Save some time with mostly discontinued brand name foods!

It's almost time once again to spring the clocks forward, in recognition that many of us would rather have the time to do something outside after work than to drive to work with the sun directly in our eyes and come home in darkness. (Not that I'm biased or anything.)

Well, if the time adjustment gives you a little trouble, I'm happy to announce that The Daylight Time- Savers Are Here! 

This undated booklet looks like it's from the late '60/ early '70s to me, and this "Lickety-Thick Milk Shake" recipe seems to confirm my suspicions. 

It calls for Bounty Dutch Chocolate Pudding, and an ad that eBay dates to 1969 claims that Dutch chocolate was a new flavor, so my guess is that telling people to serve super watered-down (sorry, milked-down) pudding as a "milk shake" (and a thick one at that!) was an attempt to move more of the new-ish flavor.

Though the recipes are all supposed to be still time-savers, most of them were a bit more labor-intensive and at least as questionable as the lickety-thicks. The booklet was also supposed to convince readers to buy more Campbell's soup, so it endorsed a concept I always find a bit questionable: the hot cucumber.

I know-- cucumber might add a bit of freshness to the salt lick that is canned condensed soup, but heated-up cukes just seem wrong to me, and I don't think cream of celery soup is going to help that opinion. (Does the chilled version sound any better? The cukes are still supposed to be cooked before serving, and besides, have you ever wanted to eat cold canned soup?)

The little booklet also tries to make that old classic of stuffed peppers a bit less time consuming.

I'm not sure what makes peppers stuffed with a can of corned beef hash and baked under a veneer of ketchup "peppy." Maybe the home economists at Bounty thought peppers were inherently peppy?

The "best" (meaning, of course, worst!) recipes in this booklet are probably the ones trying to push Franco-American MacaroniOs, though. (Since they were only around from 1967-1972, at least according to this post, that also helps confirm my dating of the booklet.) The friend who gave me this booklet knows my tastes and immediately sent me to this page to check out a couple of absolute gems. 

The Ring O Salad attempts to turn rubbery canned macaroni into a salad by adding salad dressing, bits of chopped veggies, and a couple cans of tuna.

At least this seems macaroni-salad-adjacent-- not terrific, but a recognizable variation of something familiar. The real head-scratcher is this salad:

Yes, nothing says "Chicken Oriental O Salad" quite like the cheese-sauce version of SpaghettiOs fortified with sour cream and then made "Oriental" (cringe!) with the addition of chicken, pineapple, green onions, and slivered almonds. That sounds just... ummm... like a real time-saver, because I'll save so much time not making it. (Of course, the fact that MacaroniOs were discontinued before my parents even met also helps.)

Thanks to my great friend from college for supplying me with this amusing and amazing little booklet! However, I don't think I'm going to try to save that lost hour this weekend by testing any of these recipes....