Apricot Chutney (2 versions)

“Oh my GAWD, Mom, not CHUTNEY again!?!?!” This must have been heard at least once a month in my house during the 70s. My mom made chutney often, and I, ummmm, didn’t appreciate it. In fact, I HATED it, and I FREAKED out when it was cooking – something about the vapors of boiling onion and ginger really seemed painful to me at the time. It wasn’t just that I refused to eat the stuff, but I literally howled and whined each time she made it. Oh, brother!

Since then, however, I’ve come to appreciate, and in fact to seek out, chutney – most often in the form of the English tea sandwich made with sharp cheddar and chutney, though also served as a side to meats. The extreme reaction of my youth is now just a ridiculous memory, so I decided (bravely) to attempt to make my own. OK not my own: I decided to make my mother’s chutney, the very recipe that used to send me running out of doors for fresh air as a child. A hitch, though, was the fact that my mom couldn’t find the book with the recipe she used all those years, but we were able to find a few similar ones that I cobbled together, with great success.

First, Madhur Jaffrey’s book on Vegetarian Cooking was one of my mom’s favorites, and in it there is an entire chapter on chutneys (!) so I had plenty of inspiration there. Second, The Joy of Cooking never fails, and sure enough there was a basic apricot chutney recipe there that looked very close to mom’s old favorite. Finally, I have to admit that I can’t stand raisins, so I left them out entirely, basically making Ms. Jaffrey’s recipe with the addition of ½ sautéed onion. The basic recipe is really tasty, and you can experiment with the various spices. Enjoy, even if it does scare your kids!



Apricot Chutney with Raisins and Currants

Madhur Jaffrey’s “World of the East Vegetarian Cooking” 1981

1 pound dried apricots
10 large cloves of garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
A 1x3-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 ¼ cups red wine vinegar
2 cups sugar
¼ tsp salt
1/8 to ¾ tsp cayenne pepper
¾ cup golden raisins
½ cup currants

Put the apricots in a bowl. Pour 4 cups of hot water over them and let them soak for an hour.

Put the garlic and ginger into the container of an electric blender or a food processor along with ¼ cup of the vinegar. Blend until smooth.

Empty the apricots and their soaking liquid into a heavy stainless-steel or porcelain-lined pot. Add the garlic-ginger mixture, the remaining vinegar, sugar, salt and cayenne. Bring to a boil. Simmer on a medium flame, stirring frequently, for 45 minutes. Do not let the chutney catch at the bottom of the pot. Lower heat if necessary. Add the raisins and currants and cook, stirring, another half hour or until chutney takes on a thick, glazed look. (Remember that the chutney will thicken slightly as it cools.) Let the chutney cool and store, refrigerated, in lidded glass or ceramic jars.




Curried Apricot Chutney

“The Joy of Cooking” 1974 Edition

Combine and simmer for 30 minutes:

2 cups water
2 cups dried apricots (11 oz package)
¾ cup chopped onion
¼ cup sugar

In a separate pan, cook for 5 minutes:
1 ½ cups vinegar
1 tsp ginger
1 ½ to 2 ½ tsp. curry powder
1 stick cinnamon
½ tsp salt

You may remove the stick of cinnamon before combining the apricot and spiced vinegar mixture. Stir in:

2 cups white raisins (10 oz package)

Place in sterile jars and process 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Super Brandy Alexander

I do love gadgets – back when I had TV, whenever an infomercial came on, I’d be reaching for the phone before you could blink. (Where’s my credit card? So what if I don’t have a boat, I *need* that special boat cleaner!) Fortunately, I have a small kitchen, so I’ve quit buying just any old gimmick-y doo dad – but when I found a bunch of late 60s / early 70s kitchen gadgets at an estate sale (for MY price of $1 each!) I had to have them all. And the best of the bunch was the Popeil Brothers’ 1974 Whip-O-Matic, with Planetary Action. (Never mind that we have no idea what that is, it sounds So Good!)

This beauty came complete in its original box, with instructions and recipes! I read with glee that the Whip-O-Matic was perfect for making meringue, scrambled eggs “deluxe”, batter for crepes, (naturally) whipped cream, salad dressing, chocolate milk and, lo and behold, my favorite after-dinner drink: the Brandy Alexander.

Not just any Brandy Alexander, though. There were plenty of recipes for those in ordinary cocktail guides. (Including one called Alexander’s Sister Cocktail in the definitive Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) that features Crème de Menthe and bears this warning: “Ladies are advised to avoid this Cocktail as often as possible.”) This one, using the revolutionary Planetary Action so lovingly touted by the Popeil Brothers (this must have JUST pre-dated their split and the creation of brother Ron Popeil’s “RonCo”) was not ordinary but Super.

I will say that it was in fact super! But that comes as little surprise since I already knew I loved the drink. One issue I had was that the ice, though crushed, was NOT dissolving, and despite the completely safe, non-electric, rubber-tractioned bottom, I poured the mixture through a strainer just to remove the few big ice chunks left. The other issue is with the quantity – I think for two drinks, you really need to double the recipe, and even then they are dainty in size, though just right in taste. Whip one up (or use a regular cocktail shaker with strainer if you lack your own Whip-O-Matic) tonight and see for yourself!

