Betty switches things up for Thanksgiving

 The random Betty Baker Tested loose pages I have that might be from a calendar offer a lot of holiday-appropriate recipes, so today, we're looking at a couple that would give you a little something different for your Thanksgiving table. 

After the Honey Almond Delight-topped chicken salad, I was a little worried about what Almond-Bran Stuffing might have in store.

I kind of doubt that poultry stuffed full of fortified bran cereal mixed with almonds, celery, onion, and parsley would beat out poultry stuffed with a bread-(or cornbread!)-based stuffing, but at least the Honey Almond Delight recipe puts this one in perspective. It could be worse. And it will make sure the big dinner keeps on moving through the ol' digestive system.

For those who want something pumpkinny but not desserty this year (or who just love opening cans), Colonial Pumpkin Soup could be an option.

I'm not sure how happy the people who prefer pumpkin in its sweeter incarnations would be, but at least they wouldn't be bored! Maybe fighting about whether you should go back to the more traditional Thanksgiving recipes could replace fights about politics at the table this year, so the recipes could still be a win. 

Be thankful I added some November recipes

Guess what Home Gardener's Cookbook (Marjorie Page Blanchard, 1974) has to say about November. Just guess.

The answer is absolutely nothing. The book ends at October because that's when the garden stops producing new crops and the gardener is ready to stop thinking about gardening for a while. I wanted to make the book last for a full year, though, so I held back some recipes for fall crops that can usually be stored and used into late fall and early winter, like turnips. Anybody up for Turnips in Custard?

There are no measurements for the sugar and seasonings, so you can make it as dessert-ish as you want.

If that's not your style, there's a recipe for a somewhat more traditional pairing of pumpkin and custard.

So-- pretty close to pumpkin pie without the crust, and with the fancy of step of being flambéed at the end.

If you really want a pie, the chapter offers a Hubbard Squash Pie.

This made me think of grandma, who always explained that she made her "pumpkin" pies out of squashes she'd grown in the garden, puréed, and frozen to use later. (I'm not really sure whether they were Hubbard squashes, though! She never said. I always assumed it was acorn squash for some reason, but I'm actually not sure... Could have been butternut or something else. We weren't usually visiting when she was harvesting the squashes.)

Or if you prefer to fiddle around with individual servings (because November is a good month for baking and surely you're not too busy!), there's a recipe for Pumpkin Tarts.

I was not aware ginger marmalade existed, but it sounds like a lovely addition to the bottom of a pumpkin tart!

No matter what you choose from this assortment of recipes, though, you're sure to get a blast of sweet, warm fall spices. Every day can taste like Thanksgiving, whether you want it to or not.

A '90s Halloween party!

I tend not to find a lot of Halloween-y recipes in the old collections. Maybe it's because by Halloween, home cooks were already planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas? (Fruitcakes could take months of work, and fall veggies from the garden might need to be preserved.) Luckily, I have some relatively recent (less than 40 years old!) cookbooks to help correct this oversight, like Treasured Recipes from Harris House (Westerville, Ohio, 1991).

Okay, most of the titles don't explicitly mention Halloween, but a title like Ghostly Potato Doughnuts certainly sounds the part.

Besides adding to the ghostly pallor, the potato would increase the hydration and shelf life of the doughnuts, so the recipe could also be a good make-ahead treat for a Halloween party. 

They might be served with Goblin's Perky Punch. (Sugar on sugar is a very important Halloween tradition!)

Besides, if you're freezing candy corn and candy pumpkins inside the ice cubes, it's GOTTA be a Halloween drink. (I can just imagine how excited some kids would be to realize that there's candy inside the ice. Hopefully their parents would have good dental insurance.)

There's also the old Halloween classic of popcorn balls, this time dressed up with orange marmalade.

And if you want black popcorn balls to go with the orange ones, substitute "1 (6 ounce) package of licorice sticks." (I assume it's substituted for the marmalade. Flo Holland does not specify.) In any case, it couldn't be much more obvious that this is a Halloween recipe, short of putting "Halloween" in the title.

And finally, for those who can ONLY be convinced it's genuinely meant as a Halloween recipe if the word is actually in the title, we have Halloween Cookies.

These can also serve as BOTH tricks and treats, as I imagine bars of chocolate candy could enhance plain old refrigerator cookies, but I am much less convinced of the power of Grape-Nuts to improve cookies. (Nobody sprinkles kitty litter or aquarium gravel on top of their cookies, after all!)

This is a fun little collection of Halloween-y recipes, and maybe a kid could even try to convince the parents that this is a wholesome and balanced menu for Halloween night. There's a vegetable in the doughnuts, fruit in the punch, and whole grain in the popcorn balls and cookies! It's practically health food to scarf all this stuff down before going out for candy. 

Food! from the USDA

The imaginatively-named Food is a magazine-ish publication of the UDSA from 1979. 

This booklet was "the first of a new series of USDA publications designed to give you up-to-date, reliable information about food and nutrition issues and suggestions on how to apply this information to your food decisions." The series doesn't seem to have gotten very far-- three issues, as far as I can tell. 

As the cover suggests, this one focuses mainly on breakfasts and snacks, and the recipes are, to some degree, what I would expect. Healthy snacks? I would have bet money on this having a recipe for a cottage-cheese-based dip. 

And I was right in betting on the type of recipe included, but I was mistaken in using the singular (dip). There are in fact TWO cottage-cheese-based dips.

And of course, there would be a healthy-ish popsicle.

I was impressed that this one is made with plain gelatin-- not strawberry!-- and plain yogurt, too... so even if the frozen strawberries had some added sugar, this would still have been a less sugary treat than a lot of midwestern-style Jell-O "salads."

