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February already and I still date everything 1965. Anybody have any good hints on how to remember what year it is? The month of January was a busy one for the Open Line. So busy, in fact, our third birthday passed without so much of a mention from somebody who ought to keep up with things as important as anniversaries--namely me. In the three years the Open Line has been on the air, thousands of recipes have been submitted along with almost as many hints to make your life easier and your table full of good things to eat. The program continues to enjoy and profit by your support and contributions and I hope to be able to say that for many years to come. My thanks to you for making the Open Line what it is today and what it will be in the years to come. This month, we are adding a new feature to the Best of The Open Line. You'll find it on page three along with our usual hints and helps. It is called "Heard on the Open Line" and marks a way we finally found to use the many hints and answers that you hear each month on the air in the bulletins. Hope you will enjoy this new feature.
Chicken or turkey tetrazzini is usually a pretty involved dish with many ingredients if you follow the conventional recipes. However, there is a short cut version they make in Virginia that comes so close in flavor and texture that it's difficult for the average person to tell the difference. This recipe is sometimes called Turkette.
SHORTCUT CHICKEN OR TURKEY TETRAZZINI
1½ cups two inch spaghetti
(uncooked)
1½ to 2 cups cooked turkey
or chicken
¼ cup minced pimento
¼ cup minced green pepper
2 cups undiluted mushroom soup
½ cup turkey broth (or ½
cup chicken broth made with 1 cube bouillon and ½
cup boiling water)
1/8 teaspoon celery salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
½ small onion, grated
1 ½ cups grated cheese
Cook spaghetti in salted water till tender. Regular spaghetti may be used, just broken in two inch pieces. Drain. Mix all ingredients except spaghetti and ½ cup of the cheese. Lightly grease a 2½ or 3 quart casserole. Place spaghetti on the bottom of the casserole and add the mixed ingredients. Lightly toss with a fork. Top with reserved cheese. Bake uncovered in a 350° oven for 45 minutes or until cheese is melted and browned.
Here's another main dish recipe that received enough requests to make it a must for one of our bulletins. This is the month!
SPAM CASSEROLE
1 small onion, minced
2 cups cooked rice
3 egg yolks, well beaten
1 teaspoon minced green pepper
1 cup mushroom soup
¼ cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 can spam, ground
3 egg whites
crushed corn flakes
Brown onion in butter. Mix in rice. Mix meat, egg yolks, soup mixed with the milk, and peppers. Stir together with browned onions. Fold in beaten egg whites. Make into patties and dip in crushed corn flakes. Bake 30 minutes at 350°.
SHORTCUT BANANA CAKE
To one box of white or yellow cake mix, add 1/8 teaspoon soda, ¾ cup water, 1 cup mashed bananas, eggs as directed for cake mix, and 1/3 cup finely chopped nuts. Add nuts last. Soda should be dissolved in water before adding. Bake as directed on back of cake mix box and frost with your favorite frosting or topping.
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Here's another banana cake recipe for those who like to "start from scratch." This can be made in one bowl if you like to make them that way.
BANANA CAKE
1½ cup sugar
½ cup butter or margarine
at room temp.
2 cups flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs
½ cup sour milk or buttermilk
½ teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup sliced bananas, sliced medium
thin
Combine ingredients in the order given in one bowl, creaming sugar and butter or margarine first, then the eggs, then the mixed dry ingredients and milk alternately. Add vanilla last along with bananas. Bake in two 8 inch pans for 30 minutes at 350°. It can be baked in a loaf pan at 375° for 45 minutes. Frost with powdered sugar icing with pecans sprinkled on top and in between layers.
From one of our Open Line callers comes this recipe. It's on the order of cream of potato soup and it's served with sausage. It originated in Holland.
HUTSPOT
6 large carrots
6 onions
6 white potatoes
3 tablespoons butter
½ cup cream
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
Cube carrots and onions and cook in just enough water till done. Cube potatoes and cook separately until done, again using just enough water to cook the potatoes. If proper amount of water is used, it will not be necessary to drain the vegetables before mashing them together. Combine with remaining ingredients and whip together.
SALAD OR DESSERT?
