Recipes – THE SPECTACLED BEAN

What’s Cooking? Old Recipe Pamphlets and Cookbooks [Part 2 Of 2]

Today it’ll be Think & Do + Poll Question. Yesterday it was Show & Tell + Discussion.

THERE IS A PLACE BETWEEN TRASH AND TREASURE WHEREIN ONE CAN FIND STUFF

STUFF being defined as interesting things, unique things, obscure things that are worthy of conversation but not much more.

In this case the STUFF is from a box I inherited that contains my grandmother’s handwritten cookbook, a couple of printed cookbooks, and other bits of information about food and drink.

Thus I give you Think & Do.

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THINK & DO

This recipe for Frankfurter Roast with Prune Stuffing suggests: *“You’ll like this simple method of utilizing either prune or raisin stuffing with the plebeian but flavorful frankfurter.”* 😳

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This recipe for Cottage Cheese Salad Dressing combines sweetened condensed milk with sieved cottage cheese, vinegar, and a few spices. 😖

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This recipe for Chicken [or Ham or Salmon or Tuna] Mousse suggests that it is: *“A hearty flavorful entree for hot summer or busy, meeting-filled days.”* 🤨

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POLL QUESTION

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Sources:

Frankfurter Roast with Prune Stuffing is from 100 Selected DRIED FRUIT RECIPES chosen by 100,000 HOMEMAKERS at GOLDEN GATE INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION, published by CALIFORNIA DRIED FRUIT RESEARCH INSTITUTE, 1939

Cottage Cheese Salad Dressing is from THIS IS MY BOOK OF MAGIC RECIPES by The Borden Company, 1942

Chicken [or Ham or Salmon or Tuna] Mousse is from Joys of Jell-O by GENERAL FOODS CORPORATION, 1963

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What’s Cooking? Old Recipe Pamphlets and Cookbooks [Part 1 Of 2]

Today it’ll be Show & Tell + Discussion. Tomorrow it’ll be Think & Do + Poll Question.

THERE IS A PLACE BETWEEN TRASH AND TREASURE WHEREIN ONE CAN FIND STUFF

STUFF being defined as interesting things, unique things, obscure things that are worthy of conversation but not much more.

In this case the STUFF is from a box I inherited that contains my grandmother’s handwritten cookbook, a couple of printed cookbooks, and other bits of information about food and drink.

Thus I give you Show & Tell.

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SHOW & TELL

The STUFF featured in the above photograph has one noticeable thing in common: these recipe pamphlet and cookbook covers have the color red on them. Other than that they are about as random as can be.

They are in order of publication year:

1933 – The Art Of Mixing by Wiley and Griffith

1941 – Quick•easy RECIPES from MUELLER’S

1942 – THIS IS MY BOOK OF MAGIC RECIPES from The Borden Company

1943 – How to bake by the Ration Book from Swans Down

1949 – Aunt Chick’s Pies by Nettie McBirney

1963 – Joys of Jell-O from General Foods Corp.

1960s [?] – TRUDY TENDERFOOT MEETS REDDY KILOWATT from Ohio Edison Company

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DISCUSSION

Anyone else feeling less guilty about not following through on Marie Kondo’s advice about getting rid of STUFF that doesn’t spark joy? Especially in light of the fact that STUFF often makes for good conversation starters?

Anyone know why red was [or is?] a popular color for the front of cookbooks?

Anyone try a new-to-you old recipe lately?

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Ms. Bean Is Delightfully Ornery Whilst Conversing About A Cocktail Recipe

It’s probably not nice to torment a friend who happens to groove on numbers, but you know what? I’m not always nice.

• + 😈 + •

I WAS TALKING WITH a longtime friend about a cocktail called The Pink Drink. Years ago I found the recipe in a magazine and over time we’ve modified the recipe to please us.

It’s one of those simple three-ingredient “trio” cocktails that when made ahead and stashed in the freezer for a few hours, can be slushy or just darned cold. The viscosity of it varies depending on how much alcohol you put it in when you make the drink.

If you want it slushy [our preference] use less alcohol. If you want it just darned cold [original recipe] use lots of alcohol.

Both are good. The choice is yours.

It is that simple.

• + • + •

HOWEVER MY FRIEND, a numbers freak who prefers all things quantified, is one to want precise measurements for any recipe. She snorted derisively when I told her the recipe for The Pink Drink is more conceptual than measurable.

Friend wasn’t happy with that explanation. She wanted specific details, demanding that I tell her how I make this drink.

