“When a substantial first course is called for, it is hard to improve on a savoury tart served warm”
– Margaret Fulton
I so totally agree!
MFCB Olive And Onion Tart
I think the Onion and Olive Pie looks pretty good in both of these pictures. It’s certainly the best looking item on the 1977 page. In the modern picture though, it really shines.
Both make me wonder why this is not called a Tomato and Olive Pie.
If like me, you really want to eat this, here is the recipe. From the 1977 version. This ain’t called Retro Food For Modern Times for nothing.
Onion and Olive Tart Recipe
Have a great week…if you want to know what I’m up to on holidays check out my daily Instagram!
If we are at home on a Friday, we don’t usually eat a big meal, just usually have a couple of snacky things here and there.
Tonight’s snack plate had a distinctly retro feel so I thought I would share it with you!
Cheese and Date Bread
First up, we have some Cheese and Date Bread, courtesy of The A-Z of Cooking. We have jumped somewhat forward here in that this recipe appears under G – Good Health, when technically we are only up to D – Drinks and Dips. And whilst Drinks and Dips are usually good Friday fare, tonight it was something different.
I was intrigued by the idea of Cheese and Date Bread. I really wasn’t sure how the sweetness of the dates would go with the rest of the ingredients. These fears were completely unfounded. And my bread looked just like real proper bread!
Cheese and Date Bread2
If somewhat lopsided…
Cheese and Date Bread3
The bread is pretty good plain but if you want to take it to a whole new level? Toast it up.
Cheese and Date Bread4
Cheese and Date Balls
Like I said, initially I was hesitant to make the Cheese and Date Bread. What changed my mind was finding this recipe for Cheese and Date Balls:
Of course I made mini balls – because that’s how I roll. Also, I swapped out the lemon in the recipe above for a teeny splash of vermouth.
Mmmmm…blue cheese, walnuts and dates spread on toasted Date and Cheese Bread. Life is good!
Cheese and Date Balls2
But wait…there’s more.
But first a little bit of disclosure. I am actually trying something new tonight which is to cook (ok, assemble, I had actually cooked everything beforehand), photo, write, review and post all in the one night. Normally this process can take WEEKS. I am also doing it whilst drinking a rather large martini which we will get to in due course. So, if the end of this devolves into absolute gibberish, you know why and apologies in advance.
Those olives you see on the plate? Aren’t just any olives. They are:
Martini Drenched Olives
Normally, you put your olive into a martini. In this recipe, you put some martini into your olives! This is so simple and really adds a new and different flavour to some otherwise ordinary olives.
2 cups green olives (I used stuffed olives because I had them)
3 tbsp vodka
1 1/2 tbsp dry vermouth
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp shredded lemon zest
8–10 cracked peppercorns
Instructions
Rinse the olives under cold water and drain.
Combine all the other ingredients.
Place the olives in a bowl.
Pour the other ingredients over.
Refrigerate for at least an hour. (I kept mine in the fridge for nearly a week).
But you know what? If your going to have some martini drenched olives, why not make also make a Drenched Dirty Martini. It is Friday after all!
Drenched Dirty Martini2
The Drenched Dirty Martini is a dirty martini made with Drenched Martini Olives.
[yumprint-recipe id=’32’]
Drenched Dirty Martini
Have a great weekend!
PS – Love to hear your thoughts on the quick and dirty post. I live in awe of the bloggers who manage to do something daily and would love to be able to increase my output. Your feedback on me just banging something out like tonight v agonising over every comma is most appreciated! Thanks as always. xx
It’s been a while since we dipped into the pages of The A-Z of Cooking…and yep, we’re still only up to C. This time though we head away from the fun, fun, fun of Children’s Favourites and into the darker world of cost savers. Retro Frugality can a very scary place!
Chili Con Carne4jpg
Surprisingly, all three recipes featured in this section were things I would have been happy to make. There was the Chili Con Carne, a Tagliatelle with Bacon and Tomato Sauce and an Oxtail Casserole. I REALLY wanted to make the Oxtail Casserole just because the others are things we probably eat fairly regularly and I have never cooked with o before. But, someone had a hissy fit in the butcher when I asked for oxtails. Sometimes it’s difficult trying to be a retro food blogger when you live with the fussiest eater on the planet!!! It will be made though. I have enough meals alone to warrant making some, even if just for myself.
A-Z of Cooking – Chili Con Carne Ingredients
But for now, we needed a meal to be eaten together and, turned out, we had everything to make this chilli already in the freezer, fridge and store cupboard. This is really important as you will soon find out that not all my ventures into Mexican cooking have been so expeditious. You will also notice that there are no green peppers, as specified by the recipe ingredients, and there are mushrooms which are not mentioned. I am not fond of bell peppers of any sort as they tend to repeat on me for HOURS after I have eaten them. Plus, I had mushrooms and, in the cost cutting vibe of this post, waste not, want not right?
