Dear Sisters of the Kitchen,
Ya know, when I was a young mom with six children, I didn't have that much food to cook with. Yet I always made sure that I had plenty of potatoes. I made a lot of potato soup and lots of mashed potatoes. If I ran out of cereal for breakfast, I would just make up a pan of fried potatoes in my big cast iron skillet.
One thing I tried to cook on my stove about once a week was a big canner of potatoes. I would put the canner on the stove and just add about 5 pounds of potatoes and water to the top to cover them. I just put them in whole and would boil them while I was in the kitchen doing dishes. Then after they are done and cool you can use them for quick meals. Just peel and use for hash browns or for potato salad, etc. We would got through these potatoes pretty fast. The advantage is that the potatoes are all cooked and ready to go for a quick meal. Store them in a cold place if you aren't planning on using them right away.
Another thing I would do also for breakfast was the following. If I was fixing scrambled eggs and was short on eggs, I would put in about 2 slices of bread and fry it with the eggs. The bread will scramble up good and the family will never know the difference. Also, to make the eggs go further, I would make fried eggs in a frame. You take a slice of bread and cut out the middle with a biscuit cutter or the sharp end of a tin can. Then put your buttered bread on the skillet and drop an egg in the middle and then fry it on both sides. Served with another piece of toast, it makes a filling breakfast.
Sometimes for breakfast, too, I would just make baked apples very simply. Then have pancakes, too. Just core the apples out with your paring knife and stuff the inside with butter and brown sugar. Put these in a pan and bake them for about 45 minutes at 375°. Just test to see if they are done or if they are soft. Each brand of apple would be different. And you can cook any apple like this. It doesn't have to be a so called cooking apple. Just any apple would work, even a softer, sweeter apple. So the juice at the bottom of the pan of apples we would use for syrup for the pancakes. I would just serve the pancake with a baked apple in the plate.
Apples were pretty easy to come by around here and cheap like potatoes. Often I would bake a big pan of apples with another rack full of baked potatoes for supper. Then I would fix maybe poorman's steak to go with it. Just flatten hamburger in a 8 by 13 pan and bake it with salt and pepper. As it is getting done, it will shrink from the sides of the pan. Just cut it in squares and drain it. Then just add a few made up gravy mixes over the top. I told my children this was steak. Well, it is Salisbury steak. Jim and I would say stuff at the table like, "Boy, this steak is really tender. It must have been a good cut." Or "This is a nice break from having hamburger." But, ya know, when you have a big family, it is hard to think in terms of those little mixes at the store. Ya gotta be creative, huh?
