All day yesterday, I was thinking of all the meals I used to make for Jim and my children. I was thinking of some of you trying to feed big families. So here is my beef roast recipe. It was a hoot!
For our big family, I would take a pound of frozen hamburger and put it in the middle of my roaster. Bake it a bit and then drain it. My roaster is a speckled blue and white pan, oblong with a lid. Anyway, after putting the frozen hamburger in there, I would then peel potatoes, cut them in chunks, and set them around the meat. Then carrots and an onion ... cabbage, if I had it. Then I would put a gravy mix or mushroom soup over this. Then I would pepper it good with black pepper and some salt. I would bake this with a lid in a slow oven. I would put a little water in the bottom of the pan. It would smell so good, the family thought it was a nice roast. When it was all done, I would slice the hamburger in neat slices, put them on each plate as if it was expensive meat, and then I put the veggies around the meat. Heck, the kids didn't know the difference and thought we were having a wonderful meal. Jim liked it, too.
Then another idea was Salisbury steaks. Ya just take a large 9 by 13 pan and flatten hamburger in it. Cook it a bit in the oven and then drain it. Salt and pepper it good and lay onions in rings on the top. Then cut it in squares, because it will have shrunk from the sides. Then put a can of mushroom soup over it, maybe mixed with beef gravy mix. Add water to make it the consistency of gravy. Add, like, about a can of water to the soup and gravy mix, mix it up good, and pour it on the half cooked hamburger. Then put it back in the oven to bake. I would fix this with mashed potatoes and a veggie. Jim and I would sit at the table and say, "Wow, this steak is tender -- must be a good cut." The kids thought we were having an expensive meat dish.
Then I would make Swiss steak. I would make this in a big skillet. Just make hamburgers in patties and fry them, put on salt and pepper. Fry them half way or enough so you can drain the fat off. Then I would put on a can of tomato soup, diluted with about a half can of water ... ya want it thick. Then I would cut up carrots and some onion chunks to put around the meat patties. I usually made the potatoes separate. But sometimes, I would add them with the carrots and onions. The family loved this dish and I still fix it for Jim.
And, ya know, you can do a lot with just taking the baking pan and pressing hamburger in the bottom. Just cook it a bit so you can drain it. Then you take some cream of something soup and mix it with green beans or whatever, maybe peas ... add a half can of water and mix it up. Put this as the second layer on the meat. Then, on the top, lay tater tots and bake it all up like this. If you are using a 9 by 13 pan, you would want to use 2 pounds of hamburger and 2 cans of soup.
Another idea is to bake the hamburger and drain it, and then put chopped up cabbage mixed with onions, green peppers and maybe some tomatoes on the top. Salt and pepper it good. And over the top, just pour a can of diluted tomato soup ... well, in a big pan, use 2 cans of tomato soup. Then just cover with tin foil and bake this in a slow oven (about 250°) for about 3 hours. I mean, you could bake it all in about 1 hour at 350 degrees. But I liked these oven meals to bake a long time, as I thought it mingled the flavors good.
In the middle of the winter, I would take my biggest turkey roaster -- almost couldn't get it in the oven -- it was a big one. Anyway, I would take this pan and heap it with vegetables. Mainly potatoes and carrots, and usually cabbage. Then I would fry up hamburger in a pan, mix it with a few cans of tomato soup, and make a vegetable soup. I would add water to cover the vegetables and meat. Then I would add a lot of herbs. Baked this on low all night. Kept the house smellin' good and warm. Ok, with the big roaster of vegetable soup, I would take it out after it was mostly done, drop homemade baking powder biscuits on the top, and then put it back in the oven and let the biscuits brown on the top. Or I would make homemade noodles to put in the soup. And sometimes I would make homemade noodles and then make biscuits, too, separately. This was such a good meal, and I long for it even now. I was just telling Jim that I would love to have this meal again for the now grown kids this winter "Just for old time sake." I often made this meal in the saddest of times. We would be so without groceries and would eat this soup for several days "Mama cooks it all night," the kids would tell the neighbor children. And then, of course, they wanted to try it. One little boy would say, "I wish my mama would home school me and cook like this."
But little did the children know that many of these old time meals came out of a night in prayer. "Lord, you gave me these children and now what will I feed them?" Yes, we had little, but the Lord spoke to me of duty and dignity and not runnin' out on my job. The store bought soups, I know, weren't all that good for any of us, I don't suppose. You know with all the dye in the soup? But we had so little meat, and the canned soup would give the meals the taste of meat and made the casseroles, etc. look pretty. And, of course, I diluted so much of the store soup that we barely got any of the chemicals, anyway.
