What family dinners did you grow up with?

[ValkyrieAssassin]

Both my parents were excellent cooks. And I and my sister relished food in a very big way so I expect it was quite satisfying to cook for us. For context i was born in 1973 and Dsis in 1976. I am not from the UK which makes a difference I think because meat was cheap when I was growing up. Not particularly well off- thoroughly middle class as both parents were teachers (DM part time from when I was born).

Our fairly regular family meals

• french onion soup
• pumpkin soup
• chicken noodle soup
• minestrone with homemade meatballs
• spanakopita
• beef wellington (every single birthday)
• chicken schnitzel with apple sauce, mash and peas
• beef filet on mustard crouton with brandy cream sauce
• semolina gnocchi with spicy tomato basil sauce
• pumpkin gnocchi (homemade) with sage cream sauce
• rissoles with mushroom gravy
• sausages and mash
• seafood pancakes
• chicken and veg pancakes
• bacon and sweetcorn chowder
• homemade asparagus soup (my mother was a Delia Smith devotee)

Most of this I would never cook in a regular week. It's mainly pasta, tacos, pasta and easy because I have children with a range of SEN that makes eating generally difficult for them.

I am feeling nostalgic this afternoon and am curious what sorts of dishes you had while growing up, and if you make them now for your own family or not.

My mother was a good basic cook, who stuck to her own repertoire of tried and tested meals.
We had a roast every Sunday, usually beef, with Yorkshire puddings & gravy served as a first course, before the meat and vegetables.
Other favourites were poached chicken in a creamy egg sauce served with rice, beef and tomato daube served with spaghetti, mince and dumplings. We had fish every week, often poached plaice, or skate in black butter sauce.

Puddings only appeared occasionally, but once in a while my Father would take over the kitchen, and we would have wonderful hot freshly made waffles with cream and jam. Happy days!

I was born in 1972, UK. Mum is an excellent cook. We had roast beef/chicken, shepherd's pie, risotto, pasta, tarts, quiches, home made soups regularly.

My Dad did most of the cooking in our house because my mum worked full time and he worked nights, part time. He was a fan of novelty, so if there was a new food that came out he would buy it.

Staples were
Home made meat pie pastry made from scratch
Liver and bacon
Stew and dumplings
Hotpot
Baked potatoes and salad
Mixed grill
Tinned Tesco chicken curry and rice
Tinned Tesco chicken supreme
Fish in parsley sauce (boil in the bag)
Cornish pasty (home made)
Corned beef hash
Ham, egg and chips
Spag bolognese
Steak and kidney suet pudding
Heinz tomato soup

There was always a dessert, called “afters”, which might be “fruit from the bowl”, tinned fruit, mousse, Fondant Fancy, jam tart, tinned chocolate pudding, Angel Delight…

We didn’t have much spare money and I don’t think my mum was a particularly good cook. So we had things like….

ham, egg and chips (in the deep fat fryer of course)
sweet and sour (make with chicken nuggets and a sachet sauce.

We did always have a Sunday roast though. With the full works. Was one of the only meals with had with actual veg and decent meat.

I also had things like milkshake (with 5 sugars in) for breakfast! So our diet wasn’t great.

I think we eat a much more diverse range of food now than I did as a child, but I enjoy cooking and more importantly I have much better financial situation. We have salmon once a week because my daughter loves it, a home made spag bolognese, usually a vegan chilli or vegan curry and often chicken, veg and rice. We usually have chips from chip shop on a Friday or a pizza.

Born 1985.

Chicken Kiev and chips or spuds
Chicago Town pizzas
Various stews and one pot dishes with whatever they had in the kitchen
Gammon ham, mash and cabbage

This, on repeat, for 18 years

Beef Casserole
Lamb/ pork chops veg and mash
Sunday Roast dinners - chicken/ beef/ pork
Gammon and pineapple.
Sausage and mash or toad in the hole.
Various Salads in the summer
Cottage/ shepherds pie
Spaghetti bolognaise
Baked salmon
Oven baked fish and chips

Oh, and the odd roast dinner (chicken, lamb or beef)

