jeanne49

My Mom made the best baked mac and cheese - not the kinds where you cooked elbow macaroni and poured melted velvetta cheese over it - her's was great. Anyway, there was no written recipe, just something she perfected over the years and from watching and helping her for so long I can just make it. One day I made some for friends and one of them wanted the recipe for her daughter, boy what I time I had writing it out. I explained to her that there are a lot of steps involved but really not that hard. I don't normally give out recipes like this because I need to do a lot of explaining and I detail all the steps involved because I don't want anyone dissatisified with their results. Needless to say this friends daughter had no problem with my recipe, even without exact measurements, and makes it all the time - it is now her family's favorite dish.

Angellight

My Mom was a good cook, as was her mother. Since my mother worked split shifts and was gone at night, my Dad did a a lot of the cooking too, and while he said "Susan learned to cook out of self defense." because of his cooking, we 3 kids did not starve from his cooking. His mother was a good cook, although she did not enjoy the art of cooking, and was a fairly basic cook. I do remember some cookies she made once that were soft and wonderful... Kind of like a puffy Sugar Cookie. And while not all of my 3 boys WANT to take the time to cook, they all can, and 2 of the 3 are good cooks.
My maternal Grandmother passed her brownie recipe down to her Granddaughters, and I can tell you that most of us do not make them because they never turn out the way Grandma's did. I was fortunate enough to watch her make them one time, and I can tell you the measuring cup was a tea/coffee cup from her regular dishes. The measuring spoons were the silverware and were "heaping" when she dumped in the ingredient. When she put the butter sugar and eggs in the Stand mixer, the "mix for 5 minutes" lasted until she finished a couple of other chores and was more like 20+ minutes. So the difference is usually in the manner in which they cooked. They had to learn to cook without measuring, because that is the way it was done in their day.
That being said, I am the same way. I make some things by taste. Chicken and Noodles, and Deviled Eggs come to mind. I recently had a woman I worked with (who admittedly had a perfectionist mother who could not stand the messes or mistakes when she was in the kitchen, so Jo did not learn to cook) ask for my recipe for Deviled Eggs. I researched recipes and found one that was very close to what I do to make them. I then boiled 1/2 dozen eggs, and took all of the ingredients to work and we made deviled eggs. She appreciated it, and I can tell you she ate every one of them that afternoon.
On the flip side, I usually make a recipe to the directions once, then I start changing things for a better taste, more or less heat, etc.

Thanks for the Memories BearisGray...
Happy Day
Susan

Stitchnripper

My mother did not enjoy cooking so did as little and as basic as possible. My grandma was a better cook although everything was plain and simple which to me now is comfort food. I always stood by her as she cooked but I could never get a recipe that would work for me. She even wrote some of them down for me but with instructions like "some" of an ingredient and a process "until it looks (or feels) right. "You'll know" she would tell me. Sadly the recipes are just a reminder becUse I can't get them to work right.

MaggieLou

I was fortunate to have all the recipes my mother and grandmother had. Both were good cooks. Me, not so much. I took some of them and made a cookbook for my two granddaughters one Christmas.

Twisted Quilter

My mom was a great cook and seldom used recipes. I was always amazed at how quick she could get a home cooked meal on the table when she came in from work. I'm talking about a good ole' southern meal, including biscuits. The only thing out of a can were green beans/peas/corn. When asked how to make something, it was always, "a little piece of this, a big chunk of that....no wonder I can't cook.

Snooze2978

Didn't have that problem as my mother didn't cook much. She left the cooking to us kids as we got older. I took over all the cooking at age 12 when my older sister got tired of it all and moved out. When mother did cook it was almost inedible as she would cook it to death, no seasoning so no taste whatsoever. She hasn't gotten any better with age either. She now lives with my sister and she's not allowed to cook. Sis will let her make cookies only when she's home as its a gas stove and mother is now sporting 89. She tends to forget to put all the ingredients. I've gotten some of her batches of cookies and they taste like sawdust due to no sugar or very little.

Roberta

My Mom wasn't the cook in the family, my Dad was but she did make a mean lemon sauce to put over stale cake. I just wish she had written it down someplace.

I remember when I was about 10 years old I bought her the Betty Crocker cookbook. She took one look at it and asked what she was supposed to do with THAT. She handed it back to me and I've used it ever since.

coopah

When I was first married, I called Mom to ask what to put in a meatloaf for when the inlaws came to dinner. Meatloaf was my FILs request. Mom said, just go to the refrigerator and dump anything in there and then bake it. I burst into tears. Didn't ask for any more recipes. She still enjoys telling that story.
On the other hand, my maternal gram gave me her BBQ sauce recipe and swore me to secrecy. Also her pie crust recipe (buy the sticks in the box...which is how they came then) and swore me to secrecy on that one, too. She gave me her precious dill pickle recipe. Gram was the one I went to if I needed recipe help. She was a cook in a restaurant and then for individual families, so she knew some good tricks!

lclang

For my in-laws 60th wedding anniversary I did a family cookbook. It included favorites from both sides of the family and old fashioned recipes like corn cob jelly, etc. Those books are treasures now as both sets of parents are gone and the younger ones can remember them in recipes. It was a BIG job, cost a considerable amount of trial and error and angst, but well worth it.

earthwalker

My mother was never a genius in the kitchen. Very attractive woman who worked in the fashion and hotel industry when young. She can grow a lovely garden, sink a bore, lay bricks, lay tiles, tackle plumbing jobs, knit, sew curtains, tat and embroider....the list is long...but cooking, well it's not in her realm of interest and I can count on one hand, the things she makes that are actually edible. She's getting better now, but only because she's slowing down in the other departments.