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

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!

By RetroRuth

Well, I think this contest has been inevitable, don’t you?  Only a matter of time until we sent out this request: Tom and I want to hear from you guys, and we want the most creative, bizzare, weird, nasty, ugly, retch-inducing recipe you have.

In short, we are looking for the Worst Mid-Century Recipe.

And what will we give you for all your searching and questing?  Why, a vintage Pyrex casserole dish overflowing with goodies, that’s what!

Pretty slick, huh?  The grand prize winner of this fab contest with receive a vintage, covered Pyrex dish, a smocked yellow gingham apron, a kick-butt oven mitt,  three vintage cookbooks used on the Mid-Century Menu AND a vintage Tupperware cake and pie server.  All to help you make the best Mid-Century Cook you can be!

Awesome.

So, what are the rules to this contest??? Very simple: Send us your weirdest Mid-Century Recipes!  We are looking for things that just aren’t right, combinations that make you go, “What the…?”, and just the all out gross-out factor.  Hideous, wrong pictures of dishes are a bonus, but not required. Gelatin dishes are especially welcome.

The recipes should be from the time frame of 1930-1980, and scans of recipes are preferred, but clear photos will do in a pinch. Email them to ruth@nopatternrequired.com by July 15th at midnight. Tom and I will choose the craziest four and actually make them, choking them down and rating them as best we can.  But the actual results will be up to you, brave readers! You will then vote for the one out of the four recipes that deserves the title of Worst Mid-Century Recipe!

Whew! 

I hope Tom’s stomach is excited, because I know I am! Once again, submit your recipe to ruth@nopatternrequired.com by July 15th at Midnight.  And pimp this contest out to your friends, family, FB followers and blog readers.  I want everyone to know about this baby, because I want to find the WORST that’s out there.

Can’t wait to see what you guys have got for us!

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

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*

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…

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.