Born early 80’s but promptly became an ex-Pat brat

mum was (is!) an excellent and adventurous cook so alongside spag Bol, Sunday roasts etc we would have proper curries, Thai food, french food, risottos, paellas, various fresh fish or seafood, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs or kedgeree on the weekends, salads like watermelon and feta in the summer or raw Thai veggie etc. Dad made a mean Sri Lankan curry and whenever we travelled mum would pick up tips and recreate food at home, she loves cooking and shows her love through cooking for others (and has passed that on to us)

hilariously though my brother and I look most fondly upon nights when we’d get a chicken Kiev or pasta pesto or tuna pasta (tin do tuna warmed through with a tin of toms with friend onion and garlic) and our favourite “mum food” was a whole chicken roasted on a bed of rice that cooked in its juices.

she despairs a little now that I am vegan and he’s veggie but she rises to the challenge!!

Sausage
Gammon
Pork steaks
Mince
Pie
All with potatoes and veg
Spag Bol
Lasagna
Cottage pie
Bacon egg and chips
Roasts
Home made pizza
Pancakes filled with bolognese sauce and covered in cheese sauce
Sausage plait
Bernard matthews turkey joint
Various frozen things from Bejam!
Child of the 70/ 80's

Born in the 80s. Both parents were working FT from very early on, so most meals were out of the freezer, into the oven or microwave, apart from Sundays when we would have roast chicken with peas, cabbage, carrots and mash.

Both my parents and I are autistic, though we didn't know it at the time, so with lots of different fussiness about food it stayed very bland as well. Never had vegetables other than the ones mentioned above, except tomatoes and onions, and salad wise it was lettuce, tomato and cucumber. I didn't know what to do with a pepper or a parsnip till I learned myself in my twenties. Garlic? Forget about it.

Average week of meals was one day takeaway (fish or chicken and chips, chow mein and rice, or my parents would have curry if I was having something else), turkey escalopes with potatoes and peas, spaghetti Bolognese (with Dolmio sauce), shepherd's pie, lamb chops with potatoes and peas, chicken in breadcrumbs with waffles and peas. Sometimes if my mom had more time she'd make something like this fish in a white sauce (with potatoes and peas) or maybe a fry up (sausages, beans, toast, eggs, bacon). Pancakes once a year on pancake day.

And also
Champ
Irish stew

Beef stew, dumplings and root vegetables.
Shepherd's pie and vegetables from garden.
Toad in the whole and baked beans
Sausages and mashed potatoes or fish and mashed potatoes with peas and carrots.
Roast dinner beef/pork/chicken or lamb.
Macaroni cheese and vegetables from garden.
Ham with Salad and little boiled potatoes.
Home made pasties. My Mum would mince up any left over beef to make them and make pastry from scratch.
Steak and kidney pie and vegetables from garden.
Vegetable soup and crusty bread.

We never had pizza, curry with rice (only rice pudding) and the only pasta was macaroni.

Dad had a good vegetable garden and grew onions, potatoes, carrots, beetroot, runner beans, broad beans, peas, Rhubarb, cooking apples, plums, raspberries, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes.

We did get the odd fish and chips in Friday's, but fish was cheap when I was little.

Bless her my mother was a terrible cook.

We had roast on a Sunday.
Cold meat and salad on a Monday.
Shepherds pie
Sausages, beans and chips
Fishfingers, peas and potatoes
Macaroni cheese
Toad in the hole
Corned beef hash
Tinned soup
Lasagne
Lambs liver

Oh and casseroles. Always a casserole every week and I wasn't keen on them.

It helps to know what age people commenting are. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and very few British people cooked anything other than meat and two veg.
My mother was a good cook and everything was cooked from scratch and not boiled to death.
We had roast on Sundays and fish on Fridays - either cooked in breadcrumbs or parsley sauce. The other days were usually beef stew with dumplings, savoury mince, shepherd's pie, lamb chops, pork chops or liver. By the mid 60s we had some pasta or rice dishes.
We had pudding every day, usually home made, such as fruit pies or crumble.
When I left home in the 70s I enjoyed eating rubbish food such as Findus crispy pancakes or fish fingers, but don't like them now. My children have grown up with a very different diet.

