Sometimes thinking about finances is enough to leave me staring at the ceiling half the night, trying to figure out whether pretending I'm falling asleep will be the most productive route to getting there or whether I should just give up for a while and find some old cookbooks to keep me company.
One book that gives me a sense that my worries are nothing new is the Better Homes and Gardens Meat Stretcher Cook Book (1974). I can spend a late night imagining '70s families in their harvest gold and avocado kitchens braving an energy crisis and crazy inflation with these "275 Money-Saving Recipes."
I think I like imagining them more than the real families might have liked these recipes, though. Most of us need to stretch our dollars, but who wants to try it with this recipe:
Maybe "Fruited Meat Pie" sounds acceptable or even good to those of you who actually like the fruit and meat combination. If you were dreaming of classic pork with apples, turkey with cranberries, or steak with a dark cherry sauce, though, your dreams were not "budget" enough. The fruit in question is a can of fruit cocktail and the meat is a can of "luncheon meat."
At least I know anyone who made this was in far more desperate straits than I!
Oddly comforted by the thought that I will never have to eat a Spam and fruit cocktail pie, I continue thumbing through until I find a sign that I should go back to trying to sleep. After all, I don't want to spend the next day with
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