Most of my family is German, so as a kid we always had a lot of German specialties. It usually consisted of fresh bread, sausage of all kinds (e.g. blood sausage), head cheese, cabbage, sauerkraut, etc. On some occasions though, we'd make kohlrouladen, a delicious cabbage dish. We'd sometimes bread them, but I forget what they call this. I always called them "frogs", because as a kid I couldn't pronounce it and decided to call them frogs instead. We'd eat them when all of my family was in the area, which usually meant on some holiday. It was an all day affair that filled the house with spices, fresh bread and steamed cabbage.
My grandfather, a WWII veteran, assumed the use of Spam in his cooking after returning from the war. Growing up, we'd wake up to a huge German breakfast (and if you've ever seen a German breakfast, you know that the entire table is covered with food of some kind) with fresh meat, fruit, bread and Spam. Sometimes with eggs, sometimes by itself.
My dad, a Vietnam vet, would make "shit on the shingle" whenever it was just the men of the house. Not sure why that was, but for him it was a food that he ate among men in the war, so I guess he conveyed that to the home life as well. For those not familiar, it's beef and gravy on top of some kind of a muffin or biscuit. He'd spice up the meet real nice and we used to love it.
My wife is Indian, so in our home we've adopted a lot of different cuisines and used Indian as an influence. Whenever we have time, we'll create a fun dish that often takes a lot of time. We'll do everything from scratch. We'll make malai kofta, a vegetable "meatball" in a rich sauce or something like a mutter paneer (peas and cheese). We make the cheese from scratch and use whatever vegetables we have from our backyard, if possible.
Not sure if that's what you were looking for or not, but I gave a shot.