What's on your dinner table tonight? (And - is it "dinner" or "supper" in your neck of the woods?)

Chicken fried steak, baking powder biscuts with cream gravy, mashed 'taters, tomatoes from the garden and home-froze corn. For dessert - leftover cinnamon rolls from Sunday. Mmm - mmmm!

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), August 21, 2000

Answers

Ooooooh, so glad you asked! We had one of my favorite summertime suppers - fresh picked Silver Queen corn (on the cob, natch'), steamers and clams casino - dug up fresh on the Cape by a friend who just got back from a vacation there. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - can almost smell the ocean air! Judi in NW CT

-- Judi (ddecaro@snet.net), August 21, 2000.

Grilled chicken in a green salad , onion , croutons,and cheese .Nice and easy , no mess, and good for you .This is one of my favorite summer time meals .

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), August 21, 2000.

It's "dinner" here, and maybe nothing! We stay outdoors until late, and sometimes don't get to feeding ourselves too well at night these days! However, I have chicken thawing out, and it's a quick trip to the garden for chard, beets, spinach, collards, and soon beans and hopefully corn. There's always pasta and pesto for a quick snack, with a garden salad, too. That's our summer standby...unless we have company, and then it's usually salmon, plus some of the above. Bon Appetite!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 21, 2000.

I had surgery a week ago so my husband won't allow me to cook he's a great husband and is really trying to make life easy for me I can't believe how hard it is to take it easy. Post surgery depression is more than likely from a lack of exercize and productivity. Last night he made fried chicken dinner it was wonderful, but as he was putting the chicken into the frypan he stated that he would like to be done and in bed in a half hour, I didnt laugh but realized that I made cooking look toooo easy, and mentioned that chicken needed to cook at least 45 min. to an hour. I think its spaghetti tonight.

-- ronda (thejohnsons_doty@hotmail.com), August 21, 2000.

Welll for supper we had fried rabbit with cream gravy made with the drippins and hot cat head biscuits. Dessert was sweetened blackberry juice over a buttered biscuit downed with plenty of hot coffee. Yum Yum Blessings Peggy

-- Peggy (wclpc@cookeville.com), August 21, 2000.

Geesh, you mean you guys actually EAT during canning season? Real food? Wow, I'm impressed! My poor husband stands about drooling at all the wonderful food being "put up", but alas, goes through a semi- forced "fasting period"!he-he! Oh well, this too shall pass......at least that is what I tell him, not that it comforts him very much! LOL! Wendy

-- Wendy@GraceAcres (wjl7@hotmail.com), August 21, 2000.

I ate at friends house tonight we had grilled pork chops, fresh black eyes and garlic mashed potatoes. Darn that was good eat'in!!!

-- Mark (deadgoatman@webtv.net), August 21, 2000.

Hello, This evening I made beef and veggie lo mein for supper. In our household,we call our evening meal either or.I have some dear friends from church who invited me over for dinner.Well,At around 2:00,they called wondering where I was and if everything was ok.Apparently,alot of people 'round here refer to 'lunch' as 'dinner'! Oops! Wendy,I sure can relate to your canning tale!I do declare that I definitely do have a love/hate relationship with my canning! Wish I had some likeminded friends to have a canning bee with! God bless, ~~Tracy~~

-- Tracy Jo Neff (tntneff@ifriendly.com), August 21, 2000.

I can commiserate with Wendy -- my crew got scrambled eggs on toast tonight. They were, however, allowed all the applesauce they wanted!!!

Canning season is rough on meal preparation. By the time I've put up 20 or so quarts I simply do not feel like cooking. It generally ends up being something quick and easy. I'll make it up to them tomorrow night, we're having roast chicken with all the trimmings!!!

BTW -- could someone enlighten me on Chicken Fried Steak? I realize I'm showing my Canadian here, but just what is this? I've heard of it before, but can't figure out if its chicken fried like steak, or steak fried like chicken???

-- Tracy (trimmer@westzone.com), August 21, 2000.

Chicken fried steak has nothing chicken about it. Unless I've got this wrong, (someone help me if I do) it is breaded, thin steak with a creamy country gravy.

I was putting up grape jelly and apple butter, so it was leftovers for dinner tonight. Green beans w/onion from yesterday, pasta re- heated and salad. And all the fresh apples they could eat!

-- Rachel (rldk@hotmail.com), August 21, 2000.

