Family Recipe Friday – Roman Holiday

Another memorable recipe from Grandma’s cookbook is this one – for Roman Holiday. I remember having this at “family dinners” at Grandma’s house, or at home when Mom would make it.

Roman Holiday

2 cups macaroni
1 lb. hamburger
diced onion, 1 medium
1 12-oz. can tomato juice
grated Parmesan cheese

Cook macaroni in salted water (about 15 min.). Fry hamburger and diced onion in heavy skillet, breaking up meat as for chili, until pink color disappears (season to taste with salt & pepper). Put layer of macaroni in greased baking dish, then layer of meat, another layer of macaroni and another of meat. Pour tomato juice over all. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 435 for 35 min. (You can bake potatoes at the same time and they will be done at the same time as meat dish if you wish). Serves 4 to 6 people.

I love this particular handwritten recipe, though, for the other memories of Grandma it brings back as well.  It embodies Grandma’s inability to throw anything away. Yes, I know, it skips a generation…. This recipe was written on the back of a piece of junk mail. I remember well that kitchen drawer full of letters requesting donations, expired coupons, and old greeting cards. We grandkids would pull out these scraps of miscellaneous paper and use them to record poems, stories, and drawings of birds and whales.

Grandma apparently used them to record recipes – and notes to Grandpa:

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