks and good luck.
I love the pumpkin pie that is a tradition in our house. It comes from a 1929 Pillsbury cook book. When I hear people say that they don’t like pumpkin pie and I taste the traditional one I understand. This one is almost a custard with a candied peacan topping. Fabolous!
I think my favorite family recipe is a tie between mom’s pecan pie (a rich, simple version) and my grandmother’s Cheese Pennies (sort of like cheese straws, but in a slice-and-bake form). I love them both and can’t imagine Thanksgiving or Christmas without them.
Something I invented when my Daughter would visit me at Christmas when she was little (a child of divorce). We called it Dad’s nachos and she actually requested having that instead of traditional holiday fare every year. 25 years later it’s still a tradition only she and I share.
My wife makes a chocolate cake from her grandmother’s recipe. I don’t what’s in it other than a cup of strong coffee.
My grandmother makes plum pudding with hard sauce every holiday season. It is getting harder and harder to find the suet, but my aunt knows how to sweet talk the butcher into some. For many years now, my job is to make the hard sauce that even those who don’t like the plum pudding believe goes well with almost any dessert. I need to learn to make plum pudding myself in order to carry on the tradition!
My mother-in-law was a great cook – for her, feeding her family was a gift of love. There was never a day that we walked through her door that there wasn’t some yummy thing waiting for us. Some of her best dishes reflected her Polish heritage – potato and cheese pierogis that were small buttery & savory pillows. Others were decidely American including my husband’s favorite chocolate cake recipe. Try as I might, I’ll never be able to replicate hers – moist, with just the right texture and level of chocolate – at least not in my husband’s mind where Mom’s cake is understandably always the best.
My mother’s pineapple upside down cake. Seems like they’ve gone out of style these days, especially with the politically incorrect maraschino cherries on top, but it sure tasted good at the time!
Mac & Cheese does it for me. The old fashioned kind made with a roux and real cheese poured over large elbow pasta.
A tough decision, but my favorite is probably a chicken recipe my mother-in-law created that involved vinegar, crushed red pepoer and butter. Spicy and good!
Well if I had to pick one family recipe it would have to be my great grandfathers spaghetti! I have no idea what he did but, I can remember him picking my sister and I up from school on most Friday’s, we would eat and spend the night! Wow, what great memories – I miss him. Thanks WFAEats for taking me back to those wonderful nights! 🙂
The recipe that is in the most demand in our family is a recipe I got years ago from Bon Appetit magazine for hummus – uses no olive oil but instead uses the liquid from the chickpeas and fat free yogurt. It’s light and has a great texture. We take it to the beach each summer and we usually bring three or four double batches to last us the week! It’s great that my in-laws adore it too!
Ma’s home made ice cream. Basic receipe which can be adaptaed by adding fruits or just plain vanilla or chocolate.
I like my grandma’s macaroni salad. I don’t have the recipe but it had those small frozen shrimp that come in a bag and some red things 🙂
My great-grandmother’s pound cake! It was THE symbol of every significant event in our family – a big exam, out of town visitors, a birthday, a funeral. My birthday present one year was being ‘inducted’ into the poundcake sorority. She was 94 and I was turning 14. We spent the whole afternoon making two cakes – one for the birthday party and another for my breakfast for the next week!
I loved every minute and every bite!
Growing up with a stay-at-home, I was blessed with homecooked meals almost every night of the week. And being Korean, my mom’s culinary repertoire consisted of more savory, rather than sweet, dishes. My favorite Korean dish is not something that most people would think of as something Asian, but it’s very similar to Indian samosas without the spice. Fillings wrapped in pastry or doughy packets are such ubiquitous food items across cultures; I suppose Koreans had to have their versions too. It looks like an eggroll that’s filled with mashed potatoes, onions, and other vegetables added to the cook’s taste. I know the ingredients don’t seem too interesting, exotic, or special, but comfort foods are always what one craves, aren’t they? My mother only made these a few times in my childhood so that may be another reason why I remember them so fondly.
