Home Cooking

P is away for a couple of days at a law conference in Wales so I've taken the opportunity to cook myself one of my favourite meals of all time.  It's a very simple dish that consists of layers of mashed potato, hard-boiled egg and fresh sliced tomatoes in a cheese sauce. It doesn't have a name that I'm aware of but it was something that Mum used to cook for us when we were younger and I've always loved it.  There is something of the 'nursery food' about it but it is extremely tasty, cheap to make and is very comforting to eat.  Sadly, P thinks its revolting - hence why I have to wait until he is away to cook it. 

It worked out very well for me today as I happened to have all the ingredients to hand anyway and it gave me a good opportunity to use up a fairly substantial amount of sprouting potatoes - and that's despite keeping them out of the light in a black cotton bag.  Once I'd cut out all the sprouting bits and peeled them they looked fine and the ensuing large amount of peelings went into the compost bin anyway. 

As it was such a favourite dish of mine as a child it got me thinking about the other foods I used to love when I was younger - and rarely eat now.  My Mum was, and still is, a fantastic cook.  There's something about her cooking that is just far more tasty than anything I ever seem to produce.  I know she also used to make us fish cakes with a fresh tomato sauce over them and I have tried to make fish cakes myself but they never seem to be as nice.  As for the fresh sieved tomato sauce, I have to confess I've never tried doing that - it seems a bit too much like hard work to me - so I stick with the Heinz (or Aldi's equivalent) ketchup.  Her Sunday roasts were so nice - I don't think I've ever had crackling to beat what I used to get at home.  And when we had roast beef the dripping was stored in a cup in the fridge and we'd then have that on bread with tons of black pepper for tea - absolutely yum.

We often had vanilla ice cream to follow with a dark chocolate sauce.  This sauce was made from melted down Bourneville dark chocolate and was soooo nice - it used to form a really hard shell around the ice cream that I loved to crack with my spoon.  When the 'exotic' Arctic Roll came out in the early 1970's we sometimes had that for Sunday dessert with a homemade toffee sauce.  Oh my goodness but that toffee sauce was gorgeous.

Even simple things like tomato sandwiches were much more tasty when made by my Mum - why is it that Mum's just have that ability to make all food taste wonderful? 

I'd love to hear what your favourite dishes were as a child?

Comments

[Jennifer]

I grew up in several different countries, so I have a bizarre combo of favourites. Japanese curry, lumpia, a good roast beef with yorkshire pud, cauliflower cheese and of course can't forget bread pudding. It is lovely to eat some childhood favourites, enjoy!

[Maureen]

Mmmm..very crispy Yorkshire pudding,corned beef hash,steamed suet pud with homemade custard. On Sunday mornings fried bread with sugar sprinkled on it or bread dipped in eggs and then fried in bacon fat. Would you believe I'm a vegetarian now.?

[Frugal Trenches]

What a lovely post! For me comfort food is:

peanut butter & jam sandwiches and chicken noodle soup!