An uncrustworthy book

You'll have to forgive the clearly wrinkly pages from today's offering. I got this one at a discount because it was extremely well-loved. It's so well-loved that it has a cheesecake order form taped onto the back to replace the missing back cover. Luckily, the front cover is still pretty much  intact.

I'd hate to miss out on House & Garden's New Cook Book's (1967) cover. It's got everything: a wall of cured meats, a flaming lobster, a mushroom still life, suggestions that both asparagus and meat in a rich pastry crust will slim the waist, poultry booties that are almost as long as the birds wearing them, whole raw fish that are supposed to look appetizing rather than like a reminder that death awaits us all...

The recipes tend to be upscale, European-inspired fare, though I often find them a bit puzzling. A few recipes seem a bit... well... circular to me.

So let me get this straight. Gougére en Croûte is pastry baked inside a pastry?

And the surprise of Oeufs Mollets en Soufflé Surprise is that it's eggs baked inside other eggs?

Not all the recipes are two slightly different versions of the same type of food cooked together, though. A fair number are of the "Wait, this isn't a dessert?" variety.

When you think of apple pie, for example, you're probably thinking of that golden brown, cinnamon-spiced confection that we tend to associate with mom and America.

House & Garden likes to take it in a different direction, though. I think the editors see apple pie as more of a pot pie base.

Add sage, onions, and pork chops to the apples for Pork and Apple Pie! And just in case this sounds too normal for you since so many people like pork with apples, well, the editors have another apple pot pie for you.

Apple and Marrow Pie! It's the only apple pie recipe I've ever seen that starts with cooking five pounds of marrow bones.

So you're not too put off by these pies, maybe I'll be nice and end with a good dessert recipe. How about strudel?

Did you notice that I only said maybe it would be a dessert recipe? Don't get too comfortable, because this is just the dough recipe. We still need a filling.

Were you ready for some cabbage filling? You get a hundred points if you guessed it, but I'll award fifty if you guessed that the filling would be either brioche dough or apples and leg of lamb.

Thanks for playing!