What did you eat growing up? (s/o Duggar food)

[Ginevra]

I cannot be alone in that meals in my family of origin were not much better than tatortot casserole. In fact, some were far worse. Here are some of the meals we ate frequently:

Spam with Crushed Pineapples

Red-Capped Franks (which was Kraft Mac N Cheese with hot dogs on top, topped with ketchup. :ack2: I never ate that, btw.)

La Choy "Shrimp" Chow Mein (I did not even know there was such a thing as stir-fry meals from scratch with fresh veggies!) This was always served with Minute Rice.

Cookin' Bags Anyone know what these are? Food in a bag; drop it in boiling water for 7 minutes. Voila. Chicken A la King.

Chef Boyardee Mush pasta in any shape.

Tacos - iceberg lettuce, Velveeta cheese, pickles and seasoned meat (out of a package).

Spaghetti - with Prego or Ragu sauce

 

Breakfast was cereal - Fruit Loops, Chex, Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Sugar Corn Puffs, Puffed Rice. My mom would only buy milk every two weeks, though, so if we wanted cereal with milk, we could use reconstituted dry milk.

 

Beverages were water (jug in the fridge), iced tea and Kool-Aide.

 

Amazingly, I lived long enough to rethink those meals. :D

Edited January 11, 2012 by Quill
typo

[Cricket]

I wish you people would stop dissin' tater tot hotdish because that is what my family is having for supper tonight! :lol:

 

We actually ate pretty good. We were poor so we grew a lot of our own food. My parents were from the south so I guess we did eat lots of rice and gravy with meat. But we ate a lot of beans and rice too.

[kewb]

My mom was actually a pretty healthy cook (if one can overlook the steady stream of fried food). She rarely bought processed foods of any kind. I can still remember begging her to buy Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Rice a Roni, and Chef Boyardee. Which she never did.

 

The few bad things we had:

Fluff. I can remember coming home from school and my sister and I would dig in with our spoons.

Deviled Underwoods Chicken Spread on white bread or crackers. I don't know what my mother was thinking.

Special Treat when she would buy Count Chocula. Usually our cereal choices were Rice Krispies or Raisin Bran.

[Joker]

I grew up in the South. Our food was usually fried and we had gravy at every meal. I think I also remember a lot of mayo.

 

ETA: My mom cooked pretty much everything from scratch but it's definitely not the same food I regularly feed my own family.

[Remudamom]

Hey hey hey....... I use Prego when I make my sphagetti casserole and I've had Sicilians ask how I make my sauce. Real Sicilians with scary names.

[justamouse]

My mother was a whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter crunchie from way back. I drank raw milk, water, everything from scratch. She made her own butter, ice cream, and they would buy half a cow or hog and stock the freezer about once a year.

 

We couldn't afford McDs, and went to the DQ maybe once when I was a kid. We had a garden, and every night was something out of it. So very, very healthy.

Edited January 11, 2012 by justamouse

[nukeswife]

We had some not so fun meals.

 

Pan fried spam :ack2:

Mom's spaghetti my mom used mixed cooked wide egg noodles,browned ground beef,with tomato soup and ketchup

S*&t on a shinglebasically mom browned ground beef, added a little flour and water. To make a "gravy" and served it ladled over white bread (not toasted)

My mom is pretty bland and doesn't eat things like pizza or tacos so that was always take out pizza or taco bell.

 

I use Prego spaghetti sauce and don't see that it's sub par. Any time I've tried to make my own it was horrible.

 

We drank a lot of kool-aide and may the gods help the person who took moms last mountain dew (when they came in an 8 pack of bottles).

[elise1mds]

I grew up in the '80s with a quintessentially '50s mother. We had pot roast, pork chops, baked chicken, beef stew, etc. Everything was seriously overcooked. I didn't know what juicy meat was until after I got married. Anyway, once my mother went through a 'frugal' phase and we ate Spanish rice and something she called 'cabbage skillet' once or twice a week until my dad put his foot down and insisted she find other dishes because we were all sick of those two. She obliged with the fake stir-fry that's been mentioned. Spaghetti sauce came from the cheap cans - we didn't even rate for Prego - and the only other pasta we ever had was macaroni and cheese. Thankfully that was made on the stove with Velvetta, not from a box. Breakfast was cereal at our house, too, usually from bags, not boxes. Brand names were a luxury reserved for family vacations, when Mom would allow us to bring along some of the mini-boxes of the good stuff. Veggies were canned corn and green beans and potatoes. Rarely we would get broccoli, and that was always coated in Velveeta.

 

I should mention that our family was in no way hurting for cash, so there was no reason for my mom to have been this frugal. She just didn't care a whole lot about meals and wasn't (isn't) a particularly great cook. I've gotta hand it to her, though - she's really tried to branch out in recent years and once called me for directions on how to cook butternut squash. I was proud of her and told her so. I think that surprised her.

[Denisemomof4]

I cannot be alone in that meals in my family of origin were not much better than tatortot casserole. In fact, some were far worse. Here are some of the meals we ate frequently:

Spam with Crushed Pineapples

Red-Capped Franks (which was Kraft Mac N Cheese with hot dogs on top, topped with ketchup. :ack2: I never ate that, btw.)

