Mid-Century Recipes – glenderella (2024)

I took last Friday off work to cook and clean all day – sounds like fun, doesn’t it, but it was, because I was getting ready for my annual knitting brunch with my friends from Knit Knight at the local yarn store. Fortunately, the house wasn’t too messy since we just had company a month ago. It did need some picking up, and the kitchen floor always benefits from a mopping. MaryAnne was pretty sure I stayed home to play with her all day, so I ended up spending some time throwing the ball for her to chase and catch.

I took a break at lunch time, and headed for the local Polish restaurant, knowing Ken would want to have nothing to do with going there with me. They have very reasonable lunch specials for $7.95 at Cracovia. I elected to have the Czerwony barszcz (beetroot soup with sour cream and potatoes) soup and the Golabki (cabbage roll). Since I had tomato sauce with my cabbage roll at the Bagel Deli, I tried the mushroom sauce here.

The soup is VERY pink. It is served hot, not cold. I gave it two thumbs up.

The cabbage roll was also excellent. A little filling for lunch. There were also several slices of bread, and “pork butter,” which involves lard, I believe. A little of that goes a long way.

Then I came home to more cleaning and cooking. And then Saturday morning, we had our party!

The sunroom, all set up and ready. The sunroom is pretty much the reason we bought this house.

I pull out all of my vintage linens. I do not care if they have a few holes or stains, they have character. And yes, they all have to be ironed, which is a big pain. But worth it.

My friend C. and I show off some of my vintage hat collection. The veil on mine is so long it would make it hard to eat. How did they deal with that? I guess ladies didn’t wear their hats to eat. Perhaps this was a church hat. It goes with this dress rather well, don’t you think?

I also pull out my Mom’s luncheon sets (glass plates) and my trays that were mostly wedding gifts. I don’t remember where the swirly mod green one came from, I think I may have snagged that from Mom’s cupboard as well.

Smoked salmon/asparagus/cream cheese tortilla roll ups.

Pimento cheese finger sandwiches. All of the tea sandwich recipes are from here: http://teawithfriends.blogspot.com/

Green Chile Egg Casserole.

Prosciutto fig tea sandwiches.

Wonton Mini Quiches brought by my friend Cathy. They were excellent.

Pickle roll ups from my friend, C (pictured in hat.) I think these have: pickles, bread, and cheese. They are delicious!

More pimento cheese pics.

Dessert table: angel food cake with homemade strawberry sauce, Strawberry pretzel salad, kringle (hand carried from Wisconsin by my friend M., pictured here with the champagne bottle making a mimosa), smoothies, and Boston Creme Poke Cake. That poke cake is really rich, it needs LESS of something, maybe only one box of pudding would be better. Strawberry pretzel salad was good as always, I only make this when I have significant numbers of company coming, because I can’t eat it all. Everything was delicious, thank you to all my wonderful guests who attended shared food and laughs and who may never be the same after all of C’s dog stories.

The dessert table again. It was worth a 2nd picture.

We also had tea and punch, in a nice punch bowl, thanks to my friend Judy. She allows her punch bowl to live at my house and come out for the knitting parties. She also brings champagne for mimosas, what more could you ask for!

After we enjoyed our refreshments, we adjourned to the most comfortable chairs to knit and chat and tell wild stories.

A good time was had by all (I believe) and boy, did I sleep that night. (Ken hightailed it out of the house for the day, and the cats hid. MaryAnne did come out to be admired when there were only about 3 guests left.)

This is about how much help the cats were:

First, let me refresh you on the winning recipe from the vote-off on the “500 Snacks” Cook-book, which was “Hamburger Pinwheels.”

Please note that this recipe lacks a certain clear instruction on how large the recipe for baking powder biscuits should be. It doesn’t say biscuit recipe that makes 10 biscuits, or 12 biscuits, or 24 biscuits, so I just looked at a couple of recipes, and both of them took two cups of flour, and that sounded about right, so that is what I made.

Hmmmmm.

So, let’s assemble the ingredients, shall we? One thing that you might note is that this recipe is woefully short on seasonings. 1/8 tsp pepper? 1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce? That isn’t going to do anybody any good.

