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

Foodie break, meatloaf Wellington

Back to the very old cookbook I found, it resembles my Mom's book I grew up with.  

I love meatloaf, and I know in this modern era, we are not supposed to love red meat.  I confess, I do, and many times I use ground turkey, at least for 50% of it, but then, once in a while I just like the total red meat thing (sorry vegans and vegetarians everywhere), but I grew up in a household where my Dad loved meat for meals.

This recipe for Meatloaf Wellington is delicious and we loved it.  Easy to prepare and very elegant looking for a company dinner, or just a Sunday dinner.  You can impress in-laws with your cooking skills because it looks beautiful on the table.  The recipes from this book don't take a long time to prepare, so they are ideal for working people who want something on the table in no time, especially after a day of work.  

Meatloaf Wellington:

1 can (10 1/2 ounces) condensed cream of mushroom or golden mushroom soup

2 pounds of ground beef, or 1 pound beef and 1 pound ground turkey

1/2 cup of fine dry bread crumbs

1/3 cup finely chopped onion

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/3 cup of water

1 teaspoon salt (if desired)

1 package of refrigerated crescent rolls

Mix thoroughly 1/2 cup of soup, beef, bread crumbs, onion, egg and and salt.  Shape firmly into loaf (8 by 4  inches); place in shallow baking pan.  Bake for 1 hour at 375 degrees F.  Spoon off fat.  Separate one package of refrigerated crescent rolls; place crosswise over top and down sides of meatloaf, overlapping slightly.  Bake 15 minutes more.  

Great with a tossed salad, green beans or mashed potatoes.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. 

Bon Appetite! 

Foodies; recipes from an old cookbook

These colors, signs of the times, 1960's

I found a great cookbook at a rummage sale and I bought it because my Mom had this book, among many other cookbooks.  I grew up with some really cool recipe books and Mom loved to experiment with recipes.  Some turned out well and were a hit while some............Meh........take em or leave them.

Sounds like fun to me, Bobbie's pad?  Hmmmmmmmmm

Fondue is a Swiss, French and Italian dish.  It became quite popular in 1960 in America............fondue dinner parties sprung up all over the place, in homes and restaurants.  

This is an inexpensive fondue recipe, my husband does not like fondue but I do. (I do..........rhymes)

A little time travel.  Looks like Chelsea Clinton!

*Cheese Fondue*

1/2 cup of dry, white wine (starts out good already)

1 medium clove of garlic, minced (you can open fresh garlic easily by taking your cutting knife and smashing the clove on your chopping block underneath your knife)

4 slices of natural Swiss cheese, torn into pieces

2 tablespoons of flour

1 can (10 3/4 ounces) of Cheddar cheese soup

French or Italian bread cubes

In a saucepan or fondue pot, simmer wine and garlic.  Combine cheese and flour: gradually blend into wine.  Heat until cheese melts; stir now and then.  Blend in soup: heat, stirring until smooth.  Spear bread cubes with a fork, fondue fork or wooden skewer (toothpicks work too) dip cubes into fondue mix.  Makes 2 cups.

* You can also dip bite-size pieces of cooked franks, cocktail wieners, lobster, shrimp, or artichoke.

You can have a 'sip and dip' party.  Invite guests to sip and dip, serve wine, or beer and if you have a fireplace, this is a wonderful dish to serve in front of a crackling fire.

Come on, ya gotta love the hair!

OK  This can burn Real easy too, stir, stir, stir!

Mostly Midwestern Thing

When we lived in Indiana, I always noticed two things on the menus whenever we went out to eat.  One was grits, the waiters and waitresses would always ask: "Would you like fries or grits with that?"  I'm not a big grits fan, even though my grandfather loved them for breakfast, but the other item on almost every menu, I did grow to like quite a bit.  That item was pork tenderloin sandwiches.  This is something Steve grew up with and almost always ordered each time we were out.  I never knew much about pork tenderloin sandwiches, but in Indiana's defense, whenever I'd ask for gravy on my french fries, I got funny looks, must be that one is mostly an Eastern thing.  So I guess we are even.  Here is our recipe for pork tenderloin sandwiches.

