No Pattern Required

By RetroRuth

Hello All! Welcome to this week’s Mid-Century Menu!  This week, we have a fun recipe that was sent by Andrea for our recent Worst Mid-Century Recipe Contest.  Even those this recipe was beaten by some disgusting baddies, it STILL is quite the sight to behold.  And I mean, this thing is a sight!

Andrea writes:

I present the Better Homes and Gardens Barbecue Cookbook, copyright 1965.

Surprisingly, the majority of this cookbook is not that bad. Although there is an odd theme throughout of “hobo” and “powwow” recipes. Hobo seems to = plain, and I am not sure what they were getting at with powwow, LOL.

 Anyway, there were two recipes that definitely leaped out as being a wee bit scary.

I present the Cheese Frankfurter loaf, complete with picture. I am not sure what is going on with the ingredient combo in the sauce. However, I do like how they specified that things should be at a jaunty angle!

*Ruth’s note – I LOVE those onion and relish jars!

I tried to find a lovely dessert for you and Tom to sample from the same book, however barbecuing doesn’t lead to a lot of dessert choices, it seems. However, I did find this lovely beverage for you to have with your meal …

Pineapple Mallowade has left me both curious and repulsed at the same time … I fail to see how this is going to have a drinkable texture, acckkk!!

 Anyway, here’s my *delicious* (snicker) entry … it is a good thing that Tom’s iron stomach has been proven in the past!

 -Andrea

PS – My tiki fabric finally came in, and is up on my store website. Go check it out!

Ha ha, Andrea! This is great. I have to say, those hot dogs look pretty jaunty.  Tom and I couldn’t wait to try this crazy set of recipes out. Wow.

Wow. Lots of ingredients for this one!

Melting marshmallows for the “Mallowade”.  I love it when they make words up.

I had a mix of mini and jumbo toasting marshmallows lying around, and this was a good way to use them all up!

Welllllllllllll…maybe not a good way, but it was a way to use them up.

Mmmmm…melted.

Mixed melted marshmallows,  (check THAT out!) pineapple juice and lemon juice.  It was a little thick, but not too bad.  I was interested to see what it would congeal to in the fridge.

The hot dog sauce. Yum!

After it had simmered.  At this point, it wasn’t looking too bad.  But it smelled pretty strange.

Loaf cut and starting to get crammed with cheese.  And yes, I DID measure between cuts, thank you very much!

Cheese!

Gooping sauce in between slices.  This is where I got a little scared.  I HATE bread that is all soggy with sauce, and I started to get a little nervous about the ability of this bread to take the sauce and not turn into a mess.

Those are some freaking jaunty hot dogs, let me tell you.  Look at them, jaunting about at certain angles!

Improving the jaunt to hot dog ratio.

Covered with more cheese, for extra goodness.

Mmmm, mmm!  A tall, frosty glass of cool, refreshing Pineapple Mallowade!

I forced Tom to drink it first.

It was good!  And yes, he is on the phone while I am trying to take his picture!

Actually, the Mallowade was liquid and not a congealed mess, but it was incredibly sweet, even with the addition of ginger ale.  I added more ginger ale than the recipe called for to temper the sweetness of my drink.  Tom added rum to his and loved it. He then proceeded to drink the ENTRIE pitcher, with extra rum, of course.

It is hard to explain what Mallowade tasted like.  Marshmallow, pineapple and…something. My mom used to make a dessert made of instant pistachio pudding, canned pineapple, marshmallows and Cool Whip.  We called this mess “Bunny Salad” because it was usually made at Easter, when marshmallows were sold in little bunny shapes.  This drink tasted like Bunny Salad.  It was sweet, slightly thick, sweet, pineapple-y and sweet.  Did I mention it was sweet?

The hot dogs, super hot and steamy and straight off the grill.  If you are ever crazy enough to make this, make sure to watch them closely.  We let them get a little too hot and bubbly, and blackened one side.  I made Tom eat that side.

Crunchy!

“What do you think?  Is it hot-dog tastic?”

“What is in this sauce?  It is disgusting.”

I took a bite.  It wasn’t too bad.  Surprisingly, the cut-loaf method actually WORKED, and each section made it’s own little bun. So you could pulled pre-bunned hot dogs straight from the loaf.  It was pretty cool.  The hot dogs and the cheese were good, but the sauce could have been left off. It tasted like sloppy joe sauce, and not really something that I would pair with hot dogs. I didn’t think it was a gross as Tom did, but it still wasn’t quite right.

