If you saw Julie & Julia, you probably had the same two thoughts I did as you left the theater: (1) Meryl Streep is amazing, and (2) Goddamn, I'm hungry. I've never been a hardcore cook, but the movie made me want to immediately go home and make love to my kitchen. (Hmm, I'm willing to bet that's not terribly sanitary.)
Anyway, I thought to myself, "Why don't I cook more?" I couldn't really come up with a good answer, but I did happen upon a pretty good solution: Like Julie Powell, I need to challenge myself! But 524 recipes? Are you nuts? Might as well say I'm going to track down and fillet a pink unicorn while I'm at it, 'cause that just ain't gonna happen.
No, I needed to pick something a little more my speed, something much more reasonable. As I was contemplating this, my eyes wandered over to a book I'd bought for it's kitsch appeal and had actually tried to sell at McKay twice: Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cook Book for the Hostess & Host of Tomorrow (originally printed in 1955). Talk about an attainable goal. Surely I can complete all the recipes in a kids' recipe book, right? And so "The Brian 5 & Better Homes Project" was born. Okay, yeah, it doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, but you get the idea. 100+ recipes to be completed in ... well, not a year. How about I just finish when I finish, hmm?
The project began last week when I tackled page 128 - Chipper Tuna Casserole. Sounds delish, huh? I figured that, being from the South, making a dish that features Golden Flake potato chips as a primary ingredient was a nice nod to my heritage. Kind of "trailer parky"-ish, but it's a good place to start. Heck, I even have a vintage casserole dish that seemed perfect for the occasion. Unfortunately, it was kind of horrible. Poor Brent. He ate it - with a grimace - but I'm sure he was trying to remember the number for Domino's as he chewed. I don't think it was my fault. When a recipe is as simplistic as this one was ("throw the ingredients in a dish and bake it", basically), you know it's the recipe that's flawed and not your technique. I mean, it was just a goopy mess. I think I've seen something like it served to prisoners in movies. On the plus side I also prepared page 11 - Frosty Orange Floats. Basically, it's just orange soda with a scoop or two of orange sherbet mixed in. Nothing special, but it tasted good. :D
I took a handful of days off - for the sake of my bowels - and picked up again tonight. Learning from my first foray into 50's cuisine, I made two dinners, just in case the evening's culinary experiment fell short of edible. First, I made spaghetti. Nothing special, but a crowd-pleaser nonetheless and very hard to screw up. Second, I concocted page 131 - Super Soup. No, I'm not kidding; that's really what it's called. Basically, you take a can each of condensed cream of chicken soup and condensed vegetable-beef soup. You mix them up in a saucepan followed by a canful each of water and milk. Bring to a boil and serve. I ladled a small amount into a couple of bowls and we gave it a taste. I thought maybe the two soups would combine into a new, delicious flavor. Not so much. I just felt like I was eating two different kinds of soup at the same time. Strike two.
Oh, well. We'll see how this little experiment goes. Maybe I'll actually find a recipe I'd consider making more than once. Stay tuned!
First of all, this idea has definitely come to me too, particularly when my mom gave me some old recipe books including my great-grandma's 1963 Baton Rouge Junior League Cookbook. I love that you are using a kids cookbook from 1955 though... however, I feel like if you're going to do this project successfully, you need photos. Or video... I know you know how to work a flipcam!
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