1-0-0 post (Recipe Cards #22)

Happy New Year to all! I did it. I have made it to my 100th post. Compared to my very first post there is no way I would have made it to 100 posts if I kept that format going. I'm almost embarrassed but that shows how comfortable I have become with my writing since I started this. It's almost like I just showed off my myspace page or something. 

I could have done a compilation or Best of 2012 post, but really how could I have chosen what is best or in the case of the subject matter at hand, the worst? I'm just going to close out the 1974 Weight Watchers recipe card collection and stack it among the rest of my recipe card boxes. 

The future of The Bad and Ugly of Retro Food in 2013 will remain the same. I might tighten things up and add some tabs in my layout. Other than that, I have plenty of material to keep me going for months.

Thanks for a good year. Even if I started it in May. I took a baby step approach. I started small and found my niche. That's what is important to me. I'm not looking at this as a money making opportunity or anything like that. It's just fun and as long as it stays fun then I will continue to obsess over maggot rice, roundworms, diseases, turds, and any other juvenile description! 

This has been featured dozens of times on retro food blogs. But the biggest wonder is still what this pâté en masque hiding beneath the radishes and greens and gentle glaze?

 

Square and full of apples with radishes arranged just so. It's not the apples on top of a thick and square hamburger patty that has my attention. I'm wondering the purpose of the dish towel and whether or not it is clean or if it smells like onions and dishwater.

Few things are as cavalier as spinach and tuna. Really. I can't think of too many.

There should never, ever be quotation marks around the word "brownie". In fact, this is not a brownie. It's a little bit of chocolate, a few drops of red and green food coloring to make it brown, and a lot of gelatin. Chilled then sliced. Sorry, Weight Watchers, but mess with my brownies and I'm going to call you out on your bullshit.

Put that damn lid back on that! Nobody wants to see it or smell it!

Okay, some could call this a casserole. Sure. After all, I just posted gelatin "brownies" so I'm under the impression this is trickery for us fat folk. This seems like more of a soup. It simmers for a whopping 15 minutes. This goes against every casserole post I have made. It's a soup! A SOUP!

Wow this saps all of my energy. At least add some radish slices or something.

Combine sauerkraut, green beans, mushrooms, pimientos, tomato puree, a few herbs and spices and let set overnight in the refrigerator. I don't think so. I don't want that stinking up my stuff that's not sealed properly.

From the recipe, it looks more like a tomato juice but again, it's trickery and doublespeak. What purpose those little dogs have, I don't know. I had a beagle who liked tomato based foods. He'd probably take off someone's hand if they went near this while he was standing watch.

I feel like I just commented about this.

Which will it be? The Skinny Devil or the Slim Student?

There's no way to make veal look like anything but a sad and depressing reason to want to never eat again. Even with the dominoes.

The pineapple on the left gives the surprise away. It's a chowder with pineapple in it. Clutch my pearls! I'm shocked. I think I would not be pleasantly surprised by this at all.

There's that pink again. Only this time it was so bright, my scanner could not compete with the awesome hue.

I don't think it's the carbonation they are talking about. I think it's the bubbly gut that this strong of coffee will give. What is with these beverage names? Thin Man Soda? Is that to inspire Fat Woman Me to want to drink it?

 Again, Happy New Year! I am not going to be lame and say "see you next year!"

It's 6 P.M. Where's my dinner? (Recipe cards # 21)

Happy Saturday! I have a new recipe card set to show off. I think I've bought just about every card set from the 1970's. I'm looking for others and should I brag or keep it to myself that I have 8 different 1970's recipe card collections? It keeps things interesting around here. When I am bored, I go through them looking for 20 or so cards to scan. When I said I have a gazillion recipe cards, I was not joking. I think I have a gazllion recipe cards. Adding my newest addition, 1972 Dinner is Served set, I have a gazillion plus 118 cards.

These cards have a set schedule on the back for the sake of making life simple. Dinner must be served by 6 pm (or 1800 for you military folk) or else an ego crushing blow to one's womanhood is dealt. Maybe I should try this at the approximate time on the cards and see if I can do it since I am being such a sardonic little twit. I imagine there were pressures on the 1970's housewife to have dinner on the table by 6 o'clock every night. 

This is the first and only time I am including the recipe with each card. I bought a bad set so they curled and most of the scans look like this before I edited them:

Yes, I literally held down every card as I scanned them. I can't say I took the same pains for the recipe side but I don't think anybody is actually going to get inspiration to make these recipes. Bravo to those who do and I apologize for the blurs. 

At least this card gives you permission to do this the night before. A BOXED cake mix? The shame of it all! Let's hope the man who expects his dinner at 6 pm doesn't know of this phenomenon.

At least there is time allotted to ensure each bone gets the proper kumquat attention.

Is this a lesson in time management or what? If I had the task of making something that should only take an hour, count on it taking at least 3 hours.

Those have to be the most perfect, rubbery white, goldenrod yolk, fried eggs with the most proper scatter of pepper I have seen. But why go through the trouble to serve it on top of a hamburger patty? One or the other? I can smell the triglycerides increasing.

Want to know how much time I would make in preparing a meatloaf? Zero hours, zero minutes, and zero-thirty seconds. Even less time for Green Beans in Egg Sauce. There's no picture card for that. Darn it!

