Before we get to our regular Ten on Tuesday business I have an announcement to make: It’s Kim’s birthday. Go show her some birthday love, mmmkay? Thanks.
Onward.
I don’t know about you but one of the things that really appeals to me when the weather starts to turn cooler is cooking a big dinner. I’m tired of marinating and grilling meat and instead I want to throw a roast in a pan and come back in a few hours to a wonderful meal. Today’s Ten on Tuesday topic comes from Patty and it goes right along with my thoughts: 10 Favorite Sunday Dinners. When I was a kid we always had Sunday dinner after church, usually around 2pm. My grandparents came and we all sat together around the dining room table and it was very Norman Rockwell, at least on the surface. Anyway, my mother was a wonderful cook and my memories of those dinners are petty vivid. Here are my favorites:
- Roast chicken with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. My mom made the best roast chicken and this was always my favorite Sunday dinner. The house smelled heavenly when we got home from church and I could have eaten this every single week.
- Fried chicken. I loved it with mashed potatoes and frozen corn. I never ever make friend chicken because I hate all that grease but it was part of my mom’s regular Sunday dinner rotation and I adored it.
- Pot roast. I loved the way the meat fell apart when my dad sliced it. Mmmm.
- Roast pork with oven roasted potatoes. The potatoes were honestly the best part of this meal because they got all brown and crispy when the pork splattered on them as it cooked.
- Cornish game hens stuffed with wild rice. These were a special treat when I was growing up and I loved that I got my own little bird.
- Leg of lamb. My mom made it with lots of garlic and she always served rice pilaf and string beans along with it. We didn’t have it often, I think lamb was pricey for us, but when we did it was wonderful.
- Baked ham. This was usually served with scalloped potatoes and I loved them even more than the ham.
- Roast turkey. We only had this one if we were having extra people come for dinner or if turkey was on sale.
- Rib roast. I hated roast beef but I loved standing rib roast. Go figure, right?
- Lasagna. I have to admit that we never actually had this for Sunday dinner but I suggested it regularly. My mom refused to make it on a Sunday, though, because she said it was ethnic food and you didn’t eat ethnic food for Sunday dinner. I think she sniffed with disdain every time she said that. She was an old-fashioned one, that mom of mine!
And now I’m hungry and yearning for the comfort of one of my mom’s Sunday dinners. How about you?
I am amused by the rules – no ethnic food for Sunday dinner! I am intrigued by the chicken(s). And my fave, POTATOES! We never had a Sunday dinner tradition (or a Friday night one, for that matter).
Mmmm. Comfort Foods, all! My “Cook’s Clock” always seems to sense the changing seasons before the temperatures plunge. I, too, am thinking of squash and roasts and soup these days.
My mom has a sweet tooth. After church we went to either Foster’s Freeze for a vanilla soft-serve dipped in chocolate or to the diner at Thrifty’s for a small hot fudge sundae. My mom still wants to hit the ice cream parlor when she comes to visit. She also slipped a hostess treat in our lunches every day. We tease her now, knowing that we scored because she wanted one in her lunch too! Dinners just weren’t her thing.
My mother cooked a lot. The food on Sundays was the same as every other day, but we’re talking wonderful desserts. The best applesauce cake, oatmeal cookies, pies, Somehow I came to believe that Sunday dinner was and is an important occasion for the whole family to be together at the table.
Your mother’s dinners sound much like my mom’s. My mother-in-law made the best roast chicken I ever had. Our Sunday tradition was much like yours. It is time to change up the menu and add some oven dinners and stove top soups to the mix. Fall is in the air!
Oh to have another of my Mom’s Sunday dinners. Ham should have been on my list too. So many delicious ideas!
My Mom’s standbys were roast beef (I loved picking at the salted & seasoned crispy fat on the top), pot roast (my Mom cooked it in those bags w/ french cut green beans), and baked macaroni & cheese. I think I miss my Mom’s mac ‘n cheese the most … she’d use all different kinds of whatever cheese was in our refrigerator – and sometimes she’d ask for the ‘cheese ends’ at the deli because there would invariably be a wonderful selection of different cheeses. The cheese was often gooey, sometimes crispy (my favorite part, right around the edges of the casserole dish), and always delicious. I still remember my first taste of boxed mac ‘n cheese (at about 13 or 14 at a friend’s house) and how gross I thought it was!
yum. I’m inspired. think I’ll have a pork roast this weekend. Can hardly wait till its cool enough to use the wood stove . I pretty much cook on that all winter long
It is quite clear that you are a potato lover! We grew some in the garden this year for the first time, and they are so delicious with their dainty thin skins.
Baked Ziti
Grandma’s oven-fried chicken or oven pork roast — both with mashed potatoes.
Wow. Most of those sound great. For us it was Friday night and usually the same thing every week – salad, chicken, baked potatoes, broccoli or another veggie. What made it special was the lighting of the candles, the wine, and the fresh baked challah.
No extended family nearby and no ‘after church’ as a kid. Sunday was the day Mom got caught up or ahead for the week since she was a busy teacher. That said, I pulled out a lasagna recipe yesterday that I’ve been wanting to try. It is definitely cool weather food.
When we were first married, my in-laws had Sunday dinner every Sunday evening. My husbands two brothers came also, and that was the Sunday tradition. My mother-in-law was a wonderful cook and loved to try new things. During the holidays, Jack and I would go to dinner and then drive home looking at Christmas lights, sometimes (okay always) making long detours to find the best ones. Wonderful memories. Anyway, just a couple of weeks ago my husband and I told our two sons )the older one getting married in two and a half weeks and the younger having just moved into a house with his girlfriend) that starting in November (honeymoon and then we will be away in October) that we will be starting that tradition at our house. They are both very happy about it. Hopefully I won’t pull the same stunt my in-laws did, which was to move out of state just as everyone started having kids!
I got such a good laugh from no ethnic food on Sunday. If we were at Gramma’s house Sunday dinner was almost always fried chicken which Gramma had butchered the day before. humm. That didn’t sound quite right. She actually butchered the chicken on Saturday and cooked it on Sunday! I noticed that, like you, the potatoes were often my favorite part of a meal. Maybe that’s why I look like one now!
No ethnic food! That’s funny!
Great topic this week. I made lasagna for Sunday Dinner this week. It was delicious and it’ll be even better leftover tonight
When I was growing up, lasagna was “company” food!
Hawaiian Pizza—my mom doesn’t like to cook and isn’t very good at it, so we have take & bake pizza on Sundays, Our fave is Canadian Bacon and Pineapple.
Yummy! One of my favorite things is scalloped potatoes made with the ham right in it… leftover from whatever the occasion for ham. 😉
I had to laugh about your mom and the ethnic food! It all depends on one’s ethnicity, doesn’t it? For my Italian family, lasagna wouldn’t have been ethnic.
ok – I’m surprised there wasn’t anything about the Patriots… but dinner at your house looks delicious!
Have you eaten farm-raised/organic/free-range chicken? It tastes like chicken did when you were a kid.