Today is wash day for Mother. I don't do all my wash on Monday, but I do a good share of it.
The old time Mothers planned for Mondays. She started her bread on Sunday night and finished it early Monday morning. Mother made wash day soup. They could keep this soup in the oven all day and forget about it. They needed the top of the stove to heat wash water.
I read a recipe just lately in my Radio book called 6 Layer Wash Day Dinner. I am making it this morning. You take a baking pan, butter it and layer the bottom with cut up potatoes. Salt and pepper this and each additional layer. Ok, the next layer is a half cup rice ... just sprinkle it over potatoes. The next layer is green pepper but I will use green beans. The next layer is hamburger cooked with an onion. The 5th layer is cut up carrots, and then the 6th is stewed tomatoes over the top. Now, if your juice from the stewed tomatoes doesn't cover the whole casserole, then add some water so all the vegetables are covered in water. Then you bake it for 2 hrs in the oven at 350 degrees.
You could make this for a large family and use a big roaster to put this meal in. Just make sure you have enough liquid to cover the vegetables. Don't drown it but make it juicy. You could make cornbread, or whatever, with this meal if ya don't have your yeast bread goin'.
Now, this is the recipe basically. I wouldn't put my oven on 350 -- I would put it on 300. This is a meal that can wait on you and you don't have to wait on it. I would let mine bake all day on a very low oven temp or until I got ready for it. Mine today has to be ready for noon. I just got it all made just now and put it in the oven on 300. We have to go to the store this morning at 9:00, so it will be about done before I leave. So I will put it on about 200 and it will just bake slowly. I won't think much more about it, as it will be done for noon. I put tinfoil over the top of this.
We will have Baby to come for lunch and she loves vegetables. Papa doesn't work until later today.
But, see, in the summer, the old time Mothers canned many quarts of stewed tomatoes. So a lot of the old recipes call for stewed tomatoes and other canned vegetables like green beans. Long about now, as spring is coming, Mother would try to make sure that she was using the canned vegetables in her cellar, and the root vegetables like carrots and onions and potatoes. She didn't want to take her canned vegetables and fruits on into the next canning season. So this Wash Day meal is one Mother would be having at this time of the year, in March.
Another old time meal was just a quart of tomatoes with a package of macaroni and some onions. Plain, but a good way to use up the jars of stewed tomatoes. This, with homemade bread or a batch of baking powder biscuits, was what Mother would feed her brood of children for lunch while Papa was at work. To make this for your children, you could just make a package of mac and cheese and put a can of tomatoes over it. Add green beans, too, and some meat, if ya have some. But, you see, a lot of old casserole dishes put a quart of tomatoes over the top. Salt and pepper, and you are good to go.
Also, many Farm Mothers who milked cows each day added a lot of milk and homemade butter to their casseroles. So instead of adding water to the Wash Day dinner, you may want to add milk, and a pat of butter on the top. The milk will curdle if you bake it for hours in the oven, but I would like it like that. The old time Farm Mothers added a lot of milk and eggs and butter to all of their food. My Aunt and my mom, both raised on farms, have no idea of what a low fat diet is. My aunt put a whole stick of butter on a casserole for the four of us. Mom is 82 and my aunt is 86. Both of these women are as healthy as horses ...not fat.
Well, I have to run to the store with Papa. I have my wash well on its way and dinner is in the oven.