NOTE: I just discovered that Tupperware makes a mighty similar item, their “Whip ‘n Prep Chef” which you can buy from my dear friend Karen Finlay, right here!


Super Brandy Alexander

1 oz. Brandy
1 oz. Crème de Cacao
1 oz. cream
6 oz. shaved or finely crushed ice

Whip until ice dissolves. Pour into cold cocktail glasses and top with groud nutmeg. Makes 2 generous size drinks.

Devilled Eggs 3 Ways

Well, good folks: the results are in! Of the three varieties of Devilled Eggs, (also known as Deviled Eggs, take your pick), the hands-down winner was none other than The Master of the Feast himself, James Beard! 

This pronouncement made official by yours truly and Celebrity Judge, Mr. Grant K. Gibson, Easter Sunday, 2011. I present all three recipes here, since they were all tasty. Make up a batch of each and YOU BE THE JUDGE! 

 Having been asked to make devilled eggs for Easter, and knowing there were to be 40 guests, I decided I had better make three different varieties – mostly so that I wouldn’t be bored out of my scull with the boiling, shelling and stuffing of 6 dozen eggs! I also must admit to skipping the sieve step – instead (hello! Child of the 1970s!) I ran the cooked egg yolks through the Cuisinart. Oh thank heavens for electricity! And for the French. Actually, the experiment turned out to be quite amusing, and we really did carefully evaluate the results. I should point out that each book I consulted offered several variations on devilled eggs, so it really was a difficult choice. Next year: three more! (And someone else to crack them all…) 

 I assumed from the get-go that the entry featuring bacon would be the winner, bacon being so hot these days. And in fact, the bacon-eggs flew off the trays, even before I had finished preparing them! Note: the bacon crumbles were too large to fit through my piping tube, so I had to abandon the lovely presentation for those. People didn’t seem to notice, as they were too busy gobbling. As Grant put it, though, the bacon mixture was “surprisingly not my favorite” – it was too sweet. (Catsup was the culprit there.) Next time: hot sauce instead! I was happy with the minced chives as a garnish, which did help to cut the sweetness a bit. 

The curried eggs were quite good, and a very familiar taste, but I left off the parsley on those as I had previously used it to garnish the “plain” ones, and I felt the paprika sprinkle was perfect. They were really good and I would be proud to serve them any time. But…. James Beard’s were just THAT MUCH BETTER! 

As Grant said, “James Beard gets an A!” and I agree. His version is a basic deviled egg: not fancy, just perfect. It differs from my mother’s only in that she uses parsley only as a garnish (not part of the egg filling) and she omits the Worcestershire. I also added about ½ teaspoon of apple-cider vinegar when the mixture tasted too grassy (parsley) and that did it. These are the ones I will make over and over, and it pleases me to know that I must be doing “America’s Greatest Chef” proud! 

James Beard “Hors d’Oeuvre and Canapes” (1940)

James Beard just can’t be beat, in writing (Historical quotes! The source of foreign words! Wit!) and in recipes, and this little book is a definitive resource for every possible detail of a cocktail party. Though written in 1940, his advice still seems fresh and sensible. “The cocktail party no longer means a bottle of gin, a can of sardines, and a package of potato chips from the corner grocery.” (!!) He also endorses what my grandmother always said, that no party was complete without deviled eggs: “No matter what else is served at a cocktail party, you will always find that a tray of stuffed eggs will be one of the most popular items. These disappear more rapidly than anything else.” Boy was he right: even as I was assembling the eggs on Easter, guests were snatching them right off the trays before they were garnished! 

Deviled Eggs:

Remove the yolks from 6 hard-cooked eggs and force them through a fine sieve. Add one teaspoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of dry mustard, one half teaspoonful of freshly ground, black pepper, one teaspoonful of Worcestershire Sauce, one and one half tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley, and at least a tablespoonful of mayonnaise. Beat well with a fork till the mixture forms a full paste, adding more mayonnaise if necessary. Fill the white halves, using a pastry tube, and garnish with chopped parsley or tiny strips of pimiento. 

Peter Pauper Press with recipes by Edna Beilenson and decorations by Ruth McCrea “The ABC of Canapes” (1953) I had to mention the decorations, because Peter Pauper Press was known as much, if not more, for its graphic design, than for the recipes, but it turns out that both are delightful, despite the vagueness of the quantity needed. 

Eggs, Deviled with Bacon:

To the mashed cooked yolks, add double the amount of crisply fried, crushed bacon. Moisten with catsup, a little mustard, and a little mayonnaise. Heap into halves of egg-whites. 

Jules J. Bond “The eggs & cheese I love” (1978) This cute little book offered probably the most comprehensive and step-by-step instructions, as well as a surprising number of creative recipes along with old standards. For a beginning cook, I would absolutely recommend this one, for the clarity as well as the good end result. 

