Oh, so many of these posts are causing long-suppressed memories to re-surface. Ours was a very "meat & potatoes" household. Vegetables usually consisted of corn, peas and/or carrots, sometimes fresh, sometimes frozen, sometimes canned, always cooked to death. On special occasions like Christmas, we would have exotic veggies like cauliflower & brussel sprouts, boiled to a bitter mush. Salads were always iceberg lettuce, sliced cucumber and sliced tomatoes, smothered in ranch dressing, except for special occasions when we had shredded cabbage and carrots suspended in lime jello. I always thought I hated veggies. Until I moved out and began cooking for myself. Now I'm a vegetarian. Every once in a while my mom would get creative and try to do something other than the basic meat & potatoes. In her defence, she made a killer scalloped potatoes and cabbage rolls to die for. But more often she would make one of the ever-popular canned-soup concoctions. Ground beef, canned peas, and canned tomato soup (optimistically called "Hungarian Goulash"), usually served over mashed potatoes (huh?). Chicken breast cooked with canned cream of mushroom soup, served over egg noodles. Kraft Dinner, made gourmet by adding cream of celery soup. Spaghetti was made not with pasta sauce, but (yup) cream of tomato soup. edited because I was apparently very sleepy when I posted this