La Choy "Shrimp" Chow Mein (I did not even know there was such a thing as stir-fry meals from scratch with fresh veggies!) This was always served with Minute Rice.

Cookin' Bags Anyone know what these are? Food in a bag; drop it in boiling water for 7 minutes. Voila. Chicken A la King.

Chef Boyardee Mush pasta in any shape.

Tacos - iceberg lettuce, Velveeta cheese, pickles and seasoned meat (out of a package).

Spaghetti - with Prego or Ragu sauce

 

Breakfast was cereal - Fruit Loops, Chex, Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Sugar Corn Puffs, Puffed Rice. My mom would only buy milk every two weeks, though, so if we wanted cereal with milk, we could use reconstituted dry milk.

 

Beverages were water (jug in the fridge), iced tea and Kool-Aide.

 

Amazingly, I lived long enough to rethink those meals. :D

 

this is how I ate growing up. Add to the above, Hamburger Helper.

 

There was always an endless supply of candy, soda and chips. My dad (I MISS HIM!!!) thought french fries were a vegetable. :lol:

 

We eat whole foods now.

[georgialee]

Our dinners were always great - either a green or fruit salad along with something from scratch (everything from veal picatta to roast chicken). For breakfasts we would eat a lot of cereal... my mom wasn't a breakfast person.

[Mama2Many4]

I cannot be alone in that meals in my family of origin were not much better than tatortot casserole. In fact, some were far worse. Here are some of the meals we ate frequently:

Spam with Crushed Pineapples

Red-Capped Franks (which was Kraft Mac N Cheese with hot dogs on top, topped with ketchup. :ack2: I never ate that, btw.)

La Choy "Shrimp" Chow Mein (I did not even know there was such a thing as stir-fry meals from scratch with fresh veggies!) This was always served with Minute Rice.

Cookin' Bags Anyone know what these are? Food in a bag; drop it in boiling water for 7 minutes. Voila. Chicken A la King.

Chef Boyardee Mush pasta in any shape.

Tacos - iceberg lettuce, Velveeta cheese, pickles and seasoned meat (out of a package).

Spaghetti - with Prego or Ragu sauce

 

Breakfast was cereal - Fruit Loops, Chex, Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Sugar Corn Puffs, Puffed Rice. My mom would only buy milk every two weeks, though, so if we wanted cereal with milk, we could use reconstituted dry milk.

 

Beverages were water (jug in the fridge), iced tea and Kool-Aide.

 

Amazingly, I lived long enough to rethink those meals. :D

 

Oh, we had that too. Except sometimes she put bland, tasteless scrambled eggs on that plate with it too. :tongue_smilie:

 

 

Others were tomato soup from the can with grilled cheese.

 

Chuck hamburg on a plate with canned veggies. UHH!

 

Ham steak that's been thoroughly dehydrated in a pressure cooker with instant mashed potatoes that were formless. Like a white puddle.

 

Oh then there was the angel hair pasta that she would cook until it could be sipped it was so mushy. :001_huh:

[luvnlattes]

My dad was a big meat eater. Every night was some type of meat, a vegetable, and a salad. Think lots of Swiss steak, stews, chuck roast, etc. We had chicken or fish every now and then. Casseroles were a no-no in his book and my mom cooked to his tastes.

[sbgrace]

OP, that's the stuff I ate growing up too. Add Shake n Bake, tuna or hamburger helper, fried salmon patties, fish sticks, cream chip beef (sounds like the above poster's S%@# on a Shingle except ours was packaged lunch meat type beef instead of ground beef), canned tomato soup with Velveeta grilled cheese, the straight out of the freezer prepared food chicken pot pie, etc. I liked eating that food honestly. I guess it was all I knew. I won't serve it to my kids though. My mom can make good food. We would have good food sometimes--especially Sundays. Day in and out, though, was convenience foods.

 

I *think* my husband ate marginally better than I. I'm pretty sure all his vegetables weren't in canned form anyway.

Edited January 11, 2012 by sbgrace

[regentrude]

this is what we ate when I was a kid:

Oatmeal for breakfast

a homecooked, from scratch, meal for lunch (potatoes and veggies daily, meat twice a week, spaghetti and tomato sauce on Saturdays)

whole grain rye bread and cheese for dinner

 

We never had packaged or canned food, except maybe canned peaches once in a while

I grew up in East Germany.

Edited January 11, 2012 by regentrude

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

My mom was not a great cook. We ate a lot of canned soups, bologna & cheese sandwiches, spaghetti with Ragu sauce, and canned vegetables. She occasionally made stuffed cabbage, which was pretty good. She didn't like to cook, and everything was pretty much overcooked. My dad had a few specialties like potato pancakes and apple fritters that were delicious, but that was a rare treat. We ate out a lot. One year, I think we went to McDonalds about 3 times a week. I gained about 50 lbs. that year. My mom is also a major chocoholic, so we had candy and ice cream all the time.

 

This is why I have completely changed how my family eats. I don't want them to suffer what I went through as a kid and young adult.

