No Pattern Required

Welcome to another week of the Mid-Century Menu!  Honestly, I am surprised this feature has gone one as long as it has.  I thought for sure that it would become too disgusting for us to continue, but Tom and I have persevered through all the stinky, nasty dishes and even found a few good ones.  One of these days I need to make a Best and Worst list of the Mid-Century Menu.  Sigh.  So many things to do.

In any case, this week’s menu comes out of Betty Crocker’s Bisquick Cook Book, published in 1956.  I love this cookbook, not just because of some of the crazy recipes, but for all the great pictures as well.  I think this is one of the better photographed cookbooks, just for the fact that they take a lot of pictures of the finished dishes.  With most of these older cookbooks you just have to use your imagination when it comes to picturing the end result of the recipe.  And that has put me off more than a few recipes, let me tell you.  I can imagine some pretty horrible stuff.

Of course, the pictures also have drawbacks.

What in God’s name is oozing out of that waffle sandwich on the right?  What?!?!?  It looks like someone on the photo shoot was so nauseated that they threw up on a waffle.

“Awww, someone bring me another waffle, Bill just yaked on this one.”

“Should we clean-up the plate and reset everything?”

“Nah, the cream on the shortcake will run. Just throw it on top of the other one and we’ll pretend its filling.”

 Gah.

Another thing, has anyone else noticed that the picture of Betty Crocker has yellow eyes?  Yellow eyes, I swear to God, yellow eyes!  Just like Scut Farkas.

Anyway, all kidding aside, here is the dish I picked for this week.

Really?  Really?!?!?  On what planet is a hot dog, cheese and ketchup considered pizza???  Even if you used chili sauce, it would be closer to chili than pizza.  Not even the dumbest 1950′s kid would be fooled by this. 

Pizza. Bah.

In any case, I was off!

I got chicken hot dogs because they were less fat.  I didn’t think it would make that much of an impact in whether or not the boats actually tasted like pizza.

Milk, melted butter and Bisquick.

The dough, all stirred together.

Here it is on the floured board after it kneading it 8 times.

Here it is after being rolled out and divided.  I didn’t bother trimming the dough to make it even!

The hot dog halves, all in place. 

And no, it isn’t pizza yet.

Putting the cheese strips in place.  I thought they would be safer under the hot dog than on top of it.

Nope, not pizza yet!

Ketchup on top of the hot dogs.

Still not pizza!

Here they are, all boated up and ready for the oven.  You know, at first I thought this was going to be an easy recipe, but from the last picture until this picture took…me…forever!  They were so fussy!  Oh well, I suppose I shouldn’t complain.  At least they look semi-appetizing, which is a good thing after all that work.

And no, Sara, they aren’t pizza yet.

Here they are, straight from the oven.  They don’t look like pizza, but you never know. I didn’t put pudding or even milk into the dessert and it came out with pudding on the bottom.  I was really confused, and I wondered if Bisquick was some kind of miracle ingredient.

The first bite. 

“So, is it pizza?”

“Nope,”  Tom said, “It’s not pizza, but these things are really good.”

I took a bite.  They were really good. Sickeningly good, actually.

But they didn’t taste like pizza. Nuts. I guess Bisquick isn’t magic after all.

The Verdict:

Pizza Boats:  Good, but not a bit like pizza. The biscuit is very rich and is a little sickening after the second one, but is still pretty tasty.  Would be a good party snack if cut into smaller pieces.

Hot Fudge Pudding Cake:  Really good.  How the mystery layer of pudding came about I have no idea, but it was really good. Tom ate himself sick on it, and didn’t care about the mystery.

Welcome to this week’s edition of Mid-Century Menu, where I willingly make mid-century recipes that I know will be terrible or inedible, and then Hubs and I eat them for dinner. Most of the time we can even eat all of them.

This week we have a special treat. Last week’s frosted sandwich loaf may have been the most labor-intensive Mid-Century menu so far, but this week’s meal may well be the easiest.

Spamcakes.

Yup, that’s right. Spamcakes. For all of you who like illustrated explanations, they are make of Spam and Bisquick. Hence the advanced algebraic equation that serves at the title for this fantastic post:

Spam + Pancakes = Spamcakes.

Believe it or not, there is actually a recipe for this in the Bisquick Party Book, which has brought us such wonderful dishes as the memorable Tuna Royals, and I am sure has plenty more nastiness for Hubs and I to enjoy in the future.

One more thing. Despite what the cover of this book says, I am sure the idea for Spamcakes is neither gay nor new. Even when this book was published in 1957.

But I digress. Bring on the Spam!

Couldn’t be easier, right?  The recipe is only two sentences!

Here is the Bisquick batter, ready to be mixed.

The Spam block.

Now, I know a lot of people out there love Spam.  In fact, it has a huge cult following, complete with kitschy museum and everything.  But for some reason the prospect of meat in a can never appeals to me. Maybe it is the processed taste. Maybe it is the jellied bits. I have never been one to take home a can of it and say – “Yes! The meal I have been longing for, and all contained in a can!”

Hubs on the other hand…

Sliced up and ready to go.

Frying up in the pan.

Covered with pancake batter.  So far so good, right?

Umm…well…that didn’t work so well.  Okay, maybe only one slice of Spam at a time.

Here it is, frying away happily.

Okay, that didn’t really work either.  This is proving more difficult than the two sentences led me to believe.

I decided to cut up the Spam into strips and pour the batter over that.