Take your pick. It was invented by the lady calling it in.
Mix one can peach or apricot pie filling with one can of drained white seedless grapes and one can of mixed mandarin oranges and pineapple tidbits, also drained. Add sliced apples and bananas as desired, mix and serve.
Hot chili is made for cold winter days. Here is a recipe you will want to try. It cooks up nice and thick.
CHILI
1 pound hamburger chopped
1 onion chopped
1 green pepper
2 cups jumbo shells (macaroni)
1 large can tomatoes
2 cans chili beans
2 cups tomato juice
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
Brown onion, hamburger, and green pepper together. Add jumbo shells and let brown with hamburger until they begin to turn yellow and soak up meat juices (about three to four minutes). Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes.
Barbeque your own ribs right at home. Here's how to make them taste like they were done in an open pit.
BARBEQUE RIBS
In a large enough kettle, cover pork ribs with water. Add ½ cup brown sugar, one cut-up onion, two tablespoons liquid smoke, a stalk of celery and salt and pepper. Cook till tender. Combine following ingredients for the sauce:
1 cup catsup
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
1 tablespoon A-1 Steak Sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
Cover ribs with sauce and bake uncovered in a 350° oven until ribs are heated through or until sauce has a chance to flavor ribs completely.
MEXICAN WEDDING CAKES
6 tablespoons sugar
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups sifted flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup nuts, ground or cut very
fine
Cream sugar and butter. Add vanilla. Stir in sifted flour, salt, and nuts. Mix with hands and shape into crescents or balls. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for ten minutes at 400°. Roll in powdered sugar while hot.
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Pickled Carp? Sure, and those who like it say it can't be beat. Here's the recipe.
PICKLED CARP
Cut up freshly caught four to five pound fish in one inch widths. Salt a little more than for frying and let stand overnight in a cool place. Next morning, drain salt water off. Bring the following ingredients to a boil:
½ cup water
1½ cup vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 sliced onion
1 teaspoon pickling spices
Place cut fish in boiling mixture. When pieces lose transparency and turn white takes four or five minutes, fill jars with fish and liquid and seal. Wrap each jar with newspaper to seal in heat to finish cooking fish after in the jar.
Mrs. Vaude A. Fellwock of Cedar Rapids was kind enough to send along a copy of the directions furnished by the Maid of Scandinavia Company, a candy making company in Minneapolis, in using their white pearl coating, also called Summer Frosting.
To HAND DIP chocolates, we recommend that the coating be broken up and placed into the top of a double boiler. Over very warm water (not boiling or steaming), melt the coating until it reaches a temperature of 125° F. Stir while melting.
Remove pan from heat, and cool to 105°. If you are to dip by hand, pour a portion of the melted coating onto a marble slab, large platter, or formica work surface, and allow to cool to about l00°. Work quickly, dipping your centers, and adding warm coating to replenish supply. Keep coating warm.
TO MAKE BARK, merely add the desired type of nuts (usually whole pieces) to the melted coating, and pour onto release paper, spreading thin, let cool and set.
A WORD OF WARNING: If your water temperature is too hot, the coating will not melt uniformly, but will first begin to melt, then crumble and become impossible to handle. Keep a thermometer in your coating pan at all times, to prevent overheating. If you plan to use a dipping fork, work right from the double boiler, maintaining a temperature of a bit over 100°.
HEARD ON THE OPEN LINE
Egg whites may be frozen. After being frozen and thawed they whip as well as fresh eggs and may also be used in angel food cakes. Just freeze in the amounts you will be using at one time or allow 1½ tablespoon thawed egg white for each egg white called for in the recipe.
Take advantage of the low price of bananas Freeze them. Measure out the amount of pulp you will need for a favorite recipe and freeze them.
Here is how one lady takes care of her two a.m. feeding. Before retiring for the evening fill a thermos bottle with boiling water. When two a.m. arrives, take the milk bottle and thermos to the baby's room. In a container, put there for this, pour hot water in the container holding the bottle and while baby is being changed, bottle will warm.
To remove lime deposits from bottle sterilizes, add a cap or two of vinegar and eventually it will clean the deposits off the rack and container. Continue to use the vinegar to keep the deposits from forming again.