Oh boy. There aren't too many sounds as unique as the wet and squishy noise macaroni and cheese makes when it is being stirred. It's a fact and it cannot be ignored. I think salt is the only ingredient in this that I would eat. I do believe the husband who wants this prepared and sliced 6 pm needs his ass kicked. I wonder if the genius behind the photo and writing of this card laughed as he or she wrote "Bon Appetit! Enjoy Your Dinner!".

The roast must be 3 ribs. It must be standing. The horseradish sauce must be kept hot for 45 minutes. I am impressed allowing the meat to rest before carving it was included though. Orange tapioca. No. I think not.

I'm not going to say that ring of rice looks like a swarm of maggots. That would be predictable. See what I did there? I diverted the attention from the livers surrounded by rice that would take me four hours easily to pack into a well buttered ring without it collapsing. By making swarm of maggots my first sentence, that's all you can imagine.

Pickled beef tongue. 4-5 lbs of it. Not a tongue from your butcher. But pickled. I don't know how I can stay in a house that is heavy with the smell of simmering pickled tongue.

Is there anything good on here? Canned cream sauce, mayonnaise, catsup (not ketchup), tomatoes, hardboiled eggs. At least it only takes 2 hours from gross to finish.

No schedule of events? Do I have all day to make chicken aspic vegetable salad? Apparently so. I will give it credit for being colorful. Not that I want to go through this cooking process.

Maybe there's no time with these because nobody is going to take the time to make it?

Since I am on a roll with the gross pictures, why not end it on this? It looks so solid but so slippery. Someone in a kitchen somewhere decided to mix all of this together and see if it would work And that pink? Only 1970's molded food can pull this off.

   And on that note, enjoy!

Salads and Brains and Faceless Hands

Good late evening to all. It's almost midnight CST so my nocturnal cogs are turning. It doesn't help that the kids are on break and my husband is on leave. They are in bed and now I have peace and I have quiet so I'll make a quick post and watch a little Investigation Discovery because that doesn't make me paranoid or anything. 

2012 is almost winding down. I'm getting ready to post my 98th post. I'm trying for 100 posts. I think I can do it. My nerd goal of every year is to read 100 books and I am just about to finish 103. 

I've had this Salad book for a while. It was unearthed while i was looking for holiday books. There are a few interesting ways to use brains in salads, but what really triggered the gross out effect and piqued my interested was the excessive use of hands. I know sometimes we use our hands to cook, but this goes above and beyond. I have a thing about strange hands touching food. After looking through this book, I think I will have to check my food for that stray arm hair. Maybe I just don't like the faceless hands. If I could put hairy knuckle to face, I might feel better. I know any time I go out to eat, my food is being pawed and handled. 

My facebook page is starting to pick up a little bit. If you happen to head over there for a "like" I would appreciate it. I promise I am not going to use your support for anything other than to promote my most recent blog or pictures I find in between posts. Participation is welcome! One day I will figure out how to add a FB box on here. 

Anyway, back to the post....

The Good Cook: Salads. Time Life Books, 1980. I know it's a little less retro than the books I use.

Tart Cultured cream. I can understand the first step. But what is this going to smell like after it's been fermenting? I don't know if I will have the guts to lift that cork lid. I'm gutless.

Making mayo. I'm seeing a lot of eggs, a lot of hands, whisking, oils, and the finished product. Eeew. Someone, somewhere says that looks delicious. I think it looks bad. Real bad.

I can deal with salt anchovies. I'm having a hard time with those furry arms.

Wine Jelly mold. I think I'll need to chew a few of these to go on with this blog entry.

There are the hands problem I speak of. First is the vinaigrette mixing. He's swirling it and twirling it with his finger.Where has that finger been? Is he going to lick his finger and go back to stirring? Using hands to coat the potato slices into the vinagrette. What is he just wiped his butt and didn't wash his hands? There are spoons that can be used to stir a potato salad. Really.

Molded Spring Vegetables in Herbed Jelly. It doesn't look gross. It just doesn't look edible.

Boiled beef salad. I am going to be good and not say what the schmear of tapenade looks like on those beef slices. See, i can be a grown up! Boiled beef salad. That sounds so bland.

Sliced Tongue Salad. Okay..

Brains:A Versatile Delicacy. Okay, I believe anyone out there who has eaten them and anybody else who is reading this and rolls their eyes at me for being so uncouth with my boring palate. I like my boring palate. At least I am not peeling the membrane from brains, dousing it in a big creamy sauce so nobody knows its brains. I see what you did there.

Oh looky, the gray blobs that are left after poaching the brains. Be sure to skim off any brain matter from the surface. I'm not sure that I will make it to step 4. But here is the finished product. Sliced brain chunks in a spinach vinaigrette with herbs.

Ceviche salad. I was nice and left out the manhandling of the fish.

Smoked Haddock Salad.

Cracked wheat salad. Maybe. Except right now it looks like the asteroid fuzz that gets everywhere in the movie Creepshow with Stephen King.

Sliced Duck and noodle salad

Salmon Aspic with Watercress Mousse. Okay that is weird.

You all ponder over those for a little bit. Have a great night!!!