Our First Cookbook Giveaway
Cookbook Giveaway – March, 2021
Enter our Giveaway for your chance to WIN one of three signed copies of our first ever cookbook. Details in the description below. No purchase necessary.
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Our First Cookbook – “From Mama’s Big Oval Table”
Congratulations WINNERS
Congratulations to the winners of our cookbook.
Theda – Cornbread Dressing
Rita Richardson – Chicken and Pastry
William – Buttermilk Biscuits, Sweet Potato Biscuits
You must claim your prize by midnight April 03, 2021 – Please use the Contact Page listed in the green strip at the top of the page to send us your full name and mailing address. We will mail your cookbook just as soon as possible. Thank You.
Thank you to everyone that entered our Giveaway. I really enjoyed reading your Comments and thank you for sharing where you live. That was just Awesome.
Stay tuned for another Giveaway – coming soon.
Here’s how our Giveaway took place….
We’re giving away THREE copies of our very first cookbook. It’s easy to enter. Just answer the question below. There is no right or wrong answer. Winner will be chosen at random.
Question: What is/was the favorite dish that YOUR mother prepared?
I hope you have some great memories from your own families table. Just tell us what was the one dish you always looked forward to seeing being served. Or, maybe it was your Grandmothers cooking that you remember the most. Share your favorite dish with us in the Comment section below.
As I’ve stated, there is no right or wrong answer. If you don’t have a memory of a favorite dish, just tell us what your favorite food is today. That will be fine as well.
And, bonus points if you tell us where you currently live. Just the state will be fine. I’m always curious to know where are readers are from.
I look forward to reading your answers.
Rules, Rules, Rules, got to have a few.
Only one entry per person and email address.
Open to anyone in the whole wide world (First time we’ve ever done that)
Winner will be selected at random, via Random.org. There is no right or wrong answer.
Contest ends at midnight Eastern time, Saturday – March 27, 2021
Winners will be posted on Monday, March 29, 2021.
You must check back at the end of the giveaway to see if you’ve won and to claim your prize.
Winners must claim their prize by midnight April 03, 2021.
Winners will be asked to submit your full name and address to us should you win.
PS: Your Comment will not appear immediately, but be assured you’ll be entered if you leave a comment before the deadline. I’ll approve and post the replies just as quickly as possible. Thanks.
Good Luck, and thanks for entering.
Be Blessed!!!
Steve
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Category: Giveaways
My mom was a great cook and also a frugal one since there were 6 of us kids!! The best things I remember were Rolled Flank Steak & the other I loved was short ribs & gravy. Anymore both those cuts of meat are just sky high in price!! btw I live in Clinton NC
Chicken soup!
Dressing (stuffing) served with baked chicken or turkey. She also prepared awesome chicken and dumplings. My favorite side dish was macaroni and tomatoes. Hard to pick just one as my Mother was a really good cook. I live in Columbia, SC.
My favorite thing that my Mom made was homemade Chicken n Dumplings. Although, I had helped her make these many times before ( scooping the dough with my hands and dropping the dumplings in the pot), I never tried out the whole recipe, from beginning to end, by myself. Unfortunately, I never got a copy of the recipe from her before she passed away. She probably would have told me the ol’ familiar “I really don’t have a written recipe, I just eyeball it, a little of this and a bit more of that”! One night, a couple of years after Mom passed, I asked my Dad what he would like me to cook him for dinner. He said that he was really missing “You’re Mother’s Chicken n Dumplings”. Just then did I realize that I never got the recipe and didn’t know how to make them. I searched for the recipe online, for a few days but I never did find the one that sounded quite like Mom’s. I finally gave up searching and forgot about it for awhile. One day, I picked up a Southern Living magazine, and as I flipped through the pages I saw it. A recipe that actually looked and sounded very close to the “recipe” my Mom used. I surprised my Dad for dinner that night, tweaked the recipe just a tad, and served him “My Mother’s Chicken n Dumplings”. I was secretly thrilled and full of pride when he told me they tasted just like Mom’s and maybe even a little better! I said to him thank you and I was glad to hear it and it wasn’t all that hard after all. I also told him “shhh, now don’t let Mom hear you say that”, as I knew that although they did taste pretty close to hers, they just couldn’t compare to hers”, at least not in my mind anyways. My Dad unexpectedly passed away on October 25, 2020. It brings tears to my eyes and love and joy to my heart knowing that the last dinner I ever cooked for him, which was the last meal he ever ate, just so happened to be “Not My Mother’s Chicken and Dumplings, but Darned Close”! I love you Mom and Dad and thank you for everything you ever taught me! (I know she’s up there reading this)! Great big smile.
Hi Steve My favorite meal is some good lasagne and garlic bread. That my grandmother made on Sunday’s my family would go to her house.I look forward to Monday’s to see what new recipe you are cooking up. It’s nice of you to give a cookbook away,if i am not a winner i will continue to say money in this jar so i can buy your cookbook. The engine went out in my fifteen year old car i had to buy another one.
My mom made the best chocolate pie. My granddaughter and I made one back last summer and put a picture on face book but nothing else. Everyone of the cousins commented Grandma’s (or Aunt Sara’s) chocolate pie. Man I sure wish she was still around to make us one(me too). She was a fantastic cook! A lot of the recipes you share are familiar to me from my childhood.
I live in the great state of North Carolina near Charlotte. A Carolina girl born and bred.
My mother was from San Francisco and she had to learn southern cooking because my father was from Paris. The one in Mississippi. I always looked forward to her buttermilk biscuits, sweet potato biscuits, and her fried green tomatoes. I grew up with yes to sugar in cornbread. I am retired in San Antonio, Texas.
My Mom wasn’t really a great cook but she did make really good corned beef hash. Not real fancy but it was good.
The best meal my mother made was Pot Roast made with chuck roast, potatoes, carrots and onions on Sundays after church. Of course she also made the best pan gravy to go with it. Leftovers consisted of a hot roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes the next night.
My favorite meals that my grandmother made were fried chicken, chicken and pastry and for dessert a pineapple upside down cake and home made banana ice cream. I always looked forward to every Saturday night my grandfather having a fish fry with all the traditional sides slaw fries hushpuppies and fresh fish from the local seafood market.
Mom made the best fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy.
What I wouldn’t give to have some now.
Dave from Marion, Iowa
My mom made a dry lima bean soup that she thickened with, what her mother called, eimbren—a roux with onions in it. Her mother died on Pearl Harbor Day when mom was only 13—and everyone went off to war right after that leaving her and my aunt Rita to fend for themselves. Sad story that still makes me sad. She only had a few cooking memories to pass on because her mom was with her for so short a time. I treasure this one and it is a favorite in my own family.
My favorite meal was steak rolls. My mom made it with round steak with bacon in the middle then rolled it and tied it with probably kite string. She browned it in a pot, then covered with water, covered the pot and simmered. It made its own gravy with the help of bouillon. The drippings from the bacon flavored it so intensely. She served it over homemade mashed potatoes and whatever vegetables. What a meal!!!!!! I’m probably going to make it this week since this brings such great memories.
My Mom was an excellent cook! What stands out the most for me was her Southern Fried Chicken and another favorite was her homemade Pizza! I would always save a piece of pizza I the back of the refrigerator so my brothers wouldn’t find it and eat it the next morning for my breakfast! Such wonderful memories!!❤️
Betty from NJ
My Mother’s German Chocolate and Coconut Cakes were THE best! I have the recipes but they never taste as good as Mama’s did,
My favorite thing Mama made was the best stuffed pork chops and gravy. Big fat pork chops with a pocket cut in the side, stuffed with sage dressing (aka turkey dressing), fried brown and then cooked in gravy from the pan drippings. We ate them with the extra dressing that she made. My second favorite was her orange coconut cake which we only got at Christmas. Tom Wolfe was right, “You can’t go home again”, you only have memories.
My Mother was a great cook and prepared many delicious dishes but the favorite family still ask about today is her rice pudding. She was Mama to me and Aunt Betty to all my cousins. In the 70s my Dad and uncle farmed in eastern NC which is still home for me. She cooked lunch each day for them and anyone working. During the summer months when we kids worked on the farm it was like feeding a small army.
One menu that included the rice pudding also had cabbage, city ham, pickled beets, and fried cornbread. Her rice pudding was made with cooked rice, butter, milk, eggs, vanilla, and pinch of salt. It was baked until firm kind of like a corn pudding. Like many good cooks there is no record of measurements for ingredients.
I have a 1st cousin that hasn’t eaten her rice pudding since the 70s but every time I see him tells me how he misses her and that rice pudding.
I hardly ever enter contest but when I read your question these good memories immediately came to me and I really wanted to share. Let me dry my eyes now. Smile.
Thanks for all you do.
Mama made two memorable dishes.. I have to give credit to. One her Roast Beef dinner.. complete with potatoes around the meat, mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits or yeast rolls and a side dish. It was the BEST and her Apple Pie was famous around our town. So much so, that at Church dinner on the grounds, the Pastor asked her to make two pies for him separately and he would pay her. Of course she declined payment. Mama was a wonderful cook and I learned a lot from her.
My Mom was a fantastic country cook from North Carolina. My favorite dish that she prepared was Lemon Barbque Chicken. I’m sure she got the recipes from a magazine. Skin on chicken sautéed with lemon, onions and thyme. We thought it was really fancy compared to our ususal fried chicken and we always requested it for special occasions. Unfortunately my sisters and I never learned to make it and never wrote the recipe. I sure wish I had learned to make it.
I loved my mother’s banana pudding. It was a staple for many Sunday dinners.
Two of my favorite dishes that my Mom made were chicken & dumplings and the BEST banana pudding.
I enjoy reading your newsletter.
I Live in Harrisburg, NC
My Mom was a great cook,she could make a meal out of whatever she had on hand.Therefore any thing she cooked was good.
Hi Steve, I’m very blessed to have my 92 year old mom still with us. And would you believe she still makes my favorite chicken vegetable soup for us every once in awhile. She fell again and broke her arm and injured her hip/leg earlier in March, so she hasn’t made her soup in awhile. She also made her annual Christmas Coconut Cake that I really loved. Congrats again on your cookbook. I’d love to win one!
Grandma’s biscuits….as a bread, side, main dish, or only dish!
From NC, a few communities North of you. 🙂
My mom always thought she wasn’t a good cook ,but I loved her fried potatoes and her coconut cake. Your ” neighbor” in Reidsville, NC.
My Mom could make the best Chicken and Dumplins in the whole world. They were so
creamy and soupy. I can tast them now….
Pinto beans and corn . We were poor but didn’t know it.
My mom is a German cook and makes almost only German stuff.
But when we were growing up, we got to pick our favorite meal for our birthday, and mine was her spaghetti sauce. That’s Italian, so she didn’t make it a lot, but it was a big treat!
also her Black Forest cherry cake!
My mom made a wonderful beef stew with fluffy dumplings on top. She always made lots of gravy so that we kids, all eight of us, would have plenty of gravy to dip buttered bread in once the dumplings were all gone. I miss her, so much!
My mother’s Boston Cream Pie
My mom was a country girl from the mountains in Morganton, North Carolina. As crazy as it sounds, she made the best ground beef tacos I’ve ever eaten and I’ve eaten tacos in Mexico, Texas and Southern California. I don’t know what she did that made them so special, but they were my absolute favorite. Mom is in a memory care unit now with Alzheimer’s, but every time I have a taco it reminds me of her and better times.
Chicken and dumplings for Sunday dinner after church.
A big, fat hen with lots of fat so as to make the stock better.
Then flat dumplings, not the round dough-balls that never seem to taste done. The dumplings were made with water, all-purpose flour, and a small knob of lard. Rolled out no thicker than 1/8 of an inch. Made on Saturday, laid out on newspaper and then covered with newspaper. The secret is to let the dumplings dry-out so they better absorb the stock and fat.
Dropped in almost boiling stock, they’ll float to the top when done in about ten minutes.
Served with old-fashioned cornbread dressing, ice tea, and a big coconut cake for dessert.
That’s what I’d have today if Moma was still living. She taught me to cook and I always think of her when I’m in front of a stove.
Thanks, Moma.
City chicken – pretty much a Midwest dish. Pieces of pork and veal skewered by the neighborhood butcher. Back in the 50’s chicken was a luxury, veal much more available and reasonable. Mom would bread these little shish-kabobs and fry them. Then use the same pan to make a cream gravy. That gravy over mashed taters and your “personal” kabob, good eatun!!
My mom was an extremely good cook. We had our own pigs, cows and chickens, even a modest vegetable garden. We weren’t rich by any means but I can remember my mom always had a delicious meal on the table,I couldn’t remember one specific meal because they were all so good, I was blessed with a wonderful mother.
My favorite was liver and onions in gravy. The gravy was so delicious…I never get it right and really miss it…but most of all I miss my dear mother. Steve, thank you so much for the newsletter and recipes. I know it’s a lot of work for you…just to let you know it is very much appreciated!
My Mom was a good cook and I liked most everything she cooked. In thinking back, I think my favorites were her pies. She would whip them up so quickly, and make extra pie dough to be baked with cinnamon sugar. So there was always an extra snack. I had the only Grandma that couldn’t cook at all. Once she made canned chicken noodle soup for me, and burned the whole pot so badly it was inedible.
I live in northern Idaho now, but spent most of my life in southern California.
Thanks Steve for all your work on your weekly column. I really enjoy it.
I can honestly say, I had no real favorite-My house was where ALL my friends begged to come eat-Sunday was fried chicken day-Monday could be pot roast with new potatoes, (my best friend’s favorite)! My Grandmother cooked Full Meals Every Day both lunch and dinner-Meat, potato, veg., dessert etc. My Grandfather did full on breakfast evert morning; bacon eggs, biscuits and gravy etc. Just stepping thru the front door, greeted by the smells, meant I was home, the best word in the whole wide world! Bless You and Thank You! Every time I read your email, I am taken home…
Fried corn bread. Hands-down the best thing she cooked! A Guilford county farmers daughter living in SC
I have three favorites that my mama at 85 years old still cooks. She makes the most delicious dressing from scratch with the best gravy to put on your dressing, homemade potato salad made with Duke’s mayonnaise, and her made from scratch biscuits that are perfect. I must mention that my daddy also cooked favorite foods “down at the barn”. Fried Atlantic fish, barbecue chicken on the grill, and his roasted whole hog eastern NC pig pickin’ with oven-baked crackling cornbread. My mama is and my daddy was a great eastern NC “southern” cook!
Hello all!
My mother was a working gal, a registered nurse, who went to school at night to get her teaching degree and raise my brother and I with strict discipline. She grew up on a farm in Rhode Island and her father and mother were emigrants from Poland. Sadly, they were both passed when I was born but she would tell me stories of farm life… she was 11 years old during the depression and her dad would give freshly killed pigs and chickens to the less fortunate. My mother was not a great cook but when she made pork and sauerkraut, it was the stuff of dreams! My brother and I ate a lot of tv dinners back then due to her completion of her degree but she excelled at the pork dish when she had some much needed time off. She eventually retired to NC and loved it here! I came here to be close to her and my brother and I live in Union County. Hope you enjoyed my little story and I always reflect back on memories like these.
Everything… my mom is an excellent cook!
My mother’s fried chicken was always a treat, but a really special treat was when we would visit her mother in South Carolina and Grandmother Jessie would make liver nips. I love liver in many different ways, but her liver nips were truly outstanding.
fried chicken! poke sallat and alot more!!! thanks for the give away!
I can’t decide between my mom’s fried chicken and mac and cheese on Sundays or my grandmother’s cabbage greens, baked chicken, cornbread and squash casserole. Greetings from Alabama!
Bread pudding made with golden raisins
and topped with vanilla sauce!
My Mama from N.C. as am I now used to make what she called French Pot Roast. I don’t think there was anything French about it but it’s still my favorite!
It was shoulder of beef with ketchup and cider vinegar and allspice in a thick velvety brown gravy, great with mashed potato’s with way too much butter!(can’t have too much butter!)
My mama’s Salmon Croquettes with Biscuits and syrup
Mama’s homemade veggie soup with her homemade cornbread, hot and buttered. So good.
My favorite,momma made chicken and slick dumplings.
My grandmother was a wonderful cook! I guess I especially loved her chicken and dumplings. They were the best I’ve ever had.
I remember my grandma’s fried apple and peach pies. She fried them and stacked them on her cake stand with the cover on. YUM YUM. Crust was hand made and a saucer was the size she cut for each pie. Memories are so vivid I can almost smell them. Smile. I live in Tennessee. Grandma lived in Kentucky.
My favorite meal my mom made was American goulash. Always served with saltines and dill pickle spears. Still a favorite today, and whenever kids or grandkids visit, that’s the first meal they ask for.
I am not a cake lover. Never have been. So my birthday “cake” every year was a cherry pie. Not one of those awful things made with canned pie filling but a real pie-cherry pie, double-crust and baked in a 9×13 Pyrex baking dish. Served with a generous helping of vanilla ice cream. As close to heaven as one can get on this earth.
Chicken and dumplings! She made the best I’ve ever tasted.
My mom made a lot of delicious foods that I would call favorites. Her cornbread dressing was crazy good. others would be candied yams, blackberry jam and homemade ice cream. I miss my mom and those yummy meals.
My grandmother made the BEST cornbread and Sour Cream Coconut cake. What I wouldn’t give to cook with her one more time.
Her seafood gumbo and any pie of hers was perfect!
My mom was an amazing Italian cook. I have many favorites but I loved her lasagna with meat sauce. Yum!
Butter roll hands down. I got this on my birthday per my request. Sadly, lost mom suddenly and never got around to how she made. She didn’t have a recipe. Oh I can taste it now!
My mom made fried apple pies that were the best and looked very pretty. They made their way to church and fire department fundraiser a lot. Everyone wanted her fried apple pies. I live in Alamance County, NC and my mom (now deceased) lived in Caswell County, NC.
It would be my moms cabbage lasagna. I really looked forward to it every time.
My Mom was a wonderful cook. I especially looked forward to her Sunday dinners which included fried chicken. Her sonkers were always something we looked forward to also.. especially during fresh fruit season..
My Mother’s chicken and pastry!
Thank you.
My favorite would have to be country fried steak with a lot of cream gravy on top.
PS by the way I would think oxtails and beef tongue would be two items I would refuse just because of the name.
My Mum cooked a lot of things I loved, but I’d have to put her ‘Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding’ at the top of the list. Served with roast potatoes and gravy, with candied parsnips and other vegetables. It makes me hungry just thinking about it and I just finished lunch.
She was born in England and this was her Mother’s recipe. She passed away just over 25 years ago, so I’ll never have the pleasure to experience it again. I’ve tried, but always fall short. I suppose it’s hard to compete with memory.
My Mom made fried chicken in a cast iron skillet with pan gravy, heavenly mashed potatoes and corn for my birthday every year. I could have asked for anything but this is what I always wanted. I remember her shaking chicken pieces in a big brown paper grocery bag with seasoned flour and laying that chicken in melted Crisco…..what a treat!
I guess my favorite meal mom cooked was fried salmon patties with white rice and peas. Nothing fancy, but certainly good!
I grew up mostly in New England, but moved to NC whin I was 17 in 1975. Live in Wingate NC now.
I really enjoy and look forward every Monday for your emails!
My Mother was a great cook so it is hard to choose one. Her
“Swedish Spaghetti” was one of my favorites. When I was very young I bragged about the “Swedish Spaghetti” she made and was laughed at and asked why I called it that. I explained, because we are Swedish and her spaghetti was the best.
I still call it that in my mind.
I am a Yankee transplant in North Carolina.
Smothered round steak with mashed potatoes and green peas. Best Sunday dinner ever and I still make it 60 years later!
My Mom was a simple cook but I really appreciated it after I married and had to learn to cook. She made great meatballs and sauce and Golumki(Polish stuffed cabbage). Funny, because she was neither Italian nor Polish-although she married a Polish guy.
My mama’s roast beef dinner was my favorite. She served it with lots of vegetables, applesauce, canned hot banana peppers, dill pickles, homemade bread and her raisin spice cake was my favorite dessert.
My mother was not a great cook tending to overcook most things, nor was she an artist at it. I did love her pineapple pie though, however imperfect it appeared. I have seen a few similar recipes online, but not many. It was made like most typical fruit pies. My very favorite foods were my grandmother’s fried chicken and biscuits, and my aunt’s “veal cutlets” which were chicken fried steak with the last coating being crumbled saltines. The steak was even better eaten as leftovers right out of the refrigerator.
My favorite dish that my mama made was scraped new potatoes and fresh green beans cooked together in a big old pot with a hambone!
Everything my Mom cooked was delicious, fried chicken, collards(my favorite), angel biscuits, pound cake, I could go on forever, she was a great cook and I learned from her and now cook just like she. I am from NC.
This is such a difficult task because my mom was an excellent cook. She always laid a spread out on Sundays. She would get up very early on Sunday so that we can enjoy a family meal after worship. She is older now and has health issues so she can’t throw down like she used too but she passed on her steps for some of the family favorites to me. My all time favorite was her pot roast smothered in gravy and served over rice with collard greens and rolls. Fresh lemonade to wash it down.
My mom was from Germany and she made one dish that I always asked for on my birthday it was roladin(sp?) potato dumplings and red cabbage.
My Mom makes everything the best. But her black walnut cake, and her potato salad with a cooked dressing, no mayo here, are my favorites. She doesn’t use a recipe for the potato salad and I don’t think that I will ever be able to copy it. Have a great week and God Blesa.
My Mom made the best cornbread and that was how she also made the best cornbread dressing.
My mom made the best homemade bread and pies
I will always remember my mom’s chicken soup with matzo balls. I try to replicate hers, and it’s close, but not quite the same.
My mom made the best fried chicken, that was my favorite meal she made.
My mom made the best salmon loaf. I don’t like cake so she would make me a salmon loaf for my birthday. Good times! I live in Louisiana.
My mom made the softest homemade biscuits that melted in your moutb. Always the best when served with sausage gravy.
My Mama’s mayonnaise cake was my favorite. She made it for my birthday every year.
My Grandma’s rock (fish) stew and my other Grandma’s applejacks (hand pies).
My mama was no cook. Hated it! That’s why I cook…taught myself because I like to eat. lol My grandma’s were good cooks…
I suppose my fave thing mama cooked was her “Menia Pot Roast.” I’m sure every woman in America makes this… soon as “cream of” soups came out back in the day…
Chuck roast, pkg. of Lipton onion soup and can of “cream of” mushroom… although mama did like to use cream of celery sometimes on hers! Hard to beat this one in a crock pot.
My mom’s Sour Cream Coconut Cake! When I first heard of it, I didn’t want to try any cake that had sour in the title but when I tried it, it was/is awesome!
It literally melts in your mouth. So very good. My mouth is now watering thinking about it!
Everything my Mom cooked was my favorite! I was one of those children that liked everything except turnip greens! When I started working, I ate lunch with some ladies at the then local restaurant Brady’s in Chapel Hill. This was a treat as one of us usually had to remain in the office while the others went to lunch! Brady’s had delicious turnip greens, which my friends always ordered, and eventually, so did I. After that I enjoyed my mother’s, along with deviled eggs, pork chops, fried cornbread, and the turnip greens. I still remember them to this day!
My mom’s Chicken and Dressing recipe with gravy was always a favorite. Sadly, I’ve tried to replicate it since she passed away and can’t even get close. Sure do miss it.
I’m from NC;)
Mum’s pressure cooker baked beans.
Grandma’s rock cakes.
Pintos cornbread and fried taters.
My mom made the best chicken and dumplings! I miss them and I miss her.
Stephanie in Knoxville, TN
My mothers fried chicken was and still is my favorite dish. She is 87 and can still fry up a delicious batch! I live in NC so hello there neighbor. 🙂
My mama’s steak and kidney pudding (not the pie with a crust, but inside a pudding basin, lined with suet pastry). The kidneys were lambs’ kidneys, not sure what the steak was, but the gravy was awesome. She used to serve it with either brussels sprouts or garden peas and boiled or mashed potato. And usually followed by a milk pudding – rice, semolina, sago or tapioca, always with a teaspoonful of red jam in the centre which made it look very festive, but I don’t remember who got the jam!
I don’t remember any favorites that my mom made, but my favorite is chicken and sausage gumbo. I could eat it everyday.
My favorite thing that my mom made was a cranberry relish with Orange that her mom made every Thanksgiving. I have been married almost 30years and serve this with every Thanksgiving Turkey plus assorted poultry throughout the year. Always feels like a big hug from Mom and Grandma too!
Deb from NC