Curried Devilled Eggs (for 4 to 5):

12 hard-boiled eggs (the smaller the better) 1/3 cup mayonnaise 1 tsp. curry powder (or, if available, curry paste) 1 tsp. Dijon mustard Salt and pepper to taste 1 tsp. paprika 2 Tbsp. minced parsley Shell eggs and cut lengthwise in half. Remove yolks and rub through a strainer, then blend with all other ingredients. Fill the egg halves. The best and easiest way to fill them is using a pastry bag with a star tube. Garnish each egg half with a sprinkle of parsley and paprika.

IF you find yourself needing any deviled egg trays or carrying cases, I have some suggestions here: https://www.amazon.com/shop/carriedawaysf?ref=cm_sw_em_r_inf_pub_carriedawaysf_dp_3937eiSikBOjM

Marshmallow Pineapple-Lime Mold Salad (Jell-O #4)

I am a sucker for Jell-O. I am also a sucker for anything old, so imagine my delight when I was bequeathed the recipe card collection of a dear lady, Norma Finch (seen in photo with my dog, Rhubarb, expert canine beggar) and found it to contain NO LESS THAN 43 RECIPES for Jell-O!

Norma was an expert hostess who entertained weekly for nearly 70 years, often making elaborate dishes that were served on divine antique and mid-century platters and trays (some of which I also inherited). She carefully typed out her favorite recipes and kept them well-organized by type in her card box. She also swapped recipe cards with friends, as I discovered when sorting through them – here and there were cards written out by different hands, all signed. When I asked her son about the other ladies, he had stories about each one, often hilarious. Something about the friendships these cards represented still gives me chills, and makes me grateful to my own friends for the things we share.

Norma Finch, I am a woman after your own heart: I too have carefully written out my favorite recipes (I started doing this about age 8) and I too am happy to share them with friends. My blog entries are the modern equivalent (in my humble opinion) of your lovingly hand-typed cards, and I hope my friends value them as much as yours did. And so, in your honor, I have been going through the recipe cards and preparing one Jell-O mold every Easter.

This one was simple, without bizarre ingredients and with no surprises – that is, because I left out the mayonnaise! As I read the recipe, everything made sense and sounded good but that. Honestly: you have a perfectly good fruit and marshmallow Jell-O mold that you THEN PUT MAYO ON? There is a limit, people! (And by “people”, I mean the advertising executives of Kraft, who most obviously supplied the original recipe that Norma faithfully copied out, even including capitols on the name brands and omitting the brand “Jell-O”) So let’s be sensible and skip that part. I also skipped placing it on a bed of lettuce, favoring instead canned whipped cream and cherries to decorate the finished product, and it is quite yummy! Served on one of Norma’s own Depression Glass trays, I present Marshmallow Pineapple-Lime Mold Salad!



Marshmallow Pineapple-Lime Mold Salad

Dissolve 1 package lime gelatin dessert in 1 cup hot water. Drain the juice from 1 cup canned crushed pineapple and add water to make 1 cup of liquid. Add this liquid and 1 Tbsp lemon juice to the gelatin mixture. Chill until almost firm. Fold in the crushed pineapple and 2 cups of Kraft Miniature Marshmallows. Pour into a 1 quart mold. Chill until firm. Unmold onto a serving plate covered with lettuce. Serve with Kraft Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip Salad Dressing.

Tuna Ring (Jell-O #3)

It has long been an obsession of mine to research vintage Jell-O recipes, and when my great friend Karen started a Mid-Century Supper Club Pot Luck where participants are to re-create, in faithful detail, a vintage recipe and present it in corresponding vintage serve-ware, I though to myself: It must be Jell-O. But not just any Jell-O, because I frequently make plain Jell-O, fruit-added Jell-O, marshmallow Jell-O, even adding Jell-O to cake mix if I need a quick cake that tastes better than cake mix. But this event called for a new Jell-O experience, one that, regrettably, featured tuna fish.

Heck, if it was considered good enough to publish in a national cook book, how bad could it be? Um, bad. Fearfully bad, in fact. The sad thing is, it didn’t even look delightful, but was murky – a warning, perhaps, of what lurked inside! I took plain gelatin and added mayonnaise, chopped onions, celery and tuna fish. On purpose. And lovingly served it on a bed of lettuce. And I think I actually ate a bite! I know of one other person who did, but it was not actually a hit. But it was one of those things, you know, you just HAVE to do - once.

Sadly, not a single photograph exists of the concoction, so all I can do here is to reproduce the elegant full-color photo from the 1963 edition of Better Homes and Gardens “Lunches and Brunches”. This is a book full of fun photos of what sound like barely edible yet time-consuming recipes, all served on glorious mid-century table finery. Such contradiction! Such adventure!