The Verdict:  Good.  The sliced loaf idea actually worked pretty well, and it was something I would be willing to try at a real party.  However, I am going to sub the “sauce” with chili, and make a chili-cheese dog loaf. That would be yummy. The Pineapple Mallowade was very sweet, but not bad.  Tom loved it with rum.

Thanks for the hilarious recipes, Andrea!  We give you a jaunty wave, a jaunty salute, and a jaunty hot dog.

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 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.

Hello!  Welcome to the Mid-Century Menu, the feature on my blog in which I pick an unusual, interesting or strange recipe from my vintage cookbook collection, cook it, and then serve it to my husband for dinner!  Poor Tom, the human guinea pig. 

This week’s pick for dinner comes from the cookbookwith the best cover so far, the Carnation Easy-Does-It Cookbook.  I love this cookbook.  It is really friendly in tone, it has a ton of great trivia and helpful hints, and look at those illustrations!  What a sweet pink and blue kitchen.  You can even see the Sunbeam mixer on the counter in the background of the picture.  Ahh…perfect.

Hmmm…I wonder if I could get that blouse somewhere?  Or those chairs…or that floor!

And I have two words for you: pink cooktop.

The back of the cookbook is just as cute.

Pink fridge alert!

But I am getting off track.

This cookbook is dedicated mostly to all the Carnation products on the market at the time, specifically; homogenized milk (which is a big deal in the book, so it must have been new at the time), sour cream, buttermilk, cottage cheese and so on.  I happened to pick a recipe that uses no dairy products, but some of the ones that do in this book are great fun.  Lookfor them in upcoming posts along with some of the great illustrations from the book.

This time around I decided to go with something that sounded tropical, since as you are reading this very sentence, Hubs and I are on a plane to Aruba!  Thank goodness for vacation.  So, to get us geared up for vacation, I picked the recipe in the Carnation book that sounded the most exotic.

Hawaiian Frankabobs.

I am excited! Off we go!

The assembly of the various ingredients. What is with the combination of green pepper and pineapple?  I see that all the time in vintage recipes.

The happy little peeled onions, boiling and bobbing away.  Do you know what a pain it is to peel 12 little onions?!? Uh.

The green pepper cut into precisly 12 pieces. Yup. Exactly 12. No leftovers. None.

(Fine. I threw the extra pieces out. Happy? Shh…its our secret.)

Together at last!  The cooked onions and green peppers.

The ingredients for the sauce, ready to be mixed.  It reminded me of BBQ sauce ingredients. Intriguing.

The frankabob assembly line.

Partial frankabob.

I have decided I like that word. Frankabob. Frankabob.  Almost as fun as bologna sacks.

By the way, it is kinda hard to get pineapple chunks on a skewer. Those little suckers are slippery!

The assembled frankabobs, ready for the grill!

Tom grilling the frankabobs for me.  It is kind of funny, isn’t it?  Making him grill the dinner that may or may not be terrible.

Me, adding some sauce to the frankabobs.

After I was finished with this, I turned around to find Tom with his finger in his mouth and his face all twisted up, like he was in pain.

“Oh my gosh, did you burn yourself? Are you ok?”

“No. Have you tasted this sauce? Yeck!  I hope grilling makes it taste better.”

Fresh frankabobs. Can’t get any better than this…I guess….

Tom, taking the first bite.

“So,” I said, “What do you think?  Do they taste Hawaiian?”

He chewed a little bit. “They taste like something, all right.”

“What do they taste like?”

“Hotdogs.”

He was right.

The Verdict: Tasted like hot dogs.

This meal wasn’t too bad. The sauce had far too much mustard or vinegar in it, and it really didn’t go very well with the green pepper or the pineapple. The onions were cooked for way too long and had become mushy to the extreme. A lot of them fell off the sticks onto the grill, and the others fell off in transit from platter to plate.  Tom picked his up at the end and pushed them into a little pile on his plate.  If anyone tries this at home, reduce the pre-cooking time for the onions by about half.

Otherwise, it basically just tasted like grilled hot dogs.  Not bad, just not the exotic flavor I was expecting.  But Tom didn’t mind, and when I asked him for more feedback, he was too busy eating the rest of the frankabobs to respond.  He ate everything straight off the sticks.

Except for the pile of onions.