Tomato Puddin

This week on Midwest Cookin, we're gonna take a look at foods you might make if you've been negatively affected by our crap-o economy and need to save some dough on eats.

Welcome to Broke As A Joke week!

You may recall previous selections we've featured here on the blog, like Poor Man Steak and Wiener Water Soup. Thriftiness and the Midwest go hand in hand, much like Velveeta and hamburger! Say, why not invite some hobos from the local library, Kmart parkin lot, or railyard (or your friends, I guess) and have a feast of famine! (And if your friends ARE hobos, well, then lucky you, right?)

Kickin off Broke As A Joke week is this super-classy recipe from Betty Wisniewski. You never thought of makin puddin from tomatoes? Well, hell's bells!

Ingredients:
2 (10 oz.) cans tomato puree (if you're real hard-up I bet you could use 2 big ol' bottles of ketchup from the Aldi's instead)
1/2 c. boilin water
1 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 1/2 c. (6 pieces toast) bread cubes (that better be white bread! - and preferably from the Wonder stale store)
1/2 c. melted butter (oooh...I don't know...butter can be kind of expensive...can I just use curdled milk instead?)

Oven temp: 250 degrees

Pan size: "bakin dish" (as usual, your guess is as good as mine)

How to:
Boil tomatoes, water, sugar, and salt for 10 minutes. Place bread cubes in bakin dish. Pour over cubes: melted butter. (I take it Yoda wrote that instruction?) Add puree mixture. Bake at 250 for 25 to 30 minutes. (And....? How the hell is this a puddin? Sounds more like thick tomato soup to me. With the added punch of soggy-ass bread crumbs. Mmmm! I say, serve this with a lovely bottle of Nite Train or Grape MD 20/20 and your hobo guests will be soooo impressed!)

Pig Lickin Cake

Yeah. You read that right. The name of this cake is PIG LICKIN. However, you will be surprised to learn that, unlike some of our other fabulous submissions, this cake does NOT contain SPAM or pork n' beans. So where does the completely out-of-left-field name come from? Don't ask me, ask Bev Utash. She's the one who invented this Midwest classic.

If anyone out there knows why this is Pig Lickin Cake, or what the hell that means (blind guesses are acceptable too), please for the love of all that's holy let me know. Because the only images that Pig Lickin conjures in my mind are so NSFW it's not even funny, and this is a family establishment here goddammit.

Props to Mrs. Gertrude Black for yet again providin this blog with A-list material!

Ingredients:
1 yellow cake mix (2 layer size)
3 oz. box instant vanilla puddin
3/4 c. oil (of the vegetable variety, I presume)
4 eggs
1 sm. can mandarin oranges, undrained (thus far I see nothin relatin to pigs or lickin)

Oven Temp: 350 degrees

Pan size: 9 x 13 x 2 (is there a 9 x 13 bakin pan in existance that isn't 2 inches deep? I've certainly never seen one)

How to:
Put all ingredients in large mixin bowl. Mix 2 to 3 minutes. Pour into 9" x 13" x 2" greased and floured or 2 (8" x 9") greased and floured round pans. (sorry, but double-decker cakes are a little too fancy for the church potluck, Bev. unless this is for a pig lickin weddin, we'll stick to the good ol' sheet cake) Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 25 to 30 minutes for round pans or 30 to 35 minutes for a rectangular pan.

Toppin: (hey guess what? we didn't give you this in the ingredients list, so you probably neglected to purchase these additional items at the grocery store and won't realize you need them until it's too late! well, tough taco for you! of course, if you were a GOOD Midwest housewife, you'd keep a steady supply of all three of the followin items in the pantry, right next to your stockpile of cream of mushroom soups.)
15 oz. can crushed pineapple
6 oz. box vanilla instant puddin
8 oz. carton non dairy whip (a cake just isn't complete without a slatherin of Cool Whip!)

