Molded Chicken and Grape Salad

Sigh. People of the 70's. This is your fault. What made you people decide that encasing vegetables and meats in fruit jello was a super-de-duper idea? Shame on you.

Out of all the molded dinners, I chose this one because it sounded sort of like that yummy chicken salad on croissants you get at church dinners.

It was not.



Molded Chicken and Grape Salad
1 package (3 oz.) Jell-O brand gelatin, lemon or lime flavor
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup boiling water
1/8 teaspoon tarragon
3/4 cup cold water
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 cup diced cooked chicken or turkey
1/4 pound green or purple grapes, halved and seeded (about 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup diced celery

Dissolve gelatin and salt in boiling water, add tarragon. Add cold water and lemon juice and chill until thickened. Stir in remaining ingredients. Spoon into 4-cup mold or individual molds. Chill until firm, about 4 hours. Unmold and serve with mayonnaise. Makes about 3 1/2 cups or 4 entree servings.



Verdict:
This is an abomination. The bits with grapes and celery were sort of fine, but the chicken was... well, it was coated in lemon Jello. What more can you say? I ate a few bites, then chucked the rest in the trash. If someone served this to me at their house, I would be able to eat it so I wouldn't offend them. I would just never, ever make this again. Or anything like it. Ever. I tried a bit with mayonnaise, as per instructions. Awful. So bad. So bad. Hubby ate all of his and said he'd had worse, but then accused me of trying to make recipes until finally he would not be able to say this. He claimed that I was doomed to failure.

Curses.

I do love my Jello mold though. It is plastic and had interchangable designs that snap onto it to fill with mayonnaise or whipped cream, for festive occasions. When you pop it off, it also breaks the seal so the Jello slides right out. So look out! Now that I'm super good at using it, we're having lime jello with green beans and pimentos and a mayo-filled Christmas tree next Christmas!

Oh, did you think I made up the green beans and pimentos bit? No.



REJECTED.

French Bean Basket
2 packages (3 oz. each) or 1 package (6 oz.) Jell-O brand gelatin, lemon flavor
2 chicken bouillon cubes
2 cups boiling water
1 package (9 oz.) Birds Eye 5 minute French style green beans
1 1/4 cups cold water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped pimento

Dissolve gelatin and bouillon cubes in boiling water. Add frozen beans and stir until beans separate and gelatin begins to thicken. Stir in cold water, lemon juice and pimento. Pour into 4- or 5-cup ring mold or individual molds. Chill until firm, about 2 hours. Unmold and garnish with crisp greens, if desired. makes about 4 cups or 8 servings.

REJECTED.

Gazpacho Salad
1 can (7 oz.) pimientoes, drained and diced
1 1/2 cups diced unpeeled cucumber
3/4 cup diced green pepper
2 medium tomatoes, diced
4 scallions, sliced
1 cup sliced pitted ripe olives
1 small clove garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons salad oil
1/3 vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 can (10 1/2 oz.) consomme
2 packages (3 oz. each) Jell-O brand gelatin, lemon flavor
1 1/2 cups boiling water

Combine pimentos, vegetables, olives, garlic, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper in large bowl. Mix well and stir in consomme. Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Chill until thickened. Fold in vegetable mixture. Pour into 8-cup mold. Chill until firm, about 4 hours. Unmold and garnish with tomato, lemon and cucumber slices, if desired. Makes 14 servings.

Silly husbands.

The eyes. The eyes. Don't look her in the eyes. Don't blink. Don't turn your back. Don't look away and don't blink.

She'll be waiting.

Pound Cake

Why is pound cake called pound cake? Because the traditional recipe for pound cake is very, very simple. This is one such recipe in its entirety.

Pound Cakes
One pound of flour, one of sugar, one of butter, ten eggs.

Simple. A pound each of flour, sugar, butter, and eggs. Yes, a full pound of eggs. Modern pound cake only contains a couple eggs and usually less butter. Wussy.


Here is the recipe I followed, from The Good Housekeeping Woman's Home Cook Book [1909].