My mother always made lemon icebox cake for my birthday, and I think of it every time I see a package of “lady fingers” at the grocery store.
G-Ma only cooks one thing: Great-Grandma’s French Macaroni and Cheese. A buffet pan of baked macaroni, swiss cheese, tomatoes, and crackers…cheesy goodness. My nieces and nephews already beg for GG-Ma’s mac & cheese.
Growing up I never saw my mother use a cook book and she thought that she didn’t need one. She thought throw this in throw that in and walla! dinner is ready. So I had to teach myself how to cook. I love to cook and a big request every Thanksgiving and Christmas is Brandied Peaches, &Pecan Pie, I’ve never meant a cookbook I didn’t like.
Hands down…my dad’s open hearth rotisserie prime rib. It makes the house smell AMAZING and reminds me of home and special occasions.
My favorite family recipe is my Great Grandma Bonk’s sour cream cheesecake. It is heaven on a fork.
Probably the turkey and rice soup recipe that has been handed down through the years.
Newest version is a lighter version of the original — of course not quite as good — butter and half and half do make a difference — but still great.
Growing up, I always looked forward to Thanksgiving for one thing especially: Grandma Anderson’s stuffing. She was the daughter of Swedish immigrants, and I believe the recipe had Scandinavian roots. It was made with sausage and barley. She ground the sausage by hand the day before.
In my house, our favorite dish is homemade chicken & dumplings. I use buttermilk for the dumpling dough. My kids ask for the leftovers each night for supper until the batch is gone.
My Mom’s stuffing. It is nothing fancy, but my brothers and I still fight over the leftovers.
My great-grandmother’s cheese biscuits – everyone loves these at cocktail parties! Cheese, butter and Rice Krispies for a light crunch. You can’t eat just one!
The best recipe from my family is my grandmother’s Stollen. I make it every Christmas – the family says it wouldn’t be Christmas without it! I hope they mean that in a nice way.
A favorite recipe had to be my grandmothers potato pancakes. She would take leftover mashed-potatoes and make the neatest breakfast pancakes. It was a special treat that i’ll never forget!
I loved your show and your enthusiasm!
My family is from Japan, and I married a man whose mother is Pennsylvania Dutch and whose father is from Piedmont, SC. So if I may, my favorites from my “family”:
I love all desserts from my mother-in-law’s kitchen, but her berry pie absolutely converted me to being a pie person. My favorite from my father-in-law is his salmon mousse. The accompanying tomato and dill sauce make me simply giddy.
I can eat my mother’s savory custard pudding (chawan-mushi) every day. Freshly steamed with shrimp, chicken and shiitake mushrooms – heavenly. One more – his aunt’s Sand Tarts. Delicately thin and crisp, we look forward to getting a tin (now they know to send us a tub of it!!) for Christmas.
The Italian rum cake (a spiked strawberry shortcake like creation) is now the OFFICIAL birthday cake for all the girls in the family. Nothing can replace it and it is requested even before gifts. It needs to be made in large quantities in order to share with all their friends!!
My Uncle Charlie’s enchiladas! Yum City!
Grandma Mildred’s Coconut Cake – its a little bit of heaven on a cake plate! My dad’s holiday scrabble is also pretty darn awesome! He knows just how much of everything to get it right…
I thought about this for awhile and I have to say it’s the stuffing that went into the turkey every Thanksgiving and Christmas. My Dad’s family came from Italy. I guess my Grandmother had to come up with something cheap and plentiful because they were always struggling for money. Made with white bread, eggs, butter, garlic and pamesan cheese, it’s something I’ve never come across in any recipe. I tried to make it with fresh garlic and expensive cheese, but it didn’t taste the same. My Mom told me they used garlic salt and a whole can of Kraft Parmesan! I’m going to make it this year. Love this site!
It’s hard to determine my favorite because I can eat about anything but I guess one of my favorites was my mom’s macaroni and cheese casserole. I liked it because it was not dry but juicy and with plenty of cheese. I liked it best fresh from the oven.