Tee-hee! It's steak, fried like chicken - well, sort of. I take a round steak and cut it into managable pieces, then pound it with a meat mallet. Each piece will end up about double the size they started out. I dredge mine in a cornmeal/flour/seasoning mixture, but some folks use a batter on theirs. Fry it in hot solid shortning, turning it once, about 5 min or so on a side. (I put foil on a cookie sheet, melt a thin layer of lard and put the meat on it - cook in the oven at 400 degrees for about 1/2 hour, turning once.) Scrape the bottom of the skillet well, drain off all but about 4 TBL. of the grease. Add 4 TBL flour and stir 'til smooth, light tan and bubbley. Add three to 4 cups milk or 1/2 evaporated milk and 1/2 water and stir, stir, stir - 'til it thickens. I use a pancake turner/spatula to stir it so I can keep the bottom of the pan scaped well - gravy scorches easily. Serve the meat with the gravy boat on the side - some folks like the gravy over their meat AND 'taters, others only want it on the 'taters.

Now - what are cats head biscuts!

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), August 21, 2000.

Ronda, I'm glad your husband is cooking for you, and hope you get back on your feet soon!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 22, 2000.

Hi Polly, had almost the exact thing for supper, except I got lazy and through some baked potatoes in the oven. Dinner is the meal Southerners eat while Northerners are eating lunch. When the Northerners are eating dinner, Southerners are eating supper! Isn't it funny how each region of America has it's own sayings? I'd always heard that cat head biscuits were like "drop" biscuits. They're not rolled out and cut with a biscuit cutter, but I think you take a good tbl. of dough and "drop" onto the pan and baked. Of course, in different parts, it might be called something different!!!!

-- Annie (mistletoe@earthlink.net), August 22, 2000.

Annie, I must disagree. I am from Indiana, reared on a farm and dinner was always the noon meal and supper the late afternoon/early evening meal. I didn't even know what a "lunch" was until I started going to a city school and the children around me used the word. I called our meal dinner and they would laugh at me. I recently read that the "Ozarkians" used dinner and supper as I used it also and they said it was a regional colloquialism. I don't think so. None of my family comes from the Ozarks or the south. I just always assumed that city people ate lunch and farm folks ate dinner. And that was the colloquialism!

-- R. (thor610@yahoo.com), August 22, 2000.

Well, I grew up in North-Western Pennsylvania. Our main meal of the day was dinner. Some days we had lunch and dinner. Other days we had dinner and supper. Figure that one out!

Now days when I call my kids for dinner they say Mommmmm, we are not having dinner, it's lunchtime! I guess they get it from their dad (who grew up a hour north of me... but his parents are from Florida?)

-- Melissa (bizemom@netzero.net), August 22, 2000.

I grew up in central Florida and never heard of lunch till I went to school. We ate dinner at noon and supper after daddy got home from work. Cat head biscuits are rolled out and cut with a cutter about 5in across. They should be at least 2in high and 5in across...as big as a cats head and light as a feather. Mighty good eatin. Blessings Peggy

-- Peggy (wclpc@cookeville.com), August 22, 2000.

Didn't have much of a supper last night too busy putting up salsa, but tonight, we're having gizzards and spinach noodles, mashed potatoes, canned peas, tomatoes and cucumbers, all home grown except the noodles. Around here no one cares if you call it supper-dinner- or lunch as long as you don't call them late for it.

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), August 22, 2000.

Canned stewed tomatoes yesterday, so dinner was leftovers. Tonight is chili that I had to make to use up the stewed tomatoes that wouldn't fit in the canner. I noticed in an earlier thread that someone mentioned having difficulty canning on an electric stove. I also have that problem - yesterday all my jars lost 1/2 inch of fluid due to erratic temperatures. My burner is not very subtle so any adjustment results in drastic changes. How do the rest of you cope with this?

-- glynnis in KY (gabbycab@msn.com), August 22, 2000.

I had the lunch-dinner/dinner-supper discussion with the city born and bred husband of a friend recently. My maternal grandparents raised their family in the era when horses were still used for farming--I'm 51 and can remember the day Papa sold his last team. They would be up before dawn with Papa and my uncles in the barn harnessing and feeding the teams while Grandma prepared a huge breakfast. After a morning of hard physical labor, those men wanted and needed a huge meal, dinner, at midday after which, they and the teams rested an hour or so. The evening meal was always much lighter and was called supper.

