No Pattern Required

By RetroRuth

*Note – Our recent contest for the Worst Mid-Century Recipe forced my brain to reluctantly recall the many horrible things we have made on this blog. Eggs Oriental was prominent in those memories. This post was originally published in April 2009, and looking at pictures of it still make me gag!

You know, I don’t consider myself to be the most orderly person. Or the most driven person. I have great ideas, but, like most people, a good majority of them never really pan out.  But here it is, only three weeks into my Mid-Century Menu project, and I have already met my goal of finding a ridiculous recipe that really shouldn’t be made. Mission accomplished.

Huzzah.

This week’s recipe is from the slightly (slightly?!?) disturbing cookbook put out by Heinz Ketchup.

This recipe is bad. Really, really bad. I wonder if I should even finish this post?  It is so horrible that it might disgust all you nice, innocent readers, who only came  out of curiosity to see what I made. It might cause you to never return again.  And then it might cause you to spread the news all over Twitter and Digg, and might cause everyone to recoil in horror if they even read the name of my blog, let alone go and visit it.

The recipe is that bad. Really.

Don’t believe me?  Well, here. Look for yourself.

Eggs Oriental, huh?  You coulda fooled me.  It looks like Eggs in Cream of Mushroom Soup. With ketchup. They could have at least added some soy sauce!

But as always, Hubs was game, so off we went.

Not so bad, right?  Nothing wrong with some prepped ingredients.  Except fooooooooor……

this bowl. Which is all the “seasoning” for this dish. Yum.

The mushrooms and green peppers, happily cooking in a quarter cup (!) of butter. This is a lot of butter. Half that would have sufficed for the small amount of veggies that needed to be cooked.

Far too much butter, browning in the pan.

All the “seasonings” added to the pan. At this point, the mixture started to give off the most noxious smell. If anyone has ever smelled cream of mushroom soup with ketchup in it, it is not a good mix. Not at all.

After adding the egg slices, I turned to Hubs and said, “The eggs better make this magically taste better. Otherwise this is going to be bad.”

Hubs was unusually silent during the cooking, except for an occasional burst of incredulous laughter.

Finished up and plated. All one can really say is….Eww.  I decided to serve it over noodles because…well, it seemed like a sin to serve it over rice. I was already wasting enough ingredients, I wasn’t about to waste some of our good brown rice.

Being perversely enjoyed by Hubs. He couldn’t stop laughing throughout the whole meal. It was truly horrible. The smell was amazingly bad, and every time I took a bite I was shocked by the combination of ketchup and cream soup.  The eggs surprisingly did help, making it edible. But it was far from delicious.

The Verdict: Horrible

As I was sitting there, staring at and smelling this plate of food, I realized that serving bad food is a pretty new thing for me.  I was unhappy, even uncomfortable, with the idea that this was our dinner. That I had made….this thing that tasted horrible. It was a pretty new experience for me.   As an adventurous cook, I have made things in the past that hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but nothing had ever, EVER been this bad.  It was a strange feeling.  I was definitely out of my comfort zone.

I made it through the serving on my plate, but it was a close one.  Hubs ate more, mostly because he had just gone for a long run and was really hungry.  But even he was eventually forced to stop by the smell. The rest hit the trash.

*From the Mid-Century Menu Archive!

By RetroRuth

This is it!!!  And so begins the voting for the Worst Mid-Century Recipe Contest. To bring everyone up to speed, these are the recipes that were submitted by YOU, the readers, for the dubious honor of being crowned the Worst Mid-Century Recipe, and this stunning vintage prize pack:

*Note: Fabulous Conant-Ball Table not included!

There was a flood of responses.  Tom and I sat down with our laptop and a barf bag, and pared the entries down to a lean, disgusting four.

Finalist #1 – Summer Salad Pie From Kathrin (aka Miss Marwood)

Ummm…does this one even need an intro??

A cheese crust, tomato/lemon gelatin filling (of pure evil!), all topped off with tuna salad. Ack. 