Pay no attention to the olive oil and pineapple, they were just hanging out. Please note the SD Ranch Raised ground beef (oh shoot, I just realized I didn’t weigh it, that might have been part of the problem, that meat packer is notorious for putting more than 1.25 pounds in the bag when it should be a pound….I just remembered that….) The recipe just says “pork sausage” so I looked around King Soopers until I found just plain “pork sausage.” Not breakfast sausage, not spicy sausage, just pork sausage. It said one small onion so I just used half of that one. And I minced the tarnation out of it because Kenny doesn’t like big chunks of onion.

See, finely minced.

Whoops, I apparently did not take a picture of the hamburger and sausage in the pan. I will admit that I did not brown the onion first in 2T of fat, I thought it would do just fine in with the hamburger and sausage, and it did.

I rolled out the biscuit dough and I slapped down the burger/sausage/onion/”seasonings” mixture.

It was at this point that I realize these were not going to be little OR cute.

That is a lot of hamburger. Like an inch deep. Even if there was 1.25 pounds in my package, that would still have been too much.

It looks even more like “The Worm” rolled up. If my brother is reading this, he is having 4-H cooking flashbacks. Except I think “The Worm” had more seasoning than this (I am going to have to find that recipe now, darn it.)

When I sliced it up, it became very obvious the slices were not going to maintain their structural integrity.

They do look kind of like meat cinnamon rolls, except they need more roll and less meat.

Please be nice to my scary looking cookie sheet, it does the job.

Beef, attempting to escape.

And, after the oven:

They didn’t change much, except to explode further.

Serving suggestion:

I forgot to get a Ken Reaction Shot! Shoot! Well, I think you can tell from the quotation in the title, “These Need Something,” he didn’t think much of them. I am not sure my dad would even go for them, because that is too much onion for him. They would have been better with, I don’t know, cheese? Horseradish? Green pepper (Ken wouldn’t eat that, or the horseradish), he tried one with ketchup and it was a slight improvement. Verdict: edible but bland. I would not serve as “snack” and since they were supposed to serve 8, that is more than one roll up per person, which seems excessive, and also makes me question if there was supposed to be MORE biscuit dough, then that would be even MORE excessive. Ah well, it is always interesting to try something new.

Saturday morning I got up, organized my grocery list and went to the store. I needed a bunch of stuff plus Zyrtec so that was an expensive visit. Canned fruit/veggies were on sale so stocked up on those, now the cupboard is so full you can hardly get in there, much less find anything. And butter was $1.99 a pound, I showed great restraint and only got 7 pounds.

Got home just in time to turn around and run to JoAnn’s and get a stick iron before my radio show started. Decided I needed the stick iron if I was going to stay sane putting my landscape fusible quilt together. It helped, but it is still a pain. If I am going to make something this large with fusible pieces again I need to figure out an easier way. It is all up and assembled on the wall, but all the pieces have fusible webbing on the back of them, and they aren’t attached to anything, just stuck up there. So I have been carefully removing pins and putting my Teflon pressing sheet behind the pieces and ironing them together. Next time I will put my batting on the wall so I can just iron the pieces right on there.

I worked on that while listening to “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” on PBS, and then it was time to make lunch. Made rolled club sandwich with some modifications. http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/baked-club-sandwich-rounds/7e7df15c-df0b-4d36-a95d-b7bc20c7da35/. (I have posted pictures of this before, got the recipe from Sister-in-Law Kristyn and it is one of Ken’s favorites). Pulled out the turkey I had purchased a while ago, the first time I tasted it (last week?) it didn’t taste quite right, so I tossed that. Then I looked at the two packages of turkey Ken bought about 2 weeks ago – and noticed that one of them said “Use by February 2012” – I am still training him to look at expiration dates, but come on, February?? What store doesn’t check their luncheon meat? And his other package said “April 5” but I opened it up and gave it the sniff test and it didn’t pass. Well, I had some soprasetta and uncured salami from when I was on my “meat and cheese tray” kick in March, and they were just fine. I also spread the unrolled bread with pesto to give it a little more taste. Ken isn’t wild about the pesto but I limit the amount and it is overshadowed by all the BACON and CHEESE.

