Comfort food you grew up with – Family Recipe’s

Just curious what some of your family’s comfort food recipes where when you were growing up. I’ll start with One of my families:

Kidney Bean Stew

1-2Lbs Ground Beef
.5-1Lb Bacon – Cut into small Pieces
Medium to large Onion – Chopped
6-8 Large Potatoes – Cut into bite size pieces
6-8 Carrots – cut into bite size pieces
2 – 16 Oz. cans of Kidney Beans
2- 16 Oz cans of Tomato Sauce
1-2 Cans of fire roasted Tomatoes ( optional ) Original recipe did not have – But I add them
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Boil Potatoes and Carrots – Drain ( Save the drained water )
Brown the ground Beef- Drain off Grease
Brown the Bacon and add the onions near the end of cooking

In a stockpot or dutch oven – Mix all ingredients together and Simmer for 30-45 Minutes
If it seems thicker than you would like, you can add some of the Water you saved when you drained the potatoes and carrots.
Enjoy – Even better when heated up the 2nd time.

Now lets hear some of yours !!!

There is so many to choose from, but here is one of my favorites:
Meat Empanadas, I’m not very good at writing recipes down, My family always cooked together and learned how to make them from watching and doing and nothing was ever measured, so this is as close as I can come to writing it down from memory as I pretend to make it so I can get all the ingredients right.
ingredients:
1 large beef roast
1 large onion diced
1 med size box of raisins
1 doz eggs boiled and peeled
1 med can chopped chilies or ( 4 roasted and peeled anaheim peppers)
1 can black olives drained ( you can cut them in half)

1. cook beef roast in crock pot with broth to cover til done, drain
2. shred roast add diced onion, raisins, black olives, chopped chilies ( I like roasted and peeled anaheim peppers), boiled eggs mix well set aside.

Now for the fun part:
making the tortillas
3 cups flour
1 cup crisco shortening
1 tablespoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
1. sift flour, baking powder into a large bowl add pinch of salt chop the shortening into cubes blend in with the flour. ( I work it bare handed, was not taught any other way.)
a dough will form.
pinch off a silver dollar ball from the dough and roll with a rolling pin to the size of a medium size plate not to thin. do that til you run out of dough.

In a large skillet get some oil hot for frying or a deep fryer, while you wait for the oil to come to temp.
add a couple of tablespoons of filling to the tortilla in the middle of it, fold over the other side crimp the edges together with a fork. put a couple of them in the hot oil fry until golden brown drain on paper towels..
ENJOY
It’s a lot of work but growing up we didn’t mind as we were cooking with Nana and making tortillas which was us kids loved to do.

My family is of German descent, and my mom would make Potato Dumplings (we called them Cannonballs) with a pork roast and sauerkraut. That’s about as good as it gets on a cold day, or after a full day outside sledding/shoveling/playing hockey. Sticks to your ribs!

BigWerm wrote:

My family is of German descent, and my mom would make Potato Dumplings (we called them Cannonballs) with a pork roast and sauerkraut. That’s about as good as it gets on a cold day, or after a full day outside sledding/shoveling/playing hockey. Sticks to your ribs!

I love German food. I could go for some Potato Dumplings

Never had potato dumplings but they sound great, love sauerkraut.

Potato dumplings!!! It’s rare that I find someone who knows what they are. They’re so good.

Yep! I’m part Czech and my grandma’s dumplings weighed about a pound each…cook up a ring of jiternice, dumplings, sauerkraut, and gravy…yum

Here’s my mom’s recipe for Cannonballs:

About 4 medium potatoes ( peel and grate)
About 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
About 1/2 to 1 cup flour
1 egg
About 1/2 teas Salt

Mix together with your hands, adjusting the flour until you get the right consistency. They need to stick together well. Form into small balls and drop into salted boiling water. Cook until they float- about 15-20 minutes. We serve it with melted butter on top, so good!

BigWerm wrote:

Here’s my mom’s recipe for Cannonballs:

About 4 medium potatoes ( peel and grate)
About 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
About 1/2 to 1 cup four
1 egg
About 1/2 teas Salt

Mix together with your hands, adjusting the flour until you get the right consistency. They need to stick together well. Form into small balls and drop into salted boiling water. Cook until they float- about 15-20 minutes.

Those sound interesting and Easy. I love Potatoes almost anyway they are cooked. I will have to give those a shot.

Granny would make “Brown Gravy”
Browned up bacon and whatever other meats she had.
Boiled potatoes then put the put a little of the potato water in the grease from the bacon to make a roux.
Then put it in with the potatoes, add the meat and very last she would put in some vinegar.
The smell was awesome.
Put it in a bowl with some tore up bread.

Slovak here (Granny would get mad if we called ourselves Czeck, she said the was the communist)

Eelpoutguy wrote:

Granny would make “Brown Gravy”
Browned up bacon and whatever other meats she had.
Boiled potatoes then put the put a little of the potato water in the grease from the bacon to make a roux.
Then put it in with the potatoes, add the meat and very last she would put in some vinegar.
The smell was awesome.
Put it in a bowl with some tore up bread.

Slovak here (Granny would get mad if we called ourselves Czeck, she said the was the communist)

Sounds kind of like German Potato salad, which is awesome.

