Tag Archives: vintage cookbook

The Winner? Hamburger Pinwheels? “These Need Something.”

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First, let me refresh you on the winning recipe from the vote-off on the “500 Snacks” Cook-book, which was “Hamburger Pinwheels.”

Please note that this recipe lacks a certain clear instruction on how large the recipe for baking powder biscuits should be. It doesn’t say biscuit recipe that makes 10 biscuits, or 12 biscuits, or 24 biscuits, so I just looked at a couple of recipes, and both of them took two cups of flour, and that sounded about right, so that is what I made.

Hmmmmm.

So, let’s assemble the ingredients, shall we? One thing that you might note is that this recipe is woefully short on seasonings. 1/8 tsp pepper? 1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce? That isn’t going to do anybody any good.

Pay no attention to the olive oil and pineapple, they were just hanging out. Please note the SD Ranch Raised ground beef (oh shoot, I just realized I didn’t weigh it, that might have been part of the problem, that meat packer is notorious for putting more than 1.25 pounds in the bag when it should be a pound….I just remembered that….) The recipe just says “pork sausage” so I looked around King Soopers until I found just plain “pork sausage.” Not breakfast sausage, not spicy sausage, just pork sausage. It said one small onion so I just used half of that one. And I minced the tarnation out of it because Kenny doesn’t like big chunks of onion.

See, finely minced.

Whoops, I apparently did not take a picture of the hamburger and sausage in the pan. I will admit that I did not brown the onion first in 2T of fat, I thought it would do just fine in with the hamburger and sausage, and it did.

I rolled out the biscuit dough and I slapped down the burger/sausage/onion/”seasonings” mixture.

It was at this point that I realize these were not going to be little OR cute.

That is a lot of hamburger. Like an inch deep. Even if there was 1.25 pounds in my package, that would still have been too much.

It looks even more like “The Worm” rolled up. If my brother is reading this, he is having 4-H cooking flashbacks. Except I think “The Worm” had more seasoning than this (I am going to have to find that recipe now, darn it.)

When I sliced it up, it became very obvious the slices were not going to maintain their structural integrity.

They do look kind of like meat cinnamon rolls, except they need more roll and less meat.

Please be nice to my scary looking cookie sheet, it does the job.

Beef, attempting to escape.

And, after the oven:

They didn’t change much, except to explode further.

Serving suggestion:

I forgot to get a Ken Reaction Shot! Shoot! Well, I think you can tell from the quotation in the title, “These Need Something,” he didn’t think much of them. I am not sure my dad would even go for them, because that is too much onion for him. They would have been better with, I don’t know, cheese? Horseradish? Green pepper (Ken wouldn’t eat that, or the horseradish), he tried one with ketchup and it was a slight improvement. Verdict: edible but bland. I would not serve as “snack” and since they were supposed to serve 8, that is more than one roll up per person, which seems excessive, and also makes me question if there was supposed to be MORE biscuit dough, then that would be even MORE excessive. Ah well, it is always interesting to try something new.

“Would Your Dad Like This?”

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Saturday morning I got up, organized my grocery list and went to the store. I needed a bunch of stuff plus Zyrtec so that was an expensive visit. Canned fruit/veggies were on sale so stocked up on those, now the cupboard is so full you can hardly get in there, much less find anything. And butter was $1.99 a pound, I showed great restraint and only got 7 pounds.

Got home just in time to turn around and run to JoAnn’s and get a stick iron before my radio show started. Decided I needed the stick iron if I was going to stay sane putting my landscape fusible quilt together. It helped, but it is still a pain. If I am going to make something this large with fusible pieces again I need to figure out an easier way. It is all up and assembled on the wall, but all the pieces have fusible webbing on the back of them, and they aren’t attached to anything, just stuck up there. So I have been carefully removing pins and putting my Teflon pressing sheet behind the pieces and ironing them together. Next time I will put my batting on the wall so I can just iron the pieces right on there.

I worked on that while listening to “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” on PBS, and then it was time to make lunch. Made rolled club sandwich with some modifications. http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/baked-club-sandwich-rounds/7e7df15c-df0b-4d36-a95d-b7bc20c7da35/. (I have posted pictures of this before, got the recipe from Sister-in-Law Kristyn and it is one of Ken’s favorites).  Pulled out the turkey I had purchased a while ago, the first time I tasted it (last week?) it didn’t taste quite right, so I tossed that. Then I looked at the two packages of turkey Ken bought about 2 weeks ago – and noticed that one of them said “Use by February 2012” – I am still training him to look at expiration dates, but come on, February?? What store doesn’t check their luncheon meat? And his other package said “April 5” but I opened it up and gave it the sniff test and it didn’t pass. Well, I had some soprasetta and uncured salami from when I was on my “meat and cheese tray” kick in March, and they were just fine. I also spread the unrolled bread with pesto to give it a little more taste. Ken isn’t wild about the pesto but I limit the amount and it is overshadowed by all the BACON and CHEESE.

