Noodle stuffing recipe card

How can something savoury be unsavoury? Here’s how:

Sticky pear gingerbread recipe card

Nice cake, shame about the terrifying dolls.

And-so-to-bed recipe card

Please mummy, don’t make me drink this concoction of warm egg, milk and sugar.

Chicken Maryland

Why did I decide to make this? Pure nostlagia. As a wee thing, my mother would (sometimes) bread small pieces of chicken for our birthday party teas, a sortof non-toxic (and, ofcourse, very tasty) chicken nugget, to the approbation of our school friends. I remember one of the remarking ‘I’ve asked my mum to do some chicken, like yours’. My sympathies now lie with the mother – the little darling in question was one of four siblings (or possibly five). I then went through all my cookbooks looking for a suitable recipe in an attempt to find a suitable recipe and decided that a pared-down* version of Chicken Maryland perfectly fitted the bill.

*The full dish, according to my recipe book, involves breaded chicken, grilled banana, bacon rolls and sweetcorn fritters. (See below.)  Consequently, the bacon and bananas listed on this recipe should be ignored

Notes

• As long as you’re not a total idiot with a frying pan, this is basically foolproof. I was half-cut when actually putting it together and really, as long as you chop all the chicken beforehand, line up the bowls of egg, crumbs, etc sensibly, you’re laughing.

Results

Oh, the passing of the years… these were tasty but… a little bland. The chicken certainly benefitted from the addition of some barbecue sauce. I would definitely make again – my enjoyment of breaded chicken is undiminished, even if I normally cloak it in a more adult disguise, but I would season the  breadcrumbs more – with chilli and mustard powder at the very least.

Marylanded by Elly

Sweet Corn Bread

Ah, sweetcorn. A controversial choice to some regular readers but a very popular one in my house, as those very readers will know. This recipe is from Lousene Rousseau Brunner’s New Casserole Treasury (1970, The Cookery Book Club for Harper and Row). A book in which a great deal of care and attention has been paid to the layout of recipes  – a lovely, calm sans-serif font and  recipes arranged so that the pages need never be turned during cooking. Thanks, Ms R-B, you bring order to a troubled universe and your use of booze is epic. (Seriously, one of these days I will make Parisian Chicken and then you will see – but this will necessitate a serious trip to the offy. Until then, you’re stuck reading about ‘Things I have made with things I have found in my fridge’.)

Notes

• I made half quantities, using 2 small eggs.
• I have never added wholemeal flour to hot milk before, rest assured that it does indeed instantly turn to mush.
• I have never bought creamed corn and didn’t have any at home, but according to my understanding, it’s sweetcorn in thin white sauce. So I slaked a little white flour with milk and added this to some ordinary tinned sweetcorn.

Results

This needed almost an hour to cook. It didn’t not begin to get browned and puffy until around 45 minutes. It was still rather damp in the middle and after cutting off a wedge to eat with sausages and peas, I put the rest back in the cooling oven to dry off. It was surprisingly light, more like a thick pancake than a scone or yeast bread. A half quantity made a circular bread of 9 inches diameter and 1.5 inches deep – how much this feeds is dependent on what you serve with it (and how hungry your guests). It reheated well in a dry frying pan or warm oven and went well with everything, but especially spicy foods and anything containing onions.

Bread by Elly

Pretzels

I love pretzels of all kinds (bread-y ones, crispy ones, OK, I like both kinds of pretzels) and was keen to make some more savoury snacks for our blog-day party. I bought ‘Scandinavian Cooking’ by Beryl Frank, (published by Evans Brothers, 1978) recently but have yet to cook anything from it – the bread section looks particularly good and I had high hopes for these based on the illustration.

Notes

• These were a lot of work – I had to calculate how long it would take me to make them, what with all the rising.
• I was very confused by the direction that the dough should be left in the fridge to rise. Shorely yeast needs heat to rise? Anyway, I don’t cook with yeast very often and on the  occasions (two) when I a) have and b)have gone un peu off-recipe, it has always been a disaster. So I decided to follow all instructions absolutely and completely.
• The dough did not appear to be rising much throughout the process but I carried on, blindly!

Results

They didn’t rise. They puffed up a bit in the heat but basically, they were just slightly salted pastry-like biscuits. Pleasant but boring and not worth the time and effort at all. I will have another go at these in future and let them rise at room temp and see if this is more successful.  For shame, Scandinavian Cookery, don’t let me down when 13th December rolls around and I have a go at  St Lucia’s bread!

Pretzeled by Elly

Käsetorte recipe card

This looks delicious, but why the prostrate doll partially in shot? Is she stuck under the plate?

Igloo recipe card

The igloo is made of a sponge cake covered in meringue.  Are the snowmen meant to live in the igloo? Why does the snowman need an umbrella? That reindeer’s a bit small. Like the use of Smarties though. Very realistic.

Sailing boats recipe card

I think I might make these sometime, they’re purty!

Brown bears recipe card

Brown bears, brown bears, sitting in the rockery, why do you look so sad? Is it because you’re made of faux ice-cream and have licorice shoe laces for mouths? Or is it something more? Do tell us, brown bears. Perhaps we can help?