The very name Cabin Casserole conjures up something hearty and comforting. Something the Ingalls family might have eaten on Little House on The Prairie. And the recipe for Cabin Casserole from the American Chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery did not disappoint. For my readers in the Northern Hemisphere who are heading into winter and who are looking for an easy tasty meal, this one needs to go onto your rotation list ASAP.
What is Cabin Casserole?
Cabin Casserole is layered tomato and onions with bacon and chops that have been sprinkled with curry powder and salt. I used lamb chops for my casserole but pork chops would also work. Also, don’t stint on the salt. I only used a little salt because I thought the bacon would bring enough but I had to add salt at the end. Having said that, for a recipe with so few ingredients, this is really tasty!
I also did not use dripping to fry my chops, I fried the bacon first then used the bacon fat to fry the chops.
I served my cabin casserole with little potatoes wrapped in Proscuitto and a sage leaf and some grilled zucchini with feta cheese. The Cabin Casserole would be super with mashed potatoes!
Little House on The Prairie – The Lost Cabin Casserole Episode
Further to my mention of Little House on the Prairie, I can almost imagine the episode which would be called “Give them curry, Laura”. The Olesen’s start selling the very exotic ingredient of curry powder in the Mercantile. Nellie teases Laura that her family is too poor to ever even taste it. A fight ensues a little like this one. Just substitute “Your pa’s too poor to buy curry powder” instead of smelling like a horse.
Laura is required to go to the Mercantile and apologise to Nellie. She also has to help out in the store for a week. We see in a store work montage that she works very hard and is so polite to the customers that through the week she makes a little tip here and there.
At the end of the week, she has enough money to buy herself some candy or maybe a toy. Instead, she asks for some curry powder which she takes home and gives to Ma.
That night the Ingalls family feast on Cabin Casserole.
The moral of the story is that hard work and not giving someone curry is the key to getting curry.
It seems fitting that for the 13th (and last) part of this series that we hit what has to be the weirdest photo in The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. I’m not even sure where to start with this one….
This lady’s incredibly hairy arms?
The weird tan line across the back of her wrist?
Why would you put your thermometer in the meat and then rub the salt over it. Surely it’s just going to get in the way?
What is that even doing there? Don’t you take the temperature during cooking not before?
Why would you even want a photo of someone rubbing raw meat?
So many questions. So few answers…it boggles my mind!
It seems so right…and yet so wrong to leave you with this image but I’m back from holidays and normal (or what passes for it ’round here) transmission will resume shortly!
Fish…is fresh when the eyes are bright, the flesh is firm, the gills red and the scales do not come off easily. Fish should smell of the sea.
The biggest crime is to overcook fish. Whichever method of cooking you choose, watch your fish with loving care, serve it with a glad heart and a touch of parsley, a wedge of lemon or a dash of paprika”
– Margaret Fulton
Fresh lively vibrant seaood
THEN:
Yikes! So much fish, none of it looking all that appetizing. And that fake background of the sea. Because that’s where fish comes from kids. Just in case you didn’t know….
NOW
I really want to be on a beach somewhere watching the sunset and eating some fish and chips as mouthwateringly delicious as these.
Margaret Fulton’s Fish and Chips
What do I love about this photo? The crispy fish, the sharp salt crystals, the hazy tartare sauce in the background, the muted colour sheme that makes the fish, the chips and the lemon just pop…so, in short everything!.
Hope your having a great week! Now go eat some fish and chips…you know you want to!
They say the devil will find work for idle hands to do.
And when I say they, I mean Messrs Morrissey, Marr…and….ermmmm…. the other two. AKA The Smiths. I’m not sure where the original quote for that comes from. Shakespeare? The Bible?
Wouldn’t it be fabulous if I had a little box and I could type questions into it and get almost instantaneous answers to questions like who were the other two and where did that quote come from?
But, no time for that sort of sorcery right now….these idle hands built a boat!!!
Not a real boat, I haven’t spent my holidays tinkering around the backyard with a hammer and some hickory barky bark, but a boat nonetheless. A catamaran to be exact!
Remember when I made the Hayman Island Chicken Salad? That post contains this photo amazing photo of a catamaran table.
And now, in the spirit of a Russian Doll, imagine a smaller catamaran. Maybe one that could be placed on the catamaran table, filled with some cheesy balls o’ goodness.
Et voila…
The cucumber catamaran.
Now, I”m not saying she’s the best looking boat in the world. She’s a bit wonky. But she is quite obviously a boat.
In case you need some work for your idle hands, here’s how to make your own:
The paprika carrot balls weren’t bad either…recipe below…
The Smiths are one of my favorite bands ever. I spent countless hours of angsty teenage emotional turmoil locked in my bedroom listening to “How Soon Is Now” and “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”, countered only by and the sheer manic malicious exuberance of “Panic”.
So here’s a little treat for me you!
This week, I’ll be “spending my warm summer days indoors, writing frightening verse to a buck tooth girl in Luxembourg”…
Otherwise known as doing this. Which I guess makes you my bucktooth girl.
