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.

I love the Mid-Century Menu for so many reasons.  Well, not for taste reasons, but there are a lot of other good reasons the Mid-Century Menu is awesome.  One of them is that it gives me an excuse for my ridiculously huge cookbook collection. Another is that it gives me new techniques and recipes to try even if dishes don’t turn out as planned.

The third reason I love it is that Tom and I get to do something really fun together during the week.  We both enjoy planning and making the Menu, which isn’t a traditional hobby, but it is still really fun for us.

So,” Tom said last week as we were paging through cookbooks, “I think we should do gelatin for next week’s Mid-Century Menu.”

“Ohhhkay,” I said, “What do you have in mind?”

“How about this?” He held up the Gel-Cookery Recipe Book, published by Knox in 1955.  I felt a little thrill of disgust go through me.  I don’t like gelatin even when it is fruit flavored, and Jellied Eggs taught me I didn’t like it savory either. 

 ”Do you have a recipe picked out?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice evil, “this one.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhh no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I really mean it. No.”

“Oh yes,” he nodded his head, “ This is perfect. It has Spam in it. It’s even two layers.” He was really excited.

I sighed.  “Fine. Let’s make the grocery list.”

Poor little ingredients.  They never even had a chance.

Here is the first round of gelatin, all mixed up and ready for the fridge. Now, I don’t use gelatin in cooking at all, so even though I wasn’t looking forward to the end result, it was still an interesting process to go through.  Especially since I couldn’t imagine what the gelatin of this layer was going to taste like.  It had a lot of lemon in it, so was it going to be lemony?  Or taste like Spam? Do I really want to know?

The celery and Spam all diced up and ready to go.  Oh God!

No mayonaise is an island. Except for this one.

I get it now! Mayonaise flavored gelatin! Of course!

Quiet down now, guys.  I can’t think over all your screaming. Especially you, Sara.

No, this isn’t the Twilight Zone.  That is actually mayo flavored gelatin with Spam and celery in it.  And it is ready for the fridge. Shudder.

While the Horror in the Pan solidified in the fridge, I started on the next layer, which was basically tomato gelatin.

With chopped, hard-boiled eggs in it.

Yeah, cause that’s natural. Sure.

The hard-boiled eggs trying not to drown in the chilled tomato gelatin.

And here it is, poured over the Spam layer. And it DOES look a little like barf.

Even though it is vile, I am still proud of this unmolding job.  See!  Only slightly messed up! Still Disgusting Dinner Picture Perfect, though.

In the background is the side dish, Golden Salad, which also unmolded with no problem. Huzzah!

A cross-section, to show off the hard-won layer effect.

“Are you ready for this?”  I was trying to get Tom psyched up. “Are you ready?”

“Okay,” he said, rolling his head on this shoulders.  “I can do this.  I’m ready.”

He took a bite.

And then looked confused.

“Is it horrible?”

“This,” he said slowly, “is the strangest thing I have ever eaten.”

“You say that a lot now,” I said, and I took a bite.  It WAS completely and totally the strangest thing I had ever eaten.  The mayo and Spam layer actually wasn’t that bad.  It just had a really bizarre texture.  The tomato egg layer was even weirder. Everything was really slippery and cold.  It wasn’t a pleasant sensation in your mouth.

About halfway through my slice, I was done.  After awhile, it started to gag me. 

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“This must be diet food.  Because I sure don’t want to eat anymore.”

We came to a standstill about 10 minutes in. I had eaten about two-thirds of my slice, and Tom had eaten two slices and the rest of my slice.

“We did it.”

“Good for us,” Tom was looking around, “Now where is that chocolate pie?”

The Verdict:

Spam and Egg Gelatin:  Weird, but not disgusting. The texture is what really puts you off at the end. The gelatin was too much for me after awhile, and I had to stop. Tom says he will finish the leftovers.

Golden Salad: Surprisingly good. I thought this would be nasty, but it was good and not too sweet. Tom said it tasted like a traditional gelatin salad with fruit.

