I can smell it now

I can smell the smells of our house in Runnemede now.  It's Saturday afternoon.  That means mom has put on the roast for our dinner tonight.  We almost always had roast something (lamb, beef, pork, veal) on Saturday night.  Leftovers, usually ground up meat made into shepherd's pie, on Sunday.  The Sunday meal, was made after dinner on Saturday night.

Yes, mom's roast was something to taste.  She had a large, hammered aluminum pan which she used solely for making roasts.  She would put an onion, cut up into chunks, into the pot, after she had browned all four sides of the roast.  She simply salted and peppered the meat before she browned it.  Then she added the onions, and turned down the heat.  About half-way through the cooking process, she added two cups of water.  This became the gravy.

My dear mother was so strong.  She had to have been.  She did so much on Saturday night.  And as I think of the things she did, I wonder where the energy came from after contending with four children all day.  But she did a lot after dinner each Saturday, and one was to get the meal ready for Sunday.

She would get out the grinder, and it came with a "C" clamp, and clamped onto the edge of the kitchen table.  She would stuff the left over meat, little bits at a time into the meat grinder while I or my sister held a bowl under the place where the meat came out, and she would add that meat to the left-over gravy from the roast the family had dine on shortly before.  Then she would have already cooked extra potatoes at dinner time, and took out enough for mashed potatoes to put on top of the ground up meat/gravy mixture.  The mashed potatoes were spread over the ground meat, and she would then wrap the bowl -- an oven proof bowl -- in plastic wrap, and it was ready for Sunday dinner.  All she had to do was pop it in the over at 400 degrees for 1/2 hour, and we were set to go.

About 1/2 hour was all my father could wait for dinner.  He came home after church every week, hungry, hungry, hungry.  But we all were hungry, and were so glad when the "pie" was finished, the peas (we always had peas with shepherd's pie) were cooked, and the salad was fixed.  If we were on schedule, dinner was served at 1 PM.  It usually took dad about 1/2 hour after he finished preaching to get away from people and get home.   Mom got home only about five minutes ahead of him, so the food would be in the oven and he knew it was cooking and would be ready in about 1/2 hour.

Back to Saturday -- I talked about my mom's strength.  Well, she also always made a breakfast cake, baking it on Saturday night, so it would be available on Sunday morning.  I'm afraid, the Sunday morning thing wasn't such a good idea, as it was usually dried out some, and not very good, but my father liked it, and that's what was important.  I never did like those coffee cakes she made. 

And then came the scrubbing and cleaning.  Everything was moved out of the kitchen (the table mostly) and mom scrubbed the floor, down on her hands and knees, and then wiped it with a clean wet cloth.  No one could walk on it until it dried. 

Then, and only then, did she head to the bathroom and give my brothers their baths, and make sure my sister and I had taken our baths.  After which she scrubbed the bathroom floor. 

Finally, after we were in bed, she studied her Sunday School lesson -- the one she had to teach on the morrow.

Now, if you've read this BLOG you will find that there is a recipe embedded in this story.  If you find it, and use it, you will enjoy it.