What great memories of your Mother, she would have been around my Mother's. If my Mother wasn't in the kitchen she was in the yard pulling weeds and thinning her beloved day lily's. Mother was know for her pies, Lane cake, and Coconut cake. Miss that kitchen!
I'm still fortunate to still have my 96 year old mother with me. She still lives alone and has more of a social life than I do,l - although her eyesight is getting worse and I can see her slowing down. She still has the power to annoy me :) Your recipe reminds me that I should pull out some old recipes and make some of her favorites this weekend. Dorothy was known for her potato salad back in the day. Maybe I'll even buy some Miracle Whip and make it like she did.
You should definitely get some Miracle Whip and make Dorothy potato salad! I regret not making more of my mom’s favorites when she came to live with us. And yes mothers do annoy us, how can we/they not? ❤️
Anne, I am reading this article and I’m crying like a baby remembering & missing my mom who we lost in 2O13. Your words have transported me to think of my mother & to laugh remembering how we grew up with the old telephones with those ridiculously long cords & how me and my sister would always somehow seem to only get calls from male callers right when we sat down to dinner, which would infuriate my parents.
My mother was not a fancy cook nor was she a baker, but she made the best roast beef I have ever eaten to this day; it was so tender and flavorful, and she did it on the stove.
Thank you for this lovely article. It is touched me and more ways then you can imagine. I hope you have a lovely Mother’s Day.
Thank you, Debbie! It’s good we can talk through these phone memories. They shaped us! How in the world did your mother roast beef on top of the stove? Dutch oven?
Here is my mom's basic Roast Beef Recipe made in a dutch oven on the stove - nothing fancy but when she made it, it was always so tender and delicious.
INGREDIENTS:
2-3 lb eye of round roast beef
butter and vegetable oil
fresh garlic
2-3 Tablespoons of flour
1/4 - - 1/2 cup of red wine
medium onion cut in half
celery, carrots and potatoes
2 cans (6 oz each) Dawn's Mushroom Steak Sauce
1 14.5 oz can beef broth
DIRECTIONS:
Season entire roast with salt & pepper. Rub roast with smashed garlic. Rub or pat 1 - 2 tablespoons of flour on meat. Then in a dutch oven melt 2- 3 tablespoons of butter and or vegetable oil. Brown roast on all sides until nice and brown; in the meantime have a kettle of water boiling and then after meat browns, add boiling water to come approx half way up meat, add wine, 2 cans of mushroom steak sauce bring to a rolling simmer; then put in onion that is cut in half along with washed celery and carrots. Cover and simmer. Turn and baste roast every half hour or so. Add cut up potatoes if desired and cook until meat is tender approx 2 - 2-1/2 hours. Let meat sit approx 15 - 25 minutes before slicing.
It makes a thin au jus type sauce/gravy, which I like, but if you want to thicken it up, just get a bowl and 1 tablespoon of flour a little cool water and a little of the pan sauce and mix to desired consistency and add to the pan and it will thicken up.
My mother made delicious fried chicken and gravy but she didn’t make it very often so I don’t know her recipe. I would say making anything for a celebration takes my mind off of the news.In New Orleans, our phone number was first a name and then 4 digits. Ours was Vernon4777. I don’t know who Vernon was. When we moved to Atlanta, we only had to dial the last 4 digits of the phone number if the first 3 digits and area code were the same as yours. I was the only child of six that moved away so when I called my mother and she’d put me on hold for call waiting I would be annoyed to no end because I was paying for the call. I could tell by looking at the phone bill when I worked evenings because my husband would call everyone he knew! I’m not a phone person. I get on it, take care of business and get off. You’re right, though, it sure makes driving trips go by faster!
Leslie, you made me smile! My mother really never figured out call waiting. If she heard the beep, she was off your call and onto another. Such a different time!
This is so much like the fudge cake my mother used to bake, and her mother, and,I believe,
my grandmother‘s mother too! Now I have to go back and check the recipes. Then I am going to use your recipe to make this beautiful snacking cake and share with friends! Thank you, Anne.
You are welcome! My sister and I can’t figure out why she didn’t use the whole package of unsweetened chocolate - 4 ounces. Maybe thought too chocolatey?