So I did. But being the creative ornery wordsmith that I am, my explanation about how I make the drink sounded more like my philosophy on how to live my life than an actual recipe. I said:

“For me it’s all about the good taste, not the buzz.”

Friend was not amused, but I was.

• + • + •

THE PINK DRINK

pink grapefruit juice
pomegranate juice
orange-flavored vodka

measure the above ingredients relying on any proportions that make sense to you.

[original recipe was ~~30-30-30~~ one-third each ingredient, but we go for 60-30-10 now]

introduce ingredients inside a pitcher. encourage them to mix it up. place pitcher in freezer for a few hours, allowing them to chill together.

serve drink up in a martini glass with a twist of orange, if’n that’s something you like to do. or serve in a highball glass over ice.

[remember this is a concept, think of it as improv, not a precisely-scripted Tennessee Williams play, ‘k?]

• + • + •

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Are you always nice? Or do you stray into ornery on occasion?

And how does this make you feel?

• + 😈 + •

The Great Cobbler Debacle Of 2018 + 12 Fruit-Based Desserts Explained

In the aftermath of the debacle there were questions, reasonable ones.

• How could this have happened? What recipe did you use?

I used a recipe I found online from what I thought was from a reliable source. Fake news, meet fake recipes. But here’s the thing, I didn’t double-check the recipe, comparing it with other recipes, like a smart person would do.

After the debacle, when I found a wonderful recipe by the Barefoot Contessa, I realized that I had used a recipe with the wrong batter to fruit ratio.

• Did you set the oven to the correct temperature?

I did, but after the debacle I checked the oven temperature with a thermometer to confirm that the oven was heating like it should. It is not.

In fact it’s heating about 25º below where it should be so the cobbler baked at the wrong temperature. Hence, the cobbler remained a soggy mess even when it’d been in the oven for twice the suggested time.

• How much money did you waste on this debacle?

Oh, the shame. I hang my head as I tell you that I bought raspberries and blackberries and blueberries for this untested recipe, assuming it’d be a wonderful desert. But it wasn’t, it never even made it to the table– thus my $12.00 worth of berries were lost.

• And from a good friend trying to distract me: what are the differences among the various fruit-based desserts? Do you know?

I didn’t know the answer to her question, so I did some research, which was a good way for me, an egghead, to get over the debacle. This is what I learned.

• • •

BROWN BETTY – fresh fruit [often apples], spiced, then baked under buttered bread crumbs

BUCKLE – single layer cake that rises up around the fruit that is in the middle, making fruit buckle down, while cake forms circle above it

CLAFOUTI – fresh fruit [often cherries] covered with a flan-like batter and baked, usually in a cast iron skillet

COBBLER – fruit sweetened in a way that creates a thick syrup, with dough plopped on top like individual biscuits that when baked looks like a cobblestone street

CRISP – fresh fruit, spiced with cinnamon [+ other spices sometimes], baked with streusel topping

CRUMBLE – buttery crumbs that include oats with sweetened fruit baked between two layers of crumbs

GRUNT – fruit base with sweetened biscuits or dumplings on top, cooked in covered skillet on the stove top, named for the sound the fruit makes while it cooks

PANDOWDY – a baked pie [usually apple] that has a thick crust on top with slits that allow the juices to bubble up onto the top of the pie, then using a spoon one pushes the crust down as it bakes so that the dessert looks dowdy when taken from the oven

PIE – sweetened and thickened fruit as the filling, baked, usually in a round pan, between lower pastry and top pastry or crumb topping

PING – fruit [usually cherries], covered in a sweet sauce, with spoonfuls of dough that form a crust on top that when tapped makes a hollow pinging sound that indicates it’s finished baking

SHORTCAKE – I’m not going down this road again… click here & read what we discussed earlier this year

SLUMP – fruit base with sweetened biscuits or dumplings on top, cooked in covered skillet on the stove top wherein the topping slumps into the fruit

• • •

Sources of general information + a few specific recipes: Serious Eats, Huffington Post, the spruce Eats, FLOURISH, kitchn, Cook’s Country, COOKS.COM.

• • •

I’ve eaten 9 of the 12 desserts defined above. I’ve not had Brown Betty, nor have I had Grunt or Slump– which some sources say are the same thing. 🤨

Share Your World | Going To The Turtles

Once a week Cee asks the questions on her blog, and I answer them here on my blog. It’s a good thing, ‘ya know?

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• What is something that people are obsessed with but you just don’t get the point of?

Basketball.