This is what Miss Marwood had to say for herself:

*Gak* Thankfully, the little disgusting bits around the side were NOT included in the recipe.  Much to Adriane’s disappointment and my joy.

I hope you find it as disgusting as I do!

Cheers to a fun blog contest!

Best,

Adriane

www.atomiclilly.blogspot.com

Here is a photo of the finished “tower”:

And Tom’s reaction:

I think this was a disappointing one for everyone!

The Verdict: Surprisingly tasteless.  For all the scary trappings of this thing, it wasn’t bad at all.  I mean, it wasn’t great, but we have totally eaten worse. Disaster averted!

To see the whole, gut-churning post, click HERE.

Finalist #3 – Creamed Eggs In Corned Beef Crust from Sharon (aka Charm and Poise)

This one is exciting because it is the only non-gelatin-based dish chosen as a finalist.  And it beat out other gelatin dishes, so you know it has to be gag-tacular.

Here is what Sharon had to say for herself:

I’ve gone a bit out of the box on this one.  It has no aspic in it nor is it made in a mold — two of the best features of a mid-century recipe!  However, this recipe benefits mostly from the photo which is such a clear example of someone being asleep at the cookbook recipe photo wheel that it seems impossible it actually was published.  This sad state of affairs additionally benefits from the fact that it came from Happy Living!  A Guidebook For Brides (1965, 1966, 1970) signaling the fact that some harried, newly married woman might’ve thought it a good idea to serve this to her husband.  And finally, it is a nonsensical recipe that calls for relatively normal ingredients to be combined in an abnormal way to make up a dish that is — from the photo at least — impossible to serve in a nice, neat way. 

 

For your pleasure, then, is Creamed Eggs in a Corned Beef Crust.

 

Cheers!

Sharon (Charm and Poise from Flickr)

 

Here is a picture of the finished “pie”:

And Tom’s reaction:

The Verdict:  Not bad.  Tom ate it.  If you don’t like cream of mushroom soup, don’t try this.  The eggs were totally stupid, but not gag-inducing.  I feel sorry for the poor bride who tried to serve this to company. Yeck.

To see the whole, ridiculous post, click HERE.

Finalist #4 – Jellied Tongues from Kelly (aka EarthaKitsch)

So, this is the entry that has caused the most controversy, from hard-core readers, casual readers, and even my friends and family. It turns out some of you REEEEEEALY like tongue.

But I have to tell all of you, a boiled tongue, before it has been skinned, looks disgusting. 

Here is the finished dish:

Mmmm…meaty. 

Here is Tom’s reaction:

The Verdict:  Tom claimed it was good.  That the tongue just tasted like beef and it was fine with him.  I just couldn’t get it down enough to even taste it, really.  It was chewy.  And that is all I am going to say.

To read the whole, controversial post, click HERE.

So, those are your finalists!!!!  Please vote for the recipe that you think is the WORST Mid-Century Recipe! Voting will close on August 24th at midnight, and the winner will be announced in the August 25th Mid-Century Menu post. Good luck to all of our finalists!

By RetroRuth

Well, this is the end of the line. Absolutely, totally rock bottom.  I asked for the Worst Mid-Century Recipes you guys could throw at me, and I got what I wanted.  Four hilarious and horrible offerings from the world of Mid-Century Cooking. And I think it is pretty fitting that we end this contest with the creepiest recipe of the bunch.

Jellied Tongues.  That’s right.  You read that correctly.  Jellied. Tongues.

Thanks to Kelly, aka EarthaKitsch, for submitting this odd and horrifiying recipe.  And by the way, I hate you now, Kelly. Seriously.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. No, seriously.

I must admit that I was trying to find any way, any small reason at all why I couldn’t make this thing.  I put off calling around to look for tongue until the last possible minute. I got Kelly’s recipe submission on June 30th. I didn’t call the butcher shop until this Monday. 

“Hello, this is the meat counter.”

“Yeah, umm…hi.”

“Hi. Can I help you?”

“Yeah….I’m…ahhhh…looking for tongue.”

“Tongue?”

