Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #27 - BONUS! Breakfast Food

27. BONUS! Breakfast Food May 29 - June 11
For a bonus challenge, make a breakfast dish. Get creative, but make sure to provide your documentation for its place at the breakfast table!

Bonus!  The Historical Food Fortnightly journey has been fun for us and we hope fun for you to read.  We have shared some recipes from mid-century cooking and we have also shared some photos and memories of our family.  In this digital age it is still nice to have a book in hand and we plan to have this blog published in book form for our family to put on a shelf.  Of course it will collect dust, but sometimes it will be fun to take off the shelf and share a laugh together as we so often do with the photo albums we have kept from years past.  History can be as fun to share as good food!

I spent my high school years living on a farm and loved collecting fresh eggs.  Eggs are still a staple in our diet although Patrick has switched to egg substitute following a heart surgery in 2005.  Our bonus breakfast food challenge recipe was easy to find in our CBS Homemakers Exchange booklet from April, May, June 1950.  Eggs Royale!  Yum!  With bread and bacon!  Double yum!

This would be an excellent recipe for those mornings when you have a house full of guests.  Quick to prepare, quick to bake, and ready about the same time as the coffee takes to brew and the juice to be poured.

Basic ingredients.

Circles cut from bread with a biscuit cutter.

Bread layered and buttered on both sides.

Bacon wrapped and pinned to the bread and baked at 375 degrees for 5 minutes.

Eggs sitting prettily in the bacon wells.  NOT! 

Eggs seasoned and back into the oven for 5 more minutes.

I would recommend a heavier bacon than I used as the bacon didn't hold the eggs for the second time in the oven.  But I'm a firm believer that a nicely plated and delicious meal makes up for those little disasters.

A hearty and absolutely royal breakfast of Eggs Royale!

Even Tasha thinks it would be delicious!

Tasha is our German Shepherd Dog who is now 16 months old and even though she is 74 pounds she is still very much a puppy.  This is Tasha at 8 weeks.

All together now - Awwwwwww!

Tasha is usually called T2 because there was another Tasha in our life.  Tasha the First has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  This is T1 with Patrick and his daughters, Cathy and Chrissy, in spring 1995.

And again - Awwwwwww!

By Christmas she was full grown and also still very much puppy.

There have been other four-legged family members but I'll save that for a special bonus for mid-century lovers in our final post next week.

Enjoy!

Patrick and Jeanette

Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #26 - Working-Class Dinner

26. Working-Class Dinner May 15 - May 28

We all like making beautifully molded aspics, delicate cakes and pastries, and airy creams, but the vast majority of the world has dined on much simpler fare throughout history. For this challenge, give your best interpretation of the food eaten by the nameless rabble. Be sure to document what makes it “working-class”!

 

$14,500 for a house?!  $3,216 for a car?!  37 cents for a pound of coffee?!  Absolutely!  In 1950 that is.  This website has some interesting facts about the prices in Dunklin County, Missouri, United States in the year 1950.

 

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/dunklin/Odds/1950.htm

 

One of the staples in both Patrick's and my childhood kitchens was hamburger and potatoes.  We both remember many meals with those ingredients and when you view the Dunklin County website it is easy to see why.  Potatoes might have been a 5-pound bag for 35 cents or a 10-pound bag for 35 cents depending on the season and type of potato.  Hamburger was 89 cents for 3 pounds.  So our working-class families would have been inventive of those ingredients which might have shown up on our working-class dinner tables at least several times a week.

 

The CBS Homemakers Exchange Recipes has a recipe that both of us believe was in both of our mothers' recipe boxes; Meat Crust Casserole.

 

 

 

As with most of the recipes from this period, the ingredients are simple.

Where our 1950 pricing might have been 89 cents for 3 pounds of hamburger or 33 cents per pound, our pricing today was $4.18 per pound.

 

Potatoes costing 35 cents for a 5 pound bag in 1950 or 7 cents per pound are $1.97 for a 3-pound bag or 65 cents per pound.

 

Considering that the basic price of this meal for potatoes and meat is only $6.15 and will feed 6 people, the price is still very affordable for a working-class family.

