Weekly Cooking (and related issues) Thread

[Jamestown1630]

This week's thread is about Cooking With Kids.

When I was in elementary school in the early 1960s, every year the school would hold a book fair; students could look at new books and pick some out to buy.

One year I bought 'Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls', originally published in the late 1950s. I loved looking at this book, and learned a lot using the recipes.

For a children's book, it's a surprisingly comprehensive guide to basic cooking, with a lot of interesting presentation ideas, and even some decorative crafts. AND it includes campfire cooking!

I wanted to post a recipe from it that has become a staple for us; and it struck me to try and find the book on Amazon, even though I was sure it was OOP.

I was surprised to find that there is a 'facsimile' edition available:

http://www.amazon.com/Crockers-Facsimile-Edition-Crocker-Cooking/dp/0764526340

Some of the reviews indicated that it is somewhat edited, and not entirely like the original. BUT: one of the respondents subversively indicated that the original is available on archive.org! I was thrilled to find it - scanned complete with cooking splatters - and to look at the wonderful retro drawings again:

https://ia600506.us.archive.org/12/items/bettycrockerscoo00croc/bettycrockerscoo00croc.pdf

I hope that some of you will remember it, and enjoy looking at it again.

A recipe that I have used from this book countless times over decades, is adapted from the recipe for Spanish Rice (page 151 in the original):

Spanish Rice

Prepare One Cup of Raw White Rice (to make 3 cups cooked)

Heat Oven to 400 degrees

Fry 6 slices bacon until crisp; drain and crumble

Pour bacon grease from pan, leaving about 2 T

Add 1/2 C. minced onion and ½ C. diced green pepper (I usually use 3/4 C. of each).

Cook until onion is yellow

Add in fry pan:

the 3 C. Cooked Rice

2 C. diced, canned tomatoes (one regular can)

1-1/2 tsps. Salt

and the crumbled bacon.

Turn all into greased baking dish. Sprinkle top with grated Cheddar Cheese (as much as you like :-)

Bake 25-30 minutes, or until cheese melts and begins to brown.

[V K Lee]

REMEMBERING JELLO

http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2010/12/13/birth-of-a-mormon-tradition-jello/

Remember tomato aspic. Tomato juice mixed with gelatin? Could never acquire a taste for that although it was tried.

There was a dark cherry Jello. A salad/dessert mold made with the dark cherry Jello, Coke Cola, dark cherries, and pecans IIRC. Mother was a member of the Home Ec group in Duncanville. They would meet every month and each would bring a dish for the table. There were both types of molds..the dark cherry disappearing first. The Lemon Chiffon Pies will always be remembered with great fondness. With the raw egg scare, few even remember how to make these any longer. One company had a Lemon Chiffon Pie mix in a box (Betty Crocker?) but even those are no longer found. Nothing on a hot summer day like a big piece of Lemon Chiffon Pie... or Lime Chiffon. Both were delicious.