Brown Derby Black Bottom Pie:  Good.  The texture of the pie is a little strange, but you get over it pretty fast. Tom ate three peices. But don’t try topping it with whipped, sweetened evaporated milk, which is what I tried out of laziness.  It melts really fast.  As you can see, the topping didn’t even make it through dinner.  Use whip cream or Cool Whip.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  Well, the countdown to Christmas is in full swing and everything around here is about as chaotic as it can get.   I like getting ready for Christmas, which is really good news because otherwise I might go completely insane.  Did I mention that I bought 9 lbs of butter the other day for my Christmas cookie craziness?  Yep. 9 lbs.

Anyway, this week for my Mid-Century Menu Holiday Marathon, I decided to do two different kinds of candy.  And, in true MC Menu fashion, one is a little wacky. The other is just something I have always wanted to try.

The first is Divinity Fudge, which a lot of you out there have probably made before, but I never have.  I always page through cookbooks, see the plates and platters of candy and think, “That would be fun to try.”  And now I have an excuse to try it!

This recipe comes from the book pictured above, the American Woman’s Cookbook. You may remember this book from the noodle ring post, which was a lot of fun. (Cookie Alert – the noodle ring post also has a great recipe for Almond Cookies, a nice addition to the christmas cookie list!) There is a whole candy section in this great book, but the Divinity Fudge looked really good.  So I was off!

Too bad I was totally off my game when it came to prepping these ingredients.  I had to crack a total of 7 eggs to get the two egg whites you see in the red ramekin.  I don’t know what the deal was with the eggs, but the yolks kept wanted to swim around in the whites. Jeez.

The sugar, corn syrup and water in the saucepan.

While that was heating up to light crack stage, which is ironically the level of high I get from making Christmas cookies (just kidding, moms!), I got the rest of the ingredients ready.

The pans all buttered up.

The egg whites, stiffly beaten.

Here is the sugar mixture, right before it hit the right temp.  I am always terrified of this stuff, hot sugar scares the bejesus out of me.  So I was tiptoeing around the pan, trying my darndest not to get an extra drop anywhere.

So you can appreciate how much guts it took for me to pour the hot sugar with one hand while taking a picture of it.  I was sure I was going to spill it everywhere, but it went pretty well.

And yes, my mixer is filthy.   I made a lot of cookie dough yesterday, so that baby has been getting a workout.

Here is the fudge, poured into the pan.  Sorry I didn’t get pictures of the in between parts, but everything got really hot and crazy for a second, and then it was in the pan.  So, here it is in the pan.

And HERE is the totally sticky bowl that I had to wash!  Ewwwww!!

So, flushed with sucess, I decided to move on to the potato candy, which comes from this awesome book, the State of Maine Potato Cook Book.  There isn’t a publishing date on this cookbook (what is with that lately?), but I am assuming this is a 1960′s cookbook by the illustrations.  And I love the kitchen pictured on the front of the book!

Anyway, this book has a bunch of unique potato recipes I am looking forward to tackling in 2010, but I just couldn’t wait to try the recipe for Potato Candy.  It was just too intriging to wait.

Interesting, isn’t it?  I know I am ready to go!

Pretty simple, huh?  The potato is a bit out of place, but everything else looks good.  

The potato and the sugar in the bowl.  I have to admit this was a lot easier than the divinity fudge.

Now, some kind of weird magic happened at this point.  I started up the mixer, and the sugar just looked really dry.  I kept mixing, and still really dry.  About thirty seconds in I was getting a little doubtful.  Then, the sugar started to ball up, like struesel topping, and then it just turned into goo.  In about 2 seconds.

 Look at it!  I didn’t think that would happen.  I totally thought I would have to add more liquid. 

Ahh, the mystery of potatoes.

I mixed in the salt, vanilla and coconut and crammed it into the pan.  Nothing mysterious here.

Then I poured over the chocolate, which I melted in the microwave.  And that was it!  Pretty easy, huh?

So, then came the moment everyone has been waiting for.  Tom came home.

“Here,”  I said, barely even greeting him and shoving divinity in his hand, “try some of this.”

“Ok, but this is really sticky.”

“How is it?”

“Really sticky.”

“But it’s good,” he said, “Bring me the pan and a spoon.”

“Not yet, you have one more to try.” I brought him a piece of the potato candy.  “Eat this.”

“This is so good.  It tastes just like a Mounds bar.  Bring me that pan, too.”