*yawn*

Here’s my take on it: a bunch of people, who call themselves a team and wear matching culottes, make a big deal about bouncing a ball while running to one end of a wooden court where they make squeaky noises with their shoes as they toss the ball among the team members. Eventually, someone attempts to throw the ball into an overhead small circular net.

Why? No one knows.

Then, the whole nonsensical show repeats at the other end of the court allowing the other team to do the same thing. And then it happens again.

Ad infinitum. 👎

• What quirky things do people do where you are from?

No one does this where I live now but…

I grew up in a small town where the word “mango” meant green pepper. Yep, no one called green peppers what they were, except my mother who knew that a mango was a tropical fruit, not a vegetable.

She never tried to correct anyone in town on this point, but she did make it clear to me that what everyone in this small town believed to be true, was in fact objectively false in the rest of the world.

It was a life lesson, I suppose, on the dangers of groupthink. And of putting the wrong ingredients into your recipes.

• What are some things you wish you could unlearn?

What it is like to be inside a MRI. All of them, any style. It’s a feeling too horrible for words.

• Who is someone that you miss having in your life?

I used to go to yoga classes at the wellness center in a local hospital. Carol, a RN, taught the classes.

These classes were the most safe and satisfying yoga experiences I ever had. However, Carol retired, the hospital closed the wellness center, and I’ve been left ever since trying to find [unsuccessfully] anyone as fun and centered as Carol was.

I miss Carol.

• Optional Bonus Question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Last week’s gratitude award goes to Fredrik Backman for writing the darkly humorous novel, A Man Called Ove. This book kept me entertained/distracted for hours so that the remodeling noise and the various people traipsing around inside our house did not bother me. No better review, eh?

This week’s looking forward to something goes to meeting some friends to go see a professional baseball game. We do this once a year and it’s always a good time, regardless of who wins the game.

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This post is part of Cee’s Share Your World Weekly Writing Challenge.

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Of Plans & Parsley Thwarted

“Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”

~ E. B. White

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DSCN7683 — *Two parsley worms munching on my parsley.*

Zen-Den and I took last week off to go on a staycation.

My plans for our staycation, which we scheduled last January, revolved around the idea that together we’d be able to do a long list of outside chores. But the weather turned hot & muggy with rain so we weren’t able to do much outside.

Like I’d planned. Carefully.

At first the weather bummed me out, but after a rather stern Come-to-Jesus meeting with myself I managed to convince me that all was not lost. That I’d adapt to this unfortunate turn in staycation weather with a revised plan and a hopeful heart.

Dammit.

• • •

So what did we do on our staycation?

Well, I’m glad you asked, my gentle readers. We did boring things, mostly inside the house, that had needed to be done for a long time. To wit:

we cleaned out more of the basement, taking 2 carloads of stuff to Goodwill;
we sorted through clothes closets and our garage, tossing out all sorts of junk;
we shredded documents from as far back as 1998;
we cleaned out both the refrigerator + freezer, going so far as to replace the water filter in the frig;
we installed the last 3 new outdoor lights, a project we began last fall, taking the old still useable lights to Habitat For Humanity; and
we tried 2 new dessert recipes, Mexican Brownies & Apricot Clafouti.

We were productive and made yummy things to eat.

• • •

DSCN7685 — *One particularly hungry parsley worm followed the parsley stem to the end.*

But much more was going on here than de-cluttering and dessert.

While we were working to make things less cluttered inside the house, two parsley worms set up residence in my herb pot, and decided to devour as much parsley as possible.

I’d be upset about this except that in light of all the current chaos and discord going on in the United States, their destruction seemed insignificant.

Charming, even.

Plus I know that if they eat enough now, they’ll be able to turn into Black Swallowtail Butterflies later in the summer. And that kind of small hope, of transformation and growth, of plans succeeding, makes me think that tomorrow will be a better day.

For them.

For us.

For everyone.

• • •

A Recipe For A Heart-y Dinner, So To Speak

Do you want to be happier about where you are in life?

Then I recommend you read the following recipe which will quickly make you incredibly content to be living in the modern world.

The recipe is from The Something-Different Dish, by Marion Harris Neil, Cookery Editor of Ladies’ Home Journal and author of this cookbook, published in 1915, a mere 101 years ago.

[She also wrote The Story of Crisco around this time. But I digress…]

Please keep in mind that a respectable cookbook published this recipe because [presumably?] people were eating things like this.

That they made at home.

Not that long ago.

So considering this reality, might I suggest that when you start to feel down about your life here in 2016, you need to remember that things could be a lot worse.

You could be eating Love In Disguise for dinner tonight. 😉

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