My mother wasn’t a baker, but my grandmother was. Mama Stellbauer’s Fudge Cookies always drew us to her house. The recipe is similar to your recipe here but with much less chocolate. We use cocoa and only a big heaping tablespoon and lots of pecans. They are gooey deliciousness. The cousins have an unspoken and catty competition to see who makes them more like our grandmother’s. I personally think I win😊. My goal today as a grandmother is to help my 5 granddaughters memorize the simple recipe so they can make Mama Stellbauer’s Fudge Cookies anywhere and any time!
Those cookies sound DELICIOUS! Am sure I’m not the only one who might like to bake them if you want to share the recipe! 💕Do tell us about Mama Stellbauer!
Mama Stellbauer never drove, only wore slacks once that I know of, and would send her granddaughters away after a visit with a brand new pair of granny panties because her daughter, who owned a dress shop, always kept her over supplied with the ones that came in a skinny flat gray box. She would make these cookies (brownies) and call us to come pick them up in the evenings before supper. As with old recipes, some of her directions are based on experience rather than science😊 .
4 eggs
1 C butter
2 C sugar
A big heaping T cocoa, or if you want them more intense, add more cocoa.
1 scant cup of flour
1t vanilla
1 C nuts
Beat eggs and sugar. Melt butter and add cocoa. Add to eggs and sugar. Add flour, vanilla and nuts.
Here’s where it gets tricky. You don’t want them to be too thick. A greased and floured 9x9 pan is about right. You absolutely don’t want to overcook them. I mostly stand at the oven while they’re cooking… however it occurs to me checking them with a thermometer as in Nora’s Medium Rare Brownies might work. You certainly want them underbaked a little. These are not cake brownies! 30-35 min at 350 is the best I can do. Sometimes they’re perfect and other times still delicious but missing that Mama Stellbauer touch, but isn’t that the way our lives work today without our loved mamas and grand mothers in them anymore?
My mom sounds much like yours. Tho our relationship was somewhat confrontational as a youth, as an adult I recognized an independent creative force that she was. She made the best spice cake with penuche icing. To this day tho I try, I cannot get it right.
Love a good spice cake, Kittie. Did she use buttermilk? I'm forever in search of the best spice cake. And agree about the confrontational relationship. Mine was as a young adult but as l aged and became a mother myself, our relationship deepened. It was hard on my mom to come live with us because she was so independent. But it all worked out.
What a truly wonderful pair you and your mom made! My mom was so different from yours--she would have told me to buck up and stop sniffling as I finished your piece.
Yes, my mother made her roast beef on top of the stove in a Dutch oven. I also do it the same way. I’ve never made it in the oven. I’m gonna try an oven method and see which one I like better.
What a lovely sharing of your Mom & a time long gone. Brought back so many sense memories. Thank you for sharing your mother with us. I think she would be well pleased w your tribute. 💝
Such a happy post today, though it did bring me to tears missing my mother. I think our mothers would have been friends, talking on the phone, a lot! A food memory of my mother . . . coming home from school and Mama teaching me to make a white sauce, then stir finely chopped cheddar cheese in to it for making her macaroni and cheese. She layered the sauce, macaroni, sauteed onion, chopped tomato and bacon three times, and finished with a final layer of the cheddar cheese sauce., and more finely chopped cheddar. No graters back then! And I consume a lot of dark chocolate these days to ward off the feelings that come from reading/watching the news. Chocolate is therapy. Thank you, Anne. And Happy Mother's Day to you!
Thank you, Mary. Your mom’s Mac and cheese sounds amazing! And making a white sauce was quite fundamental. I should write about white sauces. We ate every veg under the sun because it was smothered in homemade cheese sauce. 😂
I can smell the chocolate, Anne.
To all good mothers who try so hard to help us to be decent human beings. I still believe you’re winning. To your own mother, Anne - job well done!
Thank you, Kristin. Let’s stop and smell the chocolate. And hug our moms while we’ve got them!
A beautiful post, Anne, I can see so much of your Mother in you. I miss mine every day. The cake looks so good! Happy Mother’s Day! 💐
Thank you, Jolene! We find more of our mothers in ourselves every day.
What great memories of your Mother, she would have been around my Mother's. If my Mother wasn't in the kitchen she was in the yard pulling weeds and thinning her beloved day lily's. Mother was know for her pies, Lane cake, and Coconut cake. Miss that kitchen!
