The Pita Bread Christmas Trees mentioned in the article are adorable. And, will be featuring in my Christmas menus.
The article mentioned Susan’s Party Loaf which is this gorgeous looking thing
However, if you are going down that route you could also try this very pretty version from Betty Crocker. You really know you’re taking a ride on the way-back machine when you have a completely gratuitous use of food colouring!
Betty Crocker Party Loaf
And the Madras Cocktail ? Take a look at this piece of awesomeness…
Madras Cocktail
Don’t drink them all they say? Who are they kidding? The recipe which is here
put me in mind of the old Dorothy Parker quote:
“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under the host.”
This thing might not just knock your socks off, it could take your ankles with it.
I can’t wait to try it!
So what retro treats are you all planning for Christmas?
Winter finally hit Melbourne this week…it’s been zero degrees or very close to it for a number of mornings now. That’s cold!!!! So, given I hate winter why am I so damn happy? Because this weather is perfect for making one of my favourite retro foods – bread and butter pudding.
Best Ever Bread and Butter Pudding
Mind you, even though it has been crazy cold, look at my pictures of Sunday morning. Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eye. Who could be miserable on a day like this?
Sunday MorningFrost on the Grass
Another thing that will never make you miserable is this totally awesome Bread and Butter Pudding. I mean it, this baby ROCKED! It was perfect for this cold weather; retro comfort food at its most glorious!
So, what makes a truly great bread and butter pudding? I put it down to the three B’s…
Lets start with the bread. Bread and butter purists would tell you to use plain white bread. Remember last post I said that we don’t subscribe to minimalist notions here at Retro Food For Modern Times? Well that goes double for Bread and Bread Pudding. I like to use a fruit loaf or a sweet bread like a brioche. I have also been known to use a chocolate chip hot cross bun. Or an Almond Croissant. Basically, I like my bread to come loaded with deliciousness before I even start!
In this instance, I had a panettone sitting in my pantry. I’m going to make a confession here. I have no idea where it came from. That’s the weird thing about panettone. I can’t recall ever buying one. Or being given one. And yet, from time to time they appear. Maybe my house is haunted by an Italian Grandmother who whips them up whilst I’m at work. If so, she also does a nifty line in packing and packaging! This was also a gluten free version so ghost nonna, if she exists, seems to be fairly on trend.
Butter. Please use proper butter. Not that other abomination.
Booze – I drenched the dried fruit in Pimms and left it to soak in overnight. And made an amazing whiskey caramel sauce to go with the pudding
The base recipe for this calls for sultanas. I had some dried fruit medley left over from when I make the Plum Wonderful so I used that.
Bread and Butter Pudding
The recipe I used as a base called for Apricot Jam. I’d previously made a chunky Apricot Spread by boiling down some dried apricots in apple juice so I used this instead.
Apricot Spread
On it’s own, the pudding was kind of fabulous, but what sent it into the realm of super-awesome was the whiskey caramel sauce. This was all sorts of delicious and brought some toasty, almost coffee-like flavours into the mix. Honey and whiskey is truly a match made in heaven and I had the remnants of a lavender honey from another recipe which just added another layer of tasty goodness.
Bread and Butter Pudding
Please, please, please make this. You will not be disappointed. Or if you are…you probably did something wrong – not that there’s a whole lot that could do wrong with this – it’s also super easy to make!
I’m going to be spending my week enjoying the glorious sunshine despite the icy temperatures!
I figured after the alcoholic debauchery of the last post, it was time for some restraint and a bit of detoxification. So, I spent the last week eating for Love and Beauty. Not exclusively mind you but at least one dish per day…and, it was pretty good. Actually, it was better than that – I felt great! I was full of energy, more alert, I was focussed, I steamed through tasks at work, I lost about a kilo in weight, my skin looked great, a cute boy held a door open and winked at me…seriously this shit worked! Imagine if I lived like this…I’d be invincible!
So, this is how the week went down.
Day 1 – Balinese Rice
I know this dish better as a Gado Gado and it is delicious. Mind you, peanut sauce is a bit like bacon…or cheese for me….you could drizzle it over a stick and I would not only eat it but ask for seconds…
I chose to keep my vegies and rice separate because I liked the way it looked on the plate, but you could choose to mix them as suggested by the Swami.
The colours in this are so pretty and fresh as well!
Balinese Rice with Peanut Sauce
Day 2 – Vitality Bread I baked bread!
No wait…
I. BAKED. BREAD.
You have no idea how happy this made me. It looked like bread, it tasted like bread, the entire house was filled with the delicious aroma of freshly baked..happy days!
