Banana-Bran Muffins or Snack Cake

I had some oat bran, whole wheat flour and bananas that I needed to use. So I looked in a notebook in which I keep lots of muffin and quick bread recipe clippings. I have had this recipe since 1987 so I guess it was time to use it. It is from Woman's Day 2/10/87. I made it as a snack cake in a 9x9 pan. It was very tasty.

Banana-Bran Muffins
1 large egg
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (3 large or 4 medium size)
1/2 cup raisins or chopped walnuts (I used raisins)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup oat bran or wheat bran
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 12 regular size or 10 if you want large muffins or line with baking cups. With a wooden spoon beat egg and sugar in a medium size bowl until smooth. Add bananas, raisins, oil and vanilla. Beat until blended then let stand 1 minute or so. Thoroughly mix flours, bran, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Add banana mixture and fold in with a spatula just until dry ingredients are moistened. Spoon into muffin cups and bake 20 to 25 minutes, until brown and springy to the touch. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

Broccoli Grape Salad with Chutney Dressing

While perusing one of my many cookbooks I found a recipe that sounds like a very tasty variation of the broccoli, raisin and bacon salad that you see at buffets, potlucks etc. There are recipes for the basic salad all over the Internet. I did a search but didn't find another recipe like this one. It doesn't have any bacon like most broccoli salad recipes but you could easily add it if desired. The original recipe made a huge amount so I cut it in half.

Chutney Broccoli Grape Salad

1 head broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces ( florets and some stems)
3/4 pound seedless red grapes
1/4 of a red onion, chopped
1/2 cup lightly toasted slivered almonds
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 of a 9 oz. jar chutney
1 tablespoons curry powder
In a large mixing bowl, combine broccoli, grapes, onion and almonds.
In a small mixing bowl, combine mayonnaise, chutney and curry powder; mix well. Stir mayonnaise mixture into broccoli mixture; mix well. Refrigerate, covered, until ready to serve. Serve chilled.
From: Grilling- Food Writers' Favorites

Who knew?

My husband gave me three or four cookbooks for Christmas that he got at thrift stores or library sales. I am embarrassed to say I hadn't looked at one of them until last week. It was an over-sized book titled Mirabelle. It was by some chef and about the Mirabelle restaurant in London. After looking at it I decided it wasn't the type of book I was interested in and told my husband he could sell it on eBay. Usually he would list a book like that for $5.95. For some reason I decided to do a search for it on a used and rare book site that searches over 80,000 sources. Lo and behold it was a valuable book that was being offered for around $100 dollars. I guess it must have been a very small printing run. To make a long story short he sold it on auction yesterday for $86.00!! Thank goodness I decided to check its value.

Chinese Roll-Ups from Women's Circle Home Cooking

This recipe is from a Women's Circle Home Cooking book- Cooking With Style. These are the paperback books that you see quite often in thrift stores. They are compiled from reader submitted recipes in Home Cooking magazine. The water chestnuts seem to be the only thing remotely Asian, there isn't even any soy sauce. They might be tasty though.

Chinese Roll-Ups with Hot Mustard Sauce

1 pound ground beef
1 can water chestnuts, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped onion
1 package onion and mushroom soup mix
1 tablespoon beef bouillon
3 packages crescent rolls
1/4 cup prepared mustard
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon hot sauce
2 teaspoons horseradish
Brown ground beef. Add next 5 ingredients. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Place 1 tablespoon meat mixture in center of each crescent triangle. Pull corners over meat mixture; pinch together to seal. Place on baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, or until browned. Combine remaining ingredients; mix well. Refrigerate until serving time. Serve hot mustard sauce over roll-ups while still warm. May be frozen for use later.

Soup Cookery- The Savory HEINZ Way

I hope to get back to posting regularly soon. The last month has been a hard one for my family. My Mom fell a month ago and broke two ribs. Since then it has been really up and down for her. I lost count of how many times she had to go to the emergency room. For some reason she started having seizures. Hopefully they have now got them under control. She is in a care center now, and I really have no idea when or if she will get to come home. She was only home for one day in the last month. My baby granddaughter who we are very close to because we care for her while my daughter works had surgery to her skull. That was very nerve racking. She is doing well now, but wow she has two really long sets of sutures on the top of her head. Well enough of my families problems, I know everyone has some troubles.

