1970's recipes - Retro Food For Modern Times

23
Oct
2017

REPOST – Eggs With Spinach and Fashion Tips From Dinah Shore

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Spinach, Supper

Eggs and Spinach are a classic combo. Think Eggs Florentine, Spinach Quiche or Spinach Soufflé. Well today we are using eggs and spinach to create a twist on the dish The A -Z of Cooking calls Eggs With Spinach. Uh huh. What it lacks in imagination, it makes up for in precision. But it’s also from a chapter called Watching Your Weight and, to be honest, the original recipe was a little meh….So, whilst staying in the spirit of Eggs with Spinach here’s my version. What it lacks in weight watching, it makes up for in flavour.

Given that choice, always make flavour the winner. Just go for a run the next day!

My eggs and spinach recipe contains spinach lightly sauteed in garlic, mixed with a little cream, sprinkled with nutmeg, topped with cheese and baked with an egg until the white is set and the yolk is runny perfection!

Did anyone say brunch? These eggs with spinach scale up really well for a group at brunch or make a great quick and easy supper for one!

I used fresh baby spinach in my Eggs with Spinach, however you could use frozen. Below is a great vintage ad for frozen spinach. Note the awesome striped t-shirt being worn by Dinah Shore and the perfectly coordinated polka dot apron. She’s rocking my favourite patterns and showing that the rule of “blue and green should never be seen” is as dumb AF. Go Dinah. OMG, I only just noticed her gorgeous green shoes with the bows. I want that entire outfit! I wonder if back in the day women everywhere were also exclaiming “Glory be….fuck the spinach, get me that t-shirt and those shoes…”

Does anyone say “Glory be” anymore?

Did anyone ever?

Before we travel down that etymological rabbit hole here’s the recipe:

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Eggs with Spinach

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A delicious quick and easy dish for brunch, lunch or supper!

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

500g baby spinach
1 garlic clove, crushed
25g butter
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp cream
4 tbsp grated cheddar cheese

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Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced.
Lightly grease four 3/4 cup-capacity ovenproof dishes.
Wash the baby spinach.
Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat and add the garlic.
Saute for a minute or two until the garlic softens but does not change colour.
Add the spinach and stir until just wilted, about 2 minutes.
Take off the heat and stir in the cream and nutmeg.
Divide the spinach into two and place in two ramekin dishes.
Make an indent in the middle and break and egg into each.
Sprinkle the cheese over the top.
Season with salt and pepper.
Bake for around 15 minutes or until the egg white is just set but yolk is still runny.
Remove from oven. Stand for 2 minutes.
Serve with toast.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 2

If you would also like to rock Dinah’s look here is my take on it:

That was awesome fun! Now I gotta go do it in real life. Have a good one!

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05
Oct
2017

Profiteroles For Very Special Occasions

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Desserts, France, Pastry

You might think that five and a bit years into this that I would cease to be surprised. Both when things go awry and when by some stroke of mad luck things work out just as they should. Such was the case with the Profiteroles I made on the weekend from the Very Special Occasions Chapter of The A- Z of Cooking (1977). When the profiteroles came out of the oven looking like, well, profiteroles, there were whoops of joy, squeals of excitement and a bit of spontaneous kitchen dancing!

Yep, in this house, this:

Equals This:

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet. First. Hello V. And whilst we’re on the subject let’s’ all note the name of the chapter. Not just Special Occasions. Very Special Occasions. Requiring very special dancing apparently. And also requiring several goes at making something that was worthy of posting. After all, it’s a very special occasion.

First up there was a go at Carpetbag Steak. Now, if you lookup Carpetbag Steak anywhere on the interwebs, you will more than likely read that it is a famous Australian recipe. I’ve lived here virtually all my life and I have never head of it. However, I really liked the idea of steak and oysters. I made the recipe and it looked and tasted meh.

Then I made a Beef Stroganoff. Tasted good. Looked terrible in all the photos. I think it’s that thing that Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers told me about where brown food just doesn’t photo well. This was about the best…

So then I made Carpetbag Steak v2. A modern recipe this time. Still looked and tasted meh.

I was left with a choice. Champagne and Orange Juice. Or Profiteroles. And believe me . You came so close to having Champagne and Orange juice as your very special occasion meal. Because this is what happens inside my head whenever pastry is mentioned:

The profiteroles only happened because the very special occasion was a long weekend due to the Football Grand Final being the next day. I know right. Who has a holiday BEFORE the big day?

“It’s the dumbest reason for a holiday ever” I said.

“Come to work then” said my boss.

“It’s the best holiday ever. Better even than Jesus being born. Or dying.”