“Yeah, beef tongue.  Crazy, huh? Well, I am sure you don’t have any, sothanksandI’mjustgonnahangup..”

“Beef tongue?  Oh, yeah. We’ve got it in the freezer. How much to you need?”

“Son of a…”

“What was that?”

“I said, beef. Beef tongue. A whole one. I will pick it up this afternoon.”

So, thanks butchers of Midland for having freaking beef tongue on hand. Thanks a lot.  No weaseling out that way.  And thanks for giving me the unique experience of seeing a beef tongue in a plastic bag, laying on the floor of my car.

When I brought the horrible thing home, I refused to touch it.  So, Tom had to step up and do the prep for the tongue.  Here is the awfulness in photos.  Those of you who are pregnant (I am looking at you, Andrea) might want to avert your eyes now.  I mean it.

Yep, there it is.  One cow tongue.  And brave Tom holding it.

Cramming it in a pot.

God!!!

Okay, everyone take a deep breath because the next one is a screamer.  Ready…inhale…

Yeeeeaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!  Ahhhh! Ahhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Ahhhhh….God. Look at it, just look. I hope you are happy, Kelly.

Damnit, it’s a tongue!!!!

Then Tom peeled it.  Yes, peeled it.  I didn’t take pictures of that part, because I got so nauseated I had to leave the room.  And don’t mock me for having a weak stomach.  I never claimed I was Farmgirl!

Luckily, after Tom peeled it (gag) and sliced it, it looked more like meat.

And there you have it.  Slices of beef tongue.  With only small amounts of screaming on the side. 

So, after a pep-talk phone call from my mom (“It’s just beef. I ate it as a kid. You eat hot dogs, don’t you?  Just don’t think about it and eat it.”) I was ready to actually touch it. Oh, and make the recipe.  That, too.

Oh, and a side note, Kelly.  This recipe didn’t call for olives at all!!! What the heck are they doing in the photo??  Weirdness.

Well, at least this part is fine.  Especially cause there are no hooves in this gelatin.

Beef stock, onions, vinegar, salt and pepper.  I wasn’t supposed to add the salt and pepper till later, but looking at the tongue slices was still kind of freaking me out and I forgot what I was doing for a second.

Oh, another disturbing photo.  This is the “tongue stock”, better known as “the water we boiled the tongue in”. And THAT my friends, went into the gelatin.

This is all getting a little too “Little House on the Prairie” for me.

Eggs in the pan.  Because what would a MCMenu be without hard-boiled eggs, I ask you?

Soooooo, I touched it.  I had to eventually.  I mean, I can’t be a namby-pamby forever.  And you guys were counting on me to get my butt in gear and get that stupid gelatin made. I can’t disappoint you!

More tongue and eggs, and then the gelatin.

By the way, my whole kitchen smelled like cooking tongue.  It was almost enough to bring the gags back.

Whew.  Done. 

Sweet Jesus.

“Are you ready, Babe?”

“Yeah,” he stretched his neck and shook out his shoulders, like he was getting ready to lift something. “I can do this.”

“Well??!!?”

“It’s fine.  Tastes like beef.  But the combination of meat and gelatin still just isn’t right.”

I still balked. “I don’t want to do this.  Don’t make me.”

“Come on, you have to.”

“No!! No, I don’t want to!”

“Just a little bite.  Here, just this little one.”

I took it gingerly from the fork.  Chewed, and ran for the sink.

Tom was laughing. “What do you think?”

*Gak*

It took a whole glass of milk to get the taste out of my mouth.  And yes, I realize the irony of washing down cow tongue with cow’s milk.   But at that point I didn’t care, I just wanted it down.  It was just so…chewy.  I couldn’t do it, especially with the picture of the cooked tongue in my mind.

The Verdict:  Tom claimed it was good.  That the tongue just tasted like beef and it was fine with him.  I just couldn’t get it down enough to even taste it, really.  It was chewy.  And that is all I am going to say.

He ate two whole servings. Two!!!!  I am agog.

