Punch Request: Fruit Punch Delight

I got a request for some non-alcoholic punches that didn't include fruit juice concentrates. Here's one from the Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook:

Fruit Punch Delight

2 c. strawberries
2 bananas
1 c. sugar
1 (20 oz.) can crushed pineapple (drained liquid reserved)
3/4 c. pineapple juice from crushed pineapple
1 qt. orange juice
1 1/2 c. water

Combine strawberries, bananas, pineapple and sugar in blender. Blend until well mixed. Combine with remaining ingredients and stir well. Chill and serve. Makes 3 quarts.

--Gertie Weilder, Pat Leake

Good golly, it's a fruit punch that uses actual fruit! 3 quarts isn't a whole bunch, though--I like to think of punch in terms of gallons.

Dishes to Tote; Savory Sausage Rice

I think that nearly everyone who goes to many potluck events succumbs, eventually, to potluck fatigue. You know what I mean -- you have one dish that you go to over and over. You're always the one who brings the Polynesian chicken. Or the green bean casserole. Or the chilled tortellini on skewers to dip in a chilled tomato vodka sauce. (That's my fallback.)

How can you get out of this rut? Adopt someone else's fallback, like this one from the Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook:

Savory Sausage Rice
Pat Diehnelt

Once our family was on a test group for the Farm Journal magazine. They sent this recipe to be tested. Our family enjoyed it very much. Later they published it in their cookbook under "Dishes to Tote". Usually I take this to pot luck suppers.

2 lb. bulk sausage
1 c. finely chopped green pepper
3/4 c. chopped onion
2 1/2 c. coarsely chopped celery
2 (2 1/8 oz.) pkgs. chicken noodle soup mix
4 1/2 c. boiling water
1 c. uncooked rice
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. melted butter or margarine
1 c. blanched almonds (slivered)

Brown suasage in large skillet; pour off excess fat. Add green pepper, onion and 1 c. celery; saute. Start the second paragraph at same time as this.

Combine soup mix and boiling water in large saucepan; stir in rice. Cover and simmer 20 minutes or until tender. Add sausage mix and salt; stir. Pour into greased baking dish, about 9x12 inches. Sprinkle remaining celery over top; drizzle with melted butter. Bake at 375° 20 minutes. Makes 10 servings.

If almonds are used, saute' all celery with green pepper and onion. Mix most of almonds with other ingredients; save a few to sprinkle on top. Omit melted butter.

I try very hard to avoid introducing typographical errors into the recipes here at Take One Cookbook... That being said, I also try to preserve the recipes -- so "suasage" stays, as does the close-quotation-period construction that makes me cringe so.

I'm not sure why they're using chicken noodle soup mix instead of stock (or, being a 1970s/1980s cookbook, bouillon cubes), but I'm willing to give it a go. I'm also not sure why we should omit the tasty melted butter if we're having almonds. Butter is good! Butter is tasty! I'm amused by the 1/2 t. of salt; on the face, that doesn't seem like much for a recipe that feeds 10, but considering there's sausage AND soup mix going on, I'm sure there's ample salt.

Most folks aren't going to have a baking dish that's "about 9x12 inches." I'm betting you have a 9x13 dish handy, though.

Farm Journal Magazine is still going strong; I did a search for "recipe," and think if I go off to recommend the best to you, I'll never come back, I'll just fall in to reading recipes and end up going another few days without a post. (My apologies for missing recently.)

It's time we say goodbye to the ladies of the Milwaukee Ward Relief Society. There's a trove of stuff we didn't touch -- kids sharing their mom's recipes (ha!), pages of substitutes for alcohol in various recipes, soap recipes, kitchen wisdom, leftover hints, and how long everything will keep in the fridge or freezer. The book is more than a little dated, and definitely a product of an LDS committee (see: alcohol substitutes), but a good go-to cookbook, especially for novice cooks who want something that feels homey.

Feeling Older, Part 2: Frozen Peanut Butter Pie

We didn't eat out much when I was growing up, so my early restaurant experiences are seared in my mind as the Special Occasions they really were. At one restaurant, we sat at the counter, and I was allowed to order dessert. I chose something that sounded yummy, and ended up being so rich, so decadent, so completely impossible to finish... and it became my absolute favorite dessert for years and year. Whenever I see it on a menu, I still start to order it, to this day.

The Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook is, once again, a shrine to the recipes that entranced me as a child.

