1950’s Housewife: Breakfast Dish

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1950's housewife food, 1950's recipes, bacon casserole, breakfast casserole, egg casserole, holiday breakfast

My mother-in-law Janie recently celebrated her 80th birthday.  Her health is declining and her memory is faded, but we are blessed to still have her in our midst and we treasure those moments when she seems to engage with us and enjoy our company.

The occasion made me remember a little notebook of recipes Janie gave to me at my bridal shower.  It is filled with Hursh family favorites-all written down from her own memory and 60 years of housewifery. I thought about all the cookbooks I’ve tried since beginning this blog-all the family recipes I’ve tasted that were not from my own family. And I decided to do some family recipes from my notebook, as a tribute to Janie.  They’re all typical 1950’s Midwestern cuisine-heavy on meat, potatoes and butter and severely lacking in vegetables!  (Eat a salad as a side dish!)

The first is the Breakfast Dish.  I’ve actually lightened this one up a bit by using whole grain bread, and turkey bacon, reducing the amount of cheese and eliminating the salt and the STICK OF BUTTER that Janie says should be poured over the mixture before baking. I have made it the original way and it’s just too greasy and salty for my tastes but… to each his own! In the Hursh family, this is typically served on holiday mornings because it has to be made the night before and let to “soak” overnight in the refrigerator, making for an easy yet hearty breakfast.

The page with the recipe written down by Janie.

Line a pan with crustless bread…

Mix eggs, milk, spices and cheese…

Pour the egg mixture over the bread and top with cooked breakfast meat.

Ingredients

1 package of bread, crusts removed
6 eggs
3 cups of milk
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon oregano
1 cup shredded cheese
1 package ham, or cooked sausage or bacon, chopped into small pieces.

Instructions

Place bread into 8×11 inch pan in overlapping layers. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and them combine them with the milk, spices and cheese. Pour that mixture over the bread and then top it with the cooked meat. Cover and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.

In the morning, place the casserole in an oven preheated to 350 degrees. Bake one hour or until the middle of the casserole is cooked through and a toothpick comes out clean. Serve and enjoy!

Finished dish-it puffs up like a souffle!

Julia Child’s Casserole-Roasted Chicken With Bacon, Onions and Potatoes (Poulet en Cocotte Bonne Femme)

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chicken, French cooking, historical food, Julia Child, main dishes, recipes, vintage recipes

I’m reposting this recipe as part of the wonderful PBS event happening right now! From August 5-15, PBS is celebrating the life and cuisine of Julia Child, who would have turned 100 years old this month! I’ll be adding more recipes to my Julia collection during that time and you can find out more about what PBS has planned by clicking here!

Up until now, I’ve had this notion that for the purposes of this blog, I need to fix recipes which are 100 years old or older. But my favorite cookbook is only 51 years old. And I’m going to make an exception.

“Mastering the Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Berthold, published in 1961, may not seem terribly historic, but you must remember that Julia and her friends were translating traditional French recipes-some of them likely 100 years old or older- for the modern world. So that counts, right?

I was one of those women who watched “Julie and Julia” and fell in love with the notion of French cooking. I was one of those women who went directly from the TV to Amazon.com to order a copy of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” I was one of those women who waited expectantly for about a week, sighing with disappointment whenever the mailman passed by without delivering said cookbook. And I was one of those women who squealed with glee and took a photo of my treasure to post on Facebook as soon as it arrived.

I am not one of those women who wants to cook every recipe in the book.

That said, I have tried nearly a dozen recipes in the past year-and loved almost all of them. (Will I be mocked for saying that I thought the famous Beef Bourguignon is not everything it’s made out to be?)

I’ve spent much more time reading the cookbook than actually cooking from it. I love how it’s laid out-step-by-step with the corresponding ingredients. It’s written conversationally. I’m convinced that even a novice cook could tackle these recipes.

They are time-consuming though-everything is homemade. There’s no microwaving and no shortcuts. And there are certain essentials you must stock before cooking like Julia…cream, butter, onions, wine (all kinds) and a Dutch oven that can also be used on the stove top.

My mother gave me a Dutch oven this spring. It’s my favorite casserole dish and it allows me to do more of Julia’s recipes than before, including this one. I loved this dish because it’s all in one pot-and it’s a good one for company, because you throw everything in and then let it cook while you entertain.

