There is nothing better than hearing someone tell you how delicious something was that you had taken the time to make with your own two hands from scratch. To me....cooking is also love. I am trying to get back to my Irish roots. I have Irish on both sides of my Mother's Family and both sides of my Dad's. Sadly my Grand Mother's and Great Grand Mother's have passed and didn't pass down family recipes to me. My Mother wasn't and still isn't much of a cook. Sorry Mom. She thinks "Home Made" is opening a box, a bag, a jar or a can and toss it in to a pot all by herself, it's not. My Mother's Sister Patty and I are so much alike. My Aunt Patty has a love for cooking, canning and baking. She always had a garden and when I was a kid I would spend summers with her and my Uncle Dave weeding and picking what was in the garden. From there, my Aunt Patty would be canning, pickling and freezing for days and I would help her. I am sure due to my age back then, I was more of an "under-the-foot" niece than a real help. Never did she once complain and we would laugh and have such a good time. Some times my Gramma Donovan would join in and this made it even better with the three of us together. Those are my fondest childhood memories.
Another fond memory was of my Uncle George, my Mother's only brother who has since passed away. God love him, he was funny and always enjoyed giving my mother a wind-up at the holidays. When it was my Mother's turn to cook, she would tell everyone how she cooked "Home Made,"(there's that word again) pies and worked hard all day to put a meal on the table. My Uncle George of course knew she didn't do scratch cooking and would say..."Instant Potatoes in a box isn't home made, stuffing in a box, isn't home made, rolls out of a can are not home made, gravy in a jar, isn't home made, etc.,.." And then he would add the icing on to the cake so to speak and tell her she wasn't Irish because she didn't know how to cook. Her face would get beet red and she acted like a little Chihuahua on steroids barking at him when she'd go off. She would insist everything that she cooked was home made and why. So then my Aunt Patty chimed in and explained why it wasn't. Uncle George would calm her down and ask if she would be better suited being Polish or whatever other nationality he would come up with. Mom would laugh and calm down. This was a normal holiday occurrence in my family, seeing who could wind my Mother up and for how long. Usually it was my Dad and Uncle instigating it. It has to be an Irish thing, along with our sarcasm and our smart a** quick wit.
Growing up my Dad and us kids would put Ketchup on everything my Mother made, it gave it some much needed flavor. For the longest time even after I had moved out on my own, I just automatically put Ketchup on most everything I ate, old habits die hard. When I got married and had children of my own, I desperately wanted to learn how to cook. I was like a sponge, absorbing every cookbook, cooking magazine and cooking television show that I could find. I was always on the phone with either my Gramma Donovan, Aunt Patty, Aunt Karen (Uncle George's wife), Mother-In-Law Karen, or my husband's Gramma, Gramma Hart for advice and help. I was bound and determined not to cook like my Mother. I learned how to make things really "Home Made" and from scratch. Not all of my attempts were successes, believe you me. Some were absolute doozies. Like my first time hosting Thanksgiving at my house. I had called my Aunt Patty and asked her for her recipe for Pumpkin Pie. She happily gave it to me and said she was looking forward to coming to my house and trying my cooking along with my first attempt at Pumpkin Pies. I was so proud of myself. I went to the farm and picked my own pumpkins with my first child who was around 3-yrs old at the time. Nicole picked out some really nice pumpkins with me, hubby stayed home because, I wanted this to be Mommy and Nicole time. We got the pumpkins home, cleaned them, seeded and cut them up and then prepared them for baking. I wanted to include Nicole in this because my Mother never took the time to teach me, my Sister or Brother how to do much of anything in the kitchen. Nicole thought she was something else helping her Mommy in the kitchen. The pumpkins now go in the oven for roasting, I followed the directions to the "T." I was smiling ear-to-ear, this isn't so hard after all I thought to myself. I pulled the pumpkins out of the oven and processed them according to my Aunt's directions. I added all the spices, etc.,. I even made scratch pie crust, I was going to do this right and prove myself as a good cook in the Donovan family.
Thanksgiving comes and everyone arrives, I was so nervous. Now mind you it's only immediate family, about 18 of us were there. My Gramma Donovan said the house smelled lovely, to me that was like winning the lottery hearing that from the matriarch of the family and one that knew what she was doing in the kitchen. I got the same comment from Aunt Patty. Everyone was full of compliments, yay! I'm golden now. We all sat down to dinner and it was uneventful. I pulled it off, me... yes me, I did it!! Nobody died from food poisoning and everyone enjoyed the meal. After cleaning up from dinner, out comes the pies, coffee, etc.,. I served everyone my pie with fresh whipped cream that I had also done myself. I sat patiently anticipating everyone's reaction, I was looking at all of my family.... Aunts, Uncles, Cousins,Gramma, Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother, Daughter and Hubby. Dad asked for more whipped cream which was odd because he still had quite a bit of pie left, so I happily gave him more. Everyone was extremely quiet while eating and after every bite, they had rinsed it down with either milk, tea or coffee. Again, Dad asked for more Whipped Cream. I couldn't contain my excitement, I had to ask them all how it was? Dad was the first to pipe up, he said it was very good, but he was talking funny. You could almost see his lips puckering up when he spoke. I then said...."Tell me.... what's the matter with it, it's not good is it?" Not a soul replied back to me, so I took a bite myself. Now I know why Dad's lips puckered up and he kept asking for more whipped cream, there was so much salt that it literally removed any moisture from your mouth. Your lips literally dried and cracked from all of the salt. Okay.. that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it was close. I got upset and said "I don't know what I had done wrong?" Aunt Patty asked me to get the recipe for her and she would find the error. I gave it to her and she said "here's the problem, you wrote down 1-cup of salt, it should have been 1-tsp." I have no idea how that happened and being new to all of this, I never questioned what I had written down. Everyone made light of it and tried to make me feel better. My poor Dad ate every bite just to make his daughter feel better. God love him for doing that for me. I didn't even eat my own piece it was that bad. Hahahaa. Every now and then when everyone comes here for a holiday, my "Salt Pie" will be mentioned and we laugh and laugh.
So as you just read, cooking comes from experience as well as mistakes. Mistakes happen to even the most qualified of Chefs and they will tell you so. It's human to make a mistake, but it's being humble to know how to laugh at them and not get too upset. And some of the worst mistakes that you make turn out to be some of the best memories as well. I will be posting recipes here, maybe a couple a day as time allows. In that, I am off for now. Have a good day and thank you for stopping by.
*Feel free to use my recipes for your own personal use, please don't claim them as your own or put them on your web-page, blog, etc.,.. No part of this blog shall be copied or reproduced electronically or otherwise without the owner's written consent.*
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