[elegantlion]

My mom can bake, but cooking is not her thing. Both my parents grew up country poor, raising their own food. This was not the lifestyle they wanted, processed foods and cheap meals were our thing. We had a lot of pasta meals, some horrible noodle and hamburger thing that I wouldn't make for my dog, minute steaks (which were like gristle - I would cry when we had those).

 

I was a teen before we branched out to tacos, never Chinese food (not even ramen noodles) :lol:. She did made good meals with a pressure cooker, stew was good.

 

But we always had homemade cookies, cinnamon rolls from scratch, and homemade bread. Unfortunately now I have a gluten sensitivity. :glare:

 

I honestly hate cooking, I'd never cook again if I didn't have to.

[Jayne J]

We pretty much kept Campbell's, Kraft, Wonder Bread, Chef Boyardee, Prego and Oscar Meyer in business. To be fair, when she had time, my mom could whip up a mean Sunday chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and an apple pie to die for. Breakfast was either Quaker oatmeal in a packet with extra milk and maple syrup, or Carnation instant breakfast. Cereal was a treat and was generally Cheerios, which we doctored with spoonfuls of sugar. On a really bonanza day, we got Fruity Pebbles.

 

And yet I live.

 

ETA I forgot the Swanson's frozen dinner! To this day I remember trying to decide between fishsticks (which I disliked but which had the "good" dessert--a brownie, and corn) and Salisbury steak, which I preferred, but which came with carrots (ACK!) and cherry cobbler.

Edited January 11, 2012 by urpedonmommy

[misidawnrn]

We ate a lot of

spaghetti

macaroni hot dish AKA goulash

tatertot casserole

"refridgerator soup"-all of the left overs put in a soup pan. I remember it being good but I can't replicate it.

cereal

pancakes, oatmeal and cream of wheat.

 

I still make all of the above except fridge soup...can't figure that one out.

 

We HARDLY ever ever ever ate fast food. Too poor with 5 kids to do that.

[rwjx2khsmj]

My mom is an amazing cook and I ate well growing up.

 

However, I will say that my mother's brilliance is best demonstrated by our Sunday night dinner. My dad was a minister and all through my growing up years he had a Sunday night church service so he was never home for the evening meal on Sunday. Some of my fondest memories are watching Sunday night t.v. and feasting on popcorn and koolaid. I thought it was such a huge treat because it was a once a week treat AND I got to eat in front of the t.v. Only since I've become a mother do I truly understand what popping popcorn and settling the kids in front of the t.v. with their koolaid meant to my mom.

 

Tell me that's not brilliant!

[Joker]

Am I the only one who fondly remembers fried spam? :auto: I've never made it as an adult but I miss my grandma making it for me.

[Wendi]

My mom's a good, although boring, cook. She's never liked cooking, and she grew up in New England, where apparently the only spices are salt, pepper, and occasionally a dash of paprika. :tongue_smilie: Seriously, when we had "tacos", the ground beef was seasoned with salt and pepper. :svengo:

 

Every Saturday night, we had hot dogs, corn muffins (Jiffy mix), sauerkraut, and baked beans. When my grandfather moved in with us, Mom would make knockwurst for him. (He was German.)

 

We would have baked chicken (with flour and a pat of margarine), pot roast, Shake-and-Bake pork chops, spaghetti (good homemade sauce), porcupine meatballs (does anyone else remember those?), goulash, steak on the grill, tuna casserole, etc. Sides were baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, white rice, or french fries. Veggies were usually canned. Once in awhile, she would make liver and onions for my dad and grandfather, but because she herself didn't like it, she would make something else for herself and us kids. (For which I am eternally grateful. I don't eat organ meats.)

 

Breakfast was cereal, Pop tarts, toast, or frozen waffles. On the weekends, Mom might make a family favorite like French toast or, even better, toast with peanut butter and bacon. Bread was always white.

 

Lunch was grilled cheese, bologna, or peanut butter and jelly. Or maybe canned soup.

 

Wendi

Edited January 11, 2012 by Wendi

[JFSinIL]

My Kansas-raised folks used a lot of canned veggies - and ADDED salt and butter. Fresh green beans had to be cooked with bacon for almost an hour before Dad would eat them. Mom might on a rare occasion steam broccoli until it was limp, then cover it with lemon butter. Meats had to be cooked until no trace of "raw" remained - my Dad never had a decently cooked pork roast that wasn't like a block of plywood until he visited my home and I served it (used a meat thermometer and it was perfectly done, just not over-cooked) - he was stunned! Had to convince him he wasn't going to get a parasite from eating it (showed him the temperature on the thermometer and lack of pink in the juices.)

 

Ragu on generic, over-cooked pasta.

Chipped beef on toast.

Soup was Campbells or, for a treat, Lipton with the tiny noodles.

Biscuits etc. came from Bisquick or another box.

 

Most of what I ate growing up I do NOT feed my family now.

Edited January 11, 2012 by JFSinIL

[Myeightkiddies]

Elbow macaroni and can of stewed tomatoes (just those together)

 

Egg noodles and stew beef (just those together) - I just ate the beef because egg noodles make me gag

 

Sardine sandwiches

 

Vienna sausage sandwiches

 

Favorites were:

Spaghetti

Tacos

Fried spam and mac and cheese

 

We didn't have the favorites often but compared to the usual they were gourmet.