I think it would have to be “corn flitters”, essentially pancakes with the addition of some fresh (has to be fresh) corn. When I was a kid, this was a summertime only treat, usually for supper, with syrup and sausage. I made this for my kids and now for my grandkids…working on a family tradition!
I make gingersnaps every year during the holidays. Everyone in our family loves them. We have found they even work with gluten-free flour! It wouldn’t be Christmas without those gingersnaps.
My mother-in-law’s french silk pie is our favorite family recipe. It is a tradition for our family to enjoy her french silk pie at birthday celebrations and other family get togethers. There’s nothing like it!
My mom’s banana bread – I let banana’s go brown just to have an excuse to make it.
My husband’s grandmother made a dish called sour cream chicken. I try to recreate it at least once or twice a year.It will make your arteries scream but is delicious!
One of my favorites is Sugar Cream Pie.
A favorite family recipe that comes to mind now, when apples are everywhere, is a Fresh Apple Cake with a Butter Rum Sauce. Delicious for dessert or breakfast!
Without a doubt my mom’s pecan rolls. She made them every year growing up just for Thanksgiving because they were so time consuming and messy. She always made a batch for me without the pecans. They were served first with dinner because they were everyone’s favorite and no one could wait for the sticky rolls. It’s been years since she’s made them for all of us since we haven’t all been together for Thanksgiving. I hope someday soon we will and I know she’ll make the rolls again when that day comes.
Our favorite family reciple is the date nut bread that my mother made every Christmas season. We will be baking it soon and thinking of Christmas past.
Paul
Our family favorite is Chicken Pot Pie made from scratch. It is inexpensive and incredibly delicious.
I can’t think of a particular recipe from growing up that was my favorite. We did seem to eat a lot of pasta so I would have to say one of my mom’s pasta casseroles was a favorite. It was a great comfort food, enough to go around to all four kids and yummy.
The family favorite is broccoli casserole, which is the star of Thanksgiving dinner. Created with sharp cheddar cheese, horseradish, and Ritz crackers, it is so delicious that there are never any leftovers.
Roasted oysters. I love roasted oysters. You don’t even have to have a recipe, just some good fresh eastern NC oysters, a few saltine crackers, pickles, cocktail sauce and fresh lemon. Yum yum!
That would be my Mom’s Chocolate Pie. It is so fudgy & rich, & always goes fast, that is why
I always make sure I get the first piece!
Rita
Our favorite family recipe is my husband’s Mom’s recipe for orange cake.
My favorite family recipe is my mom’s stuffing!! I can eat it all by it’s self. Lucky for me she is willing to make it throughout the year and not just at holidays. No one makes it like mom!!!
My great grandmother’s hush puppies. She kept the recipe a closely guarded secret. She passed away with ever passing it on to anyone.
My great-grandmother Nogg’s mandelbrot recipe. It is so wonderful and while I have tasted many other recipes, hers is the best! The cookie is baked three times, and is much richer and not too sweet. I have modernized the recipe and have actually baked it professionally for catered events for years! Nothing has equaled it. When I knead the dough, and smell the sweet orange and almond aromas as the loaves bake, I remember my sweet Russian grandma in her ruffled apron, in the big white kitchen at her home in Omaha….and the strudel, bubbles and mandelbrot she made us every Hanukkah!
Our favorite family recipe is pesto pasta or pesto anything. In 1982, Bon Appetit had an article about making pesto. We are not Italian and did not know anything about pesto at the time. Our children were very young but adventurous eaters. So we gathered basil and made it. That simple basil pesto recipe on pasta, homemade soups or eaten just by the spoonful has been our “go to” comfort food for 30 years. In the middle of the winter, taking a bit out of the freezer and tossing it with penne brings July and August right to the senses. Yum.
This seems kind of trite but when I think of a favorite family food/dish, immediately comes to my mind my grandmother’s apple pie. Don’t know the recipe (it was in her head) but the crust was always perfectly flaky, it was just the right amount of sweet and tart. Never had a better pie anywhere. My mouth is watering.