Ingredients
• ½ pound bacon
• 5 tablespoons of butter
• 1 tablespoon oil
• Five boneless chicken breasts
• 15-25 pearl onions or one regular white onion, chopped in large chunks
• 1 to 1 ½ pounds new potatoes or four large regular white potatoes, cut into large chunks
• ¼ salt
• spices

Instructions
Fry the bacon in the Dutch oven until very lightly browned, about 2-3 minutes. Set bacon aside, leaving the droppings in the dish.

Add 2 tablespoons of butter and the oil and heat. Brown the chicken in the bacon drippings, butter and oil, 2-3 minutes on each side, until just slightly brown. Set the chicken aside; pour out the fat and oil.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Drop onions in boiling, salted water and boil slowly for five minutes. Drain and set aside.

Peel and trim potatoes into uniform slices about an inch in diameter. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil, then drain immediately. You don’t want to overcook the potatoes.

Heat the rest of the butter in the casserole on the stove until it is foaming. Add the drained potatoes and roll them around in the butter over moderate heat for 2 minutes to evaporate their moisture-it will keep them from sticking to the casserole. Spread them in a circle around the edge of the casserole. Salt the chicken and place inside the casserole. Place the bacon and onions over the potatoes, and sprinkle in whatever spices you wish.

Cover the casserole and heat it on the stove until the contents are sizzling, then put it straight into the oven and roast until the chicken is no longer pink, about 30-45 minutes, basting once or twice with the butter and juices in the pan.

As Julia would say, “Bon Appetit!”

Spinach and Potato Soup, ca. 1861

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easy weeknight meals, heritage recipes, historical food, old recipes, potatoes, side dishes, soup, spinach, vintage recipes

Nearly a year ago, I tried making a cucumber soup. It was green and beautiful… and it tasted totally gross. My girls and I each tried one bite-and threw the rest away (I didn’t even ask my husband to sample-he’s not big on green vegetables). I know the taste of the yucky cucumber soup had absolutely nothing to do with its color but since then, my girls and I have had an aversion to green soup.

I don’t know what possessed me to try another green soup-this time made with spinach-except that I had a bag of spinach that needed using and this recipe contained onions and potatoes and bacon-and I thought, how could a soup containing onions and potatoes and bacon taste bad?

I was right.

Not only is this soup good, it’s quick and makes a great side dish to just about any meat or fish. It comes from “Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Cookery and Household Management,” published in 1861. Here’s how you make it:

Ingredients
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 2 raw potatoes, diced
• 2 pounds or one bag of spinach-washed
• 1 cup sour cream
• Salt and pepper and spices to taste
• Crumbled bacon or bacon bits for garnish

Instructions
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the onion and cook over low heat for 10 minutes until soft but not brown.

Add the chicken stock and potatoes and cook for 15 more minutes.

Add the spinach and spices and cook for 10 additional minutes or until potatoes are tender. Pour the mixture into a food processor or blender.

Blend until as smooth as possible, about 20 seconds. Pour back into the saucepan. Add the sour cream and heat again without boiling. Spoon soup into bowls and top with bacon or bacon bits.

The soup makes about six-eight servings, depending on how much you spoon into each bowl. Enjoy!

Bacon Muffins

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bacon, bread, cooking, food, heritage recipes, historical food, history, homemade bread, muffins, old recipes, recipe, recipes, side dishes, vintage recipes

I make a lot of muffins for breakfast-and dinner. They’re easy and fast and I know my kids will eat them. And muffins tend to be fluffier than biscuits-and I like fluffy!

This recipe is a new favorite of my girls-I made 12 muffins and they were gone in 48 hours-and they were asking for more! It’s fast too. I mixed it in 10 minutes and it took another 20 to bake-so by the time my little morning birds were up, and dressed and ready to eat, there were piping hot muffins waiting for them. To be fair, I had fried up the bacon the day before (I always fry extra because you never know when you’ll need a slice, or 4, for a recipe).

This recipe comes to us from “Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book” by F. George Fredrick, published in 1935. Pennsylvania Dutch refers to immigrants and their descendants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland who settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup bits crisp bacon (about 4 or 5 slices)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large bowl, mix sugar, salt and baking powder. Add egg and milk. Add melted shortening, beating in quickly. Add bits of crisped bacon. Spoon into muffin tins lined with paper cups, filling about 2/3 of the way full.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

The first thing I noticed was how beautifully puffy the muffins got. I’ve never had that result, and so now I’m vowing to add 3 teaspoons of baking powder to every muffin recipe I make.

The muffins without anything on them are rather plain tasting, so spread them with butter or, as crazy as this sounds, jam, as the sweetness is an interesting compliment to the bacon.  Enjoy!