Frozen Peanut Butter Pie
Connie Poppy

Graham Cracker Crust:
18 graham crackers
3 T. sugar
1/3 c. melted butter or margarine

Mix together. Reserve some for topping. Press evenly on bottom and sides of pie pan. Bake 10 minutes at 350°. Cool.

Filling:

3 oz. cream cheese
1 c. powdered sugar
1/3 c. smooth peanut butter
1/2 c. milk

Mix the above together until smooth and creamy. Fold in 9 oz. of Cool Whip. Fold into pie crust. Sprinkle reserved topping or chopped peanuts on top. Freeze 4 hours or overnight.

Reserved topping? Nice to know we should try that... I'd rather use chopped nuts, or some crumbled graham crackers.

Speaking of, I'd admit to being a margarine person for the better part of the first two decades of my life, but... do me a favor: use butter for your crust. It just tastes better than margarine. It does.

Though I won't rat you out if you use a pre-made crust from the store. Heck, I won't rat you out if you buy a chocolate pre-made crust, or if you line your crust with Oreos before adding your peanut butter mixture. Or chocolate Flicks. Heck, line the tin with them, and then top the pie with them! Have fun with it.

Cut your pie into tiny, very thin slices. This bad boy is RICH.

Feeling Older: Grape Nuts Bread

Growing up in the 1970s, I felt like there were somethings that were distinctly Refined. Grown Up. Sophisticated.

Baking bread was one of those things. When my dad let me help knead bread? I was puffed up with self-importance.

Eating non-sugared cereal was another. Shredded wheat. Bran Flakes. Grape Nuts.

Three cheers for The Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook, and Marian Loeffler's contribution, for combining my ideas of sophistication in one swell recipe:

Grape Nuts Bread
Marian Loeffler

1 c. Grape Nuts in 2 c. milk for 1 hour. Add 1 egg beaten. Stir together

1 c. sugar
4 c. flour
1 tsp. soda
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Sift dry ingredients, add to wet mixture. Let bread stand about 20 minutes in pan before baking. Makes 12 large muffins and 1 small loaf. Bake at 350°.

Well, that's a very, very slow quick bread...

And yet I can taste it. The soaked Grape Nuts, releasing their nutty maltiness into the milk. The sugar -- which I'd like to take out a tablespoon or two and replace with some brown sugar.

I imagine this will taste good with a slather of butter and some honey, or a dab of mustard and sliced ham. Oh, yes. Sliced ham will play nicely with this. The smokiness, the sweetness... it calls out for Grape Nuts bread.

A bit of Google-Fu suggests that this Marian Loeffler might well be Mrs. Charles Loeffler; if so, then she and her husband are regular contributors to health-related charities in Milwaukee.

Cooking for a Crowd; Sunshine Slush

Doubling a recipe? Easy. Tripling? A tiny bit more work, but still... easy. But what if you really want to cook for a crowd? How much of that recipe do you really need? When in doubt, ask the folks who are used to feeding hordes of people, like the fine ladies who contributed to the Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook.

Approximate Amounts To Serve 50 People

Navy beans for baking: 3 qts. or 6 lbs.
Canned string beans: 2 No. 10 cans
Canned beets: 2 No. 10 cans
Roast beef: 20 lbs.
Roast beef for Swiss steak 3/4 in. thick: 20 lbs.
Ground meat for loaf: 10 lbs.
Butter: 1-1/2 lbs.
Chicken (roasted) 30 lbs.
Chicken pie: 20 lbs.
Coffee: 1 lb.
Baked Ham: 2 hams 10 to 12 lbs. each
Ice cream - dessert: 2 gal.
Ice cream - for pie: 1 gal.
Lettuce: 1 oz. per salad
Head lettuce salad: 7 lbs.
Salted nuts: 1-1/2 lbs.
Olives: 2 qts.
Oysters (escalloped): 1 gal.
Peas: 2 No. 10 cans
Peas and carrots: 1 No. 10 can and 5 lbs carrots
Roast pork or fresh ham: 20 lbs.
Pork chops: 18 lbs.
Potatoes (mashed): 1-1/4 pecks
Sweet potatoes: 13-1/2 lbs.
Rice: 3 lbs.
Rolls: 100 rolls
Soup: 3 gal.
Turkey: 22-25 lbs.
Vegetables (fresh): Beans, beets, carrots or cabbage: 10 lbs.
Whipped cream: 2 pts.

