The best food your mama ever made

Would it be faster/crispier if you simply did a deep-fry? Also: The breading process should be pretty fast if you use a rough metal wire basket - is there a reason you can't just drop them en masse into a oil-coated pan and turn them all at once? Just trying to figure out why you can't do mass-prep on these because they strike me as being similar to fried mushrooms?

 

WOW. My dad would love that...but ewww. He taught 6th grade for 30 years. After deer hunting, he'd actually bring the heart in to his classroom to show how it worked. Then he'd fried it up for any kids brave enough to try it. Few did.

If he were'nt retired, I don't think they'd let him do that anymore .

 

I am now and was fortunate that both my mom and my wife are excellent cooks. My wife can generally cook better than my mom now but there are a few special dishes that she can get close but cannot quite duplicate my mom's.

Tough problem to have and why I am always on a perpetual diet !

 

My mum could not cook, or bake.

Like the time she read somewhere that Xmas cakes in the UK had little presents baked inside. So she bought some little plastic reindeer and baked them inside a cake. She had the foresight to wrap them in tinfoil first, so when the kids (us and all the cousins) ate it, we got a bite of molten plastic wrapped in foil that hurt our fillings.

Or the time she tried another traditional xmas treat that involved plums soaked in rum and lit on fire, unfortunately it also set the tablecloth on fire to great shreiks of hilarity and panic from all and sundry.

We bought her a "radar range" (an early microwave oven) but she never did use it sucessfully to my knowledge, except for that time she made smores - ever see what happens to a marshmallow in a microwave?

 

It was the ickiest thing I have ever seen or tasted.

 

When our first microwave was delivered, Mom wasn't home. So, of course, the first thing my brother and I did was put a raw egg in it to see how long it would take to explode. We made the cat watch - I think I still have the scar on my shoulder, and the brown spot on my shirt never did come out. We stopped giggling long enough to clean it up as best we could, just in time for Mom to get home. She said: "Isn't that an interesting finish - it reminds me of the old speckled enamel" :madgrin:

 

My mom was a terrible cook, too.

I learned to cook in self-defense.

I'm a mom, and I make some really good stuff. I caught my DH by making him homemade salisbury steaks, mashed potatoes, gravy, then serving bread pudding...

Nowadays, of course, I don't cook any of that. His new favorite is my Vegan taco filling and "cheezy" sauce :thumb:

 

My mom was a down home southern cook. She even owned a little diner back in the day when it was unusual for women to own their own businesses. By far, the best thing I think she made was her white gravy made with bacon drippings instead of sausage drippings like is the norm. She'd make it for me on my birthday and on Christmas mornings. Though my daughter tells me everything I cook has a southern flair to it, I still have not been able to master the roux to recreate her gravy. And I miss it (and her!) A LOT!!

 

I can show you EM. The secret is in the plastic reindeer.

Seriously though, I was employed as a cook while at school. I do 99.9 % of the cooking for my family. I'll happily teach you the secrets of a good roux, but you've got to come for a visit. Roux doesn't travel well.

 

Plastic reindeer... snort! Hee hee...

Thanks Sam! If I ever have the opportunity to go down under, I'll be looking you up.