No Pattern Required

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!

By RetroRuth

Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Mid-Century Aficionados of All Ages!  Let me present to you the first Finalist for the Worst Mid-Century Menu Contest: Miss Marwood and her horrible Summer Salad Pie!

*Muted cheering. Some gagging*

I know, I know.  I said I wasn’t going to start the contest until August, but I got so excited by all of the horribly awesome entries we received, that Tom and I got right to it and picked the Four Finalists.  And since they were already picked, it was only natural that I would want to make the vile, wicked things as soon as possible.  To get them out of the way. And make Tom eat them.

So, here is the very first one! This disgusting little pie comes courtesy of Kathrin, aka Miss Marwood, who sent along this helpful little intro:

Dear Ruth,

Hope you enjoy

Really, Kathrin? Really??? After sending me this, you still wish for my well-being and happiness?  After looking at this unholy creation, I tend to doubt that!

Off to the oven! 

Meanwhile, the scared veggies prepared to meet the evil filling:

Hmm…not too shabby! And it actually smelled good!

Meanwhile….

Ahh! No, stop!  It’s hideous!

Oh god! Please have mercy!

“Neva!”  *A lemon-tomato evil laugh*

*Sniff* Those poor, little veggies.  Never even had a chance!

It’s tuna-salad time!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Aaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha!

The tomato garnishes, to make it that much better.  You KNOW those are going to miraculously make it taste better. Somehow.

The first, gooey slice. 

Wow, I am actually gagging a little bit while I am typing this.

Tom, The Man With The Iron Stomach.

“So…how awful is it? Really?”

“It’s pretty bizarre.  Not horrible, just really weird.”

I took a bite.  He was right.  It didn’t taste disgusting, but it definitely wasn’t right at all. The cheese crust was actually good, as was the tuna salad, but the gelatin was from a different planet.  If it wouldn’t have been sweet, it wouldn’t have actually been that bad of a dish.  But the sweetness of the jello just sliced through your mouth at the wrong time, making it taste completely inappropriate.  It kind of tasted like tuna salad on a cheese cracker that has been covered with ketchup.  Not nice.

I chewed thoughtfully.  “But I think this is the best tomato gelatin we have made yet.” More chewing. ” And I can’t believe I just said that sentence.”

Tom snorted. “Tell me about it.”

The Verdict:  Unnatural.  The cheese crust and the tuna salad was a great combo.  In fact, I would actually suggest making the crust and putting a tuna or chicken salad in it.  It was good together.  But the gelatin…BLARGH.  Way, way too sweet to be paired with olives. Gross. Gross. Gross.

Thanks, Miss Marwood!  Be sure to come back next week, when we will be featuring Finalist #2 in the Contest!

By RetroRuth

Okay, okay, first things first. Before we get to the corn/hot dog mess, I have to ask: Have you entered our Mid-Century Menu Worst Recipe contest yet? No?  Then you should!!! The deadline for entry is TOMORROW at midnight! Email your entry to me at ruth@nopatternrequired.com .  The prize, besides getting to watch Tom choke down your submission, is a fantastic vintage Pyrex casserole crammed with goodies.  I love it!  Send us the most disgusting thing you can find!

Okay, now on with the show.

This week Tom and I are cooking from Good Housekeeping’s Clock Watchers, a rather strange book that boasts recipes for pantry and shortcut foods to make dinner prep faster.  Think…Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee. Except scarier. 

We picked up this book in St. Germain, Wisconsin at a local thrift store.  It was Tom’s way of bribing me to camp in the rain.  That and a double-scoop ice cream cone with two different flavors of ice cream.  Yeah, I’m easy. So what??

Anyway, this book was published in 1967 by Good Housekeeping, and is really scary.  You can just tell by looking at the cover.  The onion slices poking out of that bun just scream, “We are disgusting! Don’t eat us!” 

So we picked out some winners, if I do say so myself.