Tuna Ring

1 envelope (1 Tbsp) unflavored gelatin
¼ cup cold water

1 can condensed tomato soup
1 3-ounce package cream cheese
1 cup salad dressing or mayonnaise
½ cup chopped celery
½ cup sliced stuffed green olives
¼ cup chopped green pepper
¼ cup sliced green onions
¼ cup chopped pimiento
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
2 6-ounce cans (2 cups) tuna, in chunks

Soften gelatin in cold water. Heat soup to boiling. Add gelatin; stir till dissolved. Add cream cheese, beat smooth with electric or rotary beater. Blend in salad dressing; stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into a 5-cup ring-mold; chill firm. To serve, garnish with greens (See picture page 45). Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Pork Chop Casserole / Buttered Carrots and Celery

1959’s “The Electric Cookbook” was “your complete guide to cooking electrically” and it sure is a good thing I have it, ‘cause in my apartment, I have an electric stove. Now, I was raised cooking with gas, and I greatly prefer it, but I’ll leave off that particular tirade for the moment, and be glad that as long as I must use an electric range, I have a guide. My guide, in fact, tells me that perhaps this whole “electricity” thing is gonna be huge: “For the homemaker, electricity takes the “work” out of housework…Tireless electric servants do most of the work, affording more time for the fun of creative cooking.”

SO! That explains how cooks in the 50s had so much time to come up with all the TOTALLY BIZARRE and INEDIBLE concoctions I encounter in vintage recipe books. Anyhow, there is something completely sensible about this book that I just love. Basically, you decide which electric appliance you are going to use (Roaster? Broiler? Electric Skillet?) and then the book presents an entire menu, all to be cooked at once, at the same temperature for the same amount of time. Genius!

And, happily, THIS RECIPE TASTES GOOD. And in fact, it is one I had been taught to make by the mother of an old boyfriend (by the way, moms always LOVED me because I wanted to learn all their recipes and hang out in the kitchen with them rather than trying to sneak off with the boyfriend or smoke cigarettes. OK, enough of the goody-goody show!). She called hers “White Trash Casserole”, and it was essentially the same thing, with the addition of sautéed onion and garlic added to the canned soup. I always add in sliced fresh mushrooms (sautéed), and organic “healthy” mushroom soup, when I’m not using Campbell’s for the whole “Andy Warhol” effect. So I already knew the pork chops would be yummy. But I had no idea the carrots and celery would – and it turns out that my daughter went bonkers over them and asked for them again the next night! There was a third element to the menu, but I ran out of time so I’ll have to try the Steamed Devil’s Food Pudding another time. Probably the next time I make these yummy pork chops!


Pork Chop Casserole

Temperature: 375
Time: 50 minites
Serves: 6

Preheat roaster to 375 degrees. Trim excess fat from 6 loin chops; salt and pepper; brown on both sides in skillet; place in meat dish. Combine 10 ½-ounce can cream of mushroom soup, ¼ cup water; pour over chops.

Buttered Carrots and Celery

Temperature: 375
Time: 50 minutes
Serves: 6

Peel 4 or 5 medium carrots; cut in lengthwise quarters. Cute celery in 2-inch pieces to make 1 ½ cups. Place vegetables in covered dish. Add ½ cup water, 1 teaspoon salt, and 2 tablespoons butter. Cover to cook.

Raspberry Roundup (Jell-O Part 2)

As many of you know, I LOVE Jell-O, so it was with delight that I received as a gift this handy-dandy 1980 General Foods “The Jell-O Gelatin Salad Selector” from my cousin Peggy. (Actually, Peggy sent me a whole box of old cookbooks from various family members, which was a real treasure-trove, and a story for another day) Give me any excuse to make Jell-O, and I’m thrilled!

The divine thing about this “pamphlet” (I’m somewhat at a loss as to what to call it, since it came to me as separated pages that may have been bound together in some way originally) is that each page begins with the type of meat dish you are planning: “Making Hamburger Tonight?” and then suggests a Jell-O salad o accompany it. If that one isn’t to your liking, just SPIN THE WHEEL and select another! And some of them even looked pretty good! No more 50s way-too-bizarre concoctions with shrimp, tuna, olives, onions, sour cream…. (as disgusting as that sounds, there are HUNDREDS of recipes for these “delights”)

I made this up happily the night before (one of the “things” about Jell-O – it is NOT spontaneous. No wonder it wasn’t popular in the 70s…) and l always love the suspense of the un-molding: will it turn out? YES it did! And it is even quite yummy – just the tart berry Jell-O mixed with applesauce. Of course it’s “great with any pork dish” – good old General Foods, they were right!


Raspberry Roundup

1 package (3 oz) Jell-O Brand Raspberry Flavor Gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1 cup applesauce
1 Tbsp. vinegar

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Add applesauce and vinegar and pour into 2-cup mold. Chill until firm, about 3 hours. Unmold. Garnish as desired. Makes 4 servings.

Chicken with Lemon and Herbs

Honestly, if I were stranded on a desert island with only one cookbook, The Silver Palate Cookbook (1979) would be it. Well, that is assuming there’s plenty of food around for me to cook, right? So I guess I mean a luxury desert island of sorts… you get the idea. This book was a big hit in the early 80s, and I ALWAYS find copies at thrift stores, and they are universally oil-splattered and well-loved like mine is! I grew up cooking from this cook book, and this is where many of my all-time favorite recipes come from, and this chicken dish would be at the very top of that list.

This was my first experience with cooking in foil pouches (or, as the French like to say, en papillote, though that is often done in parchment paper rather than foil) but in a pinch, this also works in a small casserole with a tight-fitting lid. I’ve even made these packets up for cooking over a fire! The herbs, fat, even the citrus can all be adjusted to your taste (prefer orange and ginger to lemon and garlic? Fine! Substitute olive oil for butter? Fine!), and it just never fails. Kids will eat it (I mark my daughter’s pouch with a Sharpie and use no garlic in hers), and you can even make up the pouches in the morning, put them in the fridge till you get home, and just bake them in time for dinner: quick and fabulous.

