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.