Then I stirred up the Bavarian Cream Jello, as well as a pan of brownies (Hershey’s recipe from Aunt Eileen) Again, w /some modifications, I ran out of cocoa and so I shoveled in some Nestle Quik type cocoa. Ken pronounced that they tasted “Different than your Aunt’s” so I don’t know if he will eat many but I will send them to work with him or I will eat them all week (I will keep a couple for treat).

By that time I was tired and wishing for a nap, and Ken had gone to the range to hit range balls, but I was checking the TV schedule on the computer and Antiques Roadshow was on, so I substituted that for a nap, and did some embroidering as well.

Ken’s quote about my anticipated Jello-fest – “I said I’d eat plain jello, not weird stuff with s*** in it.” I told him he has to try one bite…..He asked me “Would your dad like this?” “YES!” I said, it has cherries and Jello and Cool Whip. I married someone who doesn’t like Cool Whip, I am not sure how this happened.

Ken had to stop at the grocery story on the way home because I wanted to make stroganoff for dinner but I forgot to put sour cream on the list. Of course, he needed breakfast stuff and hadn’t put that on the list, so he got that too. Put together the stroganoff (I pretty much use Paula Deen’s recipe, but put in some Worcestershire sauce for extra flavoring, and we eat it with egg noodles.) I used to just use cream of mushroom soup and sour cream, but the addition of beef broth (I just use water and “Better than Broth”) makes the gravy stretch a little longer. We both watched some of the Masters.

Here is the Jello mold “Bavarian Cream” and the recipe. I didn’t quite achieve the perfection of the picture in the Jello book but I was pretty happy with it. And it was tasty. And Ken ate it, except for the cherries and the whipped topping (once again, must be some sort of genetic defect….) Recipe and pic from the “Joys of Jello” book below.

It also got a little melty when I dipped it in the hot water to get it out of the mold. I tried warm water and that wasn’t doing it, so I went with hot, and it was too much, but hey, it did come out of the mold.

Did you know they still make Dream Whip? The box version of Cool Whip? King Soopers even has a Kroger brand version, which is good because otherwise it is kind of expensive.

OK, now it is time to vote on a recipe. Remember, I said I was not going to pick any gross ones that even I wouldn’t eat, and or any that Ken wouldn’t eat, so that excludes a lot of the seafood ones, including “Shrimp Wiggle” which is fighteningly titled to say the least. So these aren’t very adventurous but they are vintage and interesting.

I think I made something like this for 4-H Ground Beef Cook Off one year, except you didn’t cut it into slices, it was just left in a big roll and cooked. My brother referred to it as “The Worm.” When I was practicing, making it every week to get ready for the contest: “Ugh, we have to have ‘The Worm’ again?”

These might be good for breakfast.

This is quite a “snack,” I hope those 8 people are hungry. This has bacon and cheese, so no reason Kenny won’t eat it. Plus, you are supposed to use the broiler, so there is ALWAYS the chance something will catch on fire. At least in my kitchen there is always the chance.

I have souffle on my list of things to attempt to make this year (hmm, 1st quarter is gone already, I need to get on that list). I don’t know if this is a good souffle recipe but I am willing to try it. The only thing I know about souffles is that on old sitcoms they were always falling when someone made a loud noise anywhere near the kitchen. That means this could be a challenge.

This is not a voting option, but I just enjoyed these a little too much. Especially “Green Balls” and “Burning Bush” which sound like they might be related medical problems.

Ok, now is your chance. I will keep taking votes until Saturday morning, and then I will cook your choice and provide pictures and commentary this weekend.

Thank you for everyone who voted in my survey last Thursday. The Winner is “500 Snacks” – I am sure everyone was lured in but the attractive purple cabbage on the cover with festive snacks on toothpicks sticking out of it.

My trip to Chicago was quick but felt like I was gone a much longer time than 2 nights. After 2 and a half days of hotel food I couldn’t wait to get home. That hotel was obsessed with carrots. We had carrots at every meal. First two meals: asparagus and carrots as the vegetables. Third meal: carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. We had a sandwich buffet for lunch on Saturday – I thought I would escape the carrots, but there were carrots in the potato salad. Carrots do not go in potato salad, I am sorry. It was good potato salad, otherwise, with hard boiled eggs in it.