I hate it when they split the recipes onto two different pages. Gah!

Anyway, our course was clear, and we were off!

No, your eyes don’t deceive you.  That is Miracle Whip in there.  I assume that is what the recipe meant by “cooked salad dressing”.  Someone tell me I am wrong. Please!

First, the corn pancakes with hot dog sauce. Just so you know, the only thing that got me through this was one word. Corndog. I was hoping this might just be alright.

I just skipped right to the finished white sauce, cheese melted in and hot dogs added.  How many times can you watch me make white sauce?

Corn pancakes, made from a mix.

Aaaaand, the moment the meal is ruined.  Adding Miracle Whip to the hot dog sauce.

Buwa-ha ha ha ha, oh my god. Have  you ever seen anything so gross? Gah!

But you have to wait to see Tom eat it.  First we have to make some weird pie.

Look at that terrible crust!!! Man, I need to do a better job. Maybe if I started cooking BEFORE 9 at night…maybe…

The pie, trying to hide in the fridge.

Okay, now we can make Tom eat the pancakes!

The disgusted recoil.  I love it!

“The texture and taste of this sauce is absolutely disgusting.’

“Oh, it can’t be that bad.”  I took a bite.  He was right.  The texture of the sauce was off and tasting disgustingly like hot Miracle Whip. The hot dogs and corn pancakes weren’t actually that bad of a combo, but the sauce made it disgusting. I choked down most of my first serving, and then gave up.  I buttered some of the un-hotdogged pancakes, drowned them in maple syrup and watched Tom heroically eat almost the entire meal.

The Verdict: Gross. The pancakes and hot dogs MAY have been okay, but the hot Miracle Whip put it over the edge into disgusting country. Do NOT try this at home, kids.

Oh – were you waiting to see Tom eat that weird pie?? Oh, silly me, I forgot to mention that I will be posting photos of Tom trying the pie tomorrow on our Facebook page!  You had better be there to see the action! Oh, and friend us too, for cripes sake!  We are starting to look kinda pathetic!

By RetroRuth

Happy Wednesday!  I hope that your holiday weekends were all fantastic.  Mine…was wet. Very wet.  Tom and I drove to see my parents and drop off little Clark (one of the last of the foster kittens) with them, and afterwards did some camping in the UP.  Ugh.  I should say, got rained on in a tent in the UP. Good lord, the weather sucked.  In any case, since we were going to be gone over the time I usually make the MCMenu, I decided I was going to have to make something portable for this week.  And I choose: Cupcakes!

Of course, these cupcakes couldn’t be “normal” cupcakes, because it is the Mid-Century Menu, and everything on here is a little crazy, so I picked the cupcakes that were a little crazy as well. Mince Meat Cupcakes from the None Such Mince Meat Recipes For Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, to be exact.  You may remember this fun book from the Mince Meat Ham Loaf, which could only be choked down with ketchup.  I was hoping these cupcakes would at least be marginally better! Because ketchup has never improved the taste of a cupcake. Never.

Not too bad, right?  At least they look pretty cute.  And I like that tablecloth.

I decided to use a cake mix because…well…it was cheaper. And easier.

Thank goodness for a simple recipe!  These went together really quickly, and I was happy because I was frantically trying to remember all the stuff that I might  possibly need for the UP.  Like bug-spray. And bear-spray.

Tom, in the middle of driving 10 hours, posing with a baked cupcake. They actually smelled kind of good.

“So, how is it?”

“Pretty good.  It tastes like a white cupcake with raisins in it.”

I took a bite, and it tasted pretty much just like that.  It would have been better in a spice cupcake, I think, but it was still good.

The Verdict: Good.  Maybe use a spice cake mix or make a spice cake instead, but otherwise not too bad.  If you like mince meat, of course.  

Don’t forget to enter the Mid-Century Menu worst recipe contest!!!!  You have until July 15th to email us your recipe submission!