So anyway, on the holiday for best/ worst reason ever I got a little bored in the evening and thought that I would have a flick through The A-Z of Cooking, to plan V-Z. The profiterole recipe caught my eye and I realised that I had every ingredient. And a whole heap of bravado due to being about 3/4 of a bottle of a wine in.

Don’t judge. That produced these. Light as air, melt in the mouth, boozy cream filled and shiny chocolately pastry balls of deliciousness,

The basis for profiteroles, and the reason for my hissy fit is pastry. Choux pastry to be exact. I have made choux pastry exactly once before. For a recipe called Cherry Fritters from The A-Z of Cooking. Don’t bother searching the archives for them. They were a total disaster and I didn’t post them.

But choux starts with a roux…actually no. According to The A-Z of Cooking choux pastry starts with 63g of flour. Yep. 63. Not 60. Not 65. 63. And seeing as this was a very special occasion, 63g of flour it was.

This became this:

Which became these. I couldn’t find a piping bag and my piping skills are non-existent so I just blobbed spoonfuls of the pastry onto the tray. Also, I wasn’t really expecting this to work. And need I remind you about that bottle of wine that was now 5/6’s gone?

Well, slap my arse and call me Charlie if those funny looking blobs didn’t turn into these. They’re shall we say “rustic” but on a scale of one to ten of being recognizable as profiteroles, they have to be at least an eight.

So then fill and ice and sprinkle and you get these: (even more profiteroley).

Here’s the recipe direct from The A-Z of Cooking:

I tweaked the recipe by swapping out the rum for Amaretto and adding some sprinkles.

Make, eat, enjoy, do a little dance of sheer pleasure.

And have a great week!

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21
Jul
2017

Cattle Country Salad for Cowboy Day

categories: 1970's food, Cook A Long, Cowboy Day, Meat, Salad, Salads For All Season

Go west they said. I took their advice and not only went west but a whole heap north as well to end up in the UK for this year’s Cowboy Day. I will be spending the actual day in the most haunted town in Britain! Maybe a ghost cowboy just like this one will appear on the day….

Spooky huh?

Something that is not at all spooky is the Cattle Country Beef Salad Salad l made to celebrate Cowboy day. But first, this is the first time I am writing, editing, and posting entirely via phone so let’s put any weirdness in this post, beyond the regular weirdness down to that and I will re-edit, format as required once I get home!

We don’t have cowboys in Australia. We have cattlemen. Who live in cattle country which is where this salad comes from. Actually, it comes from Rosemary Mayne-Wilson’s Salads for All Seasons but you know what I mean.

So what all goes into a Cattle Country Beef Salad?

Beef of course. I suspect originally this would have been leftovers from the Sunday roast but I just bought from slices of roast beef from the supermarket.
Then there’s apples. Because we all know one a day keeps the doctor away and you don’t want to get sick while you’re out riding the range.
There’s celery because…I dunno. What use is celery? I like the taste of it but….oh that’s right. Celery keeps the cattlemen skinny. Because no one likes a tubby cowboy. Specially the horses they ride around on all day.
Spring onions. To put a spring in their step.

That was about it for the original ingredients. I also added some mixed leaves because I had to use them before I left for the UK the following morning. I also added some chunks of a lovely vintage cheddar. Which also had to be used but cheese also makes anything taste better and this was no exception.

RMW suggests using a French dressing for this. Make it really punchy by being HEAVY on the mustard. The flavours in here are strong enough to deal with it.

This was yummy!!!! Quick simple delicious. That’s an all round winner for me!

Here’s the original recipe:

Okay, I’m trying to keep this short and sweet because posting off the phone is doing my head in.

Many thanks to Greg from Recipes for Rebels for inviting me to participate in the cookalong again this year. It is always a so much fun to be a part of something like this. Plus, he”s one of the most awesome people on the internet so should just be thanked in general

I dont have my regular sign off this week but just look what can happen when bloggers get together. For an explanation of why Battenberg Belle, Jenny Hammerton and I are wearing cowboy hats and clutching a meat cleaver, a melon baller and a hammer respectively, you’ll need to head over to Silver Screen Suppers but in the meantime, have a great Cowboy Day everyone!

29
Nov
2016

REPOST – Potato Almond Balls

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Potato, Recipe Fail, Starters

When a chapter called Nuts about Nourishment contains a recipe for Deep Fried Mashed Potato Balls, you know it has to be 1977. And that we are about to delve into The A-Z of Cooking. Potato Almond Balls. I was so excited about these, I ate salad for a week to pre-compensate for the delicious calorific overload.

And then they didn’t work.

The problem was that the egg and almond crust split in many places…and when it did, the mashed potato kind of disintegrated. So in a lot of instances I ended up with the almond crust and not much else. Where they remained whole, they were totally delicious sprinkled with a bit of smoked paprika and dipped in some of my favorite green sauce.