Okay, then! Several of the other cookbooks I've covered so far have had sections on how to cook food enough for a wedding, but I like that this gives options. You could use this list as a guideline for whatever sort of meal you wanted to provide. I personally would provide more ice cream and more whipped cream, but I'm more than a little bit of a slut for dairy-based sweets.

I don't know that 1.5 pounds of butter is going to be enough, if we're all going to have two rolls, and a heaping helping of mashed potatoes and other veg, though.

Once you've sorted out how you're going to feed the hungry masses, you should sort out what to serve them to drink. The Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook has several punch recipes; being an LDS cookbook, none of them have alcohol. (I'll admit to being surprised at the pound of coffee allotted in the list above, as LDS members don't do caffeine, either.) But, really, not all punches need to be boozy concoctions, right? Right.

Sunshine Slush

3 c. water
1 c. sugar
2 ripe bananas (cut up)
2 (12 oz.) cans unsweetened pineapple juice
1 (6 oz.) can frozen orange juice (thawed)
1 (6 oz.) can frozen lemonade (thawed)
2 T. lemon juice
1 (28 oz.) bottle white soda (chilled)

In saucepan combine water and sugar. Bring to boiling, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil gently, uncovered for 3 minutes; remove from heat and cool. In blinder combine bananas and half the pineapple juice. Blend until smooth. Stir in cooled syrup. Stir in the remaining pineapple juice, orange juice and lemonade concentrates and lemon juice. Turn into a 13x9x2 inch pan or plastic freezer container. Cover with moisture vapor-proof material. Freeze at least several hours or as long as 2 months. To serve, remove mixture from freezer. Let stand at room temperature about 30 minutes. Spoon slush into each glass. Slowly pour in white soda, using equal amounts of slush and soda. Makes about 12 1/2 cups of punch.

Mmmm...tropical goodness. Is it wrong that I want to add rum? Coconut rum, to be precise. Mmmm....

If you're trying to use this punch for a crowd of 50, you'll need to at least quadruple the recipe.

When Is A Sundae Not A Sundae?: Chinese Sundae

Sometimes, if an item resembles another item in any way, it will take the name of what it resembles. Take, for example, the Appletini -- an Apple Martini that is apple-y, and alcoholic, and served in a cocktail glass, but is in no way a combination of gin and vermouth. Or, take this recipe, from the Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook:

Chinese Sundae
Carol Meyer

Make sundae in following order:

1. Rice
2. Chow mein noodles
3. Chopped chicken
4. Chicken gravy
5. Chopped tomatoes
6. Chopped celery
7. Grated cheese
8. Chopped green onions
9. Pineapple chunks
10. Coconut
11. Chopped almonds
12. Maraschino cherries

So... this could go in a sundae glass. Sure. And it's different food substances, layered together. It has pineapple. Coconut. Nuts. It's topped with a cherry.

Other than that, it sounds like a hot nightmare. I was going along with it until item 4. Chicken gravy? Oh, no... And cheese? In a "Chinese" dish? I'm skeptical.

I wonder... if we took out the gravy, and layered the chow mein noodles a little higher up, how this would work out. Ditch the cheese. And the cherry. Use a little soy for moisture, if needed, or, heck, some plum sauce or duck sauce. There's got to be potential for layering stuff like a sundae for dinner.

The 1980 publication date hides the fact that these recipes are very, very, very 1970s.

Political Cookery: Watergate Cake

I love a good cake, baked from scratch. True confession time: I also love a decent cake, baked from a mix. I do not turn up my nose about using a mix as a base, and adding in other ingredients to make it sing. In fact, I'm pretty darned fond of that. So are the contributors to the Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook.

Watergate Cake
Celia Vogl

1 pkg. instant pistachio pudding
1 pkg. white or yellow cake mix
1 c. oil
1/2 c. chopped nuts
3 eggs
1 c. club soda

Mix all above until mixed well. Grease a 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes.

Frosting:

1 pkg. instant pistachio pudding
1 pkg. Dream Whip
1 1/4 c. cold milk

Beat until spreading consistency.

Pistachio! A flavor I never really encountered until I moved away from home. No pistachio ice cream. No "lipstick" from red shells. No pistachios.