 

My parents needed to save money for the case of beer that they drank every night.

[Mrs Mungo]

Loads of junk. My parents still eat a ton of processed foods. When we were home at Christmas DH and I both started feeling sick from it. Bleh. I am not an organic food queen. I have admitted that I love my Pringles (and therefore rarely buy them). But, I try to cook our meals mainly from scratch, and we eat lots of fruit and veggies.

[lynn]

Spaghetti and meatballs and sausage sauce

meat lasagna

meatloaf with mashed potato and vegetable

beef stew

roast beef dinners

meatpie

hot dogs and beans

potato soup

brocoli soup

various german dishes

shake n bake chicken

porkchop and rice bake

traditional holiday dinners

fish sticks, mac n cheese

homemade mac n cheese

something mother called New england boiled dinner

 

Breakfast was cold cereal or oatmeal, dad made big breakfasts on sunday's

lunches tuna, ham or bologna sandwhiches

cookouts in the summer with hamburgers

Clams of course(grew up in new england)

Edited January 11, 2012 by lynn

[Jenny in Florida]

Chef Boyardee Mush pasta in any shape.

Tacos - iceberg lettuce, Velveeta cheese, pickles and seasoned meat (out of a package).

Spaghetti - with Prego or Ragu sauce

 

Breakfast was cereal - Fruit Loops, Chex, Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Sugar Corn Puffs, Puffed Rice.

 

I can still remember begging her to buy Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Rice a Roni, and Chef Boyardee. Which she never did.

 

 

I have to tell a story on myself before I start, here.

 

I ate dinner with my best friend fairly regularly. Her mother made the best spaghetti! I went home and raved about it to my mother, who sheepishly asked my friend's mother how she made her sauce because I loved it so much.

 

My friend's mom laughed and admitted her wonderful sauce was Ragu straight out of the jar.

 

My mother didn't cook more than she had to, as I recall. To be fair, I was an only child and a picky eater, and my father sometimes worked odd hours. So, there was probably no incentive to bother.

 

With that said, I pretty much grew up on spaghetti with jarred sauce, Kraft macaroni and cheese, Chef Boyardee ravioli, peanut butter and anything you could make with Bisquick. We also made hot roast beef sandwiches with those boil-in-bag meat things poured over toasted white bread and instant mashed potatoes. We ate pork chops cooked with canned pineapple and served next to Rice-a-Roni. My mother also "doctored" many prepared foods, like canned pork and beans, by adding things like dried onion flakes and bacon bits.

 

My mother was a fan of the "take a package of this and another of that" school of cooking. Her signature dish was a beef roast rubbed with a paste made of Lipton's onion soup mix and margarine. You then wrapped the whole thing in aluminum foil and put it in the oven. That was the first meal I learned to make to impress guys.

 

She was also fond of those assorted seasoning mixes that came in envelopes, the kind you would add to ground beef to make taco filling or mix with tomato paste to make pasta sauce. And we ate frozen pot pies and similar things.

 

I used to like pizza made on English muffins or those biscuits that came in the pressurized can (?).

 

When I was little, I used to like fish sticks, but only with lots of ketchup.

 

In terms of breakfast, it was cereal and milk or one of those Bisquick creations, once I was old enough to do that for myself. I don't remember my mother ever making me breakfast.

 

Our 'fridge was always stocked with cans of soda, usually Shasta. I was especially fond of the black cherry flavor.

[laundrycrisis]

Mom worked more than full time and dad didn't help with anything domestic. We had a lot of Kraft Mac n Cheese, canned vegetables and freezer to oven foods. This was before microwaves were in every home, so it was packaged in foil trays for a real oven. Lots of fish sticks, pot pies and TV dinners. I knew how to get all three meals done for myself by age 7. Cereal with powdered milk for breakfast, or cinnamon toast. PB&J for lunch. Pot pie for dinner. Hey, at least we had food in the house. Not every kid is so fortunate, right ?

[Lawana]

Breakfasts: oatmeal, cream of wheat, scrambled eggs, dry cereal (Cheerios mostly, with 1 tsp of sugar on top), and always toast and milk.

 

Lunch: packed for school─sandwiches (bologna, cheese, tuna, pb&j) butter on one piece of bread, salad dressing on the other, a piece of fruit, cookies, milk in a thermos.

 

Dinner: Some kind of casserole made with about 1 lb. of meat for 7 persons. Spaghetti made from the packaged sauce mix and a can of tomato sauce. Stew. Soup. Spam on occasion (I thought it was a treat!) Lots of potatoes cooked in the pressure cooker. But mashed potatoes were *always* the instant kind. Always a vegetable, canned early on, then frozen. Except when the garden was in season, then fresh vegetables made the meal.:thumbup: Bread, milk (skim, reconstituted powdered, not instant [purchased in 50 lb. bags from a cheese making place]).