Pound Cake as Our Mothers Made It
One pound of flour, one pound of butter, one pound of sugar, ten large eggs and about one-fourth of a nutmeg. Cream the butter and sugar together well (our mothers' rolled and sifted loaf sugar is better, but granulated sugar will answer the purpose), then add the well-beaten yolks of the eggs, and add the flour, a little at a time, beating very thoroughly all the while, lastly add the whites of the eggs which have been beaten to a stiff froth that can be cut with a knife, or that will adhere to the vessel in which it has been beaten, being careful not to beat the cake after the whites have been added, but merely to fold in the puff. Flavor with one-fourth of a grated nutmeg, which should be put in before the whites of eggs. Bake in a very moderate oven for one hour. The only improvement that could be made on this recipe would be to use pastry flour (which was not used in mother's time). The best authorities on cake baking declare that good results cannot be obtained without the use of pastry flour.--Mrs P. L. Sherman, Chicago.


Verdict: Yum. Another example of simple ingredients yielding tasty results. It helps if one of the simple ingredients is butter. I also added a li'l orange blossom water, which was very nice. I actually quartered the recipe, so technically I suppose it is Quarter Pound Cake. Nonetheless.

If you ever find yourself with a desperate need for cake, but with absolutely no access to recipes, this is the cake for you!

For funsies, let us compare this traditional cake recipe to a recipe list of one of Martha Stewart's.

Cardamom Pound Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
3/4 cup almond flour
3/4 cup semolina flour
1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
3 cups granulated sugar
6 large eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup plain yogurt, preferably Greek
1 tablespoon sanding sugar

Yikes. So needlessly fussy! Butter, flour, sugar, eggs. Done. You do not have to live under the tyranny of needless complication!

Gentle readers

There will be no meal this week. We had family visiting, 2/3 of which were kids. I didn't think it would be kind to inflict No. 3 Pot Liquor Soup or whathaveyou on them. Next week I'll be back though! And it will be entertaining.

With gelatin.

Aunt Jenny makes cookies

I'm sure Elmer's mother will be just thrilled to have Aunt Jenny tell her aaaaaaaaaall about her Spry cookies. Elmer's lip curls into a sneer as he reveals to Aunt Jenny Mother's secret shameful sub-standard cookie-making. Why can't Mother be more like Aunt Jenny? Aunt Jenny's grin widens over her glistening, oddly sharp teeth at this news. She will tell Mother. Oh yes. And one more soul will be saved by the power of Spry.

Brown Rim Cookies
A pretty brown edge around each cookie just takes my eye!
1 cup Spry
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
2 1/2 cups sifted flour

Combine Spry, salt, and vanilla. Add sugar, then beaten eggs, and beat thoroughly. . . . Add flour and mix well. . . . Drop from teaspoon on Spry-coated baking sheets. (Or press though pastry bag.) Let stand a few minutes, then flatten cookies by stamping with a glass covered with a damp cloth. . . . Bake in a moderately hot oven (375 degrees F.) 8 to 10 minutes, or until delicately browned. . . . Makes 4 1/2 dozen.


These have got to be like the most boring cookies ever.

Yorkshire Pie-Clates

Remember No. 3 Economical Pot Liquor Soup? This is from the same cookbook, A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes [1852], by Charles Elme Francatelli.

He looks sad. Maybe he's been living on No. 3 Economical Pot Liquor Soup for a while. Anyway, this recipe is a lot better.

Yorkshire Pie-clates [pikelets] for Tea.
Ingredients, one pound of flour, two ounces of grocer's currants, three gills* of milk, and a pinch of baking-powder. Mix the above ingredients together in a pan into a firm, smooth, compact paste. Divide this into eight equal parts, roll each into a ball with the hand previously dipped in flour, then roll them out with a rolling-pin, with a little flour shaken on the table to prevent the paste from sticking, to the size of a tea-saucer, and bake the pie-clates upon a griddle-iron fixed over a clear fire to the upper bar of the grate. In about two or three minutes' time they will be done on the underside; they must then be turned over that they may be also baked on the other side, then taken off the griddle-iron, placed on a plate, and a little butter spread upon each as they are done out of hand.



