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[dk117]

My father isn't much of a chef.  Every few Sunday's in the 70's and early 80's he'd take over for mom and cook.   We're talking a single pot and whatever was in the fridge.   Potatoes, meat, veggies .... then some bbq sauce to make it palatable.  He'd call it goulash.   We'd normally follow it up with ice cream.

Tonight the wife has work and then a soccer game.  I've got the kids who ate without me.   I'm looking at left over brisket and a can of Manwich.  Props to Dad, Manwich and chopped brisket makes a pretty decent sandwich. 

DK

[texasbrew]

sounds like my kind of meal

[jdmessner]

As a kid dad's meals were the best because you never knew quite what you were going to get. I still pour milk in my applesauce or canned fruit, because dad did. I remember honey and butter sandwiches for lunch, when mom wasn't around. His specialty was pancakes, but you never knew what you might find inside them. Granola, or even a little All-Bran on occasion. He hated half empty cereal boxes in the cupboard, so when they got low he would mix them together. That made for some interesting combos! I do miss him!!

[Canadian John]

 We call it "leftovers".  We are finding we are going that route a lot during the cold, damp and windy weather..When we get a break, weatherwise, we tend to go overboard on the outdoor cooking to building up

our supply for leftovers... Patiently awaiting more favorable weather.

[LowSlowJoe]

Only thing I easily remember of my father's cooking is that I ALWAYS had heartburn after eating his Spagetti and meatballs.    I almost never get heartburn, but for some reason , pretty much every time I ate some of his  , I would have heartburn.    He loved his spagetti and meatballs, it was about the only thing he'd cook when my mom was still healthy.  Years after I had moved out and my mom started having health problems he took over cooking and made all kinds of things, but I didn't eat with them much at that time.

 Other than his spaghetti and meatballs, the only thing he'd cook was stuff on the grill ( typically gas grill ).   Nearly everything off the grill was over cooked... burgers would always be really crisp , hot dogs burned...   He never bought good steak when us kids where living there...  so usually a tough piece of round steak was what we'd get.   I still like burgers cooked extra crispy.

 But the thing he almost ruined me for , is/was pork chops.   I didn't think a pork chop could ever be juicy or good to eat.  His pork chops were all dried out , like a tough dry hunk of almost tasteless meat. You had to put BBQ sauce on them, just to taste something that wasn't dry.     Later years, I had a room mate who made me my first pork chop that wasn't overcooked... oh many, now , there are times, when I just crave a really nicely cooked pork chop.   If there is one thing, I never want to cook like my father did, it'd be pork chops.


 Oh, I almost forgot why I responded to this post.    Goulash   I never had it in my own home I don't think, but my neighbor's family would have it now and then when I was over there for a meal.   Oh my gosh, I used to love it.   That was like 45 years ago, and I swear I haven't had Goulash ever after I moved away from that neighborhood.    My memory of goulash, was that it was basically a really thick hardy version of spaghetti , but using elbow macaroni rather then spaghetti .    I think it had a lot of paprika in it ( which I'm normally not a big fan of )..   Anyway, now you have me craving goulash.

[pmillen]

I love this thread.

My mother would periodically dig through the refrigerator looking for leftovers that were ageing-out.  She’d remove items out and set them on the counter and say, “This must go.  This must go.  This must go.”

“Hey, mom, what’s for dinner?”

“Mustgoes.”

It would be some delicious combination of whatever she found.  Today, I still braise beef and pork roasts the way she did and add the potatoes and carrots toward the end.  The leftovers get diced and fried with about six scrambled eggs over them.  We call it mustgoes.

[ICIdaho]

As a kid dad's meals were the best because you never knew quite what you were going to get. I still pour milk in my applesauce or canned fruit, because dad did. I remember honey and butter sandwiches for lunch, when mom wasn't around. His specialty was pancakes, but you never knew what you might find inside them. Granola, or even a little All-Bran on occasion. He hated half empty cereal boxes in the cupboard, so when they got low he would mix them together. That made for some interesting combos! I do miss him!!