Vitality Bread
You also have no idea how my heart sank when Mark said “Wow, this bread is great, you can bake a loaf every week.” That won’t be happening anytime in the foreseeable, but I will bake more bread…I really want to do a walnut loaf. But not every week. Life’s too short and yeast is a temperamental little fucker.
Vitality Bread 2
In the interests of full disclosure, there were two failed attempts before the loaf of success.
Here is how not to go wrong baking bread.
When they say mix the yeast with warm water…don’t use boiling. Yeast doesn’t like heat.
When they say leave for one and a half hours, don’t think “Well overnight will be even better” and go off to bed. Particularly, in winter. Yeast also doesn’t like cold.
See what I mean? Yeast. It’s the Goldilocks of food.
Vitality Bread & Butter
Day 3 – Chive Relish Sauce
Chive Relish Sauce
I’m not sure what the original recipe for this would be like…minus any pictures from Eating for Love and Beauty, I didn’t really have a guide. Mine turned out like an Egg Salad. It tasted great with the Vitality Bread so I’m not complaining but I suspect it might have been meant to be a bit more mayonnaise-ish.
Excuse the plastic wrap, I took this to work for lunch and took the picture at my desk whilst eating on the fly!
Chive Relish Sauce with Vitality Bread
Day 4 – Lover’s Blush
It’s Rhubarb, fool!
Maiden’s Blush – A Rhubarb Fool
So much for my (bad) Mr T. impersonation…this is super delicious!
Mind you, in my mind, rhubarb belongs in the Pantheon of Foods That Can Do No Wrong (Bacon, Cheese, Peanut Sauce…) so there was more than likely not going to be a downside with this recipe. I did substitute some Amaretti’s for the wheaten biscuits though and added some orange zest for extra zing!
This was just lovely – tangy, sweet, creamy…and (relatively) healthy. And just look at that gorgeous colour!
I’m going to be spending the week doing more eating for Love and Beauty, I have some salads, an eggplant dish and another (jello) dessert! on the menu. In my spare time I’ll be planning how to use my newly bestowed Eating for Love and Beauty super powers to take over the world, for good, not evil. Enjoy your week whatever you do!
Welcome to Mary Meredith’s Good Cooking for Everyone.
Let me just start with a little quibble. When i think of 1981, I think of this:
1981’s finest.
And not so much this:
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at Mary here. This book was first published in 1970 and this was a probably a perfectly acceptable photo back then. Eleven years later, you’d think that maybe the publishers could have forked out for a new publicity photo. Maybe one using that new technology of colour.
The 500 “specially selected recipes” in this book do address a wide audience, if not exactly everyone.
In keeping with the Livvie theme above, there are sandwiches that would suit people watching their weight:
And recipes for those who are most definitely not.
Mary calls this “California Stuffed Forehock.” I prefer to think of it as “The Reason Elvis (Permanently) Left the Building”. The prunes in the recipe could explain why he was found on the toilet.
Enough for 4 people or one bacon lovin’ popstar!
From The King, to proper royalty, Mary Meredith also provides us with a dainty dish to set before a king. Four and twenty blackbirds anyone?
In fairness to Mary, it’s not actually blackbirds but a mix of lamb kidneys and cutlets. In fairness to modern sensibility, I was staring at this picture wondering how to describe the sheer awfulness of a pie with bones in little bootees sticking out of it. Mark looked at it over my shoulder. “You’re not making that are you?” he asked, sounding a little shaky. I assured him I was not. “Good” he said. “Because it looks fucking horrible.” Description problem solved.
Then, there are recipes for people who want their cakes to look like footwear. (Why? WHY???)
Shoe cake – who doesn’t want to eat an old boot on their birthday!
And recipes for people who want to traumatise their children. Never mind the chocolate-roll cats at the front, what are those weird shiny pink things with faces ? Apart from the stuff of nightmares?
Children’s Party Food
I did however manage to find one group of people for who Mary was not catering for. I was searching the index of this book when, in the B’s, I came across:
Baked Lemon Potatoes
Batch of scones
It’s an odd way of listing these items but there were corresponding entries under L, P and S so whilst kooky, they weren’t entirely random. (But again, maybe something that should have been corrected in the 1981 edition.)
I also noticed under M:
Making a jug of cocoa
Using this logic surely every recipe should be listed under M?
Making Lettuce and lemon sandwiches
Making Elvis Has Left The Building, etc.
And just to be really irritating there is no corresponding entry under C listing:
Cocoa, Making a jug of
I’m sorry cocoa drinkers of the world, I guess if you were of a logical mind in 1981 and wanted to find out how to make a jug of your favourite drink (without having to scan through 499 other recipes), you were S.O.L.
I’m spending the weekend with a jug of margaritas… it was going to be cocoa but the recipe was too damn hard to find!