Then I stirred up the Bavarian Cream Jello, as well as a pan of brownies (Hershey’s recipe from Aunt Eileen) Again, w /some modifications, I ran out of cocoa and so I shoveled in some Nestle Quik type cocoa. Ken pronounced that they tasted “Different than your Aunt’s” so I don’t know if he will eat many but I will send them to work with him or I will eat them all week (I will keep a couple for treat).

By that time I was tired and wishing for a nap, and Ken had gone to the range to hit range balls, but I was checking the TV schedule on the computer and Antiques Roadshow was on, so I substituted that for a nap, and did some embroidering as well.

Ken’s quote about my anticipated Jello-fest – “I said I’d eat plain jello, not weird stuff with s*** in it.” I told him he has to try one bite…..He asked me “Would your dad like this?” “YES!” I said, it has cherries and Jello and Cool Whip. I married someone who doesn’t like Cool Whip, I am not sure how this happened.

Ken had to stop at the grocery story on the way home because I wanted to make stroganoff for dinner but I forgot to put sour cream on the list. Of course, he needed breakfast stuff and hadn’t put that on the list, so he got that too. Put together the stroganoff (I pretty much use Paula Deen’s recipe, but put in some Worcestershire sauce for extra flavoring, and we eat it with egg noodles.) I used to just use cream of mushroom soup and sour cream, but the addition of beef broth (I just use water and “Better than Broth”) makes the gravy stretch a little longer. We both watched some of the Masters.

Here is the Jello mold “Bavarian Cream” and the recipe. I didn’t quite achieve the perfection of the picture in the Jello book but I was pretty happy with it. And it was tasty. And Ken ate it, except for the cherries and the whipped topping (once again, must be some sort of genetic defect….) Recipe and pic from the “Joys of Jello” book below.

It also got a little melty when I dipped it in the hot water to get it out of the mold. I tried warm water and that wasn’t doing it, so I went with hot, and it was too much, but hey, it did come out of the mold.

Did you know they still make Dream Whip? The box version of Cool Whip? King Soopers even has a Kroger brand version, which is good because otherwise it is kind of expensive.

Vintage Watkins Cookbook Brownies

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Since I take such delight in posting bad/scary recipes from vintage cookbooks, how about if I post a good recipe. I was emulating one of my favorite food blogs, Time Travel Kitchen, and I thought about submitting this as a guest post, but now I have my own blog and am short on materials, so here it is!

This is from an old Watkins cookbook, I don’t know how old because I didn’t take a picture of the copyright page, and right now I can’t find the cookbook. That is how it goes in this house sometimes. Watkins was a company that used to have sales women like Tupperware, etc. I don’t know if they ever had parties. They had spices and flavorings (like vanilla extract) and maybe cleaning products. They are still listed as a home business opportunity online. Or you can order the products online. Whenever I see someone at a fair or festival selling Watkins, I stock up. You can also buy Watkins at Walmart now, but the bottles are pretty tiny.

Artsy picture of brownie ingredients. I am not really sure I succeeded in being artsy. Do you wash your sifter? Obviously I don’t. But it is flour and cocoa and stuff like that, and it would probably rust if I washed it. So there.

Here is the cookbook. I also have a Watkins cookbook that is strictly salads.

Here is the recipe:

I did not use Watkins Baking Powder or cocoa. I did use Watkins vanilla. The book does not tell you what size pan to bake in, but it didn’t make a huge amount of batter, so I used a well-greased 8 by 8 glass pan. I do believe I cooked them at 350, that is about what a moderate oven should be. Don’t you love how these old cookbooks assume everyone will know that. Along with “little salt” – I used about 1/4 tsp. They taste flat without salt.

They kind of cave in in the middle and are all cakey and fudgy. Despite the recipe suggestion, these do not need frosting. They are quite rich already.

Some of the better brownies I have ever made. Very rich. Unfortunately, I took these pictures several months ago, so I have no hot and delicious brownies to go eat now. Oh well, at least I had something to write about!

So have you ever used Watkins products? Do you have a Watkins cookbook?