 

My favorite meal─corn-on-the-cob picked 10 minutes before preparing, fresh beets, green beans, zuchini and yellow squash, cucumbers, tomatoes.

 

My least favorite─plain white rice, a stick of the nastiest rubber cheese, and a lame vegetable from a can. Maybe iceburg lettuce masquerading as a salad.

 

Dessert once a week or so, cake from a mix, jello with bottled fruit cocktail, cookies.

[MamaT]

I grew up in the Florida panhandle on the coast. My grandfather was a commercial fisherman and my dad shrimped every minute he could. I ate a LOT of seafood - 3 or 4 nights a week, but it was always fresh. Of course, it was fried (my parents believed that people who cooked it any other way obviously didn't know how to cook seafood). It was usually served with homemade French fries and my dad's wonderful hush puppies. Every other meal was fried with vegetables that were cooked WAY too long.

 

I rarely fry anything, cook from scratch, and try to feed my family lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.

[elise1mds]

I forgot about the Schwan man! My mom didn't often buy stuff from him; when she did, it was considered a treat!

[helena]

My parents didn't eat beef, pork, or poultry. We ate very little dairy and almost nothing from a package.

 

-A common meal was broiled fish, a little rice, and veggies. (BLECH)

-Lots of Mexican food (my grandma was from Veracruz, so plenty of her good recipes there).

-Sri Lankan food (many of my moms friends were from there, so she learned).

-Japanese (dad studied the cooking).

 

We never ate American type foods. The first time I had (or heard of) beef stroganoff I was married and it was vegan... SOOOO GOOOOD!

 

We had a seafood diet. I was the kid eating octopus and eel.

Edited January 11, 2012 by helena

[LisaKinVA]

My dad was the "cook" (I use that term loosely, as he is best known for what we all call "Brillo-Bean-Surprise.")

 

We preferred my mom's cooking, because while she doesn't enjoy cooking, she can follow a recipe.

 

I know I had Tater Tot Casserole at least a few times, and tuna casserole a few times, Plantation Supper is a perennial favorite, along with Enchilada Casserole, and Spaghetti). Nothing was from a box...unless it was pizza... well, I take that back, the frozen veggies we got were in boxes, too.

 

My dad kept a garden, of sorts. The only thing that was "bad" was the canned soups... other than that, they did pretty good (being a carb-heavy, protein-light family...I love carbs, but they have never loved me.)

[BMW]

We had the tater tot thing a few times growing up...

 

Sh*t on a shingle... yep, my mom made that, too...

 

We had potato soup... potatoes, milk, onions and black pepper...

 

When money was real tight, we'd have ground beef patties with salt and pepper and mac n cheese as it's side...

 

Ghoulash... pasta with ground beef and tomato sauce... an onion chopped up in there, too sometimes...

 

And then there were the better times and I LOVED my mom's lasagne and we prided ourselves with our "white boy tacos" (that's what all the Hispanics in our neighborhood called them, back in the 70's)... I really liked pork chops, too!

 

We never had canned spaghetios or raviolis and I really, really thought those were for people who had money... I would have LOVED it if my mom got us canned ravioli! I only got that when I spent a week over summer at my grandma's!

[Pamela H in Texas]

My mom was good at delivering healthy foods. Most meals were meat and a few veggies. This is what my father preferred. My mom sometimes gave us the choice of eating that or what she was eating (vegetarian). The worst meal we ate was probably spaghetti. As a teen, I lived with my stepmom and my dad. We ate out 6-7 nights per week.

[Danestress]

We had our share of mac cheese (but the home made kind) and fried chicken, and my favorite meal was pot roast. We definitely ate a lot of meat, but she fed us fresh vegetables every night - very little canned - and ate a lot of fresh fruit. We ate cold cereal, but not the super sweet kinds. She made dessert a lot, but balanced that with a basically healthy diet.

[Jenny in Florida]

Plantation Supper is a perennial favorite

 

I'm searching online, but haven't found the answer yet: What is Plantation Supper?

[m0mmaBuck]

I grew up on a farm and we hunted and fished so our meals were pretty healthy. Not much in the way of rice, pasta, or pre-packaged foods except cereal. Bread was always homemade. Pop/soda, koolaid, and juices were reserved for special occasions but we drank a lot of fresh milk (straight from the bulk tank) or water.

 

Breakfast was typically cereal (Chex, Wheaties, Corn Flakes, oatmeal.... no Fruit Loops or marshmallow-infested stuff) or fresh eggs with toast.

 

Lunch was usually soup or salad and a sandwich of some sort.

 

Dinner was usually game meat (venison, rabbit, squirrel, pheasant, grouse), fresh fish caught that day (bass, trout, blue gill, sunfish, perch, Northern pike depending on what was in season), or chicken (we raised our own) with salad, steamed vegetables, and some sort of starch (potato or bread). If deer hunting didn't pan out that year, we would butcher a cow to supply red meat for the year.

 

And there was always either fresh fruit, depending on what was in season, or canned fruit (from our orchard) in the winter.

[Guest]

Fluff. I can remember coming home from school and my sister and I would dig in with our spoons.

 

Was this some sort of Cool Whip/Jello type thing? My sister always made Pink Fluff. I consider it gakky, but I liked it when I was a kid.

