The first time you made your grandmother's "famous" recipe...

Tell me about it.
Tonight, I am for the first time making my grandmother's famous cornbread dressing. I think it's going to turn out really well, but I'm worried. So, to commiserate, please tell me about the first time you made the recipe and please tell me how wonderful it turned out. Please?
Duckie

I can't remember the first time, but it's always turned out well.

for me but i followed it to the letter, it took hours but it came really good.

I looked up a dozen recipes online and got a lot of good ideas but the rue I made didn't brown enough and the cornstarch I added never fully cooked so it came out more grayish than brown. Everybody said it turned out great but a true cook knows when he fucks up.

You probably didn't do it right. x(

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Things have come to a pretty pass,
Our romance is growing flat,
For you like this and the other
While I go for this and that.

Goodness knows what the end will be;
Oh, I don't know where I'm at...
It looks as if we two will never be one,
Something must be done.

You say either and I say eyether,
You say neither and I say nyther;
Either, eyether, neether, nyther,
Let's call the whole thing off!

You like potato and I like potaeto,
You like tomato and I like tomaeto;
Potato, potaeto, tomato, tomaeto!
Let's call the whole thing off!

But oh! If we call the whole thing off,
Then we must part.
And oh! If we ever part,
Then that might break my heart!

So, if you like pajamas and I like pajahmas,
I'll wear pajamas and give up pajahmas.
For we know we need each other,
So we better call the calling off off.
Let's call the whole thing off!

You say laughter and I say lawfter,
You say after and I say awfter;
Laughter, lawfter, after, awfter,
Let's call the whole thing off!

You like vanilla and I like vanella,
You, say parilla and I say parella;
Vanilla, vanella, Chocolate, strawberry!

So, if you go for oysters and I go for orsters
I'll order oysters and cancel the orsters.
For we know we need each other,
So we better call the calling off off!

-George and Ira Gershwin (sung by Fred Astaire)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCW8jsykkFY

;)

Is why "gravy master" was invented!

But they were a lot of fun and always served ice cream!

Nana used to pour flour and water into a frying pan full of bacon grease and call it "scorched flour gravy". This was served over cornbread. It was a 6 glass of water meal and you'd still feel like you ate the Sahara. She was also under the false impression that Bosco (cocoa syrup) was a source of nutrition. Candied fruit and ketchup were servings of their respective food groups. Everything tasted better with a heavy blanket of pancake syrup. She loved to serve organ meats. And when I got gout from eating her food...she insisted that cherry-flavored children's pain-reliever (I don't remember the brand name but there was a cartoon panda on the label) would fix that right up. Needless to say, I've never tried to make anything that crazy women tried to feed me.

Grandma on the other hand could cook, provided that you had no concern for your life expectancy or cholesterol. Everything was fried in butter or lard. She owned one pan...a cast-iron skillet. The staple meat of her diet was mutton. We had grape leaves stuffed with ground mutton and rice, cabbage leaves stuffed with mutton...Perogies fried in sheep fat. Macaroni and cheese. Mashed potatoes with so much butter they looked jaundiced. Kielbasa in 2 foot lengths. Lemon chicken...the marinade doubled as salad dressing.

The only recipe I inherited was that dressing and the first time I made it, it tasted like Lysol smells. Lemony bleach. You've got to use really fresh lemon juice.

Just about every Spanish speaking nation has their own way of curdling milk, adding sugar, and cooking the hell out of it but I never got my grandmother's recipe right. It goes something like this:

You take gallon of milk and add lemon juice. The acidity curdles the milk. Then you leave it out for a day to let it "rot". Then you pour it into a saucepan and start boiling the hell out of it while adding a diabetic coma's worth of sugar. Keep stirring and you get a brownish, grainy, milky sweet delight.

The problem is my grandmother never used measurements, she just eyeballed everything and I just never learned that talent.

Get a can of sweetened condensed milk, place in a large pot with lots of water and and boil the hell out of it. I can't tell you how long to boil but the sugar in the milk caramelizes turning it into a medium to dark brown paste which you can spread on toast, ice cream, or whatever.

Just watch out that you don't boil away all of the water or the can will explode from pressure. Trust me, it's a major clean up job.

In Peru they have a similar "Dulce de leche" but they call it manjar there. I don't know how to make it yet but I'll be visiting my paternal family in Peru soon and I'm going to write down every recipe my grandmother can give me. I'll post a few when I get back.

It didn't set; it was all runny, and the tin foil I had put over it made it all discolored and it looked REALLY yucky!
It tasted OK but I couldn't serve it...it just ran all over the place. I've tried it a few times since, and it's better, but I still can't get it to come out the way she did. I don't know what the hell I'm doing wrong.

I bake my own cheesecakes and they turn out well. One of my best recipes, actually.

2 lbs of cream cheese (room temperature}
1 1/2 cups of sugar
grated rind and juice from a lemon
5 eggs
1/4 cup of cornstarch
2 tbs of vanilla extract.

Mix it all together, pour into springform pan, and bake at 300 degrees for about an hour. Then let it set for a few hours and you should have cheesecake you're proud of.

:hi:

Popcorn and turkey just don't mix.

It was such a success that I've mentioned it here several times. They turned out JUST like Gramma's. Seriously. :) Good luck!

My grandmother's Irish bread recipe is supposed to result in a slightly sweet, cake-like goody with just a hint of spice.

Apparently I did something wrong with the caraway seeds.

You could have made a reuben on the stuff.

I did not believe it would take that amount of salt.

When it was baked, it was DELICIOUS, except I had to keep the salt shaker handy when eating it. :P

This is not through lack of trying.

It's ravioli.

Now check this shit out: Four of my relatives urged Grandma to give them her ravioli recipe. I have all four recipes. They are ALL different--drastically different. One of them contains half a chicken and two eggs. Another contains three kinds of meat and fifteen eggs. One doesn't have any tomato sauce, and we all know that's wrong since there are two food groups in Italy--tomato sauce, and food you can put it on. Shall I go on? And Grandma's dead, so we can't go back to her to find out which one's right.

Oh yeah...there's an old AA parable about not following the whole program. Apparently someone made his grandma's cake recipe, used only the ingredients he liked and got a bad cake. They never read my grandma's ravioli recipe. We have found that by leaving the lettuce out of the recipe (that part's in all of them, and we don't know why) you make much better ravioli.

last year I broke down because I could not find the creamed onion recipe.
passed down from generations

THANK GOODNESS my friend had it...

I was on the floor crying

:hi:

lost

It was good but a huge pain in the ass to make. It's very time-consuming and the dough is really sticky. The store-bought stuff isn't nearly as good, though.

My grandmother couldn't cook. Her recipes were along the line of fried Spam sandwiches and store bought pound cake with margarine spread on it. Washed down with Tab.

So did the second, third , and fourth times. I gave up after that.

I actually improved it a little over the years, make them often in fall and winter now. Made one yesterday, only 1 piece left.
Didn't have a recipe - made it from memory of watching her make them.

mark

it's very easy to master.

I couldn't figure out why the heck *mine* didn't turn out as good as hers. Hers is always melt-in-your-mouth delicious, firm enough to be scooped with a spatula, but light enough that it almost tastes like a mousse. Mine turned out mushy and waaaay too sweet.

I figured out later that I was supposed to have added eggs to the sweet potato filling, and about a cup less sugar than I actually used. Still, I wasn't following a recipe--just figuring it out on my own. I got it eventually. :hi: