In My Mother's Kitchen: Eggplant Parmesan / Aunt Maggie's
Programming note: It turns out that my sister had the recipe for Three Cheese Rolls, so I've added it to the end of that post.
Moving along, lets talk about two more dishes that, like Three Cheese Rolls, were forms of pasta casserole. The first of these was Eggplant Parmesan, which joined liver & onions and fish with almonds to complete the trinity of "meals I could not stand" growing up. The reason for the is categorization was the eggplant. No matter how much I tried, the texture of eggplant just grossed me out. Once I came home from college, grabbed some leftover pasta from the fridge and within half a bite I realized from texture alone that it was really eggplant parmesan.
Eggplant has become really the only thing I won't eat that M is enthusiastic about. She loves baba ghanoush and some other eggplant based dishes, but I just can't bring myself to make them for her. Fortunately, with Cleveland's extensive population of first and second generation Middle Eastern immigrants she can buy it pretty easily.
And yet, I have doubts. I don't have my mother's eggplant parmesan recipe, probably because I can't imagine wanting it, but when I look at some representative recipes on the internet, I have to admit that I don't recall my mother ever frying the eggplant before it went in the casserole. Given her stance on frying things in general, it seems unlikely. In addition, when I was in Europe in 2015 for my sabbatical, the single best meal of my trip involved roasted aubergines, but instead of the standard American eggplants these were tiny ones, which I've occasionally seen referred to as Japanese eggplants. That meal was delicious in every way and not because I was drunk on red wine. Maybe I should try eggplant again sometime, just to see if my mother's recipe was the problem, instead of eggplant itself. After all, I now enthusiastically eat chickpeas, which my mother only used in a salad that I really hated as kid. Maybe I can change on this one through the power of Middle Eastern cuisine.
The second pasta casserole dish was not something my mother made that often, and was essentially the kitchen sink of pasta casseroles. It was called Aunt Maggie's Italian Dinner, although it was always just Aunt Maggie's in discussion. I'm not sure if the dish is named for an actual aunt of my mother's (my mother had a LOT of aunts, but unlike my father's aunts I never really met most of them and as far as I'm aware none of them were actually Italian), or if it came from some cookbook or somewhere else. However, the important thing to know about this recipe is that my mother felt obligated to include the phrase " Warning this makes a huge amount" as the very first line of the recipe.
Aunt Maggie's Italian Dinner
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 pound hot Italian sausage
2 cups chopped peppers (any color you like)
2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 tbsp olive oil
1 4oz can sliced mushrooms
1 cup sliced black olives
2 28oz jars tomato sauce
1 pound package of wide pasta noodles
1/2 pound shredded mozzarella
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cook pasta and drain.
3. Saute ground beef, Italian sausage, peppers, onion and celery in olive oil until meat it cooked and vegetables are tender. It's easiest to do this in a very large pot or in multiple batches.
4. Add mushrooms, olives and tomato sauce. Heat to boil, then simmer for five minutes.
5. Pour pasta into large roasting pan. Add heated meat sauce and mix well. Cover with foil and bake 25 minutes.
6. Remove foil, added mozzarella cheese and bake 10 more minutes or until cheese is melted.
My mother also includes instructions on how too make smaller batches or how to freeze it, and unlike her similar instructions for blueberry muffins, if you make a full batch of Aunt Maggie's there's a real chance that even if you have an appetite like mine you won't finish all the leftovers before they go bad.
I imagine that when my mother was growing up with four older sisters, two younger sisters, and four first cousins who were essentially adopted as siblings, having a recipe like this that makes an enormous amount was really helpful for meal prep. I can also imagine that the first time my mother made it for us she was slightly surprised by how many leftovers she had on hand. This was arguably the only dish my mother made that could overwhelm my teenaged appetite, which dwarfed my still impressive adult appetite.
For all that, Aunt Maggie's wasn't something that my mother made frequently, but it is almost unique as a recipe she made that had an actual name, as opposed to just being referred to by a key ingredient ala flank steak. I have made it a few times, but it's not a regular part of my rotation.
Moving along, lets talk about two more dishes that, like Three Cheese Rolls, were forms of pasta casserole. The first of these was Eggplant Parmesan, which joined liver & onions and fish with almonds to complete the trinity of "meals I could not stand" growing up. The reason for the is categorization was the eggplant. No matter how much I tried, the texture of eggplant just grossed me out. Once I came home from college, grabbed some leftover pasta from the fridge and within half a bite I realized from texture alone that it was really eggplant parmesan.
Eggplant has become really the only thing I won't eat that M is enthusiastic about. She loves baba ghanoush and some other eggplant based dishes, but I just can't bring myself to make them for her. Fortunately, with Cleveland's extensive population of first and second generation Middle Eastern immigrants she can buy it pretty easily.
And yet, I have doubts. I don't have my mother's eggplant parmesan recipe, probably because I can't imagine wanting it, but when I look at some representative recipes on the internet, I have to admit that I don't recall my mother ever frying the eggplant before it went in the casserole. Given her stance on frying things in general, it seems unlikely. In addition, when I was in Europe in 2015 for my sabbatical, the single best meal of my trip involved roasted aubergines, but instead of the standard American eggplants these were tiny ones, which I've occasionally seen referred to as Japanese eggplants. That meal was delicious in every way and not because I was drunk on red wine. Maybe I should try eggplant again sometime, just to see if my mother's recipe was the problem, instead of eggplant itself. After all, I now enthusiastically eat chickpeas, which my mother only used in a salad that I really hated as kid. Maybe I can change on this one through the power of Middle Eastern cuisine.
The second pasta casserole dish was not something my mother made that often, and was essentially the kitchen sink of pasta casseroles. It was called Aunt Maggie's Italian Dinner, although it was always just Aunt Maggie's in discussion. I'm not sure if the dish is named for an actual aunt of my mother's (my mother had a LOT of aunts, but unlike my father's aunts I never really met most of them and as far as I'm aware none of them were actually Italian), or if it came from some cookbook or somewhere else. However, the important thing to know about this recipe is that my mother felt obligated to include the phrase " Warning this makes a huge amount" as the very first line of the recipe.
Aunt Maggie's Italian Dinner
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 pound hot Italian sausage
2 cups chopped peppers (any color you like)
2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 tbsp olive oil
1 4oz can sliced mushrooms
1 cup sliced black olives
2 28oz jars tomato sauce
1 pound package of wide pasta noodles
1/2 pound shredded mozzarella
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cook pasta and drain.
3. Saute ground beef, Italian sausage, peppers, onion and celery in olive oil until meat it cooked and vegetables are tender. It's easiest to do this in a very large pot or in multiple batches.
4. Add mushrooms, olives and tomato sauce. Heat to boil, then simmer for five minutes.
5. Pour pasta into large roasting pan. Add heated meat sauce and mix well. Cover with foil and bake 25 minutes.
6. Remove foil, added mozzarella cheese and bake 10 more minutes or until cheese is melted.
My mother also includes instructions on how too make smaller batches or how to freeze it, and unlike her similar instructions for blueberry muffins, if you make a full batch of Aunt Maggie's there's a real chance that even if you have an appetite like mine you won't finish all the leftovers before they go bad.
I imagine that when my mother was growing up with four older sisters, two younger sisters, and four first cousins who were essentially adopted as siblings, having a recipe like this that makes an enormous amount was really helpful for meal prep. I can also imagine that the first time my mother made it for us she was slightly surprised by how many leftovers she had on hand. This was arguably the only dish my mother made that could overwhelm my teenaged appetite, which dwarfed my still impressive adult appetite.
For all that, Aunt Maggie's wasn't something that my mother made frequently, but it is almost unique as a recipe she made that had an actual name, as opposed to just being referred to by a key ingredient ala flank steak. I have made it a few times, but it's not a regular part of my rotation.