The second part of our Super Bowl Party, to go nicely with the Meat Pops, was a Festive Chicken Salad Log. This sounded promising, since it’s a real recipe rather than something created by a marketing department.

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cups finely cut-up cooked chicken
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
1/4 cup sliced green onions (2 to 3 medium)
3 green pepper rings
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seed
3 tablespoons chopped green onion or green pepper
3 tablespoons chopped pitted ripe olives
3 tablespoons chopped pimiento, drained
Crackers or bread rounds

Mix cheese, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt, ginger, pepper and pepper sauce. Stir in chicken, eggs and 1/4 cup onions. Shape into log, 8×2 inches. Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate until firm about 4 hours.

Cut green pepper rings to make strips. Place strips diagonally across log, dividing into fourths as pictured. Sprinkle sesame seed on 1 section. Repeat with 3 tablespoons onion, the olives and pimiento on remaining sections. Serve with crackers. 10 to 12 servings.

Typically I would just get canned chicken for such a recipe, but I had some about-to-go-off chicken in the fridge that needed to be cooked and used for something. And after a quick poach, it turned out to be a lot tastier than canned chicken anyway — so, yay.

For the Super Bowl last weekend, we mixed up a few retro snacks to enjoy during the game — starting with the bizarrely-named “Meat Pops.” (It’s a sandwich on a stick! Ew…)

Meat Pops

1/2 # package sliced luncheon meat *
3-ounce package cream cheese
2-3 teaspoons milk
8 large pretzel sticks (8-9 inches long)

Spread each slice of meat with cream cheese which has been softened with milk to spreading consistency. Roll meat slice diagonally around pretzel stick near one end. (May be chilled up to one hour before serving). Makes 8.

* Many different varieties of square sliced meats may be used.

There is apparently not very much square luncheon meats available in the deli at Bi-Lo these days, so we’re using ham. Square ham.

We took last week off in order to add a new member to our family, and I wasn’t really feeling up to standing around the kitchen cooking yet. But when I mentioned I wanted to try some peach cobbler (an interesting and retro peach cobbler, of course), my daughter cheerfully offered to take the lead in cooking and photographing. She did a pretty decent job, too!

Crusty Peach Cobbler

“Top is golden-brown, sugar-crusted shortcake”–

3 cups sliced fresh peaches
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon lemon juice
…
1-1/2 cups enriched emergency flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1/2 cup milk
1 well-beaten egg
…
2 tablespoons sugar

Arrange peaches in greased, 8-inch-square baking pan. Sprinkle with mixture of 1/4 cup sugar, almond extract, lemon juice, and lemon peel. Heat in oven while preparing shortcake. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and 1 tablespoon sugar; cut in shortening until mixture is like coarse crumbs. Add milk and egg at once; stir just until flour is moistened. Spread dough over hot peaches. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar. Bake in hot oven (400°) 40 minutes. Serves 6.–Mrs. H. E. Connell, Dallas, Texas.

That all looks reasonably tasty and straightforward — except I don’t know what enriched emergency flour was. Luckily, we have Google!

I’ve been wanting to cook with chicken more in general, and as part of that goal I bought two whole friers recently at the farmers’ market. Trouble is, I am not really an expert at cooking a whole chicken. I know you can roast it, and I know you can turn it into soup — method is a little more fuzzy. So I was certainly interested in trying this recipe for Brown Chicken Fricassée when I stumbled across it. What exactly is it supposed to be, I wasn’t sure.

It certainly is brown, though, isn’t it…

There’s a pretty big difference between macaroni & cheese made from scratch, and made from a box — most notably, perhaps, the brilliant orange color you get from packaged cheese powder. I think it’s the same thing they use to paint construction barrels.

Kraft began selling boxed macaroni & cheese under the name “Kraft Dinner” in 1937. (While it’s now “Kraft Macaroni & Cheese” in the US, it’s still “Kraft Dinner” in Canada.) It was a popular product, presumably because of the low price and easy, quick preparation.

Kraft apparently decided they wanted to make it even more usable than it already was by introducing a short pamphlet of recipes (You can serve Square Meals… Speedy Meals… with Kraft Dinner) — such as Kraft Dinner with Creamed Succotash, Kraft Dinner with Creamed Chicken and Carrots, or Kraft Dinner with Cucumber Sauce. Apparently the traditional preparation from my own childhood, “Kraft Dinner with Hot Dogs” on the side, just wasn’t fancy enough. (This pamphlet isn’t dated, but is estimated to be from some time in the 50′s — certainly before the product name was updated to “Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner” in 1958.)

Kraft Dinner with Cucumber Sauce

1 cup diced cucumber
2 cups cooked tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
Dash of pepper
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
1 pkg. Kraft Dinner

Combine the cucumber, tomatoes, onion, salt, paprika and pepper. Cook until the mixture is slightly thickened. Add the parsley. Prepare the Kraft Dinner as directed on the package. Place in five greased custard cups. Unmold on a large shallow chop plate and surround with the cucumber sauce.

I grew up understanding “eggnog” to be a mysterious migratory product that only showed up in the dairy section of the grocery store for a few months of the year. Store-bought eggnog, though, has neither alcohol nor (usually) egg — and while I liked it, it always reminded me of melted ice cream. Then, I met Buzz, and one winter he made his grandfather’s eggnog for my family. It was a delicious revelation.