I mainly ministered to the family's soul. I made my home a place of rest and joy. A place where guests were welcome to sit at my table. Well, because the Lord always gives us more than we can think or ask. The next day, as I fed my family and maybe we had a guest for supper, I would smile, knowing that Jesus had given me exceeding and abundantly more than I could think or ask. I had enough for my family and to give away.
Some of the poor mothers about me stood with idle hands, wringing them and worrying over what they would feed their children. They would scream at their children, "Don't eat this -- we have so little groceries" or "Don't ask for seconds." They scared their children and made them cry. I hated seeing this. I hated seeing children trying to sneak food out of a stingy Mother's kitchen. I vowed I would never have a home like that. I learned to make crackers and many cookies out of simple things, like flour and sugar and shortening. I can safely say I made a million sugar cookies in my day. And often, I would make bread sticks, and the children loved them and snacked often on them.
I expected to suffer and to work hard for what I believed. I expected to take on suffering as a good soldier in my home for Christ. Often, I would be up in the night, praying and asking the Lord what to do to feed our children. And yet, as the morning dawned, I would awaken to the Lord's provisions. I needed courage and stout heartedness, wit and wisdom to make it. I usually had a little money for groceries but not near enough. But each morning after a night with Jesus, I would wake up with new ideas birthed in the night through the Holy Spirit.
We were the working poor ... like so many of you today.
Ya know, almost every day, I made bread. Either I made cornbread or biscuits or muffins. And usually, we had pancakes for breakfast. Often, I made my own syrup, as I ran out so often. And I made a lot of my own mayonnaise in the summer, as I needed so much of it. I would often mix it with store bought. But I didn't think about the work of it all. I just wanted to make a home, ya know?
The Lord would tell me to make a home that was full of provisions. I was always collecting food containers to put food in, but had so little that I never even used them. But I walked by faith and not sight. I was in the college of womanhood, and God was directing my steps and making me mete for His use. I learned to care for my family in the furnace of affliction.
HAPPY FAMILIES
And, ya know, I used to tell folks "Heck, I could go out and work like you all do. I am able bodied. But I feel I am needed at home a lot more." The extra money I would have brought in would have kept us poor, as I wouldn't have had time to pray and cook as I had. So many of the stay at home mothers I have seen in the churches don't work at home and are not honorable women. We should work, too ... not just sit around and watch TV.
And, ya know, my Jim always worked after he got saved. He worked at whatever he could. And the lord told me, early on, that I was just to be thankful for whatever he gave me. To not say a word about needing more grocery money. Jim had bills to pay and was faithful to pay them. It was my job to make a home and to make what I needed. Be it soap or whatever. And still, when Jim gives me money, I stop and make it a point to say, "Oh, thanks, Honey, I appreciate this money." Often I will be right in the middle of something like kneading bread. And wild man will give me a roll of bills out of his tips. And the Lord will tell me, "Now, Connie, stop and go wash your hands and receive with praise and thanksgiving what Jim has given you." Well, we aren't poor anymore and Jim has paid off the house. But, still, it is just good manners to appreciate what your husband gives ya.
I am especially thankful now, as I have proven myself as a wife and keeper at home. Papa trusts me and, even now, doesn't expect me to work outside the home. He values my place here still. Often, a woman has to earn that trust of a man to earn her right to stay home. A lot of women are not honest about their work at home, and they waste money and their time going to hen parties they call Bible Studies.
Taking care of Baby Rose is a lot of work. And still, I try to cook and bake from scratch and keep things going. I still have a place here, and some days I run a lot faster then I did when I was young. Like yesterday when Mary, a new wife and mother at age 20, called and was talkin' to me about Baby Chloe Faye, who is 2 weeks old. (Mary is our youngest daughter.) Lil Rose noticed Gram was busy on the phone and she got into everything she could. Grandpa tried to distract her and play with her so I could be on the phone with Mary. But little Rose cried and cried and wanted Gram and no one else. Jim tells me, "I couldn't do anything with her." I finally had to ask Mary to call me back. Lil Rose picks up on what I say and often will say, at 22 months old, "Oh Mercy!" She says it in baby talk and it is so cute. But yesterday was an "Oh Mercy" day.
We are potty training her ... me and Tiff, her mother. Rose loves to flush the toilet and use the toilet paper and wash her hands. But often without pottying. What a riot! Oh Mercy!
Well, better go for now ... duty calls.