There, that worked.

So, a plate of spamcakes later, we were ready for dinner. And Hubs was HUNGRY!

Not that I can knock his enthusiasim, but he seems to be enjoying this meal a little more than he should be.

The verdict: Good

These cakes weren’t anything too crazy.  As Hubs said, “They taste like pancakes with Spam in them.”  They were rich, a little greasy and tasted like pancakes. I wouldn’t like to eat them all the time, but it wasn’t such a bad experience.

So, a bunch of edible recipes in a row! This is starting to be a trend.

Hello, everyone!  Welcome to Mid-Century Menu, the weekly Wednesday post in which I pick a mid-century recipe to cook and serve for dinner from my vast collection of vintage cookbooks.  And it is usually an “interesting” recipe.  Interesting as in, who would have ever thought of putting those things together?  And why?

This week’s Mid-Century Menu comes from the Bisquick Party Book, another great cookbook inherited from my grandmother. The publishing date on this one is 1957, so you know we are in mid-century flavor country now.  So to speak.

The fairly weak premise of this book is basically snacks and party dishes that you can make using Bisquick.  Most of the book is taken up with appetizer recipes that use the biscuit version of Bisquick.  I have to admit I am really excited to make a snack spread with some of the recipes in this book and then invite unsuspecting friends over to try them. Muaahha ha ah! But that will have to wait for another month.

This week I decided to pick from the “Party Pancakes and Waffles” section of the book, which is only two short pages.  Apparently there aren’t too many versions of party pancakes that made the cut for this book.  So we can assume that the ones that made it are good, right? Right?

Not really. Ladies and gentlemen, meet “Tuna Royals”, the tuna salad wrapped in a pancake and then baked in the oven. Tuna Royals have the dubious honor of being the first Mid-Century Menu recipe dinner that I actually COULD NOT finish.  But more on that later. Let’s get right too it and jump into the recipe.

The first part of Tuna Royals was, of course, cooking up a big bunch of the thinner version of these Bisquick pancakes.  Gotta cram all the Bisquick in we can!

The recipe claims these cakes were supposed to be light and lacy, but mine definately didn’t turn out that way.  I either must not have added enough milk, or Bisquick has changed, because I ended up with 7 completely regular 5 inch pancakes instead of the 10 lacy cakes I was supposed to end up with. 

However, it all turned out well in the end, since I wouldn’t have had enough room in my baking pan for more, anyway.

I am sure you have all seen pancakes being made, but for those if you who haven’t, here is the procedure:

The pancake batter, ready to go.  And yes, I did put 2 cups of milk in it, it just didn’t turn out right…The large cakes cooking in the pan.  On second thought, I guess they do look lacy.  I guess I was thinking that lacy meant light and lacy.  Not looking lacy but still weighing a ton.

Ok, pancakes completed. Now on to the actually recipe.

Yeah.  Just in case condensed soup isn’t thick enough, let’s reconstitute it with a lot of milk and then thickenen again it with more Bisquick! It’s win-win!

In my opinion, that is where this recipe really goes wrong.  Once again, more on that later. The ingredients for the tuna filling, hanging out in the prep bowl.  In all honesty, the filling was actually good.  I kind of balked at so many pimentos, but it all turned out ok in the end. The filling, all mixed together.  I ate a spoonful of it and laughed happily because it was edible.  Hubs was busy laughing over the “sauce”, which looked like this:Yes, it IS cream of celery soup with Bisquick in it! Wow. Cooked down, the sauce didn’t thicken nearly as much as I would have hoped.

Assembling the “royals”. It wasn’t difficult at all, so that is a point in this recipe’s favor.  I thought all of the pancakes would split apart, but it actually worked out well…I could only cram 6 in the pan.  It was probably because my pancakes were too fat, but that wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t! I swear!

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for.  It is always with an awed, hushed silence that we contemplate the picture that we all have been dying to see….which is….

…the moment the dish is ruined. Permanently. The celery soup “sauce” was far too runny, and immediately started its active destruction of the dish.  The pancakes became soggy and began to fall apart, leaving tuna filling leaking out onto the bottom of the dish. About to take a bite.  Notice how I have taken the filling that was falling out and threw it on top of the pancakes. 

Ok, now we finally get to it.  I ate this bite, and another one, and then I couldn’t eat anymore.  First of all, the pancakes were way, way too thick.  It would have been edible if the pancakes would have been much thinner and maybe a little crispy.  The texture was just all wrong.  Which led to the next issue, I think.  The thick texture made the pancake soggy and nasty when covered with the soup, and not good soggy like when they are soaked with syrup.  The cream of celery soup was mostly tasteless, having been thinned by so much milk, and I couldn’t choke the combination down.  I ate the filling out of the pancakes, and then left the rest for a starving Hubs.

My Verdict: Disgusting

Hubs, on the other hand, ate the entire pan and then most of my soggy pancake leavings.  He thought they weren’t bad, since soggy things don’t really disgust him the way they disgust me.  Since he was pretty insistent that they weren’t bad, I am splitting the verdict for him.

Hub’s Verdict: Not Bad

If I were crazy enough to make this recipe again, I would totally change elements of the recipe.  First off, the pancakes would be much thinner and lighter, kind of like a crepe.  And if I would use cream of anything soup, it would only be thinned slightly, not thinned and then thickened again.  It was a useless step, and in my opinion, the fatal one to this dish.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s horror!