I placated myself at O’Hare Airport with two different kinds of soup from Rick Bayless’ Tortas Frontera. I had tortilla soup and corn and poblano chowder. The tortilla soup had more chili powder in it than I have eaten in anything for a while, but it was good. The corn chowder was also good. I had the raspberry/cactus agua fresca. I didn’t really notice the cactus but it was also tasty. I also got a large bag of 3-way Chicago style popcorn from Garrett Popcorn – (buttered, cheese and carmel corn, all mixed together).

The airplane was full of high school and college kids on their way home from spring break, including a young man next to me who at one points flopped over asleep onto MY shoulder. I strongly discouraged this.

I was excited to get home and go to my favorite Pho place, between the food poisoning last week and the travel, I needed a restorative. We did that on Sunday and it was just what I needed.

Prior to showing you some recipes to vote on (tomorrow) for what I should make from the recipe book, I am going to show you some that I will NOT be making. Remember, I said I will be trying to make some things we actually will eat, not things that waste food.

I will not be making anything with the word “jellied” in the title.

“Frankfurters take on new glamour in this gleaming aspic” – enough said.

I have a new hero. This blogger not only collects frightening recipes, she MAKES them and feeds them to her husband. And takes pictures of him eating them. This would never work in our house. http://www.midcenturymenu.com/ She has separated them into “worst” and “best” – of course I am reading the worst first. I may have nightmares tonight.

RetroRuth has inspired me to try some new recipes. It is Spring, hey, why not? So, I am going to have a little interactive feature here, and allow you to VOTE on which cookbook I should make a recipe out of, and then vote on the recipe. Of course, I am not married to someone who will eat tuna and mayo in lime jello, so I am going to pick recipes that look edible, but I will pick a good selection and then you can have your say, and then I will take photos and document the process, including our reaction. Sound like fun? Tough, do it anyway!

So, I pulled five cookbooks from my stash (I tried to narrow it down but really, who can resist some of these lurid covers) and at the end of the entry, you will find a poll on which one you want to see recipes from. I will be on travel for a few days, so you probably won’t have a recipe choice until Monday. Hopefully something entertaining will happen to my on my business trip that I can write about. (Not TOO exciting however, like being stuck in Chicago an extra day, etc.) (Not that I mind being in Chicago, but I like to DO THINGS in Chicago, not be stuck at the airport.)

1st Cookbook – Metropolitan Cook Book, by The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. I am guessing this one is from the 40s. It appears the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company published a series of these, I saw one from 1922 that looks similar on the inside but the cover on this one seems more recent. Has an assortment of recipes and I love the graphics on the cover.

The 2nd cookbook – “Meals for Two” from the Encyclopedia of Cooking, complete in 24 Volumes (I don’t think I have them all…..) published by the Culinary Arts Institute. I figure at least with this one I won’t be making a recipe with a large quantity. Again, a variety of foods. From 1954, a true Mid-Century cookbook. From the appearance of that meat, they didn’t go for “lean” back then.

Again from the Culinary Institute: 500 Tasty Sandwich Recipes. If you think I am going to make that one on the cover with the asparagus and tomatoes, you are wrong. But it is a delightful picture, yes?

Number 4 is “Body Building Dishes for Children” – again from the Culinary Institute. I just love the lurid photography on these. I do believe that is hash on the cover. Back from the days when we needed to fatten the children up, not skinny them down. I know we don’t have any children but this one just amused me too much.

This one is also from the Culinary Arts Institute but is not part of the Encyclopedia of Cooking. It is part of their “500” Series. Apparently they figured 500 recipes for anything was enough for anyone. 500 Snacks – Bright Ideas for entertaining. From 1940. This cover is kind of dark but if you start looking at it closely you can see some frightening things.

So vote away! One vote per person! I will keep the poll open until Sunday night! Ken, you will just have to figure out which book looks least disturbing and tell all your friends to vote for that one.