I have seen quite a few Campbells Soup publications but not very many from Heinz. This little booklet is undated but looks like it is from the 60's. It has a lot of common cream soup casseroles and such. There are a few desserts, their variation for the tomato soup cake is titled- Coral Spice Cake. The recipe that caught my eye though is their corn bread:

Corn Bread
1 cup corn meal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon salad oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 10 3/4 -ounce Heinz Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup, undiluted

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Sift together first 5 ingredients. Combine remaining ingredients, mix well. Add to dry ingredients mixing just long enough to moisten. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full or pour into greased 9"x 9"x 2" square pan. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes or until done. Makes 9 muffin or 9 servings.

My husband really likes Cream of Chicken soup and will actually heat it up and eat it as is. I think most people just use it for cooking. I am going to try this recipe as I think he will get a kick out of it.

Cookbook Perusing: Florida's Natural, Favorite Recipes From Our Groves

Florida's Natural, Favorite Recipes From Our Groves (1998) is a hardcover collection of recipes from the co-op of growers who make Florida's Natural Juices. There are lots of large color photos of the prepared recipes, vintage black and whites of the citrus industry and photos of vintage citrus crate labels. There is short but interesting history of the Florida citrus industry and recollections by growers.
There are recipes from many recipe categories, appetizers to desserts.
This orange recipe sounds very easy and something a little different than the widely seen onion soup and cream soup recipes. It is an older recipe so it calls for whole cut up chicken. Now people would probably use breasts or thighs.

Poulet A L'Orange

2 broiler-fryer chickens, cut up

2 medium navel oranges, unpeeled and cut into thick slices

1 envelope onion soup mix

1-1/2 cups orange juice, home-squeezed style

Place chicken and orange slices in large roasting pan. Add onion soup mix. Pour orange juice over chicken and orange slices. Bake 1-1/2 hours in 400 degree oven until tender and glazed, basting and turning occasionally. Serve with pan juice. Serves 6.

I don't see many grapefruit recipes in cookbooks but this one has quite a few. A pie, cake, several main dishes and others.

Pork Chops With Grapefruit Glaze

6 pork chops

1 grapefruit, squeezed for juice

1/2 stick butter or margarine, melted

2 tablespoons honey

To prepare glaze, mix melted butter, juice from the grapefruit, and honey. Set aside. Cook chops on medium hot grill; 15 minutes before done brush with glaze. Turn chops and continue to brush with glaze until done.

Fresh-Cherry Tart

I was looking through one of my old recipe clipping files today and found this Good Housekeeping Mag. recipe from 1979 that features fresh cherries. They are available around here for a reasonable price now. Usually when I buy them they all get eaten up as a snack before I can use them in a recipe.
The recipe was one of their 30 Minute features, but I think this recipe would take longer that that because you need to pit the cherries.

Fresh-Cherry Tart

2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 of 10-1/2-ounce bag miniature marshmallows (2 cups) or about 20 regular marshmallows
2-1/2 cups oven-toasted rice cereal
1 (3-1/2- to 3-3/4 ounce)package vanilla instant pudding and pie filling
1-1/4 cups milk
1 cup heavy or whipping cream
1 teaspoon almond extract
1-1/2 pounds sweet cherries

In 2-quart saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Add marshmallows; heat until marshmallows are melted, stirring frequently. Remove saucepan from heat; stir in cereal until well mixed. With buttered hand, pat mixture into greased 10-inch tart pan or 9-inch pie plate.
In large bowl with mixer at high speed, beat pudding mix and remaining ingredients except cherries 5 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Spoon mixture into cereal crust. Refrigerate.
With cherry pitter, remove pits from cherries or cut each cherry in half but not all the way through to remove pit. Gently press cherries into cream filling. Makes 8 servings.

