This Blog by Cher’ley Grogg
Food is an important part of our lives and we all have favorite recipes we have been raised with. There were 5 kids and two adults in our family and often we children would bring in visitors and Mom would always say, “Stay to eat. We’ll throw another potato in the pot.” Some of my favorite foods were the soups that Mom made. She had many different kinds of soups, and one of my favorites was hamburger soup.
INGREDIENTS
1 finely chopped onion
1 pound lean ground beef
4 celery stalks, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
2 cups potatoes, cleaned, peeled, chopped
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes (we always had home-canned)
1 6-oz can tomato paste (to thicken quicker)
Pepper and salt to taste
DIRECTIONS
Brown hamburger and drain. Transfer to a pot, add chopped carrots, celery and potatoes. Continue cooking over medium heat for about 5 -8 minutes. Add diced tomatoes and tomato paste (do not drain the diced tomatoes). Blend. Simmer for about 30 minutes or until potatoes and carrots are cooked. Bigger families, “Just throw another potato in the pot.”
My mom could create something that tasted good from practically nothing. When my children were younger, I too picked up some cheap and far-reaching dishes. When times were tight, the cook would always find ways to stretch the budget just a bit. I discovered many things that made good gravy, even a bit of flour and bacon grease tasted good over biscuits fresh from the oven. But, I find that I miss my mom’s simple recipes and since my children and grandchildreI remember n aren’t around much for meals, I’m still trying to learn to not cook for an army, but most of the older recipes tend to taste better when “super-sized”.
Aunt Linda is the main cook in “Stamp Out Murder”, people visiting McKeel’s Bed and Breakfast want good old-fashioned, West Virginia style food and Linda doesn’t disappoint them. In fact, many of the return guests do so because of her wonderful, mouth-watering recipes.
***Do you miss your Mom’s or Grandma’s cooking? What was your favorite dish? Do you have a favorite dish that you fix?***
Cher’ley’s Books are listed below and on sale at Amazon and local bookstores. Her newest book is an Advanced Coloring Book and she has one that is freshly published with 11 other authors.
Stamp Out Murder”.
“The Secret in Grandma’s Trunk” This is an especially good book for your Tween Children and Grandchildren
The Journey Back-One Joy at a Time and the B&W Edition of The Journey Back
Boys Will Be Boys 
The Joys and Terrors of Raising Boys-An Anthology
Cowboys, Creatures, and Calico
link coming soon
Wonders of Water 
Advanced Coloring Book
Writing Wranglers and Warriors 
I do miss my Mom’s cooking. Especially her canned beef with gravy made from the juice over mashed potatoes, and her home-made sugar cured ham with gravy and mashed potatoes too. Can’t get those kind of foods anymore. I also have trouble not cooking for an army and while my hubby is good about eating left-overs, we sometimes get tired of them or I can’t find any more ways to change them into something new! However, I have created “cream of left over soup” a few times. The blender, cream, butter and broth do wonders. Thanks for the recipe.
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Thanks Neva, no one cooks like Mom. Your left over cream soup sounds interesting. Cher’ley
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Until the day she became too ill to cook, my mother made soup. I think it was part of the depression era children who made do with what was available. They became masters of creativity in the kitchen.
Great post, and I remember my family making a similar soup. Doris
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Thanks Doris. I think you are right, the hoarding (not throwing things away came from the same era). That may be my blog for next week. LOL Cher’ley
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Oh yes I remember my mother’s calico beans, meatloaf, and steak San Marco. I never took an interest in cooking while she was alive so never tried to get her recipes before she passed.
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I understand Annie, so many things I could have learned from my Mom, but I didn’t. Thanks for reading. Cher’ley
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I understand Abbie, so many things I could have learned from my Mom, but I didn’t. Thanks for reading. Cher’ley
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I really don’t have a favorite soup. I like all types or kinds. Mom heated up Campbell’s soups, so I never really got a chance to eat a soup made from scratch. I do love chicken pot pie, not a soup actually. I always thought Cracker Barrel had good chicken pot pie.
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My mother doesn’t like to cook, but she is good at it! I always enjoy visiting her and dad in Montana because we share the cooking; I’ll take a night and she takes a night. She is great with pork, probably because that’s my dad’s favorite meat and she’s learned to cook it well because she cooks it often. I’m not much of a cook and I don’t care for cooking. Thankfully, I married a man who does! Thanks for the post and recipes, Cher’ley!
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My grandpa made bean soup and now I do. I love calico bean soup. Mummy.
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I miss Mom more than her cooking. Now my step grandmother was a cook. She made the best homemade donuts, and would spend an entire day in the kitchen to make a meal for the family. She introduced me to homemade perogies, and several other dishes I miss.
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I loved my mum’s soups but we never had hamburger soup! I must try that. I make good soups but not quite as tasty as my mum’s chicken broth. I also have a problem with being unable to make small quantities and end up with a freezer full off soup.
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My mom would say, “I’m not a good cook,” or, “Oh, I can’t cook.” When I challenged that, she said she made just plain things, nothing complicated or fancy. But she was a wonderful cook; she loved to bake and turned out the most beautiful pies and cakes. Although my father politely ate whatever she put on the table, even liver for Saturday lunch, she made mostly food he’d grown up on and liked–fried chicken or steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, and garden-raised vegetables when they were available, canned or frozen when they weren’t. One night, however, she came home with a new recipe for tuna casserole and said we were going to have it no matter who didn’t like it (both my father and I). It had asparagus in it and came out looking pasty and horrible, and it was, and mother quickly whipped up peanut butter sandwiches. Our collie turned up her nose at the casserole, too, but my great-uncle’s dog, who lived next door, gobbled it up. He left the asparagus, though. I’m stilled wondering how a big dog could eat all that pasta so fast and leave the little green things. I didn’t blame him–I’d have left them, too.
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