Samanayrs

Break out those gelatin packets and Jello molds, it's time to get cooking - retro style!

I don't know about you, but I love looking back and seeing some of the, er, interesting foods that were popular in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Your task is to cook a delicious (or maybe not so delicious?) vintage recipe. Once you've cooked your creation, you'll need to take a photo of it to post and share with everyone!

Rules!

- There is a limit of one entry per person.
- Your entry needs to follow a recipe from the 1970s or earlier.
- A copy of the recipe needs to be included with your entry (or a link to the webpage where you found the recipe), along with the name of the source (magazine, recipe card, cookbook, old family recipe, etc).
- Entries will be judged on originality, effort, and adventurousness! It doesn't necessarily need to sound appetizing, and in fact I would encourage you to seek out something rather bizarre. A potato salad gelatin mold might sound scary, but you never know, it could be delicious.. right?
- To enter the contest, you'll need to take a photo of your entry. Your photo must include a piece of paper with your username written on it.


Need some help finding a recipe? Here's some places to look!

http://www.midcenturymenu.com/
http://badjellyblog.com/
http://vintagerecipecards.com/
http://grandmasvintagerecipes.blogspot.ca/
(have a great link to include? please let me know!)

Reserve your recipe! To ensure that multiple people don't enter with the same recipe, you're welcome to reserve your recipe. To do so, just reply to this thread with the name of the item you'll be making and a link to the recipe (if applicable). When your entry is done, just edit your post to include all of your entry info. Each person may reserve one recipe only.

There will be one first-place winner and two runners-up, and all winners will get to pick their prize from the prize pot First place gets to pick two prizes first, then I'll randomly select one of the runners-up to pick, and the other runner-up will receive the remaining prize.

In addition to the prize pot, all entrants will receive a random modiem and a secret mystery prize, oooh :O
I particularly love Mid Century Menu because of the reaction shots. As a bonus, everyone who includes a reaction shot of themselves or someone else trying the dish will be entered in a draw for a breeding token and Dinosaur Cookie!
The cooking contest is open until September 8, 8pm PDT. To enter, please post your entry to this thread. In your post, please include the photo(s) of your entry, the recipe information, and your (optional) reaction shot! Make sure your photo includes a piece of paper with your username!

Good luck, and happy cooking

(and FYI, I think I'll be 'entering' the contest too.. I love reading retro food blogs and keep meaning to actually make some of these recipes XD)

So it can be any old recipe? Like, could it be a recipe passed down from before world war I? XD And does it need to be something new, or it doesn't matter? Like it could be a family recipe?

I don't like cooking but this sounds fun
Time to look through my moms recipe boxes. She has a lot of recipes from
her grandparents.

Time to dig out my Mary & Vincent Price book Treasure of Great Recipes! And yes it is by THE Vincent Price, published in 1965! The hard part will be deciding what to make! XD

Do we have to follow a recipe exactly? I found a picture of something that looks really awesome, but I couldn't find the recipe. Can I find a vintage recipe and make it look like the picture instead of preparing said recipe to look like it is supposed to?

@Seren - That sounds perfect!

@silvermoondragon - Hmm, while a recipe would be ideal working from a photo is an interesting way to do it! In that case please include the photo as well as the recipe

*laughs* Oh man, some of those old recipes...there is a world of delights I never thought to look through! I really, really wanted to use my grandmother's jello fish mold though, so why not go with the Under The Sea Salad cousin, Double Pear Salad, courtesy of From Ridgewood Kitchens, 1934, and Mid Century Menu!

Entry Photo: (Or, the prehistoric fish!)


Who knew avocados were also called alligator pears? And that they...should be combined with lime jello? *raises an eyebrow*

'Reaction' Photos: (If they can be called such... XP)


Pretty solidly...okay. Not good, not bad, just okay. Personally, I'm not fond of jello (yes, yes, I know, terrible recipe choice for me- but I figured this might be the only time I'd get to try out the mold!), and I probably should have cut the avocado slices a bit smaller...but the pears were decent! And the avocado green 'crazy daisy' plates were perfect!



But really, it's all about the fish mold! And I love it! Even if I couldn't get all of the fruit and vegetable pieces to remain in the fish scale pattern I was trying to make, it's still amazing. Long live the fish mold!

And that should be everything! *grins* Thanks for the event Sushi, and I can't wait to see everyone else's entries!

Janalee - not sure if you like fish but Salmon Mousse is usually made using a fish mold and is actually really good.