Cookbook Perusing: Home Economics Fund Raising Books

I have decided to incorporate one of my other recipes blogs into this one. It is more trouble than it is worth to post on a bunch of different blogs. So I will move the posts over here. Cookbook Perusing has random posts about some of the cookbooks in my huge collection. This was the first post from that blog:

Cookbook collectors usually have different categories of books that they like to specialize in. Some particularly like the organization or church books usually called community cookbooks. I used to collect those but gave most of them to my husband to sell. I still collect fund raising books put out by home economics teachers. I guess that is partially because I have a degree in home economics and in hindsight wish I had got a credential and been a teacher instead of getting into child development. Plus they always have recipes that the average person would actually make. Well anyway this recipe is from a particularly good Home Ec book The Nice & Easy Cookbook.

Beef and Broccoli Chowder- Martha Cox, Georgia

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 package potatoes au gratin (the dry mix type)
2 medium carrot, chopped
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
6 cups water
1 10 oz. package frozen chopped broccoli, thawed
Brown ground beef with onion in skillet, stirring frequently; drain. Add potatoes, carrots seasonings and water. Simmer, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add broccoli. Cook, covered, for 10 minutes longer. 8 servings at 139 calories.

Appetizers- One elegant, one not so much

Last week I learned from a post by Louise on Months of Edible Celebrations that May 8th was Military Spouse Appreciation Day. Today I was looking at a book I had pulled out of one of my boxes a few weeks ago and remembered the author was a military spouse. Food With A Flair Special Recipes for Special People by Doone Lewis is a collections of recipes that she gathered from many different Naval duty stations here in the US and overseas. The book was published in 1979. Doone must have had to host quite a lot of cocktail parties as there is a large section on appetizers and starters.
This recipe seems like it would make a fancy presentation. I remember my Mom had a copper chafing dish she would use for hot appetizers at her cocktail parties. My Dad was a career Naval officer so my parents did a lot of entertaining.

Saganaki-" Simple, attractive, and delicious"

1 pound raw shrimp, deveined (frozen are fine)
1 package frozen artichoke hearts
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 pound small whole mushrooms
2 cloves garlic, minced fine
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
Freshly ground pepper or Lawry's seasoned pepper
1/2 teaspoon oregano
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Blanch artichoke hearts in boiling salted water for 2 minutes and drain. Heat olive oil in a frying pan, add shrimp and mushrooms. Cook, stirring, until shrimp turns pink. Add artichoke hearts, garlic, salt, pepper and oregano. Heat thoroughly and sprinkle with lemon juice and parsley. Serve hot in a chafing dish or casserole on a burner, with toothpicks. Makes about three dozen appetizers.

This one isn't elegant but I know I would like it as I like all the ingredients. Yes, I am a cream of mushroom soup fan, I admit it. I am sure the amount of margarine could be cut way down or even eliminated.

Hot Clam Dip-" This different dip takes only a few minutes to whip up."

1/2 cup margarine, melted
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese
Dash of Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup chopped clams, drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup

Put all ingredients into the melted margarine and heat slowly while stirring; do not boil. Serve hot with dip chips or crackers.

57 Prize-Winning Recipes From Heinz

57 Prize-Winning Recipes From H. J. Co. was coincidentally published in 1957. The subtitle says $25,00 Cook With Ketchup Contest but nothing in the content mentions the contest. It has lots of those great mid-century illustrations. Such as this tomato man:


Some of the recipes such as the cover recipe for Country Captain sound fine. Some of the others including the eight dessert recipes are quite far out. This is what it says about the dessert recipes: "For truly distinctive desserts cook with Ketchup. Contrary to popular belief, the tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable. So why not use tomato ketchup in desserts?"
It is rhubarb season now in case anyone cares to try this recipe:

Major League Rhubarb
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups soft bread crumbs
3 cups unpeeled rhubarb in 1-inch pieces
1 medium banana
1 medium tart apple
1/2 cup Heinz Tomato Ketchup
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons butter
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine first 5 ingredients. Mix 2/3 of this mixture (1-1/2 cups) with rhubarb in greased 1-1/2 quart casserole. Peel and thinly slice banana and apple; place in casserole. Combine ketchup, lemon rind and juice; pour over fruit. Sprinkle with remaining bread crumb mixture. Dot with butter. Bake, covered, 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours. Serve warm or cold. Garnish with whipped cream or cottage cheese. Makes 8 servings.
There is also a spice cake recipe that I imagine is quite similar to tomato soup cake recipes.