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

Hi, Everyone!! Welcome to another great Mid-Century Menu.  This week Tom and I decided to go back to one of the basics of mid-century cooking.  But not gelatin.  We aren’t feeling crazy enough this week to go that far.  We decided to pick a tamer basic.  Spam.

*Muted cheering*

I know!  Exciting, isn’t it??

Anyway, this week’s pick comes from the the Casserole Cookbook, which was published in 1968 by Favorite Recipes Press. This sucker has 500 casserole recipes in it, to assist the American homemaker in preparing nourishing meals for her family.  That’s what it says.  And then, they print recipes like this:

No offense, Dorothia, but holy cow, this is healthy?  I suppose it is by mid-century standards.  It contains meat, beans, fruit and bread.  But goodness. I bet I can guess what happened to dear Dorothia.  And her husband.

But enough of that.  On with the cooking!

You can see the kitten’s cage in the background, but not a kitten in sight.  That is because they are all swarming around my ankles, wanted to get picked up.    Or maybe trying to get some Spam.  Well, one of those things.

The onions, sauteing in butter.

Beans!  And lots of them.

Spam slices and pineapple slices.  A match made in heaven.  Or something.

The “glaze” for the Spam: mustard, brown sugar and pineapple juice.

The first casserole layer goes down, the bean mixture.

The Spam “tree”.

Pineapple slices.

The “glaze”.  Kind of looks like a can of beans sneezed on the casserole.

Finally, and bizarrely, biscuits. Yum. Love that triple-bleached goodness!

The lazy casserole, fresh from the oven. 

“Looks awesome!”

I rolled my eyes, “Shut up, Tom.”

“No, really.  I am excited about this.”

And here he is, cramming in the first mouthful.

“So, does it taste like you expected?”

 He nodded, “Pretty much. Tastes like Spam and beans.”

I took a bite, he was right.  Overall, it tasted like Spam and beans.  Pretty non-offensive, if you can stomach a good helping of Spam.  The bottoms of the rolls were kind of gooey, but that is what you get when you try to bake them over beans. 

“You know,”  Tom munched away happily, “you should call this ‘Apocalypse Casserole’ on the blog. Because I am pretty sure this is what they will be eating after society falls.  No refrigeration for any of this stuff.”

“What about the biscuits?”

“Eh, I am sure they really don’t need to be refrigerated either.”

The Verdict: Spam and beans.  It was edible, but not healthy at all.

By RetroRuth

Welcome to the Mid-Century Menu, Ladies and Gentlemen!  Prepare to be amazed as I waive the wand of Mid-Century Magic over humble, (mostly) nutritional ingredients and turn them into something never before seen by man! What will the magic produce this time? A piece of veal shaped like a duck? A cake made from tomato soup? A jellied mass filled with eggs? Let’s find out!

*Bing*

Looks like the magic led us to this adorable pink cookbook pamphlet, SOUR CREAM The Gourmet Touch to Everyday Cooking. Waaaaaoowwwww. Oooooo. Ahhhh.  Bask in it’s glory.  Bask!

Seriously, though, I picked up this cutie at a local church rummage for about 10 cents.  It was a steal, especially with the cute graphics.  It doesn’t have the year on it, but I am guessing late 1950′s, early 1960′s and it is from the American Dairy Association Test Kitchen.  Now, I am going to agree with them that sour cream is an excellent ingredient. Is it magical?  Well…maybe.  But sometimes it’s powers are used for evil as well as good. Shall we see what is on the menu today?

*Bing*

How about…wait for it…Stroganoff Pizza! How’s that for something a little crazy?

Wait…adding yeast to…biscuit mix???  What the?  And chili sauce?  Well, I hope the gourmet magic of sour cream gets us through this one!

And we are off!

*Bing*

All the little ingredients.  Notice the giant tub of sour cream in the back.  Here’s hoping for magic!

The yeast, “softening” in the water.

All the biscuit/crust ingredients. Go, yeast, go!!