Echos wrote:Janalee - not sure if you like fish but Salmon Mousse is usually made using a fish mold and is actually really good.

Ooh, I definitely enjoy having salmon on occasion! Do you have a particular recipe you like for the mousse?

I use the recipe from the old Martha Stewart entertaining book. I'll see if I can pull it up for you.

Okay, so I'm going with an old family recipe that my grandmother brought home from work one day, when my dad, uncle, and aunts were still fairly young. My aunt is estimating sometime between 1960 and 1970.

They're No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies. I'm probably going to make them tomorrow, but if not it'll obviously be sometime this coming week. It won't be that interesting of a reaction image, but oh well (I think I've had them before and why wouldn't they be delicious?) At least I know they won't go to waste.

There are a lot of recipes for this sort of thing out there, but this one I'll be taking a picture of a print-out, with my user name written on it, because they don't have the original hand-written copy any more (or if they do, it's somewhere in my grandmother's things, but no telling where.) Please let me know if I need to do anything differently for it to count. I realize not having the recipe online makes it a bit awkward.

Edit: I've never made them before. I almost never cook, if I can get away with it. I thought it'd make sense to bake something I knew I could share with other people, and my aunt said it was cheap to make, which was another concern for me. Looking at the recipe, it doesn't look as if it should take terribly long to make either and I told them I'd make it myself. Kind of a labor day treat, I guess. It also gives me a chance to remind myself if I liked these cookies. I like most of the recipes they have, but unless it was something memorable, my mind tends to be a sieve. I probably could have found something online, but cooking kind of intimidates me, and at least with this, I have people who can tell me pretty quickly if I got some part of it wrong. ^_^;

I realize I'm not being very adventurous... ._.;

Here is my actual entry! It's a good thing I got to use my aunt's kitchen and she was right there. I did everything myself, but I felt sort of clueless (like I said, I don't really cook; my husband does), so she helped talk me through it on the little particulars, like what a rolling boil looks like and how long is best for cooking the mixture. I'll type up the recipe here too, so it's easier to see if you decide to try it as well. It's super sweet and you'd think it'd be really crunchy (it sort of is), but mostly it melts in your mouth. It's very flaky and crumbles easily, so it's best to have it on a plate while you eat it. Apparently, they've altered the recipe a little (perfected it) over time.

As a point of interest, I used crunchy peanut butter, but I couldn't really tell while eating it. Also, I cooked it for about 2 minutes (maybe 2 and a half.) Apparently the longer you cook it, after it's started boiling, the faster it sets. 5 minutes is hard to get out of the pot, before it turns into a brick, but 1 minute sometimes never really sets, once you've scooped it out. Mine set and dried pretty quickly, and I got most of it out of the pot with no problems. I had no idea how big to make them though, so there were several large clusters and I think I made closer to 10-15 total. A couple flaked off into little mini-cookies, about the size of a coin, too. I'm afraid my phone isn't very good, so you can barely tell. The cookies look like one huge lump together.


      CPO (Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal) Cookies        Makes: 20+

      Ingredients:
      2 cups      sugar                                1 tsp       vanilla extract
      5 Tbsp      cocoa                                1/2 cup       peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
      6 Tbsp       (3/4 stick) butter              3 cups        Minutes (not instant) oatmeal
      1/2 cup        milk

      Directions:
      Chocolate Mixture:
      In a saucepan bigger than you think you need (mixture more than doubles in size during rolling boil),
      mix sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk together.

      Cook until rolling boil. Let boil 1 to 5 minutes. Stir occasionally.
      When boiling time is up, remove pot from burner.

      Add vanilla and peanut butter to chocolate mixture:
      stir until peanut butter is melted.

      If you use the same measuring cup as you did for the milk, without washing inbetween,
      the peanut butter will slide out with less scraping (and less peanut butter loss.)

      Add 3 cups of oatmeal. Mix well.

      Drop onto waxed paper. Takes 10 minutes to 1 hour to harden, depending on boiling time.





My aunt took a picture of it at a rolling boil, on her camera, but I was busy at the time. I took mine before the burner was even on, using my phone, and didn't ask her for a copy of her pic (though I probably should have.) Of note, this is the first time I've really used my phone for taking pictures. I don't do selfies and I don't usually take pictures of my food.


She told me to flip them over at one point, so both sides could dry.