This is their recipe for Country Captain:
3 to 3-1/2 pound chicken, cut up
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped green peppers
1 clove garlic, minced
1-1/2 cups water
1 bottle (14 ounces) Heinz Tomato Ketchup
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground thyme
3 cups hot, cooked rice
1/3 cup dried currants
1/2 cup chopped toasted, blanched almonds
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove skin from chicken; coat with mixture of flour, salt and pepper. In Dutch oven or roaster, brown chicken in shortening. Remove from pan. Add onions, green peppers and garlic to same pan; saute until lightly browned. Add water, ketchup, curry powder and thyme; mix well. Add chicken, making sure each piece is well coated with sauce; cover. Bake, stirring occasionally, 1 hour or until chicken is very tender. Remove chicken to large platter; surround with rice. Add currants to sauce: pour over chicken. Sprinkle with almonds. Makes 6 servings.

I am glad I discovered this interesting booklet on my cookbook shelf. Who knows how long it had been there. I don't remember looking at it before.

A package in the mail

I received a large exciting package yesterday. A fellow member of paperbackswap had picked up a huge lot of cook booklets through Freecycle and had offered them to someone in exchange for some credits. I took her up on it and was completely surprised by the number of booklets. I know there are at least one hundred.There were so many I couldn't get them all in the photo. Most of them are fairly new but there where two 1926 Crisco oil books and several from 1948. There were quite a few special Xmas issue magazines which I happen to collect. It is going to take me a long time to go through them, something I will really enjoy doing.
This recipe is from one of them, a 1968 Pillsbury publication- Pillsbury's Bake-Off Breads Cook Book.
Merry Mince Brown Bread
2 cups cornmeal
1-1/2 cups Pillsbury's Best All Purpose Flour
2 teaspoons soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
1 cup prepared mincemeat
3/4 cup dark molasses
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients; mix well. Divide batter into 4 well-greased 20 oz. cans or well-greased 2-quart ring mold, filling 2/3 full. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 to 65 minutes until top springs back when touched lightly. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from cans. Cool completely.

I used to enjoy canned brown bread with a baked bean dinner. The last few years I have been unable to find it in any local grocery stores and have thought about making it. I also have a jar of mincemeat in the cupboard. Mincemeat is usually quite expensive so when I found a jar on deep markdown I bought it. I think this recipe will come quite close to the brown bread with raisins that I used to enjoy so I am going to definitely try it. I just need to get four cans of pineapple and use them up so I will have the cans to bake in. :)

Easter Leftovers? Wilted Spinach-Ham Toss

Here is a recipe that uses two common Easter dinner leftovers, ham and hard cooked eggs. It is from a classic 1979 Better Homes and Gardens book, Pork, Sausage & Ham Cookbook.

Wilted Spinach-Ham Toss
1/2 pound fresh spinach
Whole black pepper
1 or 2 slices bacon
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups fully cooked ham cut into thin strips
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup sliced green onion
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped

Wash spinach and pat dry on paper toweling. Tear spinach into bite-size pieces (total about 6 cups) and place in a mixing bowl. Grind a generous amount of pepper over the spinach. Set aside.
Cut uncooked bacon into small pieces. In large skillet cook bacon till crisp. Stir in vinegar, lemon juice, sugar, and salt. Gradually add ham, mushrooms, and green onion to the skillet mixture; stir constantly. Remove from heat; add spinach. Using two spoons or forks, toss the spinach mixture to coat evenly with ham mixture. Turn spinach mixture into serving dish. Sprinkle with chopped, hard-cooked eggs, serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

A Delectable Comestible

Today I scored several cookbooks from the free box outside the library. Delectable Comestibles by Ester Zane ended up in the box because all the comb binding had broken off. A sad end to a 1964 fundraising book. The interesting thing about it is that it was complied by one person and all the recipes are from her. It is fairly good sized too, 180 pages. Usually fundraising books are committee affairs. It was a fundraiser for the University Students' Cooperative Association of the University of California at Berkeley.
As soon as I saw this recipe in it I knew I had to post it!