Chili Con Carne Recipe
I had one problem with this recipe. And that was the lack of cumin. Funnily enough, as I was writing this post, I was watching a Heston Blumenthal show where he made chili con carne and he too mentioned how important it was to have cumin in your chili recipe.
Then again, Heston’s’ chili contains 27 ingredients and at least 3 processes….I love Heston, I really do. But 27 ingredients for chilli? And that doesn’t even include the muffins?
I’m sure Heston’s recipe is the best chili you’ve ever eaten. I’m equally sure that the A-Z of Cooking’s Cost Saving Recipe won’t be.
BUT. And it’s a big but. (Sir Mixalot would be proud).
Chili Con Carne 5
Is this a tasty dish? This recipe lacked some flavour, most notably cumin. And personally, I would have increased the chilli content too. However, I think the mushrooms added some umami that would not have been present had the green peppers been used instead. And it was tasty even without the cumin. So yes, big tick on tasty.
Does it fill the brief of being a cost saver? Absolutely. The basic chili cost around $7.00. And that made 4 large or 5 medium sized serves.
Should this become something that is in your repertoire of basic dishes that you can then flavour and snazz up whatever way you want? Totally!
Is it something you will make over and over? You bet!
It’s a good, solid, basic chili recipe. Sure it’s not Heston. But it not everything needs to be. In fact, nothing except food at The Fat Duck should be.
And if you want to jazz it up, any, or all, of the following would make good additions:
Avocado Salsa
Corn Chips as dippers
Warm tortillas
Pico Di Gallo
Guacamole
Grated Cheese
Sour Cream
Pickled Jalapenos
Cojita or crumbled feta cheese
Tabasco or other hot sauce
This is great, quick easy weeknight cooking, it is also great, maybe even better the next day for lunch or dinner.
Chili Con Carne4jpg
Eat, enjoy! With the money you save on this why not treat yourself to a margarita or two.
Today is a twofer as I have a whole mess of things that I want to get out before I go on holidays….less than a month to go now!!!!
I was intending to do two posts from The Margaret Fulton Cookbook, which is the current selection over at The Cookbook Guru. But they were both about eggs so I thought I may as well combine them and do a kind of then and now. Because you see, one of these recipes comes from the 1977 edition of the book which I own. And the other comes from the 2010 edition which I borrowed from the local library. Neither features in both.
So, this time, it’s up to you to guess which is which….leave a note in the comments along with what you most like to cook and, if you get it right, I will send you a vintage Margaret Fulton Recipe from the 1977 version. You can choose from:
The First Course
Soups
Eggs
Fish
Poultry
Meat
Vegetables
Salads
Pasta and Rice
Desserts
Cakes
Biscuits
Entertaining
International
But now, on with, on with, on with the show.
Tapenade Eggs
Tapenade Eggs
I was really worried about this one. Because tuna is pink and egg yolks are yellow and olives are black and the good Lord only knew what colour of hot mess might end up being crammed into some poor unsuspecting egg whites!
I think that colour is called puce. But that is not a nice word, particularly when describing food. Actually I have no idea what that colour is called. But it’s inoffensive, and given the ingredients, could have been a lot worse!
Tapenade Eggs3
I made these for dinner one night.
When I get back from holiday I am going to start a series of posts on the stuff that I eat when Mark is working nights. Sometimes it’s the best. And sometimes, I steam a bunch of asparagus, make some toast into soldiers and microwave a jar of hollandaise sauce. And I sit and dip.
I won’t post that but I do find I tend to veer from the more experimental or foods he is not fond of (vis a vis the AMAZING prawn and fennel fritters I made the other night) to just plain lazy which can also sometimes be pretty awesome. Both of these recipes are from what I call “Me Alone” nights.
Whilst the Eggs Tapenade were pretty good on the night, I had some left over which I took for lunch the following day and….AWESOME….I don’t know what happened in my fridge overnight but those ingredients totally chilled out and got to know each other a little better and the result was spectacular! If you make this try it out – eat one fresh, then let the mix sit overnight. And let me know if you too could really taste the difference!
Tapenade Eggs2
Tapenade Eggs Recipe
125g pitted black olives
6 anchovy fillets, drained and rinsed
3 tbsp capers, drained
100g tuna in oil, drained
1 lemon
1/3 cup olive oil
8 hard boiled eggs
Crush the olives in a mortar or chop in a food processor. Add the anchovy fillets, capers, tuna and the juice of half a lemon. Pound or process until the mixture has formed a fairly smooth paste.
Still pounding, or with the motor running add the oil in a slow steady stream.
