No Pattern Required

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

Hello, All! Welcome to this week’s Mid-Century Menu.  I have kind of a sweet tooth this week, so I thought this would be a good chance to bake from one of my more interesting cook book finds, Mail Box News, a baking and cake decorating monthly newsletter from Maid of Scandinavia.  Mail Box News was started in 1956 as a monthly newsletter designed to answer the many questions customers had about Maid of Scandinavia products, and continues to this day as a monthly magazine.  It has undergone some changes, and is now published by the same people who do American Cake Decorating Magazine, as Maid of Scandinavia has since gone out of business.

This issue of Mail Box News is from January 1968, and I must say this was a really great publication, especially for housewives interested in cake decorating. It had tons of tested recipes, reader tips and featured cakes made by professional bakers and regular housewives. I have been dying to try some of the recipes in this issue, especially the recipe for East End Bars.

Interesting.  They kind of remind me of Magic Cookie Bars, but they have frosting made with instant pudding mix?  Sign me up!

Thanks to my mom for the giant, gorgeous bag of fancy pecan halves that you gave me.  I crushed some up to go into this recipe.  A waste, I know, but I still appreciate it!

The first ingredients in my “double boiler”, which is just a metal bowl over a saucepan. Not classy, but effective.

The ingredients, all melted and whisked together.  Now, I kept waiting for it to become custard consistency, but it bypassed custard and went straight to…

Curled. Eeeesh. Oh well, I poured it over the other ingredients and used it anyway!

See?  Everything is fine.  Can’t even tell the difference.

The bar base, pressed into the pan.

The ingredients for the frosting, getting ready to be mixed.  And then….

They got mixed! Surprise!  I know, not really.  Nothing too special here.  It just looks like regular frosting.

The chocolate chips and butter getting ready to be microwaved.  Aren’t the swirled chips pretty??  I had some left so I decided to use them up instead opening a new bag of straight semi-sweet chips.

The pudding frosting, spread over the base.

The melted chips and butter.

Ooooookay. So, this looks crappy, but give me a break, ok?  The chips started solidifiying as soon as they hit the cold frosting.  I suppose it is better than everything melting, right? Right?  Ah, screw it.

Tom’s first bite! 

He looks a little concerned. 

“What do they taste like?”

He chewed for a bit.  “Grainy.  The frosting stuff is really grainy.  But the bottom part is good.”

I took a bite.  The top “frosting” was really grainy, but other than that it was pretty good. Rich, but good.

The Verdict: Good. Very rich, so cut them small.  If I was going to make them again, I would beat the butter and powdered sugar together, and dissolve the pudding mix in the milk and beat the whole thing for a long time in an electric mixer to get rid of the grainyness.

**Verdict UPDATE!  These bars have been upgraded from good to completely awesome after 24 hours of refridgeration.  Tom ate three in one sitting and would have eaten more if I hadn’t taken them away from him.  The grainyness in the filling goes away and the base tastes even better!  Definitely recommended!

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

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.

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!

To the Reader

So begins the adorable, pocket-sized cookbook The ABC of Jiffy Cookery that was published in 1961 by Peter Pauper Press, which is still in business today publishing journals and gift books.

This particular cookbook is special because, not only does it have fun rhymes in it, but it was sent to me by frequent blog commentor Annie recently.  I love it Annie!  Thanks so much!

In any case, this is a relatively short book is based on two things; the alphabet and quick cooking.  All the recipes are arranged alphabetically by title, and each letter section has a cute, 4 stanza rhyme that accompanies it.  There was a lot of interesting things to choose from for the Menu, but I finally narrowed it down to two things:

Noodle and Hash Casserole and Tomato-Cheese Pizza.

We also picked ice cream for dessert, but since the book only gave suggestions for ice cream toppings, I don’t know if that actually counts as a Menu item.

Anyway, here are the recipes we picked:

The Noodle and Hash Casserole was chosen because the idea of potatoes and noodles in the same casserole was intriguing to me. The Pizzas were chosen because English muffin pizzas are very retro, and the anchovies give it the disgusting touch that you can only find in the Mid-Century Menu.  And we picked the ice cream because…well…its ice cream!