Spinach A La Rochelle

2 packages (10-oz. each) frozen chopped spinach
4 tablespoons butter, margarine or bacon drippings
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
Milk or light cream or undiluted canned milk
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup grated onion
2 tablespoon cracker meal or flour
1 (10-oz.) can mushroom soup
2 hard-cooked eggs, sieved (optional)
Cook spinach in boiling salted water according to directions. Put a clove of garlic in the boiling water before adding the spinach. When spinach is done, remove the garlic and drain the spinach. Reserve the cooking liquid. In a large skillet or Dutch oven melt the butter, margarine or bacon drippings. Add the grated onion and cracker meal. Simmer a couple of minutes. Then add the well-drained spinach and can of undiluted cream of mushroom soup. Blend well and add one-quarter cup spinach liquid and enough light cream or undiluted canned milk to make spinach the consistency you like. It should be soft and creamy but not runny. Add seasonings and taste to see if it needs more salt. Serve topped with the sieved hard-cooked eggs. Enough for 6-8.

Pot Roast, Yum!

I had a piece of bottom round roast that I had bought on markdown in the freezer and It was time to use it or lose it. I don't make a pot roast very often but when I do I just bake it with the vegetables and some broth and then make gravy out of the juice. Yesterday I decided to try a recipe that called for 1 cup of red wine and a can of diced tomatoes. It was so good. You could not tell that it had wine in it, the flavors just mingled so well. I was kind of afraid that the potatoes would turn purple from the wine but they didn't. You could probably cook it that way in a crock pot also. I don't have very good luck getting chunks of meat tender in a crock pot though so I just bake pot roasts or corn beef in the oven for about three hours. I would recommend trying the wine and tomatoes if you don't usually cook a pot roast that way. Pot roast is my husband's favorite so he was very happy with his dinner last night. I was at work so I had to wait until today to have it for lunch, yum.

Paella, Portuguese Style- McCall's Great American

A reader contacted me to see if I had the Paella recipe from the McCall's Great American Recipe Card Collection. I found this one from the Saturday Night Parties section. It calls for 1/2 teaspoon saffron, so it definitely doesn't qualify as a frugal recipe! I clearly remember my Mom making Paella for a dinner party when I was about 10 years old. It was quite a production, taking what seemed like forever to finish.

Paella, Portuguese Style

2 (2-lb.) broiler-fryers, each cut in 8 pieces 1 lb Italian sausages, halved
1/2 cup olive or salad oil 2 medium-size fresh tomatoes
1 lb. lean pork, cut in 1-inch cubes peeled and chopped
2 cups chopped onion 1 bay leaf
2 cloves garlic, crushed 3 cans (103/4-oz. size) condensed
3/4 teaspoon pepper chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 1/2 lb. large shrimp, shelled
2 teaspoons salt and deveined
2 cups raw long-grain white rice 1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen peas,
1/2 teaspoon saffron thawed
1/2 jar (4-oz.) pimientos
2 lemons, each cut in 8 wedges

1. Wipe chicken with damp paper towels. In hot oil in large skillet, brown chicken, about 5 pieces at a time, until golden. Remove as it browns.
2. Add pork cubes to skillet; brown well on all sides. Remove.
3. To drippings in skillet, add onion, garlic, pepper, and oregano; saute, stirring 5 minutes, until onion, is golden. Add salt, rice, and saffron; cook, stirring- about 10 minutes.
4 Meanwhile, in another skillet, brown sausages, turning on all sides- about 10 minutes. Drain and discard fat. Place chicken, sausages, and pork in roasting pan. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
5. Add tomatoes, bay leaf, and chicken broth to rice mixture, and bring to boiling. Add shrimp; spoon evenly over chicken and sausage in pan. Bake, tightly covered with foil, 1 hour.
6. If mixture seems dry, add 1/2 cup water. Sprinkle peas over top, without stirring. Bake, covered, 20 minutes longer.
7. To serve; Turn Paella into heated, round serving platter or paella pan. Garnish with pimiento and lemon. Serves 10.