A nice ball of biscuit dough. Except for all the pokey parmesan.

Onions swimming in a half stick of butter.

The ground beef and mushrooms, frying away in the butter.

Meanwhile, I started rolling out the dough. It was pretty easy to roll out, but I couldn’t get it into a circle!  So, I just decided on lousy circles in the interest of time.

The beef, onions and mushrooms, all cooked.

And now the moment you all have been waiting for.  Here is where we add the magic of sour cream and get…

 *Bing*

CAT VOMIT!  Ahhh!!!

I think it was the chili sauce.  It gave it an unappealing pink/gray color. 

Okay, maybe it will look better on the crusts.

Or not.  Okay, let’s add some more magic sour cream and see if that makes it better.

*Bing*

Wellllll…that’s  a little better. Into the oven, I guess.

Straight from the oven. And curdled. Yum.

Tom, game for the first bite as always.  Even though I was kind of scared.

“So, how is it? Filled with gourment magic?”

“No. It kind of tastes funny.”

I took a bite.  It did taste a little funny. The stroganoff topping was actually sweet, which I didn’t care for at all.  Probably from the chili sauce.  But the crust was good. 

The Verdict:  Okay, not great.  The stroganoff topping was too sweet, and there was too much of it. And the heat from the oven made the sour cream curdle. But the crust was good, so it wasn’t a complete waste.

*Bing*

It’s Wednesday again, and time for this week’s Mid-Century Menu!  This week Tom and I decided to have  a little fun and dive back into a cookbook that we found absolutely hilarious. 

A victim of the “Western” phase, 101 Ideas for a Quick and Easy Lunch printed by Oscar Mayer has hilarious and ridiculous names for every dish smooshed into its 8 pages. You will all remember the delicious Bologna Papooses from last year, which turned out to be a big hit.  In fact, I think a few readers actually make them on a regular basis! So we were excited to dip back in and try and find something else that would be just as good.

We decided on Sausage and Vegetable Ranch Logs, which sounded a little strange and had a stupid name, which made them perfect.

What the…does anyone out there know what the heck a “Ranch Log” is supposed to be?  The only thing I can think of is that it would look like the wooden logs that make up your ranch house, but that is stretching it. 

Anyway, I forgot to buy the spinach, but I got the shoe string potatoes for our Western Feast.  Ride ‘em, cowboy! Or something!

Yummy. Blocks of meat.

So, the first issue I had was that I don’t have a sausage grinder.  So, I decided to make use of my food processor to get the job done.  Here is the bologna chunks and cabbage getting ready for the big grind.

Adding in the onion.

The chunks of liver sausage are added with the salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Whew doggies!  We have a shapeless mass of goo!

Ok, I didn’t mean to process it to this state.  I meant for it to be in chunks with the liver sausage blending everything together as a binder.  But the liver sausage was very firm and didn’t want to bind to anything except itself.  Sooo….overprocessed. Yeah.

Here are the disgusting little slugs…I mean…LOGS ready for the oven. Yech.

And here is the log fresh from the oven.

Huh. It didn’t say in the recipe that it would turn into one big log.  Maybe it is supposed to be magic, like the fudge sauce in the bottom of Hot Fudge Pudding cake.

The Logs all plated up.  They kind of look like fish fillets…scary fish fillets…

The first bite, down the hatch!

“So, are they good?”

“Uhhh…these aren’t the worst things we’ve eaten. But they are pretty bad.”

I took a bite. Ugh.  He was right.  They had a really weird flavor, probably the mix of cabbage and nutmeg, and it tasted like stinky gym socks.  It was pretty disgusting.

“Give me that mustard,” Tom reached over my plate, “I am hungry and I have to drown out the taste of these things.”

The Verdict: Awful.  I thought the downfall would be the overprocessing of the ingredients, but it turns out that if something tastes like gym socks it doesn’t matter what the texture is. Yuck.

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!