For homemade spray starch, use Gloss-Tex and mix the lightest formula and use in spray bottle. To prevent mildew in dampened clothes that have to be left overnight, don't dampen them. Wait till you're ready to iron them and then dampen them with plain water in a spray bottle.
Old diapers with pin holes from too many changes may be reclaimed by folding them differently such as kite shaped and using the long way up and down and the short way around. Also, two old diapers may be folded together putting the holey part away from each other and using them that way.
To keep your aluminum coffee pots clean and fresh, add 3 tablespoons baking soda to the usual amount of water and run thru coffee making cycle, then rinse well. This will prevent formation of coffee oil in your percolator.
Dried up paint by number oil paint can be brought back to life with just a little bit of turpentine.
Water softener salt can be carried for added weight in the trunk of your car during the snow and ice season. It can also be used if stuck. You can always use what is left in your water softener.
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After heavy holiday eating, salads and sandwiches were in demand last month on The Open Line and from those called in and sent in, we could call this page our salad and sandwich "spread".
First here is the salads:
1 package lime or lemon jello
1 box cottage cheese
1 can crushed pineapple
Drain pineapple and use juice for part of the liquid needed to dissolve jello according to instructions on box. Let jello set up a bit before adding the cottage cheese and crushed pineapple, returning it to the refrigerator to set.
BLACK CHERRY JELLO
1 package black cherry gelatin
1 can dark pitted cherries
¼ cup sliced stuffed olives
½ cup finely diced celery
½ cup sliced almonds
Let set until almost firm, add drained cherries, olives, celery and almonds. Use the cherry juice instead of 1 cup water when mixing the gelatin.
2 packages lemon jello
1 cup hot water
1 cup cold water
1 cup frozen orange juice
2 cups mandarin oranges
one medium can crushed pineapple
Make jello with liquids, let set until almost firm and add remaining ingredients.
HAWAIIAN SALAD
1 #2 size can pineapple tidbits
juice of ½ lemon
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
½ pound miniature marshmallows
1 cup whipped whip cream
Drain pineapple and add the lemon juice to the pineapple juice. Add eggs, sugar, and cornstarch. Cook until thickened Cool until lukewarm. Add drained pineapple tidbits and marshmallows. Fold in whipped cream. Chill and serve. (Mrs. Cecil Hail, Indianola).
And now the sandwiches:
Grind up one pound of minced ham, ½ pound cheese, 1 small onion and a small bottle of olives. Add three tablespoons catsup, one tablespoon mustard and one tablespoon melted butter. Mix well, spread over bread or buns and broil.
Mix two cans deviled ham with one raw egg and one cup shredded cheddar cheese. Mix and spread over toasted and buttered raisin bread and broil open-faced three minutes.
Grind up one can spam, one pound American cheese and one small onion. Mix with ½ bottle chili sauce. Broil as open face sandwich or use as filling regular sandwich. For another sandwich mix the ground up meat, onion, and cheese with one can mushroom soup.
Mix one six ounce can tuna with two tablespoons chopped onion, two pickles, chopped, and two tablespoons mayonnaise. Split round buns, spread tuna mixture on buns and tip with a slice of cheese. Broil six minutes or until cheese has melted. (Ruth Hedges, Iowa City, Iowa)
Mix one pound ground beef, one teaspoon Worcestershire, one teaspoon onion salt, two tablespoons chili sauce, two tablespoons horseradish, ¼ teaspoon garlic salt, ½ teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Butter one side of eight slices of bread and toast under broiler. Remove toast from boiler and spread meat mixture on untoasted side. Broil until meat lose its red color. Serve at once.
GAMEBURGERS
3 pounds ground game meat
1/3 pound salt pork
1 large onion
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon fresh marjoram,
thyme or savory
2 eggs, well beaten
2/3 tablespoons melted shortening
½ cup dry wine, optional
Grind game meat twice. Grind salt pork and onion and mix all ingredients except shortening and wine. Brown in hot fat on both sides. Cover and cook at low heat for fifteen minutes. Dry wine is added during simmering.
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