Top-Of-The-Stove-Casserole

We have been trying to do some massive decluttering because it looks like we will be watching Emma when my daughter goes back to work. What a horrendous task. I can just kick myself for ever having bought so many books. It seems that we just have millions of them. Boxes and boxes everywhere. All types, cookbooks, fiction, science, self help you name it we have it. It hurts to have to donate things that you paid good money for. I am thinking about having a massive book sale and just selling hardcovers for 1.00 and paperbacks for 50 cents. My husbands eBay business just doesn't sell them fast enough.
Anyway when digging down to a box that hadn't been opened in a long time I found a Southern Living book: Quick & Easy Cookbook- Menus, Recipes & Tips. The book is from 1979 and while flipping through it I realized that it is a perfect example of how tastes have changed. Almost all the recipes would be considered grossly under seasoned by today's standards. When spices and seasonings where listed they only called for maybe 1/2 teaspoon. If made as listed I can imagine a huge outcry that everything was too bland. Here is an example:

Top-Of-The-Stove Casserole
1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 (16 oz.) can tomatoes
1/2 cup uncooked regular rice
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar (? I don't know about this, to cut the acid of the tomatoes maybe)
1 (16 oz.) can green peas
Salt and pepper to taste
Brown meat and onion in a large skillet; drain. Add tomatoes, rice, water, and sugar. Cover and cook over low heat about 25 minutes or until rice is tender. Add peas and season. Heat slowly until hot. Yield 6 servings.

As unappealing as this sounds I am sure there are plenty of harried women who make a variation of this when they need a super quick dinner. However I am sure they add liberal amounts of Mexican or Italian seasonings to make it better suite today's palates. They probably top it with some shredded cheese too. It seems like every current casserole recipe I see calls for a cheese topping.

Applesauce Snack Cake TNT

Well I got my computer back. But I am quite sad :( that all my favorites are gone and so is my blog reader. I don't know how I am going to find all the blogs I read again. It is going to take a long time. I had a huge list of bookmarked favorites too, last time something went wrong they were saved but no such luck this time. All my old e-mail is gone too and foolishly I had kept lots of old mail for references to passwords etc. I will have to change the way I use my computer. I was lucky though, my husband lost over 150 of his photos. Now if I can just get some more ink for my printer I will be back in business.
I seem to have leftover applesauce fairly often so I usually make muffins with it. The other day I had a larger amount so I decided to make a cake. The recipe I have made before only uses 1/2 cup so I found one that uses more. I adapted it a little and it turned out to be a very good snack cake. I have been enjoying a piece with my dinner at work each night.

Applesauce Cake
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons spice, such as cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg etc. I use a can I have called cake spice that has all of these
1/4 cup oil
1-1/4 cups applesauce
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cups raisins ( I didn't use any)
Mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and spice. Add the wet ingredients and mix well. Pour into a greased and floured 9 inch baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees until pick comes out clean about 35 minutes.

Ginger Spice Coffee Cake

I haven't posted for awhile as I was on vacation from work and then my computer got a virus. The whole thing just shut down and I couldn't to anything. Why people spend their time creating harmful computer virus' is something I just can't figure out. If they have the ability to do that why don't they just use their abilities in a positive way instead of causing others to have to pay to make things right.
My husband's computer also went down at the same time. I think it is his motherboard. Luckily I remembered that I still had my old computer tower from back in 11/07 when I got my new one. So we hooked it back up and are using that until we get the others fixed.
The other day I was looking at my original cookbook collection and I found a cookbook from 1949; The Economy Cook Book compiled by the staff of The Journal of Living. I have no idea what that was but they did produce a slim book with lots of frugal recipes. It has twelve recipes using organ meats but I don't think I'll post any of them. The idea of stuffing a heart to produce a frugal meal just doesn't appeal to me! This recipe is for a coffee cake that is very similar to gingerbread, it sounds much more tempting.