 

Hey hey hey....... I use Prego when I make my sphagetti casserole and I've had Sicilians ask how I make my sauce. Real Sicilians with scary names.

 

:lol: Well, I use Prego once in a while if I need to have some sauce handy and I'm too lazy to make it. I do prefer homemade sauce, though; I just made some tonight, matter of fact!

 

My mother was a whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter crunchie from way back. I drank raw milk, water, everything from scratch. She made her own butter, ice cream, and they would buy half a cow or hog and stock the freezer about once a year.

 

We couldn't afford McDs, and went to the DQ maybe once when I was a kid. We had a garden, and every night was something out of it. So very, very healthy.

 

Wow! Lucky. We couldn't afford eating out, either. It was exceedingly rare that we even went to McDs and had the 25-cent ice cream cones.

 

this is how I ate growing up. Add to the above, Hamburger Helper.

 

There was always an endless supply of candy, soda and chips. My dad (I MISS HIM!!!) thought french fries were a vegetable. :lol:

 

We eat whole foods now.

 

Hamburger Helper! How could I forget it! We never had candy, soda or chips, though, but we did have endless boxed mix cakes and always had ice cream.

 

Oh, we had that too. Except sometimes she put bland, tasteless scrambled eggs on that plate with it too. :tongue_smilie:

 

Someone else who's been subjected to that nasty recipe?! Seriously - what made her hunt through a recipe book and settle on that? ;)

 

this is what we ate when I was a kid:

Oatmeal for breakfast

a homecooked, from scratch, meal for lunch (potatoes and veggies daily, meat twice a week, spaghetti and tomato sauce on Saturdays)

whole grain rye bread and cheese for dinner

 

We never had packaged or canned food, except maybe canned peaches once in a while

I grew up in East Germany.

 

Nice!

 

 

Am I the only one who fondly remembers fried spam? :auto: I've never made it as an adult but I miss my grandma making it for me.

 

Yes. You're the only one! :D Now fried ham - that is something I could get behind, but even looking at the can of Spam gives me the willies.

 

Ragu on generic, over-cooked pasta.

Chipped beef on toast.

Soup was Campbells or, for a treat, Lipton with the tiny noodles.

Biscuits etc. came from Bisquick or another box.

 

Most of what I ate growing up I do NOT feed my family now.

 

Oh, yes, I really did like the Lipton soup with the tiny noodles. Remember that weird lump of seasonings inside the bag?

Bisquick biscuits - they were ATROCIOUS! Maybe some people made them in some tasty way, but in our house they were sad lumps of hard, dry flour. They didn't taste like anything, except a paper towel, maybe. :tongue_smilie:

 

 

My parents needed to save money for the case of beer that they drank every night.

 

I would laugh, because that's funny and your delivery is great, but man, that is really sad, too. :grouphug:

[LucyStoner]

My family was poor when I was growing up. Not modest income, not "things were tight and we never took a vacation" poor but government cheese and not being able to afford shoes when yours had holes in them already poor. My mother was also NOT a cook and basically never cooked us anything except for scrambled eggs, tortillas, burritos with hamburger meat, grits, toast, spagetti, crockpot chili, fry bread, rice, PB cookies and baked chicken. My father on the other hand was a fantastic cook and when we had a little money he would cook up amazing meals. He did well on the cheap too but often had little to work with. I recall searching the house for change for food with my mom and dad more than once. Like a lot of poor families, we would eat better when there was a paycheck or food stamps and then it would get more meager just before payday and food stamp day. My mother was not the best housekeeper or planner so the shopping would happen all at once with the $$ rather than setting aside a little for each week. My dad did most of the cooking, but not all. In addition to the food they bought, we received food from the government for a number of years (I don't know that they still do this) which was flour, butter, cheese, PB and a few othert things. This came in white bags with black lettering "USDA Commodities- Not for Resale." That cheese is legendary among the people I know who ate it- it was the worst kind of cheese, like kraft singles cheese food but in 10 pound solid bricks. It did not grate properly and was basically good for one thing- grilled cheese sandwiches so oily and greasy you have to pretend it is something else to swallow it. We also were eligible for food stamps most of my childhood and we frequently went to food banks. So we never went hungry but we ate very differently from my peers.

 

For breakfast, we ate a lot of hot cereal, grits, eggs and pancakes. Oh and biscuits, made from scratch. One of the other things my mom could make. My dad made amazing whole wheat pancakes and we would make syrup from blackberries or other berries we picked or we would have that fake syrup. Rarely had cold cereal and never ever the sugar cereals which were dubbed too expensive. Which is just as well. Breakfast meat was rare, like a Christmas thing.

 

For lunch, we usually ate leftovers from dinner or sandwiches. When we were in school, we got free school lunch.