Bangladeshi here..... so very different

various types of fish curry... Bangladeshi fish curries are more like a spicy broth rather than with a thick gravy. we typically would have steamed rice with 2/3 types of fish and veg curry + seperate stir fried veg + daal and then beef/chicken as well few times a week. so lots of dishes that we shared. and then usually some sort of dessert - rasmalai/cakes or bengali desserts called pitha. weekends whole extended family would eat together and it was monstrous - a lot of heavy food - biryani etc.

mum/aunts also made a lot of lasagne, pizza, Chinese, barbecues etc. we were also having food sent by various family members a lot - just a thing we do. we all ate a lot. all the time. no idea how I was slim back then. eat much less now that I live away from family but am nearing the size of a small whale.

Findus crispy pancakes, chips and peas! 😂

oh god yea. Findus pancakes!!! Yummy

Oh I am insanely jealous!

Standard meals from my late 80s/early 90s childhood:

Frozen pizza and chips
Egg and chips
Spaghetti hoops
Beans on toast
Frozen potato waffles with cheese on top
Cheese sandwiches
Chip butties

I don't think I had any vegetables apart from boiled-to-death cauliflower and baked beans until I was around 15. And I was a vegetarian!

Mum;
Findus crispy pancakes
Tinned meatballs
Chicken tonight if it was on special
Boil in the bag fish with mash
Occasionally a roast but very well done meat
Sausage and mash
Ham, Egg and chips
The only real homemade thing was lasagne, albeit with a jar of Ragu.

Dad worked 60 hours a week in a manual labour job but could cook a mean liver and bacon and cottage pie always huge portions.

I worked in kitchens when I was young, learned the basics and love to cook. I've never bought a jar or powder for sauce. My gran (mum's step mum) taught me to bake.
When I came home from uni I did a lot of the cooking, parents happy for me to.

DF still a very food is fuel attitude although loves fresh fish and seafood, often angles for a dinner invitation.
DM is now really into food and cooking.
When I was young they were both time and money poor, working long hours and multiple low paid jobs, so we were fed with what was cheap and quick and I know there were times when they ate cereal or beans/toast so we had the above. They are more comfortable now, enjoy eating out etc every so often, which I don't remember at all from childhood other than with my grandparents.

Am loving the Findus Crispy pancakes love on here. I don't think there was so much ready-made food in the 70s and 80s so they stood out! What on earth did we eat them with?

Also, @therealcookiemonster fish curry more like a broth sounds so healthful. We lived in a very non-diverse area so my mum making 'curry' with 'curry powder' was considered quite revolutionary. Used to love the raisins in it!

80s kid really.

Mostly:
Roast with mashed potatoes and veg
Pie or pasty (home made) with mashed potato and veg
Cold meat with mashed potato and veg
Stew or casserole with (guess what...) mashed potato and veg
Fish fingers and either mashed potato and veg or occasionally chips
Boiled eggs and brown bread
Baked beans on brown bread

Occasionally:
Rissoles
Bacon, eggs and brown bread
Kidney and mushrooms... with mashed potato and veg
Kippers (with mashed potato and veg)
Cauliflower Cheese (with mashed potato)

Once a year: pancakes.

Can't stand mashed potato or brown bread.

Irish poster here. Grew up with stew, bacon and cabbage, shepherds pie, fish and chips on Fridays. Also mam baked her own brown bread, soda bread and currant bread. Always plenty of bread and jam if we were hungry

1989 Scottish
My mum was terrible.... Everything "yella" from the freezer nuggets fish fingers crispy pancakes escalopes chips and ALWAYS beans as a side, never seen another veg in the entire house.

My grans
Mince and tatties
Steak pie
Beef olives
Gammon steak and pineapple rings on top
Lentil soup
Chicken and rice soup
Big Yorkshire pudding with beef and gravy inside
Frozen chicken supreme was a theme for a while
Fry ups in the morning
Apple pie and custard or bakers cream cakes for desserts

Lasagne, mince and tatties, spaghetti bolognese, a roast, lentil soup, pork chops
and then a range of “beige” freezer teas.
cold “picky” tea in the summer sometimes