Old Family Recipes

I am going to give thanks for the dinner we just put in the oven because I am sure, even without tasting it, that it's going to be heart-warming and delicious. I know this because we've prepared a holiday favorite of my husband's mom, Nola. This is the recipe she always made the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everyone has their preferred way to use leftover holiday turkey, and this dish was her particular favorite. Even though we have taken a few liberties with it -- because some really do like it hot -- it is still close enough to her recipe that we think of it as Nola's sopa de pollo. We even use the very same casserole dish she used. Not only is this dish a sentimental favorite, but it is darn tasty too. Some folks love their mac-n-cheese, but this is one of my favorite comfort foods. Served hot and bubbly from the oven, it warms me from the inside out.

 

I will probably never share Nola's expertise in cooking. She was a whiz in the kitchen, an expert baker, among other things. She grew up on a farm, and learned to cook using the best and freshest ingredients; a 'locavore' and 'slow food' specialist long before those terms entered the vernacular. This recipe no doubt came along later, since it incorporates prepared soup and canned hatch chiles, but it always struck me that she'd hit upon a great way to serve a hearty and satisfying dinner to a crowd, while giving herself a break after the exhausting frenzy of 'from scratch' cooking that was a requirement for her holiday dinners. Nola took cooking very seriously. She didn't merely put some random ingredients together just so she could throw some food on the table. The cooking she did for family and friends was an expression of her love for them. I am grateful for the old family recipes, the tried and true favorites that connect us to the generations that came before us. I may not be the most conventional person, or a traditionalist, but keeping the family recipes close at hand and heart, feeds us, body and soul.