Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I’ve been thinking about the many things kids learn from their mothers while growing up (later on, too). Mothers are good role models so children learn not only by listening but also by watching them. 

Take cooking, for example. When my siblings and I were growing up on the ranch, all members of the family worked hard so eating nutritious meals was crucial in order to keep us all going. Mom was a good cook, but perhaps even more important, she knew how to plan meals so that we got all of the nutrients we needed. I honestly don’t remember her talking about vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, and other nutrients, but by watching her plan meals over the years, I learned about a “balanced” diet. 

Mom believed that meat was the most important part of a meal so she planned each menu around it. She fixed a potato dish (usually mashed potatoes with gravy), dinner rolls with freshly churned butter (courtesy of our cow), and a salad, often made with gelatin and home-canned fruit. During the summer months, Mom made salads from garden produce.

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I can remember Mom saying, “Now what will we have for a vegetable?” She’d send one of us to the basement for a jar of canned vegetables. Besides that, there was always a dessert, usually pie or cake, topped with whipped cream.

Dinner and supper were planned in this manner — never sandwiches and chips. Breakfast was eggs and bacon or another meat and biscuits or fried steak and biscuits with gravy. These were fuel foods to get us going each morning.

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Everything was homegrown and cooked in Mom’s kitchen. She baked bread once a week, often saving some dough for cinnamon rolls at the same time. She even made her own noodles. Although we didn’t have “boughten” wieners, Mom did make a sausage mixture and stuff sausage casings. These were hung in the smoke house along with hams.

All the time I was growing up, I watched and listened to Mom as she planned and cooked, and when I started my family, I followed suit. Ever since then I have planned balanced meals.

Recently I found one of Mom’s cake recipes that she made from ingredients she always had on

hand. It follows:

Boiled Milk Cake

Bring 1 ½ cups milk to a boil and keep it hot.

Sift together 4 times:

• 1 ½ cups sugar

• 1 ½ cups flour (I use bread flour.) 

• 3 teaspoons baking powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

Beat 3 egg whites until fluffy.

Pour hot milk over dry ingredients. 

Add flavoring to taste. (1 teaspoon vanilla)

Add egg whites

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Pan 8″ x 12″ just right. 

Especially good with caramel icing.

From recipe file of Judy Osborn

Happy Mother’s Day!