Food Post

(It's been awhile since a post. That's mostly due to my car continuing its dumbness. And this will be quick, since I need to hit the sack.)

Thanks to my situation of having to cook food for myself, I have been tagged by Steph to post about my favorite food memories. Most are my mom's dishes. She never really cooked anything fancy, but she was the comfort food queen. Tender pot roasts, hearty stews, casseroles too good for even the church potlucks, you name it, she cooked it. And since most are simple, I can probably cook them too.

1. Mom's chicken and rice soup. About as simple as can be, this was the absolute best thing in the world in the winter, and especially at hunting camp. Nothing was better than coming back out of the snow (-15° Montana winters), shucking my outer layers, and downing the steaming delicious goodness. Mom would always make a pile of the stuff, freeze it, and send it with Dad, David, and me. The best things in life are so simple.
2. Anything Dad grills. Salmon, steak, chicken, he always knows exactly how to do it. Grilling is way fun, but think it will be a while before I can match my dad's grilling aptitude. It's all about the right combo of seasonings and cooking time/intensity. The tuna steaks I grilled up the other day weren't too bad though. I still remember when I had my 16th birthday party, and had over a bunch of my friends for steak. My dad cooked the steaks a little rare, which was fine by me. But as my friend Barney watched a puddle of still-red juices form under his steak, he asked if we were going to eat the steaks with a straw.
3. Mom's blackberry and apple pies. My mom has the best pie crust in the world. Period. I dare you to challenge its greatness. She wouldn't admit it, but her crusts truly are amazing (I have yet to eat their equal). Her fillings are great too. And probably simple enough I could reproduce them. I do believe if I can perfect the crust, I will truly be unstoppable when it comes to impressing womenfolk with my culinary expertise. As a side note, I really miss blackberries, as they are not nearly so prevalent back East.
4. Swiss steak. Depending how successful the aforementioned hunting trips were, mom would cook up venison steaks, and serve them with gravy and mashed potatoes. Again, bone simple, something I could cook, but oh so delicious. I really like venison. It makes the best chili, is low in fat and high in protein. Wonderful stuff. (Deer heart is even better, but a little weird your first couple times. We always ate that for breakfast at hunting camp, so the ladies would never find out how good it is.)
5. And in hindsight, I really like my mom's chicken and broccoli casserole, which is similar to what Steph termed chicken divan. Chicken, broccoli, toasted bread, and cream of chicken soup were the main ingredients. [Julia Child voice]It is a lovery dish... A symphony of flavors and textures, sure to warm any heart and please any tongue.[/Julia Child voice] I think as a kid, I secretly liked it, but since it had broccoli in it, out of principle I generally tried to only eat one serving.

Okay, nothing terribly exciting, but now you know what I want to eat right now. And since my readership is still in the low single digits, I can't really tag five people, except maybe Justin or Tucker.

Time for bed.

Update, 11-01: Apparently I'm supposed to credit the previous five people in this chain letter (yes, I'm a sucker for material). But since most of them are danged furriners or for some other reason picked blog names I can't pronounce, I don't feel like it. Other than the aforementioned Creature Bug.

in the player: David Crowder Band - A Collision