This cake did not originate at the Watergate. No, nor did Watergate Salad, another 1970s dish with pistachio pudding mix. So...why Watergate? Let's go to The Food Timeline:

"A new Watergate crisis is sweeping the Washington area, but this time only homemakers and a few business men seem to care... The crisis stems from the growing popularity of a recipe for a concoction called "Watergate Cake," which demands large quantities of powdered pistachio pudding mix, both in the layer cake and in its light green icing. Apparently, only one firm, Royal Pudding, a division of Standard Brands, Inc., distributes pistachio pudding in the Washington area. Supermarkets haven't been able to get enough to cope with the demands, which began around Thanksgiving time and was very heavy at Christmas. Store shelves have been regularly stripped of the mix the same day it is displayed...If the sales spurt is not directly attributable to the popularity of Watergate Cake... "The we don't know why this product has suddenly taken off. It's been just phenomenal..." Barry Scher, a spokesman for Giant Foods, placed the blame not only on the recipe, but also on a coincidental shortage of pistachio nuts. "That was about five months ago, the spokesman said, "And as it ended, this recipe began circulating around. We were bombarded. We hate to admit it, but we just can't keep the mix on the shelf. The onset of Watergate cake mania--and the resulting effort to close the supply-demand gap --has tested old friendships and challenged the ingenuity and competitive instincts of many a Washington-area homemaking... No one, meanwhile, seems able to pinpoint the origin of this Watergate, the recipe for which has appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Washington Post. Nor can anyone explain how the cake got its name or why pistachio is the main flavoring. One current explanation leans on the presence of crushed walnuts in the cake--"bugs" in the parlance of kids. Like the Giant spokesman, Harold Giesinger, proprietor of the Watergate Pastry shop, had no thoughts on where the recipe originated-- except that it was not with his bakery. "We haven't invented anything to which we'd attach a name like that," he said. Nor, he added, does his shop rely on pistachio as a key ingredient in any of its products. "A private source may have put it together, " he said of the recipe. Wherever Watergate Cake started, the pudding firm would like more more problems like it. Gagan suspects some people have been buying more pistachio pudding mix than they'll ever use, simply because it's hard to get...Further relief is in sight. Another manufacturer, General Foods, scanning the Watergate-assisted pistachio market, has decided to jump in. Its version is expected to hit the supermarket shelves in March..."
---"A Watergate Cake Mania," Alexander Sullivan, Washington Post, February 26, 1976 (p. B2)

Read more to learn about other (more believable) theories of how the name came about.

I'm just gobsmacked that one cake recipe could cause a run on one flavor of pudding...and then fade into such obscurity.

Have you ever had a Watergate Cake?

Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook; Sister Miller's Black Cherry Jello

Chefly Husband was born and raised in Milwaukee, WI, so it comes as no surprise to find a Milwaukee cookbook or three on our shelves. I'd asked some readers what kind of cookbook to feature this week, and both "seasonal" and "neighborhood" were asked for. Here's hoping this fits the bill.

The Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook was published in 1980, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (better known in some circles as the Mormons). The Relief Society (a major woman's organization within the church) of the Milwaukee Ward compiled favorite recipes, aphorisms, and household hints, and sold them in a comb-spined book with laminated light blue covers. Odds of you finding this cookbook? Slim. But, oh, it's a good one for a sense of time, place, and culture!

Let's kick the week off with that cross-denominational favorite: the molded salad.

Sister Miller's Black Cherry Jello
Joyce Miller

1 (6 oz.) pkg. black cherry Jello
1 (3 oz.) pkg. black cherry Jello
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
1 can black cherries (pitted)
1 c. chopped walnuts

Set Jello as directed until firm. Whip cream cheese (room temperature) with juice from black cherries until creamy. Then whip into Jello. Put in cherries and walnutes and mix and then put back in refrigerator until firm.

This sounds like it would be very pretty. Not as pretty as Aunt Pauline's stained glass Jell-o that I remember from childhood (There were layers of white Jell-o between all the colors! So pretty. So many layers.).

Pretty, yes, and steering entirely clear of the questionable Jell-o/fruit/veg/meat combinations that lurk in our collective memory and more than a few of the cookbooks we've yet to cover. This will end up with a mostly homogenous texture, and should be opaque, thanks to the cream cheese. It shouldn't make anyone think "ew."

Say I have expectations set far too low; I'm okay with that when it comes to the world of molded salads.

I wonder what it is about church groups and Jell-o...