Start with however many pork tenderloins you want to make.  Take each one, place it between plastic wrap and pound them until they are about 1/4 inch thick, the thinner the better.  

Place them in a bowl and cover them with buttermilk.  If you cannot get buttermilk you can use one tablespoon of vinegar to one cup of regular milk, that works fine as a substitute.  Let the meat soak overnight, if you can, or all day while you are at work.

For the coating you will need:

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 cup flour, depending on how many you need to coat

2 beaten eggs

1 cup bread crumbs, either seasoned or plain, your preference, (hint: Panko bread crumbs will make a crunchier end product).


Add all the spices to your flour mixture.  Take the meat, one at a time, from the buttermilk and dip each one in the seasoned flour mixture first, then the beaten eggs, and finally coat with bread crumbs. 

Fry each tenderloin in your deep fryer, electric frying pan or stove top pan until each side is nice and brown.  

Place each tenderloin on toasted french bread, toasted garlic bread or on a hamburger bun.  We like ours topped with ketchup, mustard and dill pickles.  You can also add lettuce and tomato if you like.  We serve them with steak fries on the side and you can use whatever sides you like. 

We usually saw these tenderloins on the breakfast menu with white gravy on the meat and a couple of eggs and toast on the side.  They are wonderful that way too.

It has been our dream for the past ten years to own a nice little diner, serving down home cooking.  In the Midwest I came to appreciate those small diners dotted along the highways and in small towns whenever we traveled.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. 

Sharing recipes for cooking at home

These blogs are for sharing recipes to make at home.  With the economy in the toilet these days, it makes sense to do more cooking at home.  

Is this fancy cooking?  No, not the fancy recipes you might see on those Food Network shows, not the $200 truffle pizzas you could buy at Chef Ramsey's expensive restaurants but it is fun cooking.  Many of you, whoever you are, may not think of cooking as fun, but it can be.  My second husband and I have been married for 13 years now and we have always loved cooking together.  Cooking as a couple is one of the best ways to curse, laugh and just enjoy each other's company.  

I also have to mention that I see so many bread machines for sale at yard sales.  Many of them brand new and so many people told me they got one as a gift and just don't know how to use it.  I got two brand news ones at yard sales for $5 each.  I kept one and gave the other one to my daughter.  I have been using mine for three years now and it has been the best $5 investment I ever spent. So if you have one, use it, if not, look for them at yard sales and buy one.  They are easy to use and such time savers.  So relax, whoever you are reading this, and try this first recipe.

Easy & quick pizza pockets

Pizza dough:

I cup very warm tap water

1 tsp salt (optional)

1-1/2 tbsp. soft margarine

2 plus 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. dry yeast

Add each ingredient on the list, as listed, into the bread machine.  Look for the dough setting on your machine and turn it on.

When bread dough is done, turn out onto floured surface and break off small (1/2") pieces and roll into balls.  Roll each ball out to a circle with a rolling pin and place 1 tsp of pizza or spaghetti sauce in the center of the circle.  Place 1 slice of pepperoni on the sauce and sprinkle a small amount of shredded Mozzarella cheese and you may sprinkle some Parmesan cheese here too.  Keep all fillings in the center to avoid oozing out the edges during cooking.

Fold circle over, pinch edges with fingers or a fork until sealed and heat your deep fryer to a high temperature( 350 degrees.)  Drop two at a time in fryer basket, cook one side until lightly brown, turn and cook other side.  Pockets will puff up during frying.  

Drain on a platter covered with paper towel and you can sprinkle with Parmesan cheese if you like.

These pockets cook in very little time for preparation and total cooking time.  You can make bread dough ahead, freeze it, then thaw some while working and whip these up when you get home from work.  These pockets are not greasy and everyone at my house loves them.  They never go to waste because they are delicious cold too.

Enjoy!