In my house growing up we had two polar opposites in cooking methods.

My father was always a great cook and made wonderful chili, stews, fried chicken, beans and cornbread, mexican food, and lots of other dishes. We looked forward to his cooking and ate well those nights.

My mother on the other hand could best be described as "inventive" with a side of forgetful in her cooking. She was always trying to use some type of expired goods in the meals she was fixing. I can remember many times my mom would try to make some form of fusion between two recipes and fail, to my misfortune at the dinner table.

The one my wife remembers best is my mother's "leftover stew." This was not my fathers stew that had been leftover and would almost get better with age. This was various leftovers from around the fridge that my mother had combined into a stew..... That possibly could have been fine, but on further inspection of the stew it was discovered that it included absolutely everything from the fridge including cheese and a cherry pie.


My wife had it even worse that I did since neither of her parents were good cooks. When we met she had a very small selection of "safe" foods that she would eat which mostly consisted of chef-boyardee and breakfast cereal (never at the same time).

My most memorable meal with my MIL consisted of turkey loaf (some form of store bought reconstituted "turkey" in a loaf shape smothered in gravy), canned corn, canned grean beans, and blueberry muffins made from a box. This meal could have just been a low point in food for a while until I discovered that my MIL had found a way to remove the non-stick coating from the muffin pan using only Pam (a non-stick cooking spray) and box muffins.

A typical meal with my FIL consisted of chicken tenders, canned peas, mashed potatoes from scratch, and kool-aid. The thing that made this a unique meal is his method of cooking the chicken. This includes taking the chicken and putting it in a pan filled with 2 inches of water and effectively boiling it in the oven until it was cooked. This basically created "protein strips" with no seasoning or flavor. This was then coated with ketchup, barbecue, or other sauce and was my wife's favorite meal either parent would make at home.