3 Layer Delight

In keepin with my recent theme of delightful entries, here is an absolute classic as far as Midwestern desserts go. I've seen this not only at every potluck, picnic, and social I've ever been to in my entire life, but this particular item pops up on restaurant buffet tables with unbelievable frequency. Anyway, before I stopped eatin Cool Whip, I even enjoyed it once or twice myself.

This particular version comes from Deb Wesley of Immanuel Lutheran. Thank you, Deb, for spellin "delight" correctly in your recipe title.

Ingredients:
1 c. flour
1 stick butter or margarine
3/4 c. nuts
1 large pkg. Philadelphia cream cheese (room temperature)
1 c. confectioners sugar
1 large carton Cool Whip
1 large pkg. Jello instant chocolate puddin
3 c. milk

Oven temp: 350 degrees

Pan size: 9x12 bakin dish

How to:
Melt butter and mix with flour and nuts. Pat into a 9x12 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. After crust has cooled, put on second layer of cream cheese, confectioners sugar and 1/2 large carton of Cool Whip. Mix chocolate puddin and milk for third layer. top off with remainnin Cool Whip and garnish with remainin nuts. (Hold up. So, you aren't supposed to use all the nuts in the crust? Nice. Thanks for tellin me. AFTER THE CRUST IS DONE AND I USED UP ALL THE STUPID @$%# NUTS!!!!!)

Noodle Puddin Delight

I've mentioned before my distaste of misspellin the word "delight" as "DELITE". Well, this recipe gets the spellin right, but I'll be damned if it gets anythin. Else. Right. At. All.

Like, when I read this recipe I literally puked and swallowed it. WHO would eat this? It's like somethin they'd serve in Gitmo to torture prisoners. It's like a dare. It's like, as loyal reader Ballz McCracken said, "they started a recipe, went to turn the page and some pages were stuck together, so they ended on another recipe." I couldn't agree more.

And does anybody want to guess who supplied this recipe to me? Yep. It was good ol' Mrs. Tairy Greene. Rats off to ya, Mrs. Greene! Keep on cookin!

Ingredients:
2 c. medium wide noodles
2 eggs
3 tbsp Heinz tomato ketchup
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
dash salt
1 tsp vanilla (eh?)
3 tbsp salad oil
1 can crushed pineapple, drained (what? WHAT?!)
1 c seedless raisins (raisins and ketchup? oh, HELL no!)

Oven temp: 400 degrees

Pan size: 1 1/2 quart casserole

How to:
Cook noodles in salted boilin water until tender and drain, rinse. Beat eggs with next 5 ingredients until well blended. Add drained noodles; stir in salad oil. Add pineapple and raisins; turn mixture into greased 1 1/2 quart casserole or individual casseroles. Bake 40-45 minutes or until set. (oh cripes, that does it.) Serve hot. Makes 6-8 servins. (I had to read the recipe twice before I realized where the "puddin" comes from. There's no puddin in it - the coagulated ketchup-egg-pineapple-oil-raisins mix makes its OWN puddin. Lunch ladies of the world, here's your new Friday special.)

Watergate Salad

I found a pretty sweet Richard Nixon commemorative plate at Goodwill the other day. So, to celebrate, I'm postin a recipe today that I swear has cropped up at every single potluck I've ever been to in my entire life: Watergate Salad! Thanks to Delores Schoepske for providin us with this perennial classic!

Ingredients:
1-3 oz. pkg. pistachio instant puddin
1-8 oz. container of Cool Whip (it wouldn't be a salad without Jello or Cool Whip somehow involved!)
1-16 oz. can crushed pineapple (not drained)
1/2 c. to 1 c. miniature marshmallows
1/2 c. nuts (optional)

Pan size: 9x9-in (a bowl will work too - that's how I've seen it done before)

How to:
Mix puddin and Cool Whip together. Add pineapple and marshmallows. Put in 9x9 pan. Refrigerate. (This salad, if you've never seen it before, is a lovely and unnatural shade of mint green. Tres 70's!)