Shortly after you start reading vintage recipe books, you start becoming attuned to certain words as being signifiers of something truly awful.
Any recipe with the word “Surprise” in it usually falls slam bang into this description. Believe me, nine times out of ten, the surprise isn’t one of the happy, happy, joy, joy variety.
For instance, my mum used to make something we used to call tuna surprise. I found this recipe for something very similar in an old magazine.
It is sans the potato chip topping which was always the best bit of mum’s tuna surprise but I guess I can forgive that when the Shaun referred to was none other than my main man Shaun Micallef.
What?
I’ve been doing this a couple of years now and I’ve never spoken about my huge girly love crush on this man? For those of you who do haven’t had the pleasure, imagine the wit of John Stewart combined with the silver foxiness of George Clooney and you’re in the ball park…
Anyway, enough about my obsessions…ok, no, just one more. It’s my blog, I guess I can do what I want….
Ok, so before this turns into the gushy, girly Shaun Micallef hour…lets talk about Melon Surprise.
Melon Surprise
But before we go there can we just stop for a moment and look at my ever so cute pins? Bought at Daiso…how adorable are they?
Melon Surprise2
So the melon had pins in it because…surprise….this ain’t no normal melon!!!!
Because when you cut it open….look what’s inside!
Melon Surprise 3
Grapes in Jello folks, grapes in jello!
Hands up who was expecting something really disgusting? Wait a few minutes….it’s coming.
But in a real surprise, the Melon Surprise turned out to be pretty damn super. To my taste, more of a dessert than a salad but still pretty damn good all the same.
Melon Surprise 4
Ok…so by the way, both of these recipes come from the “Elegant First Courses” section of Salads For All Seasons in which Rosemary Mayne-Wilson tells us that
“The recipes in this section are designed to excite the eye, delight the palate and stimulate the appetite”
And sure, the Melon Surprise does all of these things. As you can see I tool some liberties with the flavour of jelly and the colour of the grapes.
Time did not permit me to peel the grapes. There is not enough time in the universe to induce me to do that.
Next up, we have Surfer’s Paradise Melon.
Let’s take the ingredients for this individually shall we?
Rockmelons – sure.
Celery – why not?
Grapes…worked in the Melon Surprise.
Apples – I’m getting a bit excited, this is looking Waldorfy…
Mayo…yep, its a Waldorf with Melons. That sounds great!
But wait…there’s more?
Oh yeah, Walnuts right? Waldorf with Melons. Awesome.
What? What do you mean the final ingredient isn’t walnuts? How can we have Waldorf with Melons without Walnuts?
Oh, I see the quirky bit, the RMW spin is that it’s not walnuts. So what is it? Almonds? Cashews? Pistachios?
It’s what?
Yeah…that’s what I thought you said…..
Ok…look, I just want to doublecheck.
You said tuna right?
Like in the fish?
Oh for the love of God….why?
Incidentally, the tuna and fruit combo must be vibing in some retro space because recently the lovely Erica from Retro Recipe Attempts was guesting on Mid Century Menu and made some Tuna Apple Sandwiches.
In the blurb for this salad RMW says:
“When Australians are overseas, few requests are made for them to contribute to food stalls and fairs…it is assumed that our cuisine is either too dull to be considered or just an offshoot of English cooking…However, if there is a request for an Australian dish, one friend always serves this grand melon appetizer”
I suspect she’s confusing cause and effect…
If anyone turned up to my food stall or fair with a mix of canned tuna and rockmelon, I’d probably ban their whole nation too.
However, here it is….
Surfer’s Paradise Melon Salad
It looks pretty good doesn’t it?
And truth be told, it was not disgusting. It had a nice crunch and it was…palatable. I might have actually liked it without the rockmelon…
Surfer’s Paradise Melon Salad2
One thing? If you ever plan on making this, when you mix the rockmelon and tuna together, it looks huge. There is a mountain of Surfer’s Paradise Melon Salad such that you think you’ll never be able to eat it all.
I had for lunch at around 12:30. And, believe me, by 5:00pm I was ready to gnaw the leg off my chair. Because when you think about it, this is what it is:
Thanks company I am not going to name (but hint, their name is pretty clearly displayed in the photo) for only putting half a can of tuna into a can of tuna. I guess that’s why it’s called light….And the rest of it is just fruit and celery so I guess you know, from a weight loss perspective this is win-win. You won’t want to eat it but when you do, it probably has all of about 3 calories.
And just so I’m not deterring tourism to our lovely Gold Coast, I can almost guarantee that no one in Surfer’s Paradise is eating this…do not let this dissuade you from coming.
By the way, I just signed up for 100 Happy Days and will be regularly tweeting my happy snaps. You can follow my progress on Twitter or join up. To find out more, click the link:
http://100happydays.com/
I”m going to spending my week finding things that make me happy. Make yours fabulous whatever you do!