 

For dinner, we ate a lot of crockpot food- homemade spagetti sauce, chili, soup. There were weeks that would pass with us eating from the same basic pot, adding a bit more every so often etc. However, my parents usually broke it up with something different on the weekends, especially Sunday which was a big deal. We ate a lot of turkey because it was cheap and we would get so many for free from the food bank. It was a special day if there was meat that was not hamburger or turkey. We never ate meat on Fridays and ate fish or veggie meals those days. Fish was sometimes caught or it would come from the fish market cheap or my mom would buy fish sticks, one of the processed foods I remember most clearly. My mom would make us burritos. My dad would take the last of the spagetti sauce and make pizza, crust from scratch.

 

We moved a lot so we did not have a garden. My dad did make bread and with the exception of what we got from the food bank we never really ate canned food. I have a very low tolerance for salt in my food because my parents never added it and we ate very little from cans.

 

My dad could make fantastic stuff so I recall a lot of Sunday dinners with curries or roasts or ribs or something special, especially when I was older and $$ was a bit better. My parents could stretch a dollar like no one else can and I recall them getting friendly with the meat men at the stores so they would set markdowns aside for us. They were big on sales.

 

My dad can also can make amazing desserts- something like chocolate pies, lemon pies, fruit pies, cakes, tarts would be made for any holiday or birthday and all from his head, never saw him use a recipe for most things and that is how he taught me to cook. Still to this day that is why I have to stop and think if someone asks me how to make something I learned to as a child because I am just like, um, you mix up the stuff till it looks right and then cook till it smells right. :001_smile:

 

It was not an easy way to grow up but I hope I can impart of fraction of the penny pinching frugality and willingness to eat up and make do to my kids. Also, I will teach them to cook like my dad and have already started with our older son.

Edited January 11, 2012 by kijipt

[DarlaS]

Hey hey hey....... I use Prego when I make my sphagetti casserole and I've had Sicilians ask how I make my sauce. Real Sicilians with scary names.

 

:iagree:

 

Love that Prego sauce! They have some lower sodium versions now that are nice and mildly sweet. Love 'em!

 

And if you're feeling "fancy", or want the house to smell like you've been making your own sauce, you can always simmer it for a while with a little extra garlic or something. :D

[bluemongoose]

My mom is a great cook, but she worked full time. Most of the meals were processed yuck, but when she had time (holidays and sometimes sunday meals) she would make very very good food.

 

The weekly standards:

 

Hamburger helper

Rice a roni

shake n bake

Kraft Mac n Cheese

Ramen Noodles

Hot dogs wrapped in "croissant" rolls (made from bisquick) with cheese inside

Tatertot casserole or some other casserole

Tuna fish with mushroom soup over rice

Hamburger with mushroom soup over mashed potatoes or rice

Tacos

Burritos with canned Rosa Rita refried beans

Spaghetti with prego

 

If dad was cooking it might be dads bachlor meal-basically all leftovers from the fridge mixed together

 

Veggies were frozen peas, green beans, corn, brussels sprouts or broccoli. Or a fresh salad made with iceberg lettuce.

 

 

Breakfast was: Eggo waffles, sugary cereals, oatmeal packages, toast with cinnamon and sugar, or pop tarts.

 

Sat breakfast was often pancakes, waffles, or coffee cake made from bisquick with bacon/sausage and scrambled eggs.

 

 

And no, I do not cook like this:).

[dangermom]

My mom is a fanatic gardener, something of a hippie, and against too much packaged food. So while we were sometimes fed hot dogs and beans, most of the time it was quite healthy stuff. Mom went through phases of learning to cook new things, like tofu or spring rolls, or (less healthily) taco shell bowls and tempura.

 

We were never ever allowed to eat cereal with marshmallows or chocolate in it, or anything with the word Hostess involved, or ordinary peanut butter. And sharing a can of soda with a sibling was a big treat.

 

Mom is also against such decadent things as putting jeans in the dryer, Barbies, having a video player in the car, cable TV, and CostCo.

[angela in ohio]

Ring bologna with ketchup and onions over mashed potatoes

Meatloaf

Fried bologna sandwiches and Kraft mac&cheese

Tacos (seasoned beef and velveeta, lettuce, and tomato in a fried corn shell)

Hamburger helper

Chicken soup

Spaghetti (prego with added meat)

 

That's it. We had one of those once or twice a week and the rest of the time we had fast food: KFC, McDonalds, Wendy's, Arby's, Pizza Hut, and the local pizza place.

 

We had sugar cereal or PopTarts for breakfast. Cold cut sandwiches or tuna fish and chocolate pudding for lunch. Hot cocoa and toast for a treat. And we drank Coke by the gallon. Milk, Coke, and Kool-Aid.

 

It's been a struggle. A long, hard struggle to health.

[Daisy]

I cannot be alone in that meals in my family of origin were not much better than tatortot casserole. In fact, some were far worse. Here are some of the meals we ate frequently:

Spam with Crushed Pineapples

Red-Capped Franks (which was Kraft Mac N Cheese with hot dogs on top, topped with ketchup. :ack2: I never ate that, btw.)

La Choy "Shrimp" Chow Mein (I did not even know there was such a thing as stir-fry meals from scratch with fresh veggies!) This was always served with Minute Rice.

Cookin' Bags Anyone know what these are? Food in a bag; drop it in boiling water for 7 minutes. Voila. Chicken A la King.

