Tutu's Casserole

     On my weekly menu planner I listed Sunday's meal as "Tutu's Casserole."  You won't find that dish in any cookbook.  The reality of it is that there is no recipe for it, anywhere.  It refers to one of my mother's signature meals.  When she became a grandmother she boldly announced that she would be called "Tutu" because that means grandmother in Hawaiian.  How she knew that remains a mystery, but Tutu it was for our daughters.  And Tutu loved to cook.  She was good at it and as far back as I can remember she never used a printed recipe for anything she made.  That included the grape jam and strawberry preserves that she made from home grown ingredients as well as the phenomenal chocolate cake with vanilla icing and the sweet and gooey pineapple upside down cake that I used to take back to my college dorm each Sunday evening.  It was years later that my fraternity brothers finally confessed that they would wait at the dorm to help me bring in my belongings just to have a piece of one of those amazing desserts.
     Tutu also made some pretty tasty main meals, too.  Another specialty was her beef stew with dumplings.  Those dumplings were so light they almost floated off the stew.  She also made the best fried butterflied shrimp I have ever had.  And she loved to cook my Dad's favorite meals, too.  She thought nothing of preparing things like boiled cow's tongue, kidney, liver and brains, oh yes, and pig's feet, too.  But she would not cook lamb, because my Father didn't care for it.
     And when she hosted special Friday night meals with our daughters they were amazed with the way she could turn a simple meal into a feast.  Allison recalls the best broccoli at Tutu's house.  Can you imagine a child liking cooked broccoli?  But served with a hamburger and a side of fresh strawberries sprinkled with confectioner's sugar there was nothing better in the universe.  And Rudi still compares everyone else's pancakes to Tutu's as they were thin, bulging with chocolate chips that had a crisp edge on them from the griddle, served with real maple syrup.  Tutu cooked using real ingredients and I guess that made a difference.  There were no pre-packaged meals or artificial additives in our house.  Fresh eggs, meat, milk,  produce and bread were delivered to the door each week.  And Tutu created masterpieces from these basic elements.
     So I can only tell you that Tutu's Casserole combined crumbled sausage, large sea shell pasta, tomato sauce and peas to make a simple but filling meal for everyone at the table.  As for the recipe, I guess you will just have to create it yourself, just like Tutu did.