Taste and add more lemon juice and pepper to season.
Set aside (can be made a few days ahead and stored airtight in the refrigerator).
Halve the eggs lengthwise. Mash or sieve the yolks and mix with the tapenade. Pipe or spoon into the egg whites and arrange on a serving platter.
(I also decorated my eggs with some chopped parley, chopped piquillo peppers, capers, toasted pine nuts and a sprinkle of smoked paprika).
Eggs Princess
How could I resist a recipe with this name? And thank the Lord for the night time. And this recipe. Because it lead me to MY discovery of the year. And I’m highlighting the word my here because I really don’t know if this is a super amazing thing that not so many people know or if you have all known about it forever and I was the one “discovering onions”. I have absolutely no idea of what that means either but it is a phrase my family use when you come late to the party on anything.
Mum. Elucidate. Please.
Eggs Princess
But here is my discovery and it has seriously CHANGED. MY. LIFE. You can poach an egg to perfection. In a microwave.
And if you all knew this and didn’t tell me before? You’re too mean! I love a poached egg. I also love a poached egg with a creamy ham and mushroom sauce with a dash of cayenne!
The recipe says to serve this with toast triangles as a lunch dish. I popped mine on a toasted English Muffin and had it for another dinner alone!
Eggs Princess Recipe
4 poached eggs
180g mushrooms, sliced
90g butter
180g ham, diced
1 tbsp parsley, chopped
2 egg yolks
pinch cayenne pepper
1 tsp lemon juice
Saute the mushroom in 2/3 of the butter in a frying pan. Add the ham and half the parsley. Heat through on a low heat.
Mix cream, egg yolks, remaining butter and lemon juice in a double boiler. Stir with a spoon or whisk until slightly thickened then season to taste with salt.
Heap ham mixture into a serving dish (or an English Muffin) and arrange eggs on top.
Spoon sauce over eggs and sprinkle with parsley.
So, retro lovers over to you.
Which is the vintage recipe and which is the modern? You’ll have a week from the date of posting to post your guess and the section of the Margaret Fulton Cookbook from which you would like your recipe to come. And if you cook it really quickly, you could even get if featured on the Cookbook Guru which is featuring this awesome book until the end of June.
It seemed quite appropriate that I made my Pieathalon pie on Eurovison weekend. After all, my pie was a Belgian Onion Pie with French Pastry Dough. And in 1974 ABBA won Eurovision with their song Waterloo which draws its inspiration from the site in BELGIUM where the Brits defeated the FRENCH army lead by Napoleon.
The coincidence is almost spooky.
But would this pie take me down like a diminutive French General? Or, like a bearded drag queen was I going to “rise like a phoenix” to Euro glory?
And I Have Met My Destiny (In Quite A Similar Way)
A few weeks ago, the lovely Yinzarella put out the call and 19 bloggers answered. We were going to take part in a global event to rival Eurovision, Pieathalon 2.
The History Book on The Shelf (Is Always Repeating Itself)
My recipe, which came from S.S. over at A Book of Cookrye is taken from The Cotton Country Collection from 1972:
Which looks and sounds like it comes more from the Mississippi Delta than any field in Flanders I ever saw. Which is fine, I just finished reading Miss Hazel and The Rosa Parkes League for bookclub. I’m feel like I’m down with the M, I, crooked letter, crooked letter….
I also recently made a French Apple Flan, so my credentials for France are also solid.
I have driven through Belgium on a bus.
I have watched “InBruges“. Twice.
They have waffles. And chocolate. And smurfs.
And that’s pretty much the sum total of my knowledge about Belgium. If there’s going to be a weak link here, it’s bound to be Belgium…is Pieathalon going to be my Waterloo?
My, My, I Tried To Hold You Back (But You Were Stronger)
I feel like the The French Pie dough recipe is very French. And by that I mean both annoyingly pedantic in some details (Triple sifting flour? Really?) and then just gives a big Gallic shrug and leaves others mostly up to your imagination. The implication being if you are that much of a dummy to not know what spices and liquid to use in your pie dough, you probably shouldn’t be making pie dough.
My imagination told me to use a pack of French Onion Soup Mix for both – a spoonful of the dry mix as my dough spice, then make up the rest of the soup and chill it down for my liquid.
My imagination is a psychopath.
The soup mix made the pastry quite salty. If I had added more salt by adding the soup, I’m pretty sure it would have become inedible. So, after a moment of panic and some highly creative swearing I used some pear cider as my liquid. Purely because I happened to be drinking it at the time of making.
And you know what? It worked!!! Really well. The sweetness took out some of the salt and I think the bubbles helped to make the pastry really light and crisp.
I loved this pastry. It had a real French Onion Soup flavour. I am going to make it again but into “cheese” straws to have with dip. And I will probably use Pear Cider as my go to chilled liquid again too!