Eggnog (or egg nog, or egg nogg) has almost as many recipes as it does spellings — rather to be expected given its venerable history. Generally, the traditional eggnog recipe involves raw egg, dairy (milk and/or heavy cream), sugar, and alcohol, with a light sprinkling of nutmeg on top. The alcohol of choice doesn’t matter much, although if you’re getting a retro recipe from a booze advertisement, it’s going to call for a particular brand. (Not just rum — Myers Jamaica Rum! Bacardi! Gold label Puerto Rican rum!) To give the egg-dairy mixture additional body, it is gently mixed with either stiffly-beaten egg whites, or (more rarely) whipped cream. Alternatively, go with the modern convenience method of just adding alcohol to commercial eggnog.

But every now and then, there’s a crazy variation that makes us squint and wonder what crazed cook decided this recipe was worth sharing with the world…

ETHAN ALLEN EGG NOG

2 qts. ready-made chilled eggnog
1/2 cup orange juice, chilled
1 pt. (2 cups) rum
2 cups whipped cream
1 orange rind, grated

Mix eggnog with orange juice and rind in punch bowl. Fold in whipped cream and keep chilled. Add rum. Add a slice of orange for decoration and serve immediately.

Happy First Night of Hanukkah! (however you prefer to transliterate it.)

Since this holiday is all about celebrating amazing oil that lasted for eight days rather than the expected one (the original energy-efficiency holiday, if you think about it), it’s generally traditional to serve something fried. I’m still working with the oil for this retro recipe attempt, but in a slightly different form…

Pie Crust. I have met very few people who say, “Oh, pie crust is really easy to make,” or “my homemade pie crust tastes amazing.” The general rule of thumb is that pie crust actually isn’t all that bad, but it does require some attention — in particular, you have to keep your fat of choice (butter, lard, and/or shortening) very cold while cutting it in, or utter disaster will result. I’ve also run into problems with overmixing or overworking the dough, resulting in a very dense, chewy, unappealing crust. And if your crust is mediocre, you need to have an absolutely amazing filling to save that pie.

I was pretty intrigued, therefore, by this advertisement I stumbled across which used oil, rather than very cold chunks of some sort of fat. It didn’t sound like it could possibly match the quality of “standard” crust methods, but the simplicity of just “stir and roll” really appealed to me — we had to try this.

Of all the recipes-with-products advertisements I’ve come across, I think I like the Wrigley’s gum ones the most. They make no attempt to actually integrate gum into recipes (thank goodness, right?) so it seems more likely their food would be about flavor, not innovative uses of ingredients. Oddly, though, I don’t think I’ve made a Wrigley’s vintage recipe before — maybe it doesn’t feel risky enough. I guess I need an adrenaline rush with my weird recipe attempts.

For the holiday season, I wanted to try a few different variations of fruitcake. I love my grandmother’s recipe the best, but there are so many ways of making fruitcakes, and a lot of retro advertising came up with some intriguing (and frightening) variations, promising simplicity and deliciousness.

Yet this one still stands out, because I have absolutely no clue what makes it a “Hong Kong” Fruitcake.

HONG KONG FRUITCAKE

1 — Prepare 1 pkg. marble cake mix as directed on package. Add 2 Tbs. chopped candied ginger (crystalized preferred), 1 tsp. almond extract. Spoon batter into wax paper lined tube pan (alternating white with chocolate; with knife cut through batter several times.

2 — Bake 40 min. at temp given on pkg.

3 — Cool, then frost with powdered sugar icing. (Blend 2-1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar, 1 Tbs. butter. Add 2 Tbs. milk, 1 tsp. almond extract.) Stud with currants, pieces of candied cherries and ginger, citron, 2 kinds of nuts.

I don’t know, what Hong Kong stereotype would this recipe conjure up in the 60′s? Maybe it’s the ginger. At least there isn’t some bad caricature to go with it.

(Google is absolutely no help, since the only mention of “Hong Kong Fruitcake” I can find is the Wrigley’s ad. Soon, I’ll be the second most prevalent online source for Hong Kong Fruitcake. Don’t worry, I’ll still remember all you loyal readers when I’m rich and famous.)

We like to make pumpkin puree from scratch — cut up and bake a pumpkin, puree the flesh, and freeze it for year-round use. It doesn’t necessarily have the convenience of dumping out a can of puree, but it does mean you can have “fresh” pumpkin on hand in March when it’s less easy to find cans of pumpkin in the store.

On the other hand, it means we have a lot of pumpkin hanging out in our freezer sometimes. In an attempt to use up the last of the 2010 batch, we are still making pumpkin-based food although Thanksgiving is well past. (Frankly, the South Carolina climate is so bizarre to my northern sensibilities that it still seems like early fall to me, despite December holidays rapidly approaching. It was 60°F here today and it’s going to be warmer the rest of the week. I just don’t understand this.)

Just a quick disclaimer before you read any further — that does not mean “balls of porcupine meat,” it means “meatballs that look like porcupines.” I’m not cooking a porcupine this week.

Now that’s cleared up, let’s take a look at what we’re trying to make and eat this week…

This is one that has been up for consideration a number of times, actually, but we’ve always either settled on something better or worse. While these meat balls are pretty weird looking, they aren’t quite as outlandish as some things we’ve made — they fall into that middle ground of odd, but not horrifyingly bizarre. I am actually not so much freaked out by the “porcupine” rice bits, as I am by the weird glossy coating the meatballs seem to have. Food just isn’t supposed to glisten like that.