Potato Salad p. 35

Had a ton of small red potatoes to use up, so I figured this would be a good bet. So instead of 5 medium sized red potatoes, I used 9 small potatoes. I mention that because, while it turned out okay, it was a bit bland ; the potato to tasty, gooey stuff ratio wasn't right. The texture was good, with the chopped celery adding a nice crunch, but it didn't seem to have quite enough dressing and the dressing wasn't quite zesty enough. Maybe try Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise? More mustard? More Worcestershire sauce?

All in all it was a satisfying potato salad. I left most of the peel on the red potatoes because, well, because I'm lazy and got bored peeling the cooked potatoes. It does, however, add a nice bit of color. But I've definitely had better potato salads...I remember one that had bacon and blue cheese...mmmmmmmm.

India Chicken Curry p. 133

I had high hopes for this one...we love a good curry! But even though I tried to jazz it up with blanched almonds and raisins and used twice the amount of curry powder, it still was kind of bland and more like a tomato-saucy chicken casserole than a curry. It wasn't bad, but while it may have passed for a curry in 1959, it just couldn't compare to what we've come to expect from a chicken curry. AND it's fairly labor-intensive; I would recommend cooking the chicken and taking the meat off the bone the day before, unless you have a few hours to prepare dinner!

The recipe on page 132, Country Captain, sounds similar but possibly a little more flavorful.

Praline Cake p. 182

I wanted to bake a cake for my daughter Elise who is home for a month or so! Missed her birthday and she looooves cake so I whipped this up. It's a pretty simple recipe, in the classic mix-dry-ingredients, mix-wet-ingredients, then blend them together genre. Tip: use a small bowl for dry ingredients and a larger bowl for the shortening (I used butter), sugar, vanilla, and egg mixture. That way you can add the flour mixture and milk to the bigger bowl and beat it in.

The cake itself was yummy with a nice texture--kind of heavy and crumbly like a coffee cake. The praline icing was too sweet for my taste, but I'm not a big fan of pralines, so there you go!

It's kind of nice that you bake it right in a glass dish (I used a pie plate) because you can just serve it and store it in there and it looks pretty. But this cake wasn't a big hit with my girls; maybe because of the cloying sweetness.

Look at the next recipe on the page, though...Raisin Apple Cake! That sounds like a good one!

Arroz Con Pollo (Rice with Chicken) p. 123

When I started this blog, I set out to follow the recipes as closely as possible in order to get a real sense of what the dish was like when the Junior League first published this book in 1959. Well, I've given up on that. I just can't use a full CUP of oil to brown the chicken! After all, it doesn't say to drain the oil after browning. I used a scant half cup, and probably could have used even less. And 2 TABLEspoons of salt?? No way! I used a rounded teaspoon.

Bet-R is not the kind of store that carries saffron, and I was not about to make a special trip to Wholefoods, so I substituted a packet of yellow rice mix (Mahatma brand) for the rice. It supposedly has saffron in it.

Once again, I had the crunchy rice problem! I needed to nearly double the cooking time in the oven to make the rice edible--it was in there for 35 minutes. But the result was nice; a pretty, satisfying dish that would feed way more than 4. I'd say it serves 6 at least.

Pizza page 90

I wasn't really in the mood to make pizza. My homemade pizza attempts in years past have been disappointing. But I had mozzarella cheese and some Italian sausage to use up, and making the pizza ended up being pretty fun!

The crust recipe is easy and turned out well. You have to allow an hour for the dough to rise, so it takes a bit of planning ahead. I cut the recipe in half and made one big pizza on a cookie sheet. It turned out nice; looked very rustic and hearty.

Like the previous recipe (biscuits), I found working with the dough to be very satisfying. Makes you feel like you're REALLY a cook! Punching down the dough, using a rolling pin...YEAH!


Things I would do differently next time:

Spray the cookie sheet with cooking spray or lightly oil it. My crust stuck to the cookie sheet.

Use tomato sauce instead of crushed tomatoes. The juice from the crushed tomatoes made the top of the crust a bit soggy, and the tomato flavor was a little weak.

Pork Chop Casserole page 85

Remember a while back I said I lost my notes?? Well, I found them...at least some of them! So here's another blast from the past. I made this sometime back in October, I think...here we go:

This dish looks pretty cooking on the stovetop...pork chops topped with onion slices, tomato slices, and green pepper rings on a bed of rice. It smells good as it's cooking, too. Reminds me of a tip I read in a decades-old women's magazine: put an onion in some oil in a frying pan and turn on the heat when your husband gets home. He'll smell "dinner cooking" and it will make him happy! Really? Would he REALLY be fooled by this? And for how long...wouldn't he eventually peer into the kitchen and say, hey, Mrs. B, why are you frying an onion? But I digress.

Anyhoo, my family liked this. I thought the pork chops came out a little bland, even though I generously salted and peppered them. The rice was really tasty, though. Add a green veg and you've got a satisfying meal.

Southern Biscuits p. 37

OK, it's been a while! But last night I was cooking a dinner of slow-cooker pork loin, microwaved sweet potatoes, and frozen chopped spinach when I decided it needed something more...biscuits! If I had had a tube of ready-to-bake biscuits in the fridge, we wouldn't be here today typing, but here we are!

The biscuits were fun and easy to make. I have a pastry blender (that I hardly ever fish out of the drawer) and that makes it easy to cut the dry ingredients into the shortening...ok, I didn't have shortening so I used butter; I figure that made them even better. You gotta love a recipe with only 6 ingredients. And kneading the dough and cutting it into rounds...very satisfying!

I made the mistake of cutting the recipe in half. Didn't want to make 20 biscuits for the 3 of us...but I only ended up with 4 1/2 biscuits! So don't worry. You won't end up with a huge quantity if you make the whole recipe. I figure the recipe as written will yield about 9 2-inch biscuits.

They are best hot out of the oven! I had one left over today which I microwaved for 12 seconds, split and enjoyed with butter, jam and a cup of tea. Ahhhh.