Now to the first way I “tweaked” this recipe…you may know that have a weakness for small round food. I’m also very much of the mind that more is more. So, why make one pie when you can make a lot of pies?
French Pie Dough 3
And Now It Seems My Only Chance Is Giving Up The Fight
I was actually pretty confident with the filling. Because pastry is the hard part of any pie right? And honestly, I nailed that French pie dough like a….like a….French hammer…Yeah…just like that. (Note to self, find some better metaphors).
So bring on the filling….
First up -looking at this very cute picture made me think the pie was baked in onions. I’m not actually sure HOW you would bake a pie in an onion but I do know I want to find out. Another entry into the bucket list of weird food I want to make. I think it also may have sub-conciously influenced my idea to make party-sized pies instead of one big one.
Then? Chopping three large onions? There were tears before bedtime. Then I weighed the butter. Half a pound of butter seemed like an awful lot. I checked my measurements from ounces to grams and weighed it again. No, my measurements were right and that was still a, pardon me for using a very technical baking term, a shit ton of butter.
Suddenly my mountain of onions seemed like barely a hill next to that Everest of butter. In the end, I couldn’t do it. That skyscraper of butter was too overwhelming. I cut off about a third of it and stuck that back in the fridge. I felt really bad about this because I had wanted to follow the recipe exactly. But I was convinced this was just wrong.
And I could just add some extra butter if I needed, right?
Then I started to saute my onions. I was a bit worried that the onions would suck all the butter up and it would be too dry. It seemed ok when the onions were sautéing, however once I added the flour the butter problem became apparent….
Far from being too little butter there was still too much. WAY too much…it was pooling everywhere…
I made the decision to tip some more butter out….turned out to be about another two tablespoons.
I was kind of worried about doing this but as soon as I added the milk and cream, it all came together perfectly and I knew I had made the right decision. Look how lovely and smooth the filling looks.
I only had filling for ten little Belgian onion pies so I ate the additional pie shells. That pastry was awesome!!!!
Belgian Onion Pie 7
And half an hour later they came out like this. Puffed up, golden brown, the Belgian Onion Pie babies looked like little golden buttercups!!!
Belgian Onion Pie 8
I was so happy with these. And not only were the baby Belgian Onion Pies so pretty to look at, they were delicious too – the light crisp pastry, the creamy filling, they were gorgeous!!!! And they tasted just like French Onion Soup!
You could almost say they were souper!
Gahhh…….Thankfully, the Belgian Onion pies tasted better than my puns!!!!!
I Feel Like I Win….
So despite a couple of hiccups, Pieathalon 2 was a total success.
Huge thanks to S.S. for the recipe and Yinzerella for the opportunity. I LOVED it! Here is my slightly twisted Muriels Wedding thanks to you both:
“I used to sit in my room for hours and listen to ABBA songs. But since I’ve met you and moved to Sydney joined in Pieathalon , I haven’t listened to one Abba song. That’s because my life is as good as an Abba song. It’s as good as Dancing Queen”
High praise indeed!
And as a fitting finale to this Pieathalon, Ladies, Gentlemen…bring out your best moves and your favourite satin jumpsuit and join me, Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths in a little celebration of all things Pieathalon. Feel free to sing along with my ever so slightly modified lyrics below as you bust a synchronised move…
The entire list of bloggers and pies are here. Please check ’em all out but check out Sarah who made my Fiesta Almond Peach Pie recipe first!
Mandee from Vintage Recipe Cards – Peach Pizza Pie
Susie from Bittersweet Susie – Blueberry Cream Pie
Ashley at A Pinch of Vintage – Pecan Pie
Saucy Cherie at cookbookcherie.wordpress.com – Prune Whip Pie
Kelli from Kelli’s Kitchen – White Christmas Pie
Heather from Yesterday’s Menus – Pasta Cheese Pie (link no longer works 7/11/21)
Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers – Magic Cream Pie
Kelly from The Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en Web Series – Swiss Pie with Hot Dogs
Dr. Bobb of Dr. Bobb’s Kitschen – Mincey Peach Pie
Sarah from Directionally Challenged Cooking – Fiesta Almond Peach Pie
Clara at Heritage Recipe Box – Cottage Cheese Apple Pie
Poppy of “Grannie Pantries” http://granniepantries.blogspot.com – Brandy Alexander Pie
RetroRuth from Mid-Century Menu – Cheese Pie
S.S. of A Book of Cookrye – Gowanda Pie
Emily aka Yinzerella from Dinner is Served 1972 – Melton Pork Pie
Erica Retrochef from Retro Recipe Attempts – Steak and Mushroom Pie
Catherine at Battenburgbelle – French Onion Pie