This makes me laugh.  Growing up my dad's pancakes were just the vessel to carry whatever leftovers in the fridge he could stuff into them.  Most of the time they were good, a couple of times they were a little out of bounds.  All fruits were a good filler, leftover potatoes, ham, bacon were all good diced or shredded into them.  Green vegetables being added was where I drew the line.  Corn and carrots were okay.

[jgrayson]

Hello,

My dad also is not much of a cook.  There are four things he would cook to help Mom.

Spaghetti and Sauce - he would go through the effort of using fresh tomatoes, but he didn't bother with peeling the tomatoes or removing the peels after cooking.  You would find the skins throughout the sauce.  The skins would usually be curled into short straw-like sticks.  Beyond tomatoes, water, and a miniscule amount of Italian spices, there wasn't much else to the sauce.

Grilled burgers/steaks/pork chops - it doesn't matter that these things are all different.  All grilled over a hot charcoal fire, and way over cooked.

Chile - this was something that early on he was ok with.  At first he used decent ground beef, beans, and a hefty amount of Mexican spices (he didn't like bland Mexican style food).  Later on he switched out the ground beef for some sort of vegetarian beef substitute.  I stopped eating chile at home after this recipe change.

Soup - essentially this was just hot water with vegetables in it.  He wouldn't take the time to add anything that would make it taste good, and he didn't take the time to cook the vegetable.  His theory was that you would eat it over 2 or 3 days, and the vegetables would "cook" over time.

Mom did much better.  She also like to cook extra so that there would be left-overs for the next days lunch, snacks, or dinner.  Many dinners were just a combination of several sets of left-overs.  My brothers and I were smart-asses and nick-named these combination meals:  Variety Of Meals Integrated Together (VOMIT).

[BigDave83]

Woman (My Mother) did the cooking, Man made eggs and sometimes what he called Cracker Soup, which was crushed saltines he would put some butter on top then run hot tap water over them to soak them then milk and some black pepper.

[Bentley]

Growing up, I remember my dad making a white gravy once for a meal, but I don't remember the meal or the taste of the gravy, that is all I remember about him ever cooking at home.  I also remember dad getting take out from Me n Ed's a couple of times, but he never cooked.

Now, in the early to mid 80's, as an adult, we cooked 3-4 years for a Renaissance Dinner my mom would do at our church.  It was full blown, Prime Rib, Baked Potato, Nottingham Green Beans, Figgy Pudding and Wassel!

[glitchy]

My dad did not cook much. During the summers when he worked second shift, I remember him making a lot of boiled hot dogs and mac and cheese, Campbell's soup and maybe grill cheese, tuna salad (or chicken or roast beef salad) sandwiches, and over easy eggs. Only a couple of times I remember him grilling steaks or burgers over charcoal, but it was usually my mom cooking those on the broiler in the oven and doing almost all of the cooking. My mom was a very good cook, but was limited by my dad's bland tastes in food.

[Kristin Meredith]

Growing up, I remember my dad making a white gravy once for a meal, but I don't remember the meal or the taste of the gravy, that is all I remember about him ever cooking at home.  I also remember dad getting take out from Me n Ed's a couple of times, but he never cooked.

He actually did cook us a couple of meals, that is when he mad the white gravy.  Mom had gone to Montana for Grandpa and then later Grandma's funerals and Dad did cook a couple of meals.  I think he needed the white gravy to cover what it was he cook!!!

[Bar-B-Lew]

My Dad had a second job as a short order cook in a diner for years before I came along.  He cooked a lot for us at home, and cooks almost every meal for my Mom the last 20 years.

[Trooper]

I still have a hankerin for the foods I grew up on

Mac & cheese
Pork & Beans with hotdogs cutup
Goulash
Tuna casserole (Yup - had some last night)


And I've dunked an awful lot of grilled cheese sandwiches in tomato soup

[Clonesmoker]

My kids had better give me good reviews. I remember my oldest son at a tailgate once telling one of his friends, "Hey, whatever my dad cooks is good!"  Never hurts when you have a 10 lb smoked pork loin sitting there either.