The Mid-Century Menu

This week we have some Rice Krispies and some dates baked into pudding form. Because why not? This is Rice Krispies Date Pudding! We are going back in time a bit farther than normal this week to the 1920’s.  I had some extra Rice Krispies that needed to get used up before they expired, so I scoured my recipe collection for something simple that Alex and I could whip up while T.J. was napping. I found this great recipe in some Kellogg’s promotional recipe cards from the 1920’s. I am always intrigued by vintage dessert “puddings”,...

I hope everyone had a great Easter! Thank you so very, very much to everyone who shared my post, visited the blog, used the recipes, shared your recipes, commented, sent an email and especially those who submitted their lamb cake or bunny cake or other Easter cakes for this year’s gallery.  Every year I am thrilled by the excitement and friendliness and just plain cake-making fun that Easter brings out in all of us. Everything went off without a hitch…except for an unexpected website crashing caused by too many visitors...

I hope everyone had a great Easter! I don’t know about how things went down in your house, but my excited three-year-old dyed a lot of eggs this year.  So I am taking advantage of all the hard-boiled eggs to experiment with some deviled egg variations. These are California Dip Deviled Eggs! I’ll see you later, chicken sandwich spread. I know, I know. We all know how this will probably end, and this recipe is a just paper-thin excuse for Lipton to try and push yet more onion soup mix into our lives, but I always look at recipes...

Here is an Easter bonus for this year: A Bunny-Shaped Carrot Cake! This is another recipe I dug from my extensive recipe card collection. This one is from the same collection as the Man Lamb, but this recipe is pretty much the classic Wesson oil carrot cake with a few tweaks. The first thing that caught my eye was the huge amount of shredded carrots, and the lack of any other additions which were popular at the time (raisins, coconut, crushed pineapple). I’ve always wanted to leave everything else out of my carrot cake and try just...

Behold! This year’s lamb. A coffee-flavored lamb cake. A man’s cake. A Man’s Cake Lamb Cake. I fished this recipe out of one of my many recipe card collections. From the mention of the brand “Crisco” rather than shortening, this is most likely a recipe that was put out by Crisco in a pamphlet or an ad. I haven’t come across the original to date this recipe, but by the rest of the recipes in the box this came from, 1960’s would be an educated guess. But for some reason I look at this recipe and think “1940”....

It’s my favorite time of the year! Time to bust out the lamb cake pans and see what you guys and gals (and your lambs!) are made of. Send me your 2017 Lamb Cake photos so I can post them here on the blog for everyone to see AND to be entered in a random drawing for some vintage cookbooks from my collection! Here is one of the winners from last year: This is the lamb submitted by Valentine V. Isn’t she adorable? You can email me your photo at [email protected], or you can send it to me through our Facebook page. Deadline...

This week Alex wanted to help with our tested recipe and I had a bunch of ripe bananas, so we decided to make a quick little dessert. These are Banana Marshmallow Squares! I’m not sure what it is with the Pillsbury Bake-Off books lately, but I’ve really been digging in deep and pulling out some interesting stuff. I was curious to see how the whole dry pudding/banana/marshmallow layer would turn out in these. Plus they were easy enough for Alex to do the bulk of the work. Which she was very excited about. Though I think the ton...

This week we have a really crazy and fun gelatin for you guys. It’s actually kind of a dream of mine that has finally happened. I present to you (finally!) the Aspic Aquarium! In all its glory! Now, I would absolutely love to take credit for this one, but it was actually made by a friend of mine, Carolyn.  I have made a lot of really great friends through this blog, but Carolyn has the distinction of being a good, normal friend that I introduced to the crazy world of vintage recipes. And she totally loves them, which makes me happy...

It’s Friday, and I could totally use a drink! This is Blue Devil Cocktail! This cocktail is from “Bottoms Up”, one of our favorite vintage cocktail manuals. Some of the drink books we have just recycle classic drinks over and over again from decade to decade, but this one has some very unique and fun drinks. Plus, how can you argue with 1930’s cartoon drawings? “This is really good!” “Good. From the smell I was afraid it would be too sweet.” “Nope, not too sweet. But it so strong it’s making my lips a little numb.” The...