What's for dinner Mom?

like I shared before--my mom cooked big meals just about all of her life----now she wasn't much for entertaining---but she took really good care of my dad and her four children---

I remember some of her dishes just like it was yesterday----like her spaghetti ---the sauce was very thin and runny---it was very good---but until I was grown--I didn't know some people had thick spaghetti sauce--

often on the weekends my mother would make us donuts---using canned biscuits dropped in oil and dipped in powdered sugar

another one of her canned biscuit tricks was the fried ones---I recently fell back on that way of fixing them---when our oven was out for a couple of days----I gotta tell ya---they are fantastic that way---

another breakfast treat was her salt herring and corn cakes---that's when we were allowed to have coffee---well really a little coffee in our milk!

Mother always had a meat or main dish----a starch and at least two vegetables---and of course bread---like I said before---rarely dessert---

there was this pear thing she did----canned half of a pear---served on lettuce---filled with a combo of mayo and cream cheese and topped with a marchisio cherry-

Mom fried almost everything---pork chops ---ham slices---bologna---and of course those biscuits--

but a couple of my fondest memories of Mama and food--were not of her cooking-

she and I loved those canned tamales and would split a can sometimes--

and for some reason I go back to the time she and I stopped at McDonald's and both got a chef salad--they had just started serving them---we thought they were huge and so tasty---

we pulled through the drive-thru and sat in the parking lot eating our salads---I can still see her face as she enjoyed her salad---and saying several times----"these are really good" and they were Mama-