Beef “Olives”

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bacon, beef, beef olives, easy weeknight meals, gravy, hamburger, heritage recipes, historical food, history, main dishes, old recipes, quick meals, recipe, recipes, vintage recipes

Let me begin by saying that if you love olives, this recipe may be highly disappointing. However, if you love beef stuffed with bacon, then smothered with gravy, you’ve come to the right recipe.

Have I got your attention now? I thought so.

There are about a thousand different variations of the vintage Beef Olive recipe. Some have veal or pork stuffed into the beef-which sounds yummy and I might try it at a later date. But I picked this one because, frankly, I had beef and I had bacon! Also, I knew my husband would love it-and so would every other guy reading this blog.

This recipe comes from “The Virginia House-wife” by Mary Randolph, first published in 1824. I hope to get my hands on a copy in the near future. Mary Randolph’s volume was considered the most influential housekeeping book of the 1800’s. Incidentally, she’s also the first recorded person to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Here is Mary’s recipe:
Ingredients
• fat rump of beef six inches long and half an inch thick
• 1 pint of good gravy
• brown flour
• 1 spoonful of butter
• 1 gill of red wine
• 2 spoonsful of mushroom catsup
• bread crumbs
• fat bacon chopped
• parsley
• a little onion
• some shred suet
• pounded mace
• pepper
• salt
• yelks of eggs

Instructions
Cut slices from the fat rump of beef, beat them well with a pestle; make a forcemeat of bread crumbs, bacon, parsley, onion, suet, mace, pepper and salt; mix it up with the yelks, and spread a thin layer over each slice of beef, roll it up tight, and secure the rolls with skewers, set them before the fire, and turn them till they are a nice brown; have ready the gravy, thickened with brown flour and the butter, red wine, with the mushroom catsup, lay the rolls in it, and stew them till tender; garnish with forcemeat balls.

Don’t you love how she writes egg “yelks”?

I didn’t have a rump of beef lying around-but I did have a package of hamburger, and most of the other ingredients. I did some experimenting with the forcemeat, as there are no measurements recorded by Mrs. Randolph.

I’ll also use this recipe to introduce you to mace-not the chemical spray used to ward off bad guys-but the spice made from the dried covering of the nutmeg. You’ll find it at most big-name grocers. It’s a necessity in the vintage kitchen, as it was one of the most widely used spices in recipes written before 1900.

Here is my version:

Ingredients
• 1.5 pounds of ground chuck
• ½ cup of plain bread crumbs
• ½ pound bacon, fried, drained, cooled and cut into small pieces with kitchen shears
• 1 tablespoon of parsley
• 1 tablespoon dried minced onion, reconstituted in water
• 3 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon mace
• 2 egg yolks
• Salt and pepper
• One jar of commercial gravy, any flavor
• One 7 ounce can of mushroom pieces and stems
• 1/2 cup of red wine like Burgundy or red cooking wine

Instructions
To make the stuffing, also known as “forcemeat”, mix the bread crumbs, bacon, parsley, onion, butter, mace, egg yolks and salt and pepper in a medium size bowl. It will look something like this when ready:

Next, take a handful of ground chuck and, on a flat plate, make a patty as flat as you can with the palm of your hand. Take a tablespoon of the forcemeat and place it in the middle of the flattened patty, flattening it also as much as you can with the back of the spoon, until it looks like this:

Roll the ground chuck up and place it in a skillet, sprayed with cooking oil, on medium heat. Repeat until you’ve used up all the ground chuck-you should have about eight patties.

Fry the patties until brown on each side, taking care when you flip them not to let them fall apart. Flatten the patties again with your spatula.

While the patties are browning, mix the gravy, mushrooms, and wine in a medium bowl. When the patties are brown, drain the fat from the skillet and then pour the gravy mixture evenly over the patties.

Cover the skillet and let simmer on low to medium low for about 20 minutes, until the meat is no longer pink. Serve with a spoon of gravy (or more!) ladled over each patty.

As you can imagine, this was a big hit with my husband. I served it with potato fritters-also smothered in gravy from the beef olive pan-a salad, and a slice of bread. It’s a step up from your ordinary hamburger or meatloaf meal and it was easy and quick to prepare-perfect for busy weeknights.  To make it easier, fry some extra bacon one morning before school-and set it back for this dish. Enjoy!

Next blog post: My very first bread-and an introduction to my new best friend in the kitchen.
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