 

The preparation is fast making this a quick meal even for today's working family.

Potatoes are peeled, cut, salted, covered, and boiled until soft.

 

 

Butter is melted, and diced onion, celery, and green pepper are added.

Salt, pepper, and French's mustard season the hamburger.

The seasoned hamburger ready to become a crust.

The hamburger formed into a crust so that every slice will have all ingredients.

Onion, celery, and green pepper cooked until tender.

An egg is added to the cooked potatoes.

Egg and potatoes beat until fluffy.

Cooked onion, celery, and green pepper added to potato mixture.

The ingredients combined.

Potato mixture placed in hamburger crust and baked at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

Oooooo, that's looking and smelling nice!

A cup of peas added to the top of the casserole.

Baked at 350 degrees for another 10 minutes.



 

Patrick is thrilled!  He said it reminds him of the country-fried steak with mashed potatoes and peas he ate as a child.  Oooookkkkayyyy.  Me?  I'm not really excited by the looks, but the smell is great and actually I'm really hungry.

 



The final vote?  Four thumbs up!  While it could have done with a little more color it was a very delicious meal!  The mustard added a nice tang to the hamburger and it must have been the egg that added some great texture to the potatoes.  Very hearty and filling.  You can see I'm working on a tomato aspic recipe and had a little left over so I made a side presentation of tomato aspic and Granny Smith apples.  It was a nice addition.

 

I think our mothers, Mary Ellen and Bernice, would have enjoyed today's working-class dinner.  We sure did!

                                                                                  Enjoy!

                                                                                     Patrick and Jeanette

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #25 - Orange You Glad

25. Orange You Glad May 3 - May 14

It can be orange-flavored, orange-colored, or just plain oranges - but the challenge is “orange”!

 

 

Sunday, May 10th was Mother's Day.  A wonderful day to honor those who have cared for us and loved us.  It was also Patrick's birthday!  So in double celebration I wanted to bake a cake.  Not that I need a reason to bake a cake, but as I get older and more prone to gaining weight, I need a very good excuse to have an entire cake in the house just begging to be eaten!

 

The CBS Homemakers Exchange Recipes from 1950 and 1951, the years Patrick and I were born, are still our resource for all the Historical Food Fortnightly Challenges.  We find our inspiration in the January, February, March 1951 booklet for an Orange Chiffon Cake.  Oh, yum!

 

The ingredients  are very basic and usually on hand in our house.

 

The cake flour is sifted and then sifted again with the sugar, salt, and baking powder.   A well is created in the center of the dry ingredients and the orange rind, orange juice, vegetable oil, and egg yokes are ready.

The wet ingredients are added and stirred together until smooth.

Seven egg whites beaten until stiff with the cream of tartar added during beating.

Now we're ready to add the egg yoke mixture to the egg whites.

Gradually adding the egg yoke mixture to the egg whites and folding gently.

Ready for the pan.

The only tube pan I have is a Bundt pan and while I'm a bit worried about the cake releasing since there is no pan preparation, I go for it.

Baked for 55 minutes and the cake springs back so I shortcut the instructions and don't increase the temperature and time.

But I do follow the instructions about cooling the cake in the inverted position.

With a little loosening with a spatula and a few knocks against the table (per instructions) the cake loosens and sits prettily on the cake stand.

Since it's already cool, the cake can be cut immediately and served and that is exactly what we do!

Don't you just love that beautiful plate?!  It's part of a tea service that was given to me by the wonderful attendees at the Party Like A Vanderbilt weekend I organized at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. The service is a reproduction of the circa 1888 dark turquoise porcelain used by the Vanderbilt family. I will treasure this gift forever!! To celebrate the birthday/holiday I pour Mimosas, plate our Orange Chiffon Cake, and we enjoy the treat!  Patrick called it "incredible".  Yay!

Happy Birthday, Patrick!  Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Jeanette with Mom, Mary Ellen

Patrick, 3 days' old, with his Mom, Bernice, on Mother's Day, May 13, 1951.

Enjoy!

Patrick and Jeanette