BigWerm wrote:

Here’s my mom’s recipe for Cannonballs:

Interesting with the breadcrumbs. What we’ve always done is make them with leftover mashed potatoes. Crack an egg into a bowl with whatever potatoes you have and knead in flour till you get the consistnecy you like. I like them dense, so I use a lot of flour. Boiling water till they float, and serve with butter.

I have a feeling this recipe was modified from the old-world during the Great Depression, but they’re awesome. My wife was skeptical at first but now loves them, as do both of our kids.

Craig Sery wrote:

Yep! I’m part Czech and my grandma’s dumplings weighed about a pound each…cook up a ring of jiternice, dumplings, sauerkraut, and gravy…yum

They are called Knedliky (say “ned-lee-kay) which means dumplings, or specifically bramborove knedliky (say “brom-bore-ove”) which are potato dumplings, since there are other kinds of dumplings.

I don’t have Czech symbols on this computer so the above spellings are Anglicized.

Ralph Wiggum wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>BigWerm wrote:</div>
Here’s my mom’s recipe for Cannonballs:

Interesting with the breadcrumbs. What we’ve always done is make them with leftover mashed potatoes. Crack an egg into a bowl with whatever potatoes you have and knead in flour till you get the consistnecy you like. I like them dense, so I use a lot of flour. Boiling water till they float, and serve with butter.

I have a feeling this recipe was modified from the old-world during the Great Depression, but they’re awesome. My wife was skeptical at first but now loves them, as do both of our kids.

Do you think you could add meat and High temp cheese to these???? I think a some Ham or cooked ground sausage would be a great addition to these. As well as possibly some cheese

Hmm, I don’t see why not!

Eelpoutguy wrote:

Granny would make “Brown Gravy”
Browned up bacon and whatever other meats she had.
Boiled potatoes then put the put a little of the potato water in the grease from the bacon to make a roux.
Then put it in with the potatoes, add the meat and very last she would put in some vinegar.
The smell was awesome.
Put it in a bowl with some tore up bread.

Slovak here (Granny would get mad if we called ourselves Czeck, she said the was the communist)

Add some onions and a little sugar and it’s my wife’s german potato salad. Her family calls themselves Prussian. It’s odd in the final seasoning because if you add sugar it makes it taste more like vinegar and if you add vinegar it makes it sweater. It can be a tough job being the taster judging when the balance is just right.

So pretzels chips dip and salsa isn’t comfort food??

a couple of easy ones:

1. Hamburger gravy – brown a lb of hamburger, season with S&P and add 1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup and mix. Serve over rice, white bread, biscuits, or potatoes. My mom raised 4 kids on this as a way to stretch the food budget – and it still holds up today! Go nuts and add whatever else you want, but it’s perfect the plain-jane way, too.

2. Dipping fish in Mayo and Ketchup mixed. For the first 20 years of my life, I thought this is what tartar sauce was. It’s not, but I still gotta do it any time we have fried fish. Although now I add a bit of hot sauce to boot!

ThunderLund78 wrote:

2. Dipping fish in Mayo and Ketchup mixed.

You had me till this. Yuck !!! I can not think of anything worse than the thought of fish dipped in Ketchup – Even the Mayo could not help – To each their own !!!

Family tradition for Christmas is fried potato dumpling in sauerkraut soup. Oh so good. I will have to find the recipe to share. We make our dumplings from leftover mash potatoes and flower. 50/50. They freeze well. As a kid my favorite was fried dumplings with maple syrup or pork chops with sauerkraut and fried dumplings.

Isnt that basically thousand island dressing. My 5 year old loves that stuff for most anything. But her fish better just be mayo.

One year my grandma went to every family member and had them write down their favorite recipes. She compiled it together and made a family cookbook that she gave away for Christmas. Highly recommended. Making some of those recipes brings back some great childhood memories.

Rodwork wrote:

Family tradition for Christmas is fried potato dumpling in sauerkraut soup. Oh so good. I will have to find the recipe to share.

Please do!

Rodwork wrote:

One year my grandma went to every family member and had them write down their favorite recipes. She compiled it together and made a family cookbook that she gave away for Christmas. Highly recommended. Making some of those recipes brings back some great childhood memories.

My wife did a cookbook for our Daughter with some of both her families, and some of my families favorite recipes. The recipe at the beginning of this post came from that book. Lots of memories in that book for both my wife and myself

Rodwork wrote:

Family tradition for Christmas is fried potato dumpling in sauerkraut soup. Oh so good. I will have to find the recipe to share. We make our dumplings from leftover mash potatoes and flower. 50/50. They freeze well. As a kid my favorite was fried dumplings with maple syrup or pork chops with sauerkraut and fried dumplings.

I still make dumplings just to fry. My Czech Gma hooked me on these as a kid. I use mashed potatoes with egg and flour boiled till they float then cool and freeze till ready to use. I fry them in bacon grease. Usually with pork chops on the egg.

You had me till this. Yuck !!! I can not think of anything worse than the thought of fish dipped in Ketchup – Even the Mayo could not help – To each their own !!!
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Lol ketchup is awful and mayo is even worse. I couldn’t come up with a more horid sauce.

Bearcat89 wrote:

You had me till this. Yuck !!! I can not think of anything worse than the thought of fish dipped in Ketchup – Even the Mayo could not help – To each their own !!!

Lol ketchup is awful and mayo is even worse. I couldn’t come up with a more horid sauce.
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Hey man, Lutafisk is comfort food for some – it’s what you grew up on