That sounds like an amazing kitchen in which to hang out, Judith. Lucky you.
I'm still fortunate to still have my 96 year old mother with me. She still lives alone and has more of a social life than I do,l - although her eyesight is getting worse and I can see her slowing down. She still has the power to annoy me :) Your recipe reminds me that I should pull out some old recipes and make some of her favorites this weekend. Dorothy was known for her potato salad back in the day. Maybe I'll even buy some Miracle Whip and make it like she did.
You should definitely get some Miracle Whip and make Dorothy potato salad! I regret not making more of my mom’s favorites when she came to live with us. And yes mothers do annoy us, how can we/they not? ❤️
I know that I annoy mine too!
Anne, I am reading this article and I’m crying like a baby remembering & missing my mom who we lost in 2O13. Your words have transported me to think of my mother & to laugh remembering how we grew up with the old telephones with those ridiculously long cords & how me and my sister would always somehow seem to only get calls from male callers right when we sat down to dinner, which would infuriate my parents.
My mother was not a fancy cook nor was she a baker, but she made the best roast beef I have ever eaten to this day; it was so tender and flavorful, and she did it on the stove.
Thank you for this lovely article. It is touched me and more ways then you can imagine. I hope you have a lovely Mother’s Day.
Thank you, Debbie! It’s good we can talk through these phone memories. They shaped us! How in the world did your mother roast beef on top of the stove? Dutch oven?
Here is my mom's basic Roast Beef Recipe made in a dutch oven on the stove - nothing fancy but when she made it, it was always so tender and delicious.
INGREDIENTS:
2-3 lb eye of round roast beef
butter and vegetable oil
fresh garlic
2-3 Tablespoons of flour
1/4 - - 1/2 cup of red wine
medium onion cut in half
celery, carrots and potatoes
2 cans (6 oz each) Dawn's Mushroom Steak Sauce
1 14.5 oz can beef broth
DIRECTIONS:
Season entire roast with salt & pepper. Rub roast with smashed garlic. Rub or pat 1 - 2 tablespoons of flour on meat. Then in a dutch oven melt 2- 3 tablespoons of butter and or vegetable oil. Brown roast on all sides until nice and brown; in the meantime have a kettle of water boiling and then after meat browns, add boiling water to come approx half way up meat, add wine, 2 cans of mushroom steak sauce bring to a rolling simmer; then put in onion that is cut in half along with washed celery and carrots. Cover and simmer. Turn and baste roast every half hour or so. Add cut up potatoes if desired and cook until meat is tender approx 2 - 2-1/2 hours. Let meat sit approx 15 - 25 minutes before slicing.
It makes a thin au jus type sauce/gravy, which I like, but if you want to thicken it up, just get a bowl and 1 tablespoon of flour a little cool water and a little of the pan sauce and mix to desired consistency and add to the pan and it will thicken up.
My mother made delicious fried chicken and gravy but she didn’t make it very often so I don’t know her recipe. I would say making anything for a celebration takes my mind off of the news.In New Orleans, our phone number was first a name and then 4 digits. Ours was Vernon4777. I don’t know who Vernon was. When we moved to Atlanta, we only had to dial the last 4 digits of the phone number if the first 3 digits and area code were the same as yours. I was the only child of six that moved away so when I called my mother and she’d put me on hold for call waiting I would be annoyed to no end because I was paying for the call. I could tell by looking at the phone bill when I worked evenings because my husband would call everyone he knew! I’m not a phone person. I get on it, take care of business and get off. You’re right, though, it sure makes driving trips go by faster!
Leslie, you made me smile! My mother really never figured out call waiting. If she heard the beep, she was off your call and onto another. Such a different time!
This is so much like the fudge cake my mother used to bake, and her mother, and,I believe,
my grandmother‘s mother too! Now I have to go back and check the recipes. Then I am going to use your recipe to make this beautiful snacking cake and share with friends! Thank you, Anne.
You are welcome! My sister and I can’t figure out why she didn’t use the whole package of unsweetened chocolate - 4 ounces. Maybe thought too chocolatey?
