Monday, March 31

Percolator Punch

Hey! Here's a quick way to ruin a coffee maker!

I guarantee you'll never be able to make decent coffee again after gummin up your machine with this punch. I know, I know - it seems more attuned for Fall than Spring, but since these days the temperature alternates between freezin and comfortable dependin on the time of day, I don't think it's too late to give it a shot before the scorchin summer sets in.

You've been warned - sticky juice will wreck a coffee maker. Just ask my mom, who once attempted to clean hers with cider vinegar instead of white vinegar...

Ingredients:
1 qt. (4 c.) apple cider
1 pt. (2 c.) cranberry juice
1 pt. (2 c.) orange juice
1 tsp. whole allspice
1 tsp. whole cloves
3 cinnamon sticks (broken)

How to:
Combine juices in electric coffee maker. Place spices in percolator basket. Allow to go through heatin cycle. Serve hot. Makes 15 small punch cup servins.

Friday, March 28

Notable Canned Dinner

There are some times where I just crack open a recipe book and BOOM - a classic recipe perfect for the Midwest Cookin blog socks me right in the face. This is one of those times.

This recipe is courtesy of Dixie Rohle of Immanuel Lutheran Church, and I would love to ask her about the significance of the title. The "Canned Dinner" part of it is perfectly clear to me. But what about this makes it "Notable" I wonder? To investigate the worthiness of addin the word "Notable" to the title of this dish, I may try it myself w/tuna or crabmeat and sub regular cream of mushroom soup instead of the creamy chickeny concoction. I'll post an update if that actually happens. In the meantime...

Ingredients:
1 can tuna, chicken, turkey, or crabmeat (flaked)
1 can chow mein noodles (wait a sec - aren't those the crunchy noodles? I didn't think those came in a can...)
1 can Chinese vegetables
1 can creamy chicken mushroom soup (does this soup actually exist? I've heard of cream OF chicken and cream OF mushroom, but not creamy chicken mushroom. Must investigate...)
1 can celery soup (do you mean cream of celery soup? I will assume yes.)
Sliced water chestnuts (as desired) (FYI, though not explicitly stated here, these come in a can too)

Oven temp: 350 degrees

Pan size: 1 1/2 qt. casserole

How to:
Combine ingredients, savin part of the crisp noodles (ha! I knew it!) to put on top the last 5 minutes of bakin. Bake in a 1 1/2 qt. casserole at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Wednesday, March 19

Good Salad

I may sound like a bit of a conspiracy nut here, but the ingredients for this "Good Salad", are suspiciously close to those of Five Cup Salad (Winter Salad). Both are also from the 1974 Roosevelt Elementary School cookbook, so I must wonder...did Miss B. Wireman and Mrs. Charlene Montgomery hookup and do a little..."recipe swappin"? Isn't that what all the bored ladies of the 70's did on school days between "The Price Is Right" and "Ryan's Hope"?

Ingredients:
1 can mandarin oranges
1 small can pineapple tidbits (I love the word tidbits almost as much as I love oleo)
1 pkg. orange Jello (it's not a salad unless it has Jello!)
1 can whippin cream or 1/2 c. milk
juice of lemon

Pan size: "long pyrex pan"

How to:
Dissolve Jello in heated juices and lemon juice to make 1 c. liquid. ("Heated juices?" Did I miss a step somewhere?) Add 1 c. cold water. Chill and whip. (Whip the Jello? But it didn't do anythin wrong!) Add whippin cream, then fold in drained fruit. Fills a long pyrex pan. Serves 12 to 15.

Thursday, March 6

Hot Dish (Number 2)

As proven by the first recipe for HOT DISH, there is no shortage of mish-mash casseroles that can be tossed together at the last minute to bring as a hot dish for a church potluck or PTA get-together. Callin your casserole a HOT DISH shows that you are no-nonsense. Who needs fancy names when you're just lookin to fix a dish that is hot?

Ingredients:
Hamburger (how much? doesn't say.)
onions (how many? who knows?)
salt (no measurement? is it just me or is this recipe incredibly vague?)
pepper
1 can cream of chicken soup (hooray! I heart "cream of" soups!)
1 can milk (like evaporated milk or somethin?)
1 can vegetable soup
tater tots

Oven temp: ??? (Your guess is as good as mine. 350? 400?)

Pan size: a standard bakin dish will do the trick

How to:
Fry hamburger with onions, salt and pepper. After it's done, add chicken soup, milk, vegetable soup, put in bakin dish. Sprinkle tater tots on top. Bake 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.

From Mrs. Donovan Nash (Well, thanks tons Mrs. Donovan Nash, but the mix of cooked hamburger with milk, cream of chicken soup, and vegetable soup sounds kind of like what you get when you hose out a Dumpster.)

Wednesday, March 5

Five Cup Salad (Winter Salad)

Because it feels like winter is never gonna end, you should make this salad. Why is it subtitled 'Winter Salad'? How should I know? The ingredients list makes it seem kinda tropical to me. Maybe that's the point - make this salad in winter and close your eyes while you eat it and pretend you are in Hawaii or somethin. Then when you open your eyes and see all the stupid snow outside, you just start cryin because you tricked yourself so good.

Ingredients:
1 buffet can mandarin oranges (buffet can? what is this? surely this cannot mean that this salad requires one of those massive institutional-size cans of oranges!?)
1 #2 can pineapple chunks (again, what? pardon my ignorance; I didn't grow up in the 50's)
1 c. miniature marshmallows
1 c. cocoanut (sorry, not my spellin error)
1 c. maraschino cherries
1 c. english walnuts (chopped, optional)
1/2 pint cultured sour cream

How to:
Mix together, let stand in refrigerator for 3 hours or more. (Similarly vague instructions to the Midwest Macaroni Salad, but at least there are no gapin holes in the directions here. This recipe is from a Miss B. Wireman, by the way, from the 1974 Roosevelt Elementary School Cookbook. Do you think she withheld her first name in order to stave off children's cries of "Nice salad, Betty/Barbara/Bernice!"?)

Midwest Macaroni Salad

Well, if this don't just beat all! Not only does this recipe have a title that hereby makes it the unofficial official recipe of Midwest Cookin, but it also contains not one but THREE of the key ingredients of cookin in the Midwest: Miracle Whip, bologna/SPAM, and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner! God, if only it had Jello in it too! (Say, somebody out there should really try that...)

Ingredients:
1 pkg. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner (or Cheese and Macaroni if you're a smartass kid)
1 12-oz can luncheon meat (i.e., SPAM) or 1/2 bologna cut in strips
1/2 c. diced celery
1/2 c. chopped green pepper
1/4 c. chopped sweet pickle
2 tbsp. finely chopped onion
1/2 c. Miracle Whip Salad (Dressin)
1/2 c. shredded carrot

How To:
Add remainin ingredients, mix lightly and chill. (Huh? Remainin...Oh, I get it. We're missin some steps. Make the Mac N Cheese first, then add the remainin ingredients to THAT. Real specific there, Mrs. Lena Thomas. And what size bowl, pray tell, shall be used for this recipe? You don't say? Well then, I would make this in a large salad bowl. One with a Tupperware lid, preferably. It will be easier to tote to the PTA Potluck that way.)