Take Me Back Tuesday: High School Home Economics Class Revisited and a Recipe

Cooking has always been a big part of my life. From an early age, I was always baking something in the kitchen. Some of my favorites were recipes that I normally might not have tried.....I remember my mom being at work, and I'd take out a cookbook and hunt for something that we had all the ingredients for in the cabinets. Sometimes, that lead me to recipes that I might not normally look at....my favorite was always pound cake, and then of course any kind of cookies. I will say this, I used to make the very best pound cake you would ever taste...it was simply amazing. Not too long ago, I found the very recipe I used all of those years ago for pound cake, and made it. I hope it was the change in ingredients through the years and not my cooking skills, because it was just a mess.....and I have not tried again. I know sometimes I have issues with memory...I just hope the cooking skills don't go out the window with the memory cells too.....

It was not until I took home economics class in high school that my range of cooking changed from baking to actually cooking a meal. I still remember that home economics cooking class with our high school teacher Mrs. Summers. I think there were 4 cooking stations complete with ovens and sinks, and we worked in groups learning the basics of cooking a meal. I really loved this class......it was fun and besides that...we got to eat.....in class....yep...don't get any better than that.

Sunday, I did a lot of cooking, most for the week ahead and some to share with my friend's family while she recovers from surgery. I pulled out several of my recipes looking for something different. Now, I have kept lots of recipes over the years, many I have forgotten about. However, Sunday I discovered a piece of paper that had a recipe on it from long ago....it was from home economics class in high school.....and it just so happens to be the very first thing we ever made. Seriously, sometimes things pop up and manifest themselves from a long ago forgotten memory and it just makes you wonder.....or at least it does me.

I have not thought about this recipe in YEARS. I can still remember coming home from school and instructing my mom to buy all the ingredients, I was going to cook dinner. And cook dinner I did. Now, as a young girl, I thought this was a wonderful meal simply because I made it myself.

In a far corner of my mind, after I thought about this on Sunday, I am sure my mom did not think it was too grand, but she was just gracious enough not to say anything. And my poor little brother did not even have a choice...he just had to eat it. Now, I am not saying this is bad....it really was not, but if I sat this on the table to my family today....I think they would look at me like I was a alien....really.

The only other recipe I remember from home-economics class was a Mexican casserole, which I loved. Right after my husband and I first was married, I made it, and well, he GRACIOUSLY ate it but asked not to have it again....and it was really wonderful...to me, not my husband. So all of what I learned and first cooked in high school with my friends, were a thing of the past, long forgotten. After all, if my husband was not going to eat it, I did not need to make it.

The common denominator in this memory, was not so much the recipe being discovered after years of safe keeping inside a cookbook which I barely open these days. It was while I was searching for a recipe to make for my sweet friend, "whom by the way, was in my home economics class all of those many years ago," that this long forgotten recipe was discovered again.

Along with the recipe, wonderful memories came flooding back....memories of learning to cook and eating in class, learning to sew.....(baby blue and pastel pink over-alls) I kid you not....things that we did together long ago....when we were inseparable from each other in high school. I spent the greater part of the afternoon, remembering all of these things while I did the cooking......all those memories behind a recipe on a slip of paper....forgotten inside a cookbook and now discovered and remembered.

And yes, I am sharing this recipe with you today.....I had to search online for a photo...because I certainly did not have one to share, after all it has been about 26 years since I last made this, much less even thought about it.


Hamburger Cups

1 lb. ground beef
1/2 onion
1/2 c. BBQ sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1 T. brown sugar
1 can refrigerator biscuits
grated cheese

Brown the ground beef and drain the fat. Add the chopped onion and stir till onion is cooked. Stir in BBQ sauce, salt and brown sugar.

Roll the individual biscuits or flatten them so that the fill fit into the bottom and sides of muffin tins. Spoon the ground meat mixture into the biscuit “crust”.

Bake at 400 for 10 – 12 minutes.
Top with grated cheese and place back in oven til cheese melts.

Thanks for stopping by on this Take Me Back Tuesday.....it certainly took me back with fond memories this week to a very dear time in my life. Now, if you try this recipe...be sure to stop back by and tell me what you think.