Thirty Minutes to Mealtime a great old cookbook

I recently bought a few bags full of old cookbooks from our local college library book sale.  I adore older cookbooks and the wonderful old recipes that take me back to my childhood.  While 30 minute meals may not be totally from my childhood, they are great recipes of old standby recipes as well as time savers for our modern lifestyles.  The book is called: 30 Minutes to Mealtime, copyright 1994, by Kraft Foods, INC.  This is one we recently ate and the entire family loved it.  I will post, with pictures, the recipes we try and let you know how delicious they are.  I hope you enjoy them.

Mapley Mustard Chicken

1/4 cup of maple syrup {Log Cabin is a good one}

1/4 cup spicy brown mustard

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

1 tablespoon of cooking oil

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Mix:  syrup, mustard and lemon juice is a small bowl

Heat: oil in a large skillet on medium high heat.  Add chicken; brown on both sides.  Pour syrup mixture over chicken.  Reduce heat to low; simmer 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked thoroughly.

Serve:  chicken mixture over hot cooked noodles or rice, if desired.

This recipe is wonderful with a fresh tossed salad.  It's so easy it can be prepared when you get home from work in no time flat.  It's also pretty enough for a dinner party.

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

So she thinks this is love

Growing old scares her, she's over forty now, so she decides to date men far too young for her.  She dates guys who are the same age as her daughter, she thinks this will make her feel more attractive, more desirable, keep her younger, if only in her head.  She fails to admit to herself that she is, in fact, scared of getting older.  Realizing she now has two daughters who could very well make her a grandmother, she grimaces at the thought of that prospect.

Sandy, on the heels of a divorce, needs a reason to be happy.  She dates guys younger because she wants to capture that effervescence she once felt as a younger woman.  She works out, she gets her nails done, dyes her hair, all to look younger and more attractive to younger men.  She even dresses like women do in their twenties, not realizing skimpy clothes makes her look older, cheap.  Her entire life, her happiness has been tied up in her looks, she hasn't taken time to work on a personality because she has always bought into society's idea of beauty, namely youth.

The 21 year old guy does not work out.  He doesn't do just what she wants him to do, he doesn't react just as she wants him to react to her.  She pulls some stunts to create drama because she is starved for affection.  Her entire youth was squandered, like so many other women's, on a marriage that made her feel unloved.  Spent on raising children, who, now mostly grown, do not need her as much as they did when they were younger, so she seeks solace in relationships that have meaning only to her.  Younger men, especially those who have never been married before, never had children, just don't play those dramatic head games.  The very young guy throws up his hands, sends her a text saying he just doesn't need the bull shit anymore.

The next one is in his 30's, still too young, still never been married, no children of his own, too critical because all she has known was a husband for too long who was critical, so, like many women in her present situation, she gravitates toward the familiar.  Not understanding that men her own age, or older, those who have sewn their wild oats, maybe even been married before, maybe divorced for some time, more settled and reliable, look for women who are beautiful inside.  She does not realize they are more suited to helping her find real love, no drama and no games.  Reliable and steady, the strong but quiet love, seems boring to her.

She hates the idea of dating guys who are older, in their fifties or beyond, because to her, this is admitting she too is growing older.  But they would be better choices, better than trying to recapture her high school years, for those years are gone.  She cannot stop mourning her lost youth. Older men date younger women for the same reasons, to appear to be desirable, even though they are older.  But people their own age are more stable, more established in this game we call life.  Much more willing to be less critical and allow them to be themselves, not some image they have in their heads. Sad they haven't learned it's fine to be alone, for a while anyway, alone to get to know themselves much better, know who they are and what they want in life.