My mother wasn’t a baker, but my grandmother was. Mama Stellbauer’s Fudge Cookies always drew us to her house. The recipe is similar to your recipe here but with much less chocolate. We use cocoa and only a big heaping tablespoon and lots of pecans. They are gooey deliciousness. The cousins have an unspoken and catty competition to see who makes them more like our grandmother’s. I personally think I win😊. My goal today as a grandmother is to help my 5 granddaughters memorize the simple recipe so they can make Mama Stellbauer’s Fudge Cookies anywhere and any time!
Those cookies sound DELICIOUS! Am sure I’m not the only one who might like to bake them if you want to share the recipe! 💕Do tell us about Mama Stellbauer!
Mama Stellbauer never drove, only wore slacks once that I know of, and would send her granddaughters away after a visit with a brand new pair of granny panties because her daughter, who owned a dress shop, always kept her over supplied with the ones that came in a skinny flat gray box. She would make these cookies (brownies) and call us to come pick them up in the evenings before supper. As with old recipes, some of her directions are based on experience rather than science😊 .
4 eggs
1 C butter
2 C sugar
A big heaping T cocoa, or if you want them more intense, add more cocoa.
1 scant cup of flour
1t vanilla
1 C nuts
Beat eggs and sugar. Melt butter and add cocoa. Add to eggs and sugar. Add flour, vanilla and nuts.
Here’s where it gets tricky. You don’t want them to be too thick. A greased and floured 9x9 pan is about right. You absolutely don’t want to overcook them. I mostly stand at the oven while they’re cooking… however it occurs to me checking them with a thermometer as in Nora’s Medium Rare Brownies might work. You certainly want them underbaked a little. These are not cake brownies! 30-35 min at 350 is the best I can do. Sometimes they’re perfect and other times still delicious but missing that Mama Stellbauer touch, but isn’t that the way our lives work today without our loved mamas and grand mothers in them anymore?
My mom sounds much like yours. Tho our relationship was somewhat confrontational as a youth, as an adult I recognized an independent creative force that she was. She made the best spice cake with penuche icing. To this day tho I try, I cannot get it right.
Love a good spice cake, Kittie. Did she use buttermilk? I'm forever in search of the best spice cake. And agree about the confrontational relationship. Mine was as a young adult but as l aged and became a mother myself, our relationship deepened. It was hard on my mom to come live with us because she was so independent. But it all worked out.
Ooo. I forgot the recipe but she used regular whole milk with vinegar. And, knowing mom’s distaste for the kitchen…. Her spices were years old😌
Good way to clean out the spice rack!
what mom isn't? That's they're best gift to us, isn't it? But sure do love the comraderie. Love you....
Thank you, Pat!
What a truly wonderful pair you and your mom made! My mom was so different from yours--she would have told me to buck up and stop sniffling as I finished your piece.
Pat, it wasn’t always perfect but she was a girl’s girl as we used to say. Loved the comraderie of women.
Yes, my mother made her roast beef on top of the stove in a Dutch oven. I also do it the same way. I’ve never made it in the oven. I’m gonna try an oven method and see which one I like better.
Would love to know how you cook it on top of stove, liquid added, cut of beef. Sounds intriguing!
What a lovely sharing of your Mom & a time long gone. Brought back so many sense memories. Thank you for sharing your mother with us. I think she would be well pleased w your tribute. 💝
Thank you, Tami. ❤️ it’s funny how you forget something and then start writing and all sorts of memories come rushing back.
Such a happy post today, though it did bring me to tears missing my mother. I think our mothers would have been friends, talking on the phone, a lot! A food memory of my mother . . . coming home from school and Mama teaching me to make a white sauce, then stir finely chopped cheddar cheese in to it for making her macaroni and cheese. She layered the sauce, macaroni, sauteed onion, chopped tomato and bacon three times, and finished with a final layer of the cheddar cheese sauce., and more finely chopped cheddar. No graters back then! And I consume a lot of dark chocolate these days to ward off the feelings that come from reading/watching the news. Chocolate is therapy. Thank you, Anne. And Happy Mother's Day to you!
Thank you, Mary. Your mom’s Mac and cheese sounds amazing! And making a white sauce was quite fundamental. I should write about white sauces. We ate every veg under the sun because it was smothered in homemade cheese sauce. 😂