My paternal grandparents were big city people with Granddad going to an office each day and Grandmother staying at home with the kids. They had a fairly large breakfast, lunch at midday but their main meal was in the evening when the family was together.

Although my farmer grandparents were Southern and the city ones from New England, I wonder if it's not a lifestyle thing rather than regional. Regardless, the Sunday midday meal for both sides was dinner and a real occasion.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), August 22, 2000.

When I was a kid, it was "dinner" if it included mashed potatoes and gravy. If it didn't, it was "supper."

-- Jd (belanger@tds.net), August 22, 2000.

Hi R., I lived in Indiana for a short while and had always heard the noon meal called lunch there, but that was in town. You're right, it must be a city-country type thing. But you know, alot of people in Indiana are originally from the South. Got any Southerners in the family tree? :) By the way, know what you mean about getting teased for the way you talked. You don't notice an accent when everyone else talks the same, but, boy, those other people sure do talk weird!!! heehee

-- Annie (mistletoe@earthlink.net), August 22, 2000.

French bread, brushed with butter and garlic powder and broiled; then topped with grilled vegetables fresh from the garden: eggplant, zuccini, butterstick squash, tomatoes,red onions, green peppers, and mushrooms, and topped with a little bit of melted mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Of course, my carnivorous children turned up their noses, but hubby loved it!!! Yumm-Yum!!

-- (trigger@mcn.net), August 22, 2000.

I was making Salsa too, trying to use up all the tomatoes and peppers. Husband works 2 shift so I put some salsa in blender with some soft goat cheese and mixed it up and ate it with nacho chips. I forgot to make the strawberry jello with the strawberrys I picked today. I am not related to Betty Crocker at all.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), August 23, 2000.

Cindy, I am LOL at your post!

-- Crocker doesn't (livehere@too.com), August 23, 2000.

Trigger, When did you say you were serving that again? That sounds delicious. I've never grilled veggies before. Any secrets? What is butterstick squash?

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), August 24, 2000.

We have dinner in the evening, because that is when my husband gets home from work and the kids from school. He grew up on a cattle and sheep ranch where they had dinner at noon, "lunch" for a midafternoon break (coffee, lemonade, and a dessert), and supper in the evening. Butterstick squash is a summer squash somewhat similar to zucchini, only bright yellow. It is very versatile, and easy to fix. I grilled all my vegetables on my "George Foreman" grilling machine. I sprayed it with nonstick cooking spray and brushed it with a bit of garlic. Quick and easy, just the way i like to cook!!!

-- (trigger@mcn.net), August 24, 2000.

Oops!! I forgot to mention that I topped the garlic bread with feta cheese before adding the vegetables.

-- (trigger@mcn.net), August 24, 2000.

Hopefully, freshly caught salmon when Michael returns from today's all day fishing trip!

-- Sandy (smd2@netzero.net), August 25, 2000.

Twenty-five pounds of fresh salmon in the freezer!

-- Sandy (smd2@netzero.net), August 26, 2000.

Supper Welll it looks a lot like breakfast LOL Eggs, Grits, Bacon, Home made biscuits and fresh tomatoe slices.

Gotta run I smell them biscuits. :-)

Kenneth

-- Kenneth (wizardsplace13@hotmail.com), August 26, 2000.

Noon meal is DINNER. Evenin meal is SUPPER. Well, in this neck a the woods anyhow. "Lunch" was just a sandwich or snack for the noontime meal. Fried Chicken, mashed taters, white gravy, gr. beans, corn with bunches of Iced Tea. Choc cake or "papple" pie fer des-ert. Supper? Well how about more a tha same? No leftovers? Beef stew would work rite smart. Well, how about breakfast? Fried eggs, fried taters/with onions, white gravy and fried hog. Nopee, don't eat like that anymore. Can't afford it and then the artery cloggers are not welcomed here anymore. Matt. 24:44

-- hoot (hoot@pcinetwork.com), August 26, 2000.

Me working nights and the rest of the family living like real people , sleeping nights, we gave up calling meals or days by name, so counting 3 of us and 4 dogs and cats every meal feels like feeding time at the zoo. tonites special: Chicken Fried Steak (beat down like road kill on the main highway), sweet peas, whipped taters,biscuits and sawmill gravy, scrambled eggs and green onions. By the way,reading this post yesterday set my mouth for tonites meal, thanks for the craving.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 27, 2000.