So, that is the last finalist for the Mid-Century Menu!!! Whew!!!! Thank god that is over.  Come back next week to see some of the runners-up, and to start the voting on which recipe was the Worst. 

I think I am going to go lie down for awhile.

By RetroRuth

Holy Cow!  The Worst Mid-Century Recipe Contest marches onward, and there are plenty of horrible recipes still to choose from. 

Finalist #3 is a peach of a recipe from Sharon, aka Charm and Poise on Flickr, and the curator of the hilariously horrible group Gee, That Food Looks Terrible.  Though her submitted recipe has blessedly few ingredients (and no gelatin), this baby is still a horror to behold. Sharon writes:

Cheers!

Sharon (Charm and Poise from Flickr)

You people are all sadists!  What is the matter with you??  Look at this thing. Disgusting.  And you expect me to make it, and then cram it down Tom’s throat!?!?  Well, let me tell you something!

It will be my pleasure.

I know what you are thinking. Where are the hard-boiled eggs? Where??

They were still in their little egg cooker.  Not quite done yet!

Hooray! Dog food!

Dog food with an egg on it!

This looks disgusting, but was actually pretty fun to pat into the pan.  The downside: Smelly corned beef hands. Yuck.

Mmmm…canned!

A whole lotta eggs, here.

And then….someone threw up on them.

The cooked crust looked pretty much like the raw one.

Filled with barf.

And, the reveal!!!

Good thing there is that sliced egg garnish.  Really saves it from looking disgusting, let me tell you.

Okay, Sharon. Your suspicion is confirmed.  The “filling” does NOT stay on the crust when served, and the dish is IMPOSSIBLE to serve neatly.

Gak.

The moment you have all been waiting for.

Down the hatch.

“Is it horrible????”

“Nah, not that bad.  The texture in the center is gross, but it doesn’t taste bad at all. Salty, but not bad.”

I took my own bite.  The only thing I could think of was…unecessary.  I mean really. The sliced eggs in the center were ridiculous.  They were slimey when covered with soup and added nothing taste-wise.  Couldn’t there have been green beens, or broccoli or carrots or SOMETHING in the center BESIDES eggs???? Blah.

But other than that, it was edible.  It just looked like barf on raw meat.

The Verdict:  Not bad.  Tom ate it.  If you don’t like cream of mushroom soup, don’t try this.  The eggs were totally stupid, but not gag-inducing.  I feel sorry for the poor bride who tried to serve this to company. Yeck.

But, true to form, Tom ate almost the whole thing. So it wasn’t that bad!

Thanks for the hilarious recipe, Sharon!  Stay tuned for Finalist #4 next week!

Oh God.  You know we are going to make something truly terrible when we recieve a mid-century recipe from reader that has fascinated and horrified them for months, but also freaks them out too much for them to make it!  Thanks to reader Miss Marwood, who sent us this amazing submission from the BH&G Cookbook, Pies And Cakes.  This baby was published in 1966, and, if the recipe sent to us by Miss Marwood is any indication, is completely insane. 

Well, maybe not completely insane.  But at least lacking in judgement.

Even those cherries cut into the pie crust on the cover look wrong to me.  I mean…look at them!

But I am just stalling for time here, drawing out the introduction as long as I can before I show you….THIS PICTURE!

Duh…duh…DAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!  *Screams* Oh my god its…hideous!! There are…balls in it! Balls!

Ha ha, I love this!  Really?  A standby for summer entertaining??

Well, I am excited! Let’s get started!

Notice the improved pictures??? Tom got a new camera, and so was more than happy to play photographer.  Enjoy the carnage!

*Note, I did use pasteurized egg whites for this recipe because I am ultra-cautious.  I want Tom to suffer, but I don’t want to kill him.

Well, either someone was sick in this bowl, or my gelatin is ready. Yuck!

Check out the “cantaloupe” peeking out from the bowl!  Its just…wrong.

My photographer got a little woozy at this point.  “This smells terrible.”

Slllllllurrrrrp!