So let’s get started.

First up – Noodle and Hash Casserole.

And you can’t cook without the rhyme! 

Peamilk. Seriously!  A mix of the canned pea juice topped off with enough milk to make it 1.5 cups.

Since I make white sauce so much on this blog, I decided to skip ahead to the part where I add the cheese.  Oh, and I didn’t have any tabasco on hand, and since it was snowing like mad I had to make do with cayenne pepper.

The finished cheese sauce, which looks pretty good.

Now, the other reason I picked this recipe, besides the noodle/potato thing, is that I got to layer it and add a ring of canned hash around the outside of the casserole. I love to layer.  It went noodles, peas, hash, sauce, repeat.

Finished!  Like the hash ring?  I think it turned out pretty well.

I stuck the casserole in the oven, and while that baked Tom and I worked on the Tomato-Cheese Pizzas.

By this time, Tom was home from work.  “Here,” I handed him the camera, “Take pictures of me making these.”

“You take pictures, I wanna make them this time.”

I wasn’t going to argue with that, so here is Tom, making the pizzas!

Toasted English Muffins.

Laying out the first tomato layer.

Putting on the anchovies.

“What do these taste like?’  he asked me, “have you ever eaten one?”

“Nope.  I imagine they are pretty gross, though.”

“Let’s see.”

“Ah!  Yuck! Don’t!”  But it was too late, he was already chewing.

“So salty! Uh! Salt!”  His digusted faces were pretty funny, but I didn’t get a good picture. Rats!

After he ran out of faces, it was back to business as usual.

The Rosemary Fairy.

Second layer of tomatoes.

And finally, mozzerella cheese.

“Okay, pop them in the oven!”

Brown and bubbly, and fresh from the oven.

“How are they?”

He shrugged. “Not bad.  The anchovies just taste like salt on the pizza.”

I took a bite.  The anchovy was strong.  I only ate one. Tom ate all the rest.

In the meantime, the Hash Casserole had come out of the oven, all bubbly and browned.

Tom scooped some out, and took the first bite.

“It looks kinda gross,” I said, “what do you think?”

“It’s good.”  His mouth was full, so he swallowed and said, “It tastes really unhealthy.”

I took my first bite.  It did taste really unhealthy, but it also wasn’t that bad.  I could have done without the canned peas, but overall edible.

The Verdict:

Tomato-Cheese Pizzas:  Straight up anchovies are gross. What more can I say?  If I would make this again, I would use fresh basil and oregano instead of rosemary and make a paste with the anchovies and spread that over the english muffin. Taking a bite of anchovy was just too shocking.

Noodle Hash Casserole: Good, but not great.  The potatoes and noodles were a little too much, and I hated the canned peas.  This would need some fixing up, but I would ditch the noodles and just layer the hash with fresh veggies and pour cheese sauce over the whole thing.

Ice Cream with Animal Cookies:  Excellent!

I have to admit, I am a sucker for an awesome vintage cookbook, no matter if the recipes inside are good or gag-inducing. Check out some of these awesome cookbooks on Etsy right now!

Cook like a 1930′s Movie Star with this great cookbook from collectiblekitchen.

Get a great deal on this set of 4 books for $4 from REdesignkc.  I really want to get my grubby mitts on that Knox cookbook…

Here is another Knox cookbook from goodlookin’, and it looks the originator of the Mid-Century Menu!  Each step of gelatin making is photographed.  Oh! I want it!

Here is a vintage Calumet cookbook from OldVintageCookbooks.  I thought this was a good pick for two reasons. One is that I LOVE my Calumet cookbook, and most of the recipes in it are used by the stars of Food Network’s (without crediting Calumet), from brownies to gingerbread to waffles.  Everything I have made out of it tastes great.  The second reason is because of the shelf-edging on the front of the book.  Look at it!  It’s adorable!

Or, you could starve yourself thin with this 1950′s diet book for teenage girls from Ry-Crisp, also sold by OldVintageCookbooks. Sheesh.

Creepy.