Love the idea of this blog, and I don’t really go to blogs very often but I think this one will attract me on a regular basis. My favorite family recipe has got to be my Dad’s Spinach Lasagna. His parents were from Italy and we all love Italian food, but my dad figured this one out on his own. I think he started by tinkering with a recipe from Gwin’s High Alpine on the slopes in Snowmass, Colorado. It’s not meatless but really really great. The best (and easiest) way to make it is with fresh sheets of pasta from Pasta and Provisions!!!!!! It’s the only way I could ever get my son to eat anything with spinach.
My sister’s Onion-Artichoke-Tomato salad. My family loves it (even the tomato haters). When I make it for guests, at least one guest will ask me for the recipe.
My English grandfather made something we called Grandma’s Pickle. It was an apple ginger chuntey that was wonderful on meats, cheese sandwiches, or plain on a cracker. We got a couple of jars of each year and stretched it as far as possible. I have a recipe that is very, very close, but there is just a little something missing. Maybe it takes Grandaddy’s accent to make it perfect!
Nothing brings us together like food. This book looks like it was written with me and my family in mind. We love to cook. Sundays at my house, now and when I was growing up, was all about what to cook next. We prepared the menus the weekend before, we all shopped during the week and when Sunday came, the door bell rings and rings. We arrive with our aprons and shopping bags. We love to cook the same recipes that our parents did, and we like to add today’s ingredients. Our favorite meal to cook is beef brisket with minced apricots, cumin and garlic. We make slice marks all over the brisket, fill these in with the apricot mixture, cook it with wine and veggites. then smell it for hours.
My mother’s German Potato salad is my favorite family recipe. It was passed on from my great grandparents who came from Germany. But what makes it so awesome is my sister’s ‘additions’. One time, my sister was visiting me, and I was making it for her. She stated, “Oh, Katie, this WILL NOT DO”. She proceeded to take a pen, and alter all of the amounts of the ingredients. We laughed until we cried. And funny enough, her additions are DELICIOUS.
I lost my sister about one year after that, when she was just age 35. This recipe is my favorite for many, many reasons, but most of all, it’s for the laughs we shared over great German Potato Salad.
I cannot enter since I missed the deadline but my family has handed down for 4 generations our recipe for pieroghis. Cheese, sauerkraut and potato varieties; I make 20 dz every year for the holidays. I’ve tried others made by Polish church communities and cannot find any that beat these.
Mom’s spagetti and cheese casserole
It comes down to deciding between a breakfast (Mom’s fluffy pancakes made from scratch) and a dinner (Dad’s Argentine style grilled steak with mashed potatoes) as a favorite, so I’ll go with a combo: Hamilton’s Mashed potatoes…the day after fried up into potato pancakes. It only begins to get scary when everything from the week before ends up in a soup – YIKES!
Our favorite recipe is Chicken Cocciatore, made on New Years Eve, which, for years before he passed away was my Dad’s favorite thing to do to bring in the New Year.
He would make a huge pan full, with lots of garlic, mushrooms and chicken and macaroni shells. We would eat late and celebrate the new year.
We all went to bed in the new year with belly aches and heart burn.
For our favorite dessert, it has to be Mom’s Blackberry cake with Caramel Icing! The older the cake gets the better (more moist). Loved it!
Donna
My Mom’s pumpkin pie, which I shall try to make for the first time this Thanksgiving.
My parents immigrated to the US 40 years ago. We enjoy preparing local foods using traditional south Indian cooking methods. One recipe that my mom adopted to our new home is cranberry pacchadi. It’s a sour, spicy, pungent side dish prepared with fresh cranberries, dried red chilis, and fenugreek seeds. Traditionally, in India it might be prepared with fresh tamarind or sour green mangoes, but we use equally sour cranberries. We prepare it for every Thanksgiving as a delicious way to remind our family of our melded heritage and culture.