Okay, am I crazy, or do you guys see a face in this too? Cantaloupe eyballs, crust mouth.  Yeaaaaahh. That’s creepy.

You know, I think I have seen this somewhere before.  Where was it? Oh yes, I remember now…

Lane’s mystery dessert from Better off Dead.

“It has…raisins in it. You like raisins.”

Try some!  Tom’s thinks you will like it….

The Verdict: Scary, but actually pretty good. The lime and cantaloupe don’t really go together, but the lime pie by itself was pretty tasty. Tom liked it, but not enough to eat several pieces.  I declare this Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie edible, but no way in hell would I serve this to guests!

Thanks, Miss Marwood!!!

By RetroRuth

Hoooweee. We really pulled out all the stops this week on the Mid-Century Menu. I can’t wait until you guys get a load of this one.  But I am getting ahead of myself. 

*Ahem*

This week on the Mid-Century Menu, we are cooking out of this cute book we found while on a trip in the Petosky area earlier this year. (Go Morels!) It was published by McCall’s in 1972, and is a cookbook made up completely of, you guessed it, casseroles.  This cookbook is well laid out, easy to read and even though it doesn’t have a ton of pictures, has some cute illustrations. Some great classics are in here, but there are also some cringe-worthy funktastic concoctions that I loved.

Like Ham-Banana Casserole.

Okay, just….just hold on a minute here. Bananas. Wrapped in mustard slathered ham. Covered with cheese sauce.

Who the heck thought this would be a good idea?  Ummm…how about The Food Network? I can hear all your gasps of shock, but it is true.  While doing my research for this post (what little there was) I found out Paula Deen recently whipped up a ham and banana casserole on her show. She really did.  Granted, it was more of a breakfast strata with ham and banana (no mustard in sight), but still. Eww. Reviews seem to be pretty negative overall. Including this hilarious post at FoodNetworkHumor. Which made me really excited to try our version.

As a side note, one reviewer on Food Network hailed Ham-Banana Casserole as a “classic”.  Which begs the question, “A ‘classic’ what”? Waste of time and ingredients? Way to never have guests for dinner again? It certainly can’t be a time-honored, proven dish. Anybody chime in here. I know there is some Foodie out there just itching to put me in my place and regal us with the long and pointless history of the ham-banana casserole.

But once again, I digress.  As a reward for us choking down the Ham Whatsis Nonsense, I also decided to make us Flan as a treat.

Also from the McCall’s Casserole Cookbook.  The pictures on this one didn’t turn out, so sorry about that. The end result was kind of a bust texture-wise, but it tasted pretty okay. If you have a traditional Flan recipe, don’t drop it for this one.

And we are off!

Umm…can anyone figure out what I forgot to add to this picture??? Ding, ding! That’s right. Bananas. Nice move, me.  But don’t worry, you will see far more of them coming up than you want to. 

Also, the flan ingredients are pictured here, so you can stop shrieking about the sweetened condensed milk.  Mustard is going to be bad enough in the casserole, thank you very much.

Starting the white sauce.

Adding milk.  By the way, Tom photographed this whole thing, so thanks for that, Hon! 

A pretty good looking white sauce, if I do say so myself.

Check out this thick, creamy cheese sauce!  All this practice is paying off.  Too bad it is going to be slathered over bananas.

Mustarding ham. Poor, poor ham.

At this point Tom started laughing.  I was just glad he wasn’t crying.

At this point we both started laughing.  There is just something really…wrong about this.  The peeled bananas. The glistening pink of the ham.  It is almost…perverse.

And here I am brushing the banana ends with butter for some unknown reason in a completely useless step. 

And now everything is covered in cheese sauce.  Really, the only word for this is: Glorious.

“Can I have some ham?”

“I want to be a ham-wrapped banana!”

Ha ha. Oh, you kids.

Steaming fresh from the oven.

Tom, the bravest man in the world, taking the first bite.

“How horrible is it?”

“Bad.  It is really, really bad.”