The mind literally boggles when I try to estimate how many times I have made this dish. If I estimate about twice a month since I began cooking at age 13, that would be 24 times a year for – oh, several years. Shoot, my calculator hasn’t got enough space in its memory to figure that! Let’s just say, I’ve made this a lot, and you will too after you try it!

Chicken with Lemon and Herbs

1 cup chopped fresh mint, dill and parsley in about equal proportions, or to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 boned chicken breasts, skinned and halved, about 4 ½ pounds altogether
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 lemons
4 Tbsp sweet butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Mix herbs and garlic together in small bowl. Flatten chicken breasts by pressing them against the work surface with the palm of your hand. Arrange breast pieces on foil and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle herb and garlic mixture over chicken breasts. Slice lemons and arrange 2 or 3 slices over each breast. Dot with butter and seal the packets. Set on a baking sheet. Set packets in the middle of the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Transfer to serving plates and allow guests to open packets at table. 6 portions

Fondue au Crème

Have I mentioned that I love fondue (witness: partial fondue collection!) and that I recently had the pleasure of judging a food competition at a fondue party? What an honor, and what a delicious and delightful evening! Every entry was special, and there were all sorts: from a traditional Swiss-style cheese fondue, to meatballs, to sweet dessert fondues. (Mmmmm…..) It was so hard to pick a winner, but ultimately I did, and it was a chocolate concoction of melted Toblerone and Grand Marnier, with fruit to dip. O earthly delight! O sticky mess!

I also brought a dessert fondue, and though it was not judged, I was able to participate in covering poor Jennye’s house with soot and goey residue. Residue that, even with the aid of oven cleaner, I was not able to fully remove from the fondue set till a whole week later! OK, I’ll admit that the real problem was that while I was sampling all the food entries, I went off and ignored my own for two hours… and, lest we forget, fondue is cooking with fire. So the sauce at first caramelized (yum!), and then scorched (what’s that smell?) and then literally burnt, with huge bubbles of blackening frosting forming in the little Corning Ware dish I had set over a teeny votive candle (yuk and double yuk!).

Despite becoming inedible after the melt-down, this desert fondue is actually quite tasty; something akin to dipping cake into warm, molten frosting. I whipped up a quick brownie mix and cubed that, as well as a frozen Sara Lee pound cake, and set that all out with fresh strawberries and little forks. (If cooking in luke-warm sauce, you can experiment with forks other than the long metal kind that must be used with hot oil.) I did add a drop of vanilla, but I think the idea of lemon would be nice as well. You could add more sugar to firm up the mixture if you like, but the key is to watch the flame and NOT let it scorch. And of course, enjoy!

Fondue au Crème

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup heavy cream

Combine sugar and cream in saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring constantly. Boil about half a minute. Pour into fondue pot or chafing dish. Keep heat as low as possible to prevent scorching. Flavorings such as vanilla, almond or lemon may be added. Serve by spearing pieces of cake or fruit on forks and dipping into mixture. Makes 4 servings.

Bloody Mary

When I felt the need for a Bloody Mary, I knew right where to turn: the 1956 “Esquire Drink Book”, which comes to me highly recommended as the definitive book on the subject. I actually flipped through a few other cocktail guides, but even the esteemed Trader Vic had a much less exciting version, leaving out any spices, and thus, all the fun. This book actually includes two Bloody Mary recipes, one of which is a blender drink, but my blender recently died (insert sad face here), so I used the more traditional recipe below. How can you go wrong with a shaker of ice – you get a workout AND a drink!

I hate to admit this, as into food as I am, but until quite recently, I wasn’t aware that cocktails could actually taste good – that careful thought goes into the pairing of flavors, the ratio of sweet to sour, even the choice of garnish. I’ve since come to enjoy a good drink made by talented friends and bartenders, but am nowhere near an expert myself. This was my first attempt at making a Bloody Mary, and I have to say, it worked quite well. Now I just need to get the girls over for brunch!

You’ll note that the recipe below doesn’t mention the celery I so carefully garnished mine with, but having seen Bloody Marys served thus at fancy dining establishments, I added that. Also, I used Spicy V8 rather than tomato juice, which eliminates (and boy, does it!) the need for pepper. Finally, I don’t keep vodka on hand as I don’t love it, so the brand I grabbed at the cheap corner liquor store was so embarrassing that I had to hide the label. You folks at home, please use something classy and expensive, and don’t tell any of my cocktail expert friends or bar owners what you’ve witnessed here...


Bloody Mary

1 jigger vodka
2 jiggers tomato juice
1/3 jigger lemon juice
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
Salt and Pepper to taste

Shake well with ice and strain into glass.