Ginger Spice Coffee Cake

2 cups enriched flour

1-1/2 teaspoons Ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup raisins

1 cup sour milk

1-3/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 cup molasses

4 tablespoons shortening (melted)

Sift flour, add spices and salt to flour in sifter and sift. Stir in raisins. Stir baking soda into sour milk and beat until well blended. Add molasses and beat thoroughly. Add liquid (milk-molasses mixture) to dry ingredients gradually, beating just until smooth and creamy. Stir in melted shortening. Grease baking pan (or 12 muffin tins) with melted fat. Pour mixture into greased shallow pan. Bake in 375 degree oven about 25 to 30 minutes for the cupcakes in small tins, or 30 to 40 minutes for the shallow cake. Serve hot or cold, plain or frosted as desired.

Taco Hero- an oldie from Kraft

While digging around in my recipe clipping box I came across a TV Guide recipe insert from "The 38th Annual Golden Globe Awards" in 1981. Kraft used to put out these inserts fairly often and I have quite a few of them.
This Taco Hero is a variation of French bread pizza. It seems like it would be good to serve while watching a football game or to heat up after coming home from some event.
I have never been a fan of broiling uncooked meat on buns. I would just cook up the meat, seasoning and tomato paste and then spread it on the bread, add the cheese and heat.

Taco Hero

1 lb. ground beef

6-oz. can tomato paste

1-1/4-oz. pkg. taco seasoning mix

1 Vienna bread loaf, cut in half lengthwise

Kraft American Singles Pasteurized Process Cheese Food

Tomato slices

Thinly sliced onion rings

Combine meat, tomato paste and taco seasoning; mix until well blended
Spread half of meat mixture on each half of bread. Place on ungreased cookie sheet; bake at 450 degrees 20 minutes. Top with process cheese food and tomato slices. Continue baking until process cheese food melts. Garnish with onion rings. 8 servings.
Note: To make ahead, prepare as directed. Wrap tightly in aluminum foil; freeze. Bake at 450, 30 minutes.

Royal Desserts- Raspberry Argentine

I know I have been a very bad blogger, abandoning my poor blog for so long. My daughter had a very difficult pregnancy and finally had her baby delivered three weeks early by c-section. The baby had a few problems to start with but is now doing fine. So I am planning to get back to posting regularly.
I was lucky to receive quite a few cookbooks and cooking pamphlets for Christmas. One of them is this 1932 Royal Gelatin Dessert booklet. The first page of it boldly tells us that gelatin can grow "shelf-stale". This is how they word it: "Do you know that fruit gelatin loses nearly 50% of its flavor when the package is a few weeks old? You can tell when you taste it... whether or not it's fresh. The customer could avoid old stale gelatin by buying Royal because "Now grocers get it twice a week in small quantities.. by the same nation-wide delivery service that speed Chase & Sandborn's Dated Coffee and Fleischmann's Fresh Yeast. I don't use that much gelatin so I know mine has set on my self for way longer than a few weeks and I haven't noticed it tasting stale. LOL.
I am always intrigued by recipes that have countries or regions of the world in the title.
This gelatin dish is titled Raspberry Argentine. I sure don't see any ingredient in it that makes me think of Argentina. I wonder where they thought up that title.

Raspberry Argentine

1 package Royal Gelatin Dessert (raspberry flavor)

1 cup boiling water

1 cup cold water

1/2 cup stewed prunes, cut in quarters

2 slices pineapple, cut in cubes

1/4 cup shredded, blanched almonds

Dissolve Royal Quick Setting Gelatin in boiling water, add cold water. Put half this mixture in a mound to half fill, chill until firm. Chill remaining gelatin and when it begins to thicken add fruit and almonds. Pour on top of firm gelatin in mould. Chill until firm. Serves 6.

Happy New Year