Chef Boyardee Mush pasta in any shape.

Tacos - iceberg lettuce, Velveeta cheese, pickles and seasoned meat (out of a package).

Spaghetti - with Prego or Ragu sauce

 

Breakfast was cereal - Fruit Loops, Chex, Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Sugar Corn Puffs, Puffed Rice. My mom would only buy milk every two weeks, though, so if we wanted cereal with milk, we could use reconstituted dry milk.

 

Beverages were water (jug in the fridge), iced tea and Kool-Aide.

 

Amazingly, I lived long enough to rethink those meals. :D

 

That's horrifying. :ack2:

 

My mom was one of the original granola moms. We ate very healthy. I didn't grow up any processed stuff. We were part of a co-op even.

 

Homemade bread, Mom-made trail mix with carob chips (I hated carob chips), HUGE rounds of cheddar cheese wrapped in black wax, grass-fed beef, etc.

[nmoira]

Roast beef or pork, cooked until dessicated, every Sunday, served with potatoes, Yorkshire pudding (these were nummy) and more often than not, canned veggies

 

"Swiss" steak

 

Pork chops in mushroom soup (yuck)

 

Macaroni and cheese: cooked macaroni, chunks of cheddar cheese (picture the maximum amount of cheese and sane person would use and triple it), a bit of tomato sauce, topped with six slices of bacon, all baked until crisp.

 

Spaghetti and meat: canned spaghetti and ground beef, baked

 

Chicken breasts, breaded and baked until dessicated, served with oven fries.

 

It goes on...

[i.love.lucy]

My youth was much the same. Instant, easy foods. My mom was the bread winner in my later childhood and she didn't have time to cook much. She always made a hot breakfast because we lived in the north bay area where the fog rolls in and the mornings are cold. I can remember having canned chicken noodle soup and cheese toast for breakfast many, many mornings. Maybe that has contributed to my disdain for sweets for breakfast?!

 

My dad learned to make tuna noodle, fish sticks, shake-n-bake, spaghetti. Some kind of gravy with ground beef, a can of diced tomatoes, and a can of cream of mushroom soup served over rice. I loved that dish!

 

The SOS (Sh** on a Shingle) was my favorite thing! It was always served on toasty english muffins and made with pastrami lunch meat. Lots of tabasco and worchestershire sauce in the gravy. I still love it and made it for Christmas Eve breakfast because it makes me think of home.:blush:

 

My mother in law was not a good cook. Her seasonings were onion, salt and pepper. To this day my dh has outlawed canned green beans and some kind of chicken casserole made with instant rice, cream of mushroom soup and lipton onion soup mix.:lol:

[Lovin Learnin]

Breakfast for us was oatmeal, toast with a slice of cheese and tomato, or boxed cereal. We were each allowed to pick our own box of cereal as often as necessary. ANY cereal. My choice was always determined by the toy prize inside.

 

My mom didn't eat much, and rarely ate lunch herself, so we only ate a mid-day meal if we were hungry. It just wasn't a given in our family. There were many days I would go straight through from breakfast to dinner without eating. When we did eat it was often a sandwich of some sort and fruit.

 

Most of our dinner meals were homemade from scratch, aside from an occasional pizza or a bucket of KFC. We didn't eat fast food and I went to my first sit-down restaurant at 14 years old. My mom was/is a great cook, but friday nights were her Bridge night so we each got to pick whatever we wanted from a list of fast or frozen choices so she wouldn't have to cook. Favorites included TV dinners, Totino's pizza, or tuna casserole. We saw it as a real treat.

 

She was no Julia Childs but it was mostly healthy (except for Fridays). I now cook many of my mom's old favorites.

[LisaKinVA]

I'm searching online, but haven't found the answer yet: What is Plantation Supper?

 

It is sort-of like a stroganoff...

 

ground beef, corn, cream of mushroom soup, cream cheese, salt & pepper, mix with wide egg noodles.

 

FWIW, it's just as good (or better) with grass-fed beef, home-made soup, using bean flour as the thickening agent, yogurt cheese... and yes, the noodles. My kids LOVE it. That, and Green Enchiladas were my "go-to" meals for my birthday.

 

Green enchiladas were onions, jack cheese, green chilis, cream of chicken soup, sour cream (again, make from scratch), wrapped in corn tortillas, with some cheese sprinkled on the top.

 

Mmmm...now I'm hungry!

[LG Gone Wild]

Vietnamese food

 

My mom darn well handmade nearly everything. We did buy bread.

 

Hours and hours and hours of stock pots, rolling spring rolls, pounding garlic in with the pestle and mortar, chopping vegetables, boiling noodle, slicing beef, grounding pork, skimming scum off of broth, cooking rice on the stove, steaming buns - we did it all and I hated all of it. I just hate cooking. Food was good though.

[Shellers]

Chef Boyardee Raviolis

Beenie Weenie - Pork 'n beans with sliced hotdogs

Hamburger gravy & mashed potatoes

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese

Chili Mac - elbow macaroni and a can of chili beans

Cheese sandwiches on white bread with mustard

Canned spinach

Canned spinach

 

and more....

 

Canned spinach