Low Calorie Fondue

I love fondue! I have had so much fun with it over the years, despite the mess and time. I have served entire fondue meals, with each course a different item dipped into a different liquid. I have experimented with sauces, oils, cheeses, chocolates, you name it. I have several lovely vintage fondue sets, forks beyond counting, and maybe 10 books on the subject, but I hadn’t yet ventured into fondue for kids (hello, hot oil burns!) until I found this recipe. Straight out of Concord, CA: 1968’s Nitty Gritty Productions “The Fondue Cookbook”.

Let me point out that by the time I was born, fondue’s heyday had come and gone. I clearly recall my parents making fun of fondue, even while my friend’s older sister worked in a Berkeley fondue restaurant that, apparently, was still popular. It was a fad of their immediate past - I think my mom and every single one of her contemporaries was given a fondue set as a wedding gift, which they probably used once, if at all. I know, I understand: It is a fairly elaborate set up, takes ages, and leaves a big mess. Lots of people don’t even like the taste of the traditional Swiss fondue, with sherry and Emmenthaler and Gruyere cheeses. But come on, the real fun of fondue is the party element! After all, fondue is “the happiest entertaining idea since cheese first melted”, and such a great way to get to know your neighbors. Oops, who’s fork is that?

My dinner guests this time included a friend and two 6 year old girls, and there was much hilarity but not much patience, so half-way through, we abandoned the forks and turned the hot broth into soup. This worked just fine - why not, after all, it’s a party! In the interest of reducing burns, I also used not a vintage aluminum set, but my fancy new All-Clad fondue set (which also comes with ceramic insert for chocolate, allowing for those entire fondue meals!) which has the benefit of a proper-fitting splash-guard and secure Sterno holder. Expensive, but worth it if you plan on actually using it more than once. Also, all my work creating several sauces was for naught, as the kids wanted nothing but (surprise!) catsup. Still, it is amazing the number of sauces you’ll find in any given fondue cookbook, or even in the prepared foods aisle of your supermarket. Get out your Sterno, folks, and enjoy the Magic of Fondue!



Low Calorie Fondue

This version of fondue is very popular with calorie watchers. Meats and vegetables are cooked in this delicious broth instead of being deep fried. After the meat has all been cooked, the flavorful broth can be served as a tasty bonus.

2 ½ cups beef or chicken broth
1 ¼ cups water
½ cup dry white wine
½ bunch green onions, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
Few sprigs parsley
Salt and pepper
1 tsp fine herbs

Simmer ingredients in saucepan 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand 2 hours. Strain into fondue pot and bring to boiling. Use as directed.

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies for St. Patrick’s Day

“Irish food,” so my 1979 book on Irish Cooking tells me, “tends to be high in caloric content and is intended to satisfy even the heartiest working man.” Indeed, I love to eat their traditional offerings at one of our many Irish pubs in San Francisco, but I just don’t cook like that at home. Oh sure, I can make a nice soda bread, and I do eat oatmeal every day for breakfast. But this year for St. Patrick’s Day, I’m off the hook anyhow: I’m going to a friend’s house – and he really knows how to make the stew, the corned beef, and the cabbage dishes that everyone expects. So my contribution will be some green sugar cookies. Green, see? Irish. There.

Not that I wasn’t tempted by plenty of the recipes in the book: “craibechan of the sea”, for example. (?) “Balnamoon skink” (??), or rabbit in stout (well, OK I do love stout, and rabbit can be tasty, but there is no WAY I am getting away with cooking that around my 6 year old!). I’ve also tried some of the baked items in the past, but plain old sugar cookies just seemed like a fun (and more familiar) thing for my daughter to help with, and BOY did she get a kick out of watching the dough turn green with each mighty little drop of food coloring.

The idea was to make lovely green shamrock cookies, but when I looked for the shamrock cookie cutter, alas: it was nowhere to be found. I have tons of cutters, though, so we selected the medium sized Adias symbol (thank you: that is the Adidas-symbol-as-cookie-cutter, a gift-with-purchase from trainers I paid way too much for at their boutique in Georgetown, not a pot leaf!) and it suited us just fine. (Note to self: the more detailed the cutter, the more of a pain in the neck it is to cut out the shapes! I must get rid of the “cute” shapes that are more trouble than worth, such as the tea pot, the high-heeled shoe, and the guitar. NOT WORTH IT!) We also made some plain sugar cookies, because there came a time in the evening when mommy had had JUST ABOUT ENOUGH of the rolling and cutting and rolling and cutting and rolling and cutting, and I made the executive decision to do the final third of the dough in balls rolled in green sugar. Aren’t cookie cutters cute? Isn’t it a pain to cut out 6 dozen cookies? This is exactly why I make so many recipes for drop cookies. Still, when I have the energy, these are just about the best. Not too sweet, with a hint of almond – perfect with tea or coffee. Or Guiness!




Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

1 cup sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 (3 oz) package cream cheese, softened
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. almond extract
½ tsp. vanilla
1 egg yolk
2 cups flour
3 Tbsp colored sugar, if desired

In large bowl, combine sugar, butter, cream cheese, salt, almond extract, vanilla and egg yolk; blend well. Lightly spoon flour into measuring up; level off. Stir in flour until well blended. Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate 2 hours for easier handling.
Heat oven to 375F. On lightly floured surface, roll out dough 1/3 at a time to 1/8” thickness. (Keep remaining dough refrigerated.) Cut into desired shapes with lightly floured 2 ½” cookie cutters. Place 1” apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Leave cookies plain or, if desired, sprinkle with colored sugar.
Bake at 375F for 7 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheets; cool completely. If desired, frost and decorate plain cookies.
Yield: 6 dozen (2-inch) cookies

Jell-O!!!!!

