My Mom, Kate was not a good cook.
Not that Kate was a bad cook, but her scope of meal
preparation was limited.
And I can say this now, because she’s dead.
There were certain dishes she could whip up with mighty
skill, all Italian in nature, which meant my siblings and I ate mucho pasta.
An occasional steak or burger was thrown on the grill for
good measure. Some Sundays she’d
make what she called her, Yankee Pot Roast, a roast thrown into a crockpot with some beef boullion, potatoes and carrots.
It was Yankee-fied because Kate was a born Maine-iac. But, Kate had learned how to make tomato sauce from a real Italian woman who’s daughter was a friend of mine.
However, Kate's sauce never contained any red wine, and
rarely chopped meat. Kate didn’t like alcohol. Occasionally, she would grab a Pina Colada flavor wine cooler and sip it on a warm night.
Those big pots of tomato sauce transferred into: baked ziti,
lasagna, eggplant parmigiana, chicken parmagiana, stuffed shells or manicotti
(Mrs. Leone also taught her how to make her own manicotti shells.) Even her
meatloaf, contained a helping of that sauce. My first flavor
profiles included vast amounts of oregano, garlic, parsley and basil. And she did make some killer manicotti.
One rule existed in Kate’s kitchen.
NO onions.
Once she had taste tested a recipe and received a good
response, she would make that dish every week, for a month. I can no longer eat Honey Mustard
Chicken for this reason. Two words for my brother Erik. Moroccan Chicken.
Sometimes, Kate and Betty Crocker would bake some
brownies. She was not a baker and
she knew it. Every Thanksgiving though she would cook down a pie pumpkin, make the filling and throw it into a
ready-made Pillsbury piecrust, she would do the same for her Apple Pie(Steve’s
favorite) except she’d cut up apples, season them and throw them into a
ready-made Pillsbury piecrust and cover it with another ready-made Pillsbury
piecrust.
Christmas she’d make her favorite peanut butter cookies, but
she said that she just didn’t like to make cookies. Instead she would whip up some Julekake, (Norwegian
Christmas bread). OR one of my favorites, she'd make some real whipped cream and throw in a can of Fruit Cocktail...yummy.
My father, Steve used to rave about my Kate’s skills, but this
from a man who displayed his culinary acumen for me only one time…he fried up
some Steak-ums and threw them on a roll with Kraft American cheese. Yeah, the one in the plastic. He liked to make cheese sandwiches. A few slices of cheese between some white bread.
Steve traveled a bunch on business while I was growing up,
and oh boy when he was gone then the really fun food would get made.
Her culinary style was what I call Mom food, quick filling and probably cheap.
Fish Fingers,(with their friend Tater Tot) Kraft Mac N
Cheese, Turkey Tetrazzini and one of our favorites something she
called, “Tuna Noona Casserole”
most people know it as Tuna Noodle Casserole. She would only make that when Steve was away. He hated the smell of canned tuna, and
he even convinced me for many years that it was cat food and I refused
to eat it.
What made Kate’s Tuna Casserole, different than all others
were two things:
First, she used Cream of Chicken
soup, not Cream of Mushroom.
Second, she never added the peas.(I kinda like the peas though.)
I’m just surprised she didn’t throw in some tomato sauce,
although it probably crossed her mind.
Today as I was going through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, trying to figure out if I will ever be able to properly make a nice Hollandaise, I was smitten with hankering for Kate's Tuna Noona Casserole. Well, I know that these are the types of dishes that Europeans mock us for, but I don't care.
It was just as deliciously disgusting as ever. I don't even want to know what the nutritional content of this is, but at least it's got tuna and peas. It reminded me of nights at the kitchen table in West Orange, windows open to the sounds of the neighborhood, waiting to watch Little House on the Prairie with Kate, wearing one of my Papa's clean white t-shirts as a nightgown, sleeping in my Mom's bed while my Papa was away the sheets cool under my toes and my cat Teddy curled up at my feet.
Nostalgia. Campbell's induced nostalgia.
Kate’s Tuna Noona Casserole
1 can Campbells Cream of Chicken Soup
`1 bag Manischevitz Egg Noodles
2 cans of white tuna in water
½ cup of milk
pepper
Saltines
Preheat oven to 375 F
Cook the noodles.
Drain tuna and add to large casserole dish.
Add can of soup and milk.
Stir.
Add the noodles and stir into mixture.
Season with pepper.
Crunch up the saltines and sprinkle on top.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until it looks ready.
I add ½ a can of peas to my recipe and use breadcrumbs.
VOILA!!! You
have now Mastered the Art of Mom Cooking. Bon Appetite!!