So, he spent the next 20 minutes eating candy and watching Merry Christmas Charlie Brown.  I would call that a sucess!!

The Verdict:

Divinity Fudge:  Very Good, but I must have not boiled the sugar long enough because it never really set up.  Next time I will go a little longer on the sugar. 

Potato Candy:  Really Good, ended up tasting just like a Mounds Bar.  You could sprinkle chopped almonds on top if you want Almond Joy.  The great thing about this recipe was there was no flour or dairy, so it would be a good Christmas treat for people with special diets.  As long as they can have sugar. Lots of sugar.

The only thing I would do differently is NOT put them in a pan if I was giving them as gifts.  I would roll them in balls and then dip them in chocolate. Just to make them fancy.

Hooray for potatoes!

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.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  You know what this means. Hubs and I have eaten a meal I chose out of a mid-century cookbook, not for it’s promise of deliciousness, but for it’s weird and sometimes disgusting ingredients. We ate it, and we lived to tell about it.

Our meal this week came from this happy little book, 101 Ideas for a Quick and Easy Lunch with Oscar Mayer Sausage.  But looks can be deceiving.  Underneath this happy little cowboy is quite possibly the craziest cookbook ever unleashed on mankind. And all the recipes have the distinct honor of containing at least a half a pound of some kind of Oscar Mayer mystery sausage.  But why stop there? Some recipes have two or three kinds of sausage.

Excellent.

Now, I know I bent the rules a little by serving a lunch recipe for dinner, but this little fudge was made possible by this fantastic section of the book.  18 insane lunches, brought to you by a cowboy who was driven crazy by sun and his thirst, and now all he can think about eating is sausage. And lots of it.

Why do I keep bringing up the cowboy?  Because the book has a slightly western theme, and by that I mean everything that isn’t a German or Norwegian dish has “Cowboy” in front of it. And some, like our poor recipe, have a racially insensitive name.

 Honestly, when I read this recipe for the first time, I laughed and laughed. And laughed.

What the?!?! What were they thinking?  Oh wait, I know. They were thinking, “Let’s sell some of this #%@*& bologna before it goes bad. Quick, think of something!”

And on that note, off we went.

The first thing I did, even though it wasn’t in the recipe, was brown the side of bologna that was going to be on the inside.  I don’t know why, but it just made me feel better.

The assembled ingredients. Ready to meet their doom.

Spreading horseradish on the bologna.  Wow, that is something I never thought I would type.  Anyway, as you can see this isn’t grated horseradish.  I realized, with much disgust and at the last minute, that our horseradish had gone bad, so I had to sub a horseradish mayo spread. I didn’t think it would really make that much of a difference.

Adding cheese to the bologna.  Now we’re in flavor country!

A scoop of macaroni enters the slaughter.

Now everything got difficult.  I was supposed to get the edges of the bologna wrapped up and skewered, but the macaroni refused to co-operate.  It slipped and slid and fell out everywhere.  I can’t even imagine tying them with string, like the recipe suggested. Sheer madness.

Anyway, it took a lot of toothpicks, but I finally got it.

Yum! Or something!

In the pan, swimming in tomato sauce.  God it’s so….wrong.  So very, very wrong.

Here we are, all plated up and hanging out with a gooey mess of macaroni and cheese, which I got out of another mid-century cookbook.

Hubs was excited throughout this procedure.  He had just come back from a run as I started cooking, and was starving.  “It smells really good!” was his first response to everything, which I was shocked about because I thought it smelled weird. But at the end we sat down and dug in.  Scarily enough, the most amazing thing happened.

It was…good. Really good. The best meal so far.  The macaroni inside the bologna had mixed with the horseradish mayo and made a kind of spicy mac and cheese.  The procedure to make it was really bizarre, but it tasted like hot dogs in kraft mac and cheese that your mom made when you were a kid, except better.

Hubs licked his plate, and then got up and prowled around the kitchen, yelling, “Are there anymore of those bologna sacks?” He ate the rest of the side mac and cheese and then the rest of my meal (I only ate one and a half.  I can only choke down so much bologna.) before declaring them the best Mid-Century Menu yet.

The verdict: Surprisingly Good

I am as shocked as all of you. I am not even all that into bologna. Hooray for one recipe rising above expectations!