OK seriously: WHO DOESN'T LOVE JELL-O?

My family, for staters. It has been brought to my attention that I am NO LONGER welcome to grace family events with Jell-O mold creations. (Yes, this was my contribution for YEARS, and I took great pride in the variety of shapes, colors and ingredients, even if I WAS the only one ever to eat them.)

HOWEVER, some people GET IT! My dear friend Karen, for one: She is offering up a fabulous brand-new Tupperware Jell-O ring as the prize for her latest contest, and YOU can enter! See details on her blog, below:

http://97thingstodobeforeiturn97.blogspot.com/2011/02/contest-time.html

In addition to also liking Jell-O, Karen and I have many (possibly 97? Possibly more?) things in common: we both like Doritos, Starbucks, vintage clothes, The Beatles, crock pot cookery; we were born in the Same hospital (!), and we have both been asked: DO YOU WORK FOR LONELY PLANET?

So enter Karen's contest, get that Jell-O mixed up, and report back here for my second Jell-O installment, where I describe some of those Jell-O experiments in detail!

Wild Rice Casserole

How could anyone resist a book called The Total Woman Cookbook? Actually, at first I just wasn’t sure what to make of it until I read all about Ms. Marabel Morgan, who, it turns out, became a women’s motivational speaker in 1970 after sorting out troubles in her marriage, and wrote a best seller called “The Total Woman”. Well, she can cook, too, so next came a cookbook, (in 1980) which is subtitled the “Handbook for Kitchen Survival”. Instead of being organized by ingredient, the recipes are set out as to what purpose they serve: The Boss is Coming for Dinner, Ho-Hum Tuesdays, Unexpected Dinner Guests, and one for kids called Rainy Day Projects (sounds messy to me, get out the wipes!).

Marbel Morgan is a crack up, quoting from the Bible as well as discussing sex between recipes. (I guess that makes her the Total Woman!) I actually have added her first book, The Total Woman, to my “to read” list (especially if I come by it for a quarter at a garage sale, the way I source most of my books.) but in the mean time, I am happy to work through her quite excellent recipes, whether or not I use them as she has intended. For instance, I made this wild rice casserole from “International Flair” (which I guess means side dishes that don’t convey any particular message) along with her marinated flank steak from the chapter entitled “Time for Romance”, but I served them to my daughter, simply because I was in the mood for steak and there had been a sale on flank steak! I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t always need to “say it with steak” – sometimes it’s just dinner.

The wild rice casserole was a surprise hit with my daughter, who even pointed out that she liked the difference in texture between the rice, mushrooms and the almonds, and I’ve made it several times since, along-side chicken, fish, and yes, steak. I left out the canned water chestnuts, though, and used fresh mushrooms rather than canned. I also used a bizarre but delicious black/purple specialty rice I found called “Forbidden Rice”, and spent the entire time cooking cracking myself up comparing it to that other forbidden: The Lambada, the 80s phenomenon, called The Forbidden Dance.

Wild Rice Casserole

4 Tbsp butter
1 cup wild rice
½ cup slivered almonds
2 Tbsp green onions or chives
1 tsp soy sauce
1 5-ounce can water chestnuts, sliced
3 4-ounce cans mushrooms, drained
3 cups hot chicken broth

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put all ingredients except broth in heavy frying pan. Cook over medium-high heat 20 minutes, or until almonds are slightly brown. Stir often.
2. Add hot chicken broth; stir. Pour into 2-quart baking dish. Cover tightly with foil. Bake 2 hours.

Pink Party Pop Corn

From the iconic book, “Popcorn Potpourri”, (1977) by Larry Kusche (check out his snazzy trousers!) comes this bizarre and yet addictive food product: pink party popcorn. I’m not suggesting you make any of this, or if you do make it, stick to using it for modeling crafts, not consumption…

Still! Pop Corn is always fun, and having found a whole book on it (and one that features the very Hot Air Pop Corn Popper that I had growing up on the cover), I offered to make any recipe in it for Ivy. And naturally, she picked THE grossest one. No, she couldn’t pick something mellow like a nice cheddar cheese coating, or herb butter pop corn. Nor did she pick any of the somewhat creepy sounding ones like Pop Corn with Mushroom Butter, or Pop Corn with Chicken Flavored Butter. This book is filled with literally hundreds of pop corn recipes: The variety! The possibilities! And so, the one pop corn experiment thus became the Great Pop Corn Taste Test, where we tested plain pop corn with salt, the dreaded concoction below, and one that I came up with myself, where I melted a Toblerone bar and drizzled that over plain pop corn. That, strangely, was not bad! Hello, Pop Corn Party! (Later: Hello, Tums…)

To make the Pink Party Pop Corn, I was reminded of something I used to do about once a week in Junior High: make Rice Krispies Treats. The unmistakable scent of melting butter and marshmallows: mmmm… but then adding Jell-O in powder form to it… makes it a veritable sugar bomb, and also disturbingly bright. I was horrified by the stuff as I mixed it up, but then something happened, and I… HAD TO EAT IT ALL! We could barely even do a taste test, because I was so busy gobbling it up. And it turned out that Ivy, who selected that recipe, preferred the chocolate version. Either way, I still say pop corn is fun, but I know to step away from the marshmallows, lest I become a Pink Party Pop Corn addict!