I’m putting the failure of the balls down to the wrong temperatures. Either the balls were too cold or too warm or the oil was. Is it significant that The A-Z of Cooking has no pictures of this dish? It is possible that their Potato Almond Balls also broke into bits?

Here’s the recipe for anyone who wants it, I hope you have better luck than me!

To counteract the effect of deep fried potato balls (and because I had no other photos) I thought I would give you all an update on my attempts at the C25K running program. Today I started week 7 of the program and ran for 25 minutes which was not only the longest time but also the furthest distance I have done so yay me!

Mind you, this is probably a very apt description of both my pace and my style:

Personally, given my new obsession with the ‘My Favorite Murder Podcast,, this might well become my mantra:

And this is probably closer to the truth:;

Next time in The A-Z we are moving onto O for some “Old Fashioned Favourites”. I was hoping to be done with it by the end of the year but given it is nearly December (how the hell did that happen?) it seems unlikely. I’m now aiming for end of summer.

Have a fabulous week everyone!

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23
May
2016

Devilled Burgers. Taste Heavenly!

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Burger, Margaret Fulton Cookbook

Like rock and roll and dancing in that town in Footloose, burgers must be the work of the devil. There is no other explanation for something so simple tasting so good! And that’s just normal burgers. Once you have tried Margaret Fulton’s Devilled Burgers you will be ready to sell your soul for the recipe!

Not that you have to of course. The recipe is at the end of the post. No soul selling involved!

So what makes the Devilled Burger so special?

Oh and warning ahead…I am going to drop the dreaded M word. You know, the one that rhymes with foist. Haters beware!

One thing I have noticed about a couple of old hamburger recipes is that they use bread soaked in evaporated milk. This may both look and sound pretty gross but I think this combo really helps to keep the burgers moist. There. I’ve said it.

This mixture turns into something that resembles either wallpaper paste or the gruel from Oliver but I think it does the job. I had these two nights running and I was expecting that reheating them on the second night would make them dry but no, they were as juicy as ever! Possibly even better than the first night.

Other ingredients are finely chopped mushrooms (sorry Jenny), mustard, tomato ketchup, green Habanero sauce, horseradish and Worcestershire Sauce! No wonder these are tasty little demons!

These are so good. Who could believe ground beef could be so tasty? These have rocked straight in at number two on my best burgers ever (right behind my spicy feta burgers)! Hmmm..,.now what would happen if you added some feta and cumin to this recipe? The burger to end all burgers? Burgergeddon? I now so want to try it out!

Top these burgers with your favourite toppings, mine are in the recipe below and enjoy!!!!

If serving at your own devil theme party, why not lay out your salad ingredients and condiments and any other trimmings you like and let your guests create their own version of the Devilled Burger?

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Devilled Burgers

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Author: Taryn Fryer
Yield: 12 1x

Ingredients

Scale

4 slices bread
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 kilo minced (ground) beef
2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1 chopped onion
2 eggs
250g chopped mushrooms (optional)
1.5 tsp Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup tomato ketchup or mild chilli sauce (I used a combination of ketchup and green habanero sauce)
2 tsp prepared horseradish
2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tsp green Habenero sauce
Lettuce leaves
Tomato Slices
Vintage Cheddar, thinly sliced
Red Onions, thinly sliced
Pickles

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Instructions

Remove the crusts from the read, cut into squares and soak in evaporated milk for 10 minutes, then beat with a fork.
Mix meat, bread, salt, pepper, onion, mushrooms, mustard, tomato ketchup and/or chilli sauce, horseradish and Worchestershire Sauce in large bowl. Mix in the eggs with a fork.
Shape into 10 even sized patties.
Heat some oil in a frying pan and gently fry the red onions .
Preheat the grill and grill the hamburgers on one side for 7-8 minutes on one side and ^ minutes on the other. Add a slice of cheese using and grill for a further minute or so until the cheese has melted.
Whilst the hamburger is cooking, toast your buns.
Mix the mayonnaise and the green habanero sauce together and spread over the buns.
Top with a lettuce leaf and a slice of tomato.
Place the burger on top of the tomato and top with the fried onions and the burger bun.
Pickles can be served on the side or in the burger or not at all!

Oh and look! Is that a bottle of Lychee Beer in the background? Yes indeed. Just doing a little taste testing for the margarita to come. Or should that be a lagerita?

Have a fab week! Next time, we’ll be wrapping up our devil themed party with an appropriately titled cake from the Domestic Goddess herself!

Category: 1970’s recipes

Eggs with Spinach

Ingredients

Instructions

Nutrition

Devilled Burgers

Ingredients

Instructions