Dinner

Old-fashioned hamburger steaks with homemade onion gravy: thick seasoned beef patties seared in cast iron, onions cooked slow in the same skillet to lift the brown bits, a little flour, beef broth, then the patties simmered back in the gravy under a lid. No packet. Exact amounts and times.

Old-fashioned chicken and homemade noodles: a whole chicken simmered for the broth, egg noodles rolled thin, cut with a knife and dried two hours on a towel over a chair back, cooked in the broth with the shredded chicken and served over mashed potatoes.

Old-fashioned beef stew for the night of the first frost: chuck cut in big pieces, salted, tossed in flour and browned hard in batches, simmered with onion, garlic, tomato paste, broth, bay leaf and thyme with the lid cracked for an hour and a half, carrots and potatoes in for the last 45 minutes. Cups and grams, and the times.

Skillet fried chicken the paper bag way: pieces dipped in milk beaten with an egg, shaken in a brown paper grocery bag with seasoned flour, and fried in cast iron with the lid on for the first side and off for the second.

Old-fashioned porcupine meatballs: ground beef mixed with uncooked long grain rice, onion and egg, simmered under a lid in one can of condensed tomato soup thinned with water until the rice swells and pokes out like quills. Served over mashed potatoes. Cups and grams.

Appalachian soup beans: dried pinto beans simmered slow for 2 to 3 hours with a smoked turkey wing, an onion and salt until the broth turns thick, served with cornbread crumbled in and chopped raw onion on top. With the soak and the salt timing explained.

The old-fashioned Sunday pot roast: a chuck roast seared hard in a Dutch oven, one envelope of dry onion soup mix and a little water, lid on, 325°F for about 3 hours 30 minutes, with the carrots and potatoes added for the last 1 hour 15 minutes.

Old-fashioned Swiss steak: cheap round steak pounded with flour until half as thick, browned, then baked slow under canned tomatoes and onions at 300°F for two and a half hours until it cuts with a fork. Served over mashed potatoes.

Old-fashioned 1950s tamale pie: ground beef cooked down with onion, bell pepper, corn, tomatoes and chili powder in a 9 by 13 inch dish, cheese over the top, then a stiff cornmeal batter smoothed to the edges and baked until the lid is gold. Cups and grams, oven temperature and time.

Old-fashioned chicken pot pie with a single crust on top: chicken, carrots, potatoes, onion and peas in a gravy of butter, flour, broth and milk, baked at 400°F for 35 to 40 minutes. Why there is no bottom crust, and the case for the peas.

Old-fashioned Midwest beef and noodles: a chuck roast braised until it falls apart, thick egg noodles cooked right in the broth until it turns to gravy on its own, all of it ladled over a pile of mashed potatoes.