Revised Yorkshire Pie-Clates [pikelets] for Tea
4 C. flour
1/2 C. currants (or raisins)
1 t. baking powder
15 oz. milk

Mix flour, currants, and baking powder together, then stir in milk until it is a doughy ball. Divide into eight pieces and roll out to... well, the size of a very small plate. Don't get fussy with me, precision is not called for. Cover the bottom of a frying pan with oil and fry on both sides, like a pancake. Rub or spread with butter. Sprinkle with sugar if you like as well, it is tasty.

Verdict:
These are much like Navajo tacos, only with raisins. It was fast, easy, cheap, didn't require very many ingredients, and tasted like fry bread. I call this one a victory. Mr. Francatelli has redeemed himself a little, although the soup wasn't that bad either. I made half a recipe, and we ate all of them right away. I imagine this would be smashing with jam as well.


Moo.


*1 gill = 5 oz.

Savoury Tosted or Melted Cheese

Behold, Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight. He does not hold with Mr. Alcott's views on food, no! About 95% of his recipes are booze or booze-related. But who is this man?

With the waning of Sir Kenelm Digby's philosophic reputation his name has not become obscure. It stands, vaguely perhaps, but permanently, for something versatile and brilliant and romantic. He remains a perpetual type of the hero of romance, the double hero, in the field of action and the realm of the spirit. Had he lived in an earlier age he would now be a mythological personage; and even without the looming exaggeration and glamour of myth he still imposes. The men of to-day seem all of little stature, and less consequence, beside the gigantic creature who made his way with equal address and audacity in courts and councils, laboratories and ladies' bowers.-THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED [1669, reprinted with foreward in 1910]

Following that is an account of his various dalliances with Spanish and English ladies after he was not allowed to marry his True Love, Venetia, who then became the mistress of a string of men. When he returned, he fought a duel for her honor and married her.

"To read nearly all his Memoirs is to receive the impression that he looked on his wife as a wronged innocent. To read the whole is to feel he knew the truth and took the risk, which was not very great after all; for the lady of the many suitors and several adventures settled down to the mildest domesticity. They say he was jealous; but no one has said she gave him cause. The tale runs that Dorset [her former employer] visited them once a year, and 'only kissed her hand, Sir Kenelm being by.' But Digby was a good lover. All the absurd rhodomontade of his strange Memoirs notwithstanding, there are gleams of rare beauty in the story of his passion, which raise him to the level of the great lovers. His Memoirs were designed to tell "the beginning, progress, and consummation of that excellent love, which only makes me believe that our pilgrimage in this world is not indifferently laid upon all persons for a curse."

"On his tour among Italian courts, one of the grandees said that, 'having no children, he was very willing his wife should bring him a Prince by Sir Kenelme, whom he imagined the just measure of perfection.'"

Oh, Sir Digby! So, other than booze, booze, more booze, and things soaked in booze, what recipes can we find?
SAVOURY TOSTED OR MELTED CHEESE
Cut pieces of quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best of Brye, Cheshire, &c. or sharp thick Cream-Cheese) into a dish of thick beaten melted Butter, that hath served for Sparages or the like, or pease, or other boiled Sallet, or ragout of meat, or gravy of Mutton:

and, if you will, Chop some of the Asparages among it, or slices of Gambon of Bacon, or fresh-collops, or Onions, or Sibboulets, or Anchovis, and set all this to melt upon a Chafing-dish of Coals, and stir all well together, to Incorporate them; and when all is of an equal consistence, strew some gross White-Pepper on it, and eat it with tosts or crusts of White-bread. You may scorch it at the top with a hot Fire-Shovel.



Hello, lover. Purrrrrr


Revised Savoury Tosted or Melted Cheese
I fried up some pieces of bacon, drained off most of the grease, then melted in a half-tablespoon of butter. Then I dropped slices of Monterey Jack in and stirred it around until it was melted.

Verdict:
Bacon grease, crispy bacon, butter, and cheese. Most perfect food ever? Almost, but not quite. The butter didn't melt into the cheese, so too bad there. But other than that... ahhh. Nice. Ron could not finish, he said it was too rich. I generously finished it off. Crispy bacon bits trapped in melted cheese floating in buttery bacon grease. Oh, Sir Kenelm Digby. You naughty thing you.