I held my nose and took a bite.  Then I almost spit it out.  It was truly, terribly disgusting.  The ham, cheese sauce and mustard were all fine, but the hot, slimey banana (perverse again!) gave it a gross level of nastyness that can only come from a meal on the Mid-Century Menu.  I made it halfway through my piece.  Tom, in true form, laughed and ate all the rest. Disgusting.

The Verdict:  Truly disgusting.  Probably one of the worst Mid-Century Menu’s yet.  It wasn’t even the banana and ham, or the banana and cheese sauce, the banana and mustard was a horrible combination that I never want to choke down again.

By RetroRuth

Happy Wednesday, All!  This week on the Mid-Century Menu we are cooking out of a cookbook that a lucky lady in 1957 would have received with her brand new, state of the art Rena-Ware.  Published in 1957, this super cute book has tons of recipes created by the Home Economics Department Test Kitchen at Rena-Ware.

What is Rena-Ware, you ask?  You poor sap, cooking your food in water like a sucker, never knowing the amazing advantages of “waterless” cooking!  Rena-Ware is the new, state of the art cookware meant to cook your meals on the stovetop and bring them straight to the table with the minimum of wasted nutrients. Really!  Don’t believe me? Well, this book told me so!

Want to see how it works?  Me, too.

Fascinating, huh? Low temp cooking to “save fuel and keep your kitchen more comfortable”.  Got to love the 1950′s science-y stuff.   But who needs to know anything when you look this good???

Oooooo…shiny.

Anyway, I flipped through the book and decided to make “Macaroni Republic” because it caught my eye.  I would like to say that it was because of something besides just the name, but…well…I picked it because of the name.

Welcome to the Republic!  Get ready for canned tomatoes and noodles! Yes!

I love recipes with only a few ingredients.

The onions and green peppers, sauteing in a heck of a lot of butter.

Adding canned tomatoes and seasonings.

Happily simmering away.  Notice the random curls of excess butter on top of the tomatoes. Yum.

Throwing noodles on top.

And here is Tom, layering away like mad with shredded cheese.

Ta-da! Fellow Citizens, our long struggle for food freedom is over!  Welcome to the Macaroni Republic! *muted cheering…or maybe it is meowing*

Anyway, I decided to let another member of our household show you what he thought of the casserole. And now…First Bites With Clark The Kitten:

Well, either he wants some, or he is scared that Tom is eating it!  “No Daddy, wait! It’s poison!”

After Tom and I stopped laughing, we decided to actually settle down and finish tasting the food.  It was pretty good, definitely edible.  But Tom thought it was a little bland, and it reminded me of a casserole I was served in my grade-school cafeteria.  Not necessarily a bad thing, as the food there was good, but not a great dish by any means.  Probably due to the 1950′s fear of spices.

The Verdict: Scary to small white cats.

Seriously, it was good and we ate a lot of it, but it was rather bland and just tasted like a macaroni casserole made with canned tomatoes. I won’t make it again. Unless I need to whip Clark into shape…

Happy Wednesday, All! Welcome to another Mid-Century Menu.  This week our adventures have taken us to Campbell’s Emergency Cookbook, a cute little pamphlet that fell out of another cookbook that I recently purchased.  This little cutie doesn’t have a date on it, but I am guessing by the illustrations that it is late sixties or early seventies.  It looks to be an advertisement for the much more recognizable Campbell’s cookbook, Cooking With Soup.

Several little cooking “emergencies” are laid out in the pamphlet with appropriate Campbell’s recipes to rescue your dinner. The sections are:

Blown your food budget? Make Frankfurter Boats or Campbelled Eggs.

Listless Leftovers?Try a Hot Meat Sandwich or Tetrazzini.

Company Coming?Meatball Stroganoff or Peachy Chicken to the rescue.

No Talent for Sauce Making? Make a Cream or Barbecue sauce with soup as the base.

No Time for Dinner?  Make Yankee Franks ‘n Noodles (you had better believe I will!) or Souperburgers.

