Our Memories

Judi Grau Shute 

Leftover Sunday pot roast became hash on Monday. Mom cut up the beef and add carrots, potatoes, onions and the leftover gravy. Yum, she was the best cook. She would cook and especially bake and give her cakes away to everybody. Dad used to take to Rescue Squad when he volunteered there. She would even take to the guys in the motorcycle shop across the street because they cleared the snow from her drive.

Karen Beck  

I have the Yum Yum cake recipe. I have made it over the years my grand mom always said it was Depression Cake.

Miriam Jane Sanders 

I remember my grandmother making fresh lima beans (in season) and we had them with bread and butter as dinner. Or a big strawberry shortcake made with bisquit dough. That was it for dinner and we loved it.

Butch Beebe 

My Mom would do that exact same thing. When fresh peas were in season, my Mom would cook them and add a little milk to the pot with butter and salt & pepper. Bread & butter and that was the meal. I loved it when we had strawberry shortcake for dinner. We didnt have whipped cream, I guess that was too expensive.

My Mom & Grandmom didn't really use recipes to cook by.....they just knew how and added ingredients until it "looked right". A little of this and some of that. Very few of my Mom's recipes were ever written.

Bill Kears 

When I was a kid till in my 20's. Every morning for

brekfast, I had buttered toast in a bowl with hot milk poured over it. Like Judi Grau Shute posted. But mine was never salted. We called it milked toast.

Not sure who posted this. Let me know if you own this post and I'll give you credit.

Recently had a "Millville moment", a friend asked me for my recipe for snidley beans. My mother and grandmother made them with green beans, bacon, onion, vinegar and sugar. Does anyone else remember such a recipe? Also, here in Florida they make their chicken pot pie as a pie baked in the oven with veggies and that doesn't even make sense. It's called pot pie because it is cooked on the stove top in a pot NOT in the oven! They don't call apple pie apple pot pie and its baked the same way in the oven with only a different filling. Love my Millville roots.

John Martin 

We used to eat a lot of boiled potatoes with everything, and my Mom also made a great ham and cabbage too!. We also ate a lot of that dried beef gravy over toast and mashed potatoes. When we were kids, I also remember getting the toast in warm milk "sick meal"...I remember it actually tasted very good even when you weren't sick! LOL
My mom used to make what she called beef stew, but it was much more like a soup than a thick stew. What was really different about it was when she put it in the pot to cook, she put a little frame made out of 2 wires across the top of the pot, and then rolled out a thick crust and put that over the top of the pot. When it was done, the crust had soaked up a lot of the flavor on the bottom side and it was nice and flaky on top.

Judi Everland Ware 

We used to have Peas and Dumplings. Fresh picked peas with bisquick dumplings. Was NOT a side dish - was dinner and was one of my favorites!!! I was even willing to shell all those darned peas in order to have it!

Rickie Oldfield Tripoli 

My grandmother made corned beef and potato soup. I make it too...a great winter meal. A can of corned beef and a chopped onion added to almost cooked cubed potatoes with the water they were cooked in. Add salt and pepper to taste. Boil for about 15 minutes or until onions are cooked and corned beef is cooked broken down throughout the soup. Delicious with biscuits or Italian bread.

Paul Riendeau 

I'll have to try to dig up my Mothers recipe for "Baked Glazed Spam with Cloves" or "Canned Salmon Casserole"!

Sharon Carangi 

Mine used to make spam with tomato sauce and brown sugar and then we had it with mashed potatoes sooo good.

Donna Roberts Horsfield 

Yes, my mom had a tough time teaching us how to make some of her dishes, because it was "some of this and some of that." 

Judi Grau Shute 

Not a recipe but....my mom's family lived in a prodominately Catholic neighborhood. Every Friday the fish truck (fishmonger) would come selling fresh fish. Even though we are Protestant we still ate fish every Friday.

Pepper Hash, Oyster Stew and SOS

Pepper Hash - Joyce DeHart-Gibson
Chop cabbage and green pepper and add equal parts of vinegar, sugar and water.  Store in the fridge in a glass container for a long time. I  also put celery seed in mine but you don't have to.

Oyster Stew - Margaret Konschak

1 pint oysters, shucked, with juice
1 quart milk or 1 quart half-and-half
1/4 cup butter
salt and black pepper
Old Bay (optional)

Cook oysters in their juice until edges just begin to curl.
Add milk, butter, salt and pepper.
Heat slowly, being careful to NOT boil.

Blind Stew - Carol L. Garrison
Same as Oyster Stew but leave out the oysters!

Dried Beef Gravy (SOS) - Anyone Who Ever Lived In Millville
                                                      1/4 lb dried beef
                                                      2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons flour
3 cups milk Melt butter in skillet.

Tear the dried beef into small pieces & stir into the butter.  Brown meat lightly.  Stir in flour.  When flour is dissolved into butter, add milk, stirring constantly.  Salt and pepper to taste, but remember dried beef is salty.  Cook over low heat until the mixture thickens. Serve on toast, waffles, biscuits or almost anything.



Variations of SOS:
Robert Bruce Land - Graveyard Gravy:  Remove the meats and serve over either toast or biscuits. 

Butch Beebe - Red Eye Gravy:  My Grandmom and Mom would use bologna, hamburger or ham slice and make gravy.  Fry the ham slice and get some of its flavoring in the pan, add some butter and flour and then milk and a little coffee.  Back in the day, grandmoms and moms alike could stretch a dollar from here to Vineland and back when it came to cooking.  They had to.  And whatever they made tasted good and kept us alive.  Thank God for moms and grandmoms!!

Judi Grau Shute - Graveyard Stew:  Salted, buttered toast soaked in warm milk.  It was what we ate when we were very sick and could keep nothing else down.  Ready for the grave I guess is where it got its name.  My grandmom had 15 children and she always had family and friends in to eat.  She would make 6 pies at once.  Everything homemade.  This was before blenders and microwaves and anything convenient.  She used a wood stove with round grates on it with this special handle to remove them.  No one went hungry.