Pink Party Popcorn

(actual note from the book: you can match the color of the popcorn to your decorating scheme.)

3 Tbsp butter
1 ½ cups miniature marshmallows
4 Tbsp strawberry-flavored gelatin
2 qts. popped popcorn

In a medium saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Stir marshmallows into the melting bitter. Let them soften but not melt completely. Add the gelatin. Stir until butter-marshmallow mixture is evenly colored. Gelatin does not have to be dissolved. Drizzle over popcorn and mix well. Makes 2 quarts.

Tanya Tucker’s Chicken Chili

Chili is one of my favorite foods in the Universe, so I know I’m gonna like a cookbook that features more than one recipe for it - and this book has no less than 7. I already have a few variations that I love, but I won’t hesitate to try a new chili recipe, especially one from Country Music Sweet Heart, Tanya Tucker. She says it: “Cleans your teeth, curls your hair, and makes you feel like a millionaire,” and I must agree!

There was no way I could pass up this book, being a huge fan of country music and vintage cookery. From the down-home recipes, to the bio snippets, to the very, very 80s portrait photography, it is a hoot and a holler. I found several recipes to try, and I even found a few I’d seen before under different names! (I will certainly need to try Dolly Parton's Apple Stack Cake, Kenny Rogers' Country Chicken Salad, The Oak Ridge Boys' Lasagne, and Tom T. Hall's Watermellon Wine!) Oh, the joy that 99 cents can still bring.

From “Cooking with Country Music Stars” (1986) comes this yummy chicken chili, which I have made exactly as described here, and also another time using pre-cooked rotisserie chicken leftovers; both were divine. And although shops in California don’t often carry Ro-Tel, you can always find some type of canned tomato and chili mixture if you poke around. Note that Ms. Tucker kindly includes the amount of Sweet-n-Low you’d need to use, if you so desired. I guess that means she likes both kinds of music: Country AND Western!



Tanya Tucker’s Chicken Chili

1-2 onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3 Tbsp vegetable shortening
1 10-ounce can Ro-Tel tomatoes (canned tomatoes and chilies)
1 ½ cups stewed tomatoes
3-4 cups kidney beans (better with homemade beans)
1 teaspoon salt
1 bay leaf
1 tsp sugar (or 1 packet Sweet-n-low)
¼ cup dry red wine
3 Tbsp chili powder (add more if you like)
4 chicken breast halves
1 Tbsp sherry
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 cups chicken broth (if chili is too hot)
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a large pot, sauté onions and garlic in shortening until tender. Add Ro-Tel and stewed tomatoes, kidney beans, salt, bay leaf, sugar, wine and chili powder. Simmer together for 1 hour.

Boil chicken breasts for 1 hour in water seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. Drain and reserve broth. Remove skin from cooked chicken and shred by hand or in a food processor. Add to tomato and bean mixture. Simmer to 1 hour. Add sherry and Worcestershire sauce. Add chicken broth if desired for consistency and taste.

Serves “a bunch.”

Champagne Cocktail

In celebration of my first year of blogging, I decided to make a Champagne cocktail. Easy enough to just pour out, and delight in, a glass of Champagne, but that hardly requires a recipe, and therefore doesn’t qualify for a blog entry, and we just can’t have that, now can we? Nope. So I pulled out a little bottle of bubbly, and had a look through my recipe books.

This “Bar Guide”, listed as “Authentic and Hilarious” was published by True, The Men’s Magazine, in 1950. (I love the oh-so-50s sayings and bizarre illustrations by Vip!) I picked this recipe for the Champagne Cocktail not because it is any different from those in any of my other drinks books, but because there is a truly “authentic and hilarious” introduction to the entire section on making cocktails with Champagne:

The Champagne cocktail, often known as Chorus Lady Milk, is the aristocrat of wine cocktails. However, those who don’t like chorus ladies consider it a waste of good Champagne. There is only one way to drink Champagne, they insist – neat, from a lady’s slipper. They urge that rather than ruin a bottle of good vintage Piper-Heidsieck in a mix, use any grade of domestic Champagne, say Old Rainspout, 1951.

They, of course, are the spoilsports. To be able to step up and say stiffly, “Two Champagne cocktails, please, Louis Rodier ’26, brut! Throw the rest of the bottle away!” is something to have lived for. To be able to pay for it is even more worth while.


Champagne Cocktail

1 cube Sugar
1 dash Angostura Bitters
Champagne

Place sugar in glass and saturate with bitters. Pour chilled Champagne over and serve without stirring.


“Here’s Champagne to our real friends, and real pain to our sham friends.”