Got a Bunch To Feed And Two Different Cans Of Soup on Hand?  Ok, they had me nodding “Yes, yes, I can see that,” right up until this one.  Why can’t you just make different soup separately?  Why do you have to throw them together into something nauseating like Puree Mongole, which is Pea soup mixed with Tomato soup. Why do that? Why? 

Anyway, my manufactured emergency for this week is Listless Leftovers.  We have the leftover Easter ham as a source of ready meat, and after I pried it out of Tom’s hands, (“Just one more piece! Just one!”) I carved up some chunks to make this:

Scalloped potatoes and ham (or their counterpart Au Gratin Potatoes) is probably one of the most common dishes to come out of a leftover ham, but my mom always scalloped her own potatoes, so to speak, with a white sauce.  So I have never tried to make it with a condensed cream soup, let alone Cream of Celery, which I am always kind of afraid off.  Cream of Chicken and Cream of Mushroom always seem so much safer. 

So anyway, we were off!

A lot of chopping again this week. Tom was nice enough to help me chop a bunch of stuff before he went for his run.  He also took pictures, which was great!

Layer 1.

Layer 2.

Layer 3.

Now if anyone else read the recipe, which I apparently didn’t do very well, Layer 4 was supposed to be the soup/milk mixture, which was then supposed to be followed by repeated layers.  But I missed that, because I am an idiot.  So, when I finished layering all the other ingredients and realized my error, Tom suggested I just dump all the soup and milk on top. It seemed to work out pretty well.

Here it is!  Hot from the first bake off in the oven.  I was pleased to see that throwing the soup on top had appeared to work. Whew.

Covered with cheese and paprika for the final bake.

Ta-da!

The all-important first bite.

“How is it?”

Tom nodded.  “Really good.”

I took a bite, and it was really good.  I was surprised that it didn’t overwhelm me with the flavor of celery, and it seemed to go well with the ham.  I was happy.

The Verdict:  Really Good.  Tom had to restrain himself from eating all of it and I stopped myself after my second helping.  I thought that I preferred Au Gratin Potatoes with Ham, but these were very good.  If you have any ham leftovers, I recommend it!

Welcome to the Mid-Century Menu, everyone!  First, I must say that I did not make up the title of the recipe we picked for this week’s menu.  It is an actual name of an actual dish in the Cutco Cookbook, which was published in 1961.  Actually, Cutco is still around today.  My mom just bought a set of their knives about 10 years ago and I have to say that they still work great, even after surviving the huge flood that almost wrecked my parents house. How’s that for quality?

Anyway, this book is great for a lot of reasons.  It has cooking charts for meat, menus, recipes and the most adorable illustrations.  Plus the ridiculous recipe names, which are pretty great as well.

Speaking of the menus, it was pretty easy for me this week because the book already had everything picked out for me.  Here are the menu choices that pair with hot dogs:

I like that there is more than one choice.  There were also three more categories to choose a bread, relish and a dessert, but I figured this will be more than enough food for two people if I just pick from these choices.  I picked grapefruit, mac and cheese and carrots (just regular crinkle cut ones).

To go with this fantastic recipe:

Everyone is excited about the wieners!  Just look at this family!

Even the dog with the stupid bow choking him is excited.  Look at him.

Actually, he looks a little evil. Like he is thinking, “Go on, keep smiling.  Little do you know that while you weren’t looking I tinkled in the 20th Century Wieners.”

Wow.

Anyway, on with the food!

Very few ingredients for this one, which is nice.  The nice big piece of cheddar in the back is from Decatur Dairy in Wisconsin, and is amazing!  It was almost a shame to use it here, but we have so much cheese from our recent trip that it didn’t make any sense to buy more for this.

Everything is chopped up.  I guess that is what you should expect from a knife cookbook!

Layering ingredients:

And finally, that eighth of a teaspoon of basil.  That should be enough seasoning for all those tomatoes and onions. Sure it will!

After 30 minutes of steaming on the stove and melted cheese on top. Doesn’t look too bad.

I would have slung it into a bun, but check out all the liquid at the bottom of the pan!  I should have taken off the lid at some point.

First bite! 