The booklet also highlights economical meals, so you know it will have a meatless dinner option that's basically a brick of veggies, nuts, wheat germ, eggs, and dairy trying to masquerade as meatloaf.

This version is dressed up with a home-made onion sauce rather than cream-of-mushroom soup or ketchup. 

There were a few surprises, though, like the "Open-Faced Submarine Sandwiches."

Sorry, USDA, but calling an English-muffin-half topped with a little salami, (broiled!) lettuce and other veggies, and American cheese a "submarine sandwich" is such a misuse of the term that I am physically incapable of writing it without scare quotes.

And then there are the French Toasted Tuna Sandwiches.

I tried to keep an open mind, even though, admittedly, I hate tuna salad and am not particularly fond of French toast either. I thought, "Well, if you like tuna salad and use a savory rather than sweet custard for the French toast, you'd probably think this was fine." And then I saw the vanilla in the recipe. Does anybody really want vanilla and tuna salad?

Apparently the USDA thought so. And the more I gaze upon these recipes, the more surprised I am that this series made it all the way up to three issues....

Spooooooky Sandwiches!

Halloween recipes tend to be somewhat rare in my old cookbooks, but I love Halloween and want to put it in whenever I can, so today's recipes from Multi-Power Microwave Miracles from Sanyo (1977) seemed Halloween-ish enough for me to say they could fit the part.

My inspiration was the Witches' Brew Heroes, since the witchy aspect made them an obvious Halloween choice. I was also amused that "witches' brew" part of the name suggests it will be some kind of a beverage (or at least a soup or stew that could be cooked up in a big kettle over an open fire under a full moon). Nope! These are sandwiches.

Basically a very mild, bean-free chili on "hero rolls." So I guess it's at least close to a stew, now that I think about it. And maybe the green from the green pepper makes it extra witchy? (I don't know, but I'd add a "spider web" of shredded cheese to the tops of these.

Apparently, Sanyo really liked the idea of something chili-adjacent on a bun, as the Paul Bunyans are pretty similar-- just have some olives added in and they're served on hamburger buns.

Paul Bunyan is a Halloween-appropriate costume, and the added olives could be passed off as chopped-up eyeballs if you want to make it seem even spookier, so I'm calling this a Halloween recipe too.

And if you don't want basically thick chili on a bun, but you still want a sandwich with a spooky-ish name for Halloween, there's Old Mystic.

Granted, the mixture of crab, shrimp, cream cheese, white wine, and horseradish seems a bit too grownup for the kiddies on Halloween night, so it might be best to save Old Mystic for the adults. 

Of course, the scariest part of all these recipes is just trying to clean out the microwave after you've made them! (And airing out all that microwaved seafood smell from Old Mystic.) But "You know, it's Halloween. I guess everyone's entitled to one good scare, huh?" 

Well, they are creations involving chicken, anyway...

Chicken Delicious Creations (Favorite Brand Name Recipes) is from 1994, but it showed up in my collection with some other older stuff, so it's making an appearance here despite its relatively recent publication date.

This is one of those cookbooks that tries to include recipes from various cultures, but doesn't try very hard because it's got to include whatever brand names it's trying to sell. The Chicken and Shrimp Gumbo, for instance, looks more like a succotash with extra veggies and proteins dumped in than an actual gumbo.

No roux for thickening. No holy trinity-- just the green peppers. Plenty of canned Del Monte vegetables, though.

When I saw a whole can of Carnation evaporated milk went into the recipe for Chicken with Snow Peas and Walnuts, I told myself that maybe the recipe developers weren't trying for a Chinese-ish item (even though that's what the inclusion of snow peas generally meant back then).

But then I saw the picture-- complete with chopsticks and rice noodles. I guess we're just ignoring that actual Chinese dishes don't use much in the way of dairy so Carnation can move some product.

There's also yet another reminder that back in the day, "risotto" mostly just meant that rice was involved somehow (at least, that's what it meant when the term was used in an American cookbook).

I think if you promised risotto and then actually served instant brown rice cooked with chicken, onion, horseradish, sugar, black beans, and bell peppers, topped at the end with just a sprinkle of Parmesan, diners today would have a hard time forcing their faces into a look of delight (and keeping their clenched fists hidden under the table, rather than swinging in your direction).

Of course, since this booklet is sponsored by both Dole and Del Monte, there are so many chicken and pineapple recipes. When I saw "Sweet and" in the title for this one, I expected "Sweet and Sour," but this recipe actually foresaw the "swicy" craze of the future.

Not that any of our current sweet-and-spicy foods are likely to include canned pineapple, canned green beans, and crushed red pepper flakes, though. (Plus, this still includes sweet and sour sauce, so it's not like my initial guess was wrong.)

The weirdest pineapple recipe, though, might be the one for Hawaiian Chicken Salad. Not because it combines the chicken with pineapple, apple, celery, onion, green pepper, and mayonnaise. Not because it is served hot.

But because it is topped with a coating of buttered (or margarined) Honey Almond Delight cereal before being baked (or microwaved, in case this wasn't sufficiently weird already).

I hope the book's original owner didn't consider these brands to be favorites before they acquired this collection, because it seems like the recipes could have ruined that affinity pretty quickly. I'd certainly think differently of Honey Almond Delight if hot chicken salad came to mind every time I saw it.

Funny Name: NSFW? Edition

From my possible-originally-a-calendar-but-not-dated-on-the-pages-I-own "Betty Baker Tested" pages, here's a recipe title that made me do a double-take.

No matter where your mind might go when you see "Zesty Frank Poke," though, it's just a recipe for hot dogs with a cream cheese filling, served in a bun slathered with mustardy butter. (Although the more I think about that description, the dirtier it sounds....)