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!

Meatloaf for two

I buy my hamburger at BJ's Wholesale by the tube.  This way I can come home, slice the tube into 3 or four round chunks, freeze them in foil and use each chunk as I need them during the month.  This is recipe for meatloaf for two, or three, depending how thin you slice it.  It can be hard to know what to fix for only two people.  We like this recipe very much. 

Steve always mixes it up for me because for some reason his meatloaf slices hold together better than mine.  This is a restaurant quality, delicious meatloaf that I can cook in my electric toaster oven.  Cooking time, about one hour on 350 degrees.  We serve it with mashed potatoes, any vegetable or salad, rolls and sometimes I make brown gravy for it.  Enjoy!

Recipe:

1 pound lean hamburger

1 small onion, diced

1 cup of crushed, canned tomatoes

1 egg

1/2 cup of bread crumbs

1 tablespoon ketchup

1 tablespoon of mustard

Mix all the ingredients together and shape into a loaf pan.  We use a metal bread pan which seems to work very nicely.  

hamburger, onions, egg and bread crumbs mix

With mustard, ketchup,tomatoes & seasonings.  Mix by hand until all ingredients are well mixed.

Place in loaf pan and glaze top (brushing) with mustard and ketchup.  Bake for about 1 hour.

Finished product, sliced and ready to eat. 

Enjoy!