Preparation:
Cook up lots of chopped onions and some hamburger meat (the amount depended upon how flush the pocket book was at the time). Of course, my mother used to use a little bacon fat in the pan to begin with, and drain off any extra fat from the hamburger, tho we raised our own meat, and it was pasture fed, pretty lean. Meanwhile get a BIG pot of water boiling and cook up a mess of elbow macaroni - depending on how much you need to stretch the recipe. We always used "the macaroni kettle", and woe if something else was in it. Remember - I made this for 14 people, and I still always make too much. And we are not talking pasta here, we need plain old Prince elbow macaroni. Here is where my family added their own touch. Rather than Campbell's tomato soup, we used our own home grown canned tomatoes. My mother used to can about 200 quarts a season. So dump a quart or so of good thick canned tomatoes (break up the whole tomatoes a bit) in with the hamburger and onions, add the macaroni, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve up in big bowls with homemade bread. We came to like it best made this way. If you use the Campbells' tomato soup variation, just add enough soup to make the mixture nice and gooey. Some people, being fancier than we were, would put the whole mixture in a big casserole dish, top it with buttered bread crumbs and bake it for a short time in the oven. This used to appear at Pot-Luck Suppers with great regularity. Could feed a lot of hungry kiddos with American Chop |