“How is it? Can you taste the basil?’

“Nah, tastes pretty plain.  Like hot dogs with tomatoes over it.”

I took a bite.  He was right, it was kind of plain.  I was actually disappointed, because I expected some sort of hot dog revelation.  At least they were edible.  And it was fun having grapefruit with dinner.

The Verdict: Bland, just tasted like hot dogs with tomatoes and onions.  It would have been better to make a tomato, onion and cheese topping and then put it over a hot dog in a bun.  Maybe next time.

Or not.  Man, what a creepy little dog.

Welcome to another Mid-Century Menu, everyone!  This week we have a cute cookbook called “reMARKable Recipes”, which, in case you haven’t guessed, was named for the author’s husband, former Governor of Oregon Mark O. Hatfield.  After doing some research, I found out that Mark had a huge political career and is the longest running Senator in Oregon’s history and has about 20 facilities and funds named after him.  If you want to read more about Mark and his career, you can check the Wikipedia entry here.

Now, Mark’s wife, Antoinette, is the author of this cute cookbook which we are cooking out of today.  It was written while Mark was the governor of Oregon (1959-1967) and has some interesting recipes served to famous guests and just regular dishes Antoinette served to her family at home. According to the introduction, the recipes were gathered from previous generations of her and Mark’s family and from friends on the campaign trail. 

I found this book at a local estate sale, and after I bought it I was excited to find that it was also signed by Mrs. Hatfield! Fun!  So not only is this my first political cookbook, it is also the first signed one as well.

Anyway, since Tom and I are still crazy busy with a bunch of naughty kittens, we planned out a huge meal and then only ended up making a portion of it.  The portion we actually managed to make was the Porcupine Balls and the Cranberry Mayonnaise Cake.  We picked the Porcupine Balls because I have seen them in a bunch of different vintage cookbooks and have been meaning to try them, and the Cranberry Mayonnaise Cake because…well…its got mayo in it. Enough said.

And I am not going to make fun of Porcupine Balls once in this whole post, I swear.

Porcupine Balls. (Snort!)

Let’s get going!

First, the cranberry mayo cake, so it has time to cool.

Looks good so far.

Okay, this looks really strange, but as an ingredient it makes sense.  Cakes use both eggs and oil, and since that is what mayo is made of it shouldn’t be weird at all. 

But it still is.

And the smell! Blargh!

After the flour has been added. At least it is a pretty pink.

The batter glopped into a tube pan from my huge stash of baking pans.

Baked and steamy hot.  As you can see, I skipped out on lining the pan with paper, and it didn’t end up coming out that well. But the cake was pretty sturdy, so I just cut it off the pan.

On to the meatballs!

I love a recipe with only a few ingredients.

Okay, this is a really simple recipe, so for once I am just going to shut up and let you look at the pictures.

Ready for the oven!

And here they are after three hours in the oven.  They do look porcupine-y!

Tom sitting down and taking his first bite.  He was too impatient to even wait for the vegetables to be done!

“Are they good?”

“They are good, but plain.  They just taste like meat with rice.”

I took a bite, they did taste like meat with rice, but they were still good.  The only thing that was kind of gross was that the hamburger fat ran right into the sauce, so there was no draining of grease before we ate it.  Ah well, I am sure we have eaten things that were more unhealthy than this!

And then it was on to cake!

I forgot to take pictures of me making the frosting, but it was pretty straight foreward.  The cake was very good, moist and yummy with hints of orange and cranberry.  It tasted more like a good coffee cake than it did a layer cake, though.  I would recommend leaving of the frosting on the cake and making a glaze of orange juice and powdered sugar, as the cranberry frosting was too sweet and too thick for this cake.

The Verdict:

Porcupine Balls – Good, but plain.  I have seen some other recipes out there I want to try very soon!  Do you have a good Porcupine Balls recipe?  Share it here or email it to me!

Cranberry Mayonnaise Cake – Very good, but is more a coffee cake than anything. Skip the frosting and make a nice orange glaze for the top. Yum!