Reaction Image:

I did get her to use my phone to take a picture of my reaction image though. I tried so hard to do it on my own, with one hand, but they all came out worse than this one. (And yes, I have adult acne.) It was hard showing chewing and I was worried my expression wouldn't turn out right (and I held the cookie the wrong way, you can't even tell I bit it from here), so I added in a thumbs up. I really did enjoy them, although they're very rich. I can't imagine eating more than two at a time, maybe three if they're small (and I'm one of those people who can eat a bunch of chocolate chip cookies in one sitting, if I leave the package in easy reach.)

I really don't have any expectations of winning this contest. I know my entry is so incredibly mild and typical, but I'm trying to try new things these days. I wasn't comfortable relying on a recipe without any guidance and my other aunt said this was one of the oldest recipes they had. ^_^;;;

Edit: I guess I should have held up the paper with my username on it for the reaction image. Let me know if you need confirmation or something. I can try taking another picture with that. I was so busy fussing with the angle and one hand free, that I forgot all about it.

So, I found this picture and I was totally inspired by the Delight Jello at the bottom there...

Apparently, according to the blog the image came from, this was essentially how you would show what a recipe would look like before photos were readily available. I now want a mold that looks like the macaroon velvet jello at the top...
Anyway, unfortunately, Delight Jello is not that unique of a name for a recipe and I couldn't find it's actual recipe so I looked through a few recipes to find something that could make a similar looking dessert.

I stopped looking when I ran across the recipe for grasshopper pie. As a child, I remember trying to make grasshopper squares from one of our cookbooks because the picture of the dessert had always intrigued me. I never was very successful at making them, but seeing the pie form listed on mid century menu, and the fact that it is made with marshmallows made my decision on the center of my Delight Jello. I left out the creme de menthe in the center, as I wanted it to stay white rather than be green.
I also unfortunately had to use just a regular stove top, as I do not have access to a Burner-with-a-Brain XD

Next I had to figure out what I was going to do with the Jello part. I couldn't think of any brown Jello, but whenever I thought brown, I thought of root-beer. I went looking for an old root beer Jello recipe, and found this one which is maybe stretching the rules a little since I replaced the apple juice with root beer as the poster suggested rather than following the actual recipe, but I don't really like following recipes exactly anyway. It's much more fun experimenting!

After settling on root beer gelatin, I kept thinking of root beer floats. I'm pretty sure those white blobs are supposed to be marshmallows (another reason I thought the marshmallowy grasshopper pie would be the perfect filling) but I decided to put vanilla ice cream balls around it instead. I also saw those cola gummies in the store so I got some for the top instead of the pecans.

ROOT BEER DELIGHT:
Here is my Root Beer Delight, with my trusty Dalek adviser holding my name tag for me. I also made a root beer float to go along with it since I had the supplies around!


I still apparently can't fold in things, so the filling turned out a lot less floofy than it was supposed to, which was kind-of disappointing, but at least it still tasted alright.

I also learned that gelatin melts! *derp* When I poured the filling into the center, I held the warm pot a little too close to the gelatin and melted a little hole in the edge. Also, warming the pan to get the gelatin out of the mold left runny melted gelatin bits along the edge of the plate that I had to remove. It probably would have been easier to remove them before solidifying the gelatin again, but I was getting paranoid that the entire thing was starting to melt (especially after my first test of the gelatin mold with actual Jello ended in an epic failure of flat runny Jello that collapsed as soon as I lifted the mold away) I also couldn't move the gelatin back into the center of the plate after it had hardened and glued itself to the plate.

Reaction shot:
The dog was super excited to try some Root Beer Delight she could hardly keep her tongue off it (she didn't actually get this entire piece, but I did give her a little piece after the photo shoot)

Sorry about the blurriness, but with the low light inside the camera though the food was more important to focus on. Also, I had to take the photo before Zeia decided to just go ahead and eat the entire piece and listen later.

I also tried getting one with the parrot, but she took one look at the wiggling jello and ran off as fast as possible.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, especially with how it looked. It was fun experimenting with gelatin and the mold and I may just have to try some other gelatin recipes in the future. The gelatin was maybe a little hard though and next time I would use one less envelope.

GRASSHOPPER PIE
I also made a normal grasshopper pie with the rest of the filling that didn't fit into the gelatin, just in case this is too much experimentation and not enough vintage recipe. -Click- The colour didn't turn out quite as green as I had expected, probably because I tried to be artistic and swirl it in...

Aahhh.... I completely forgot about this! I was so busy with the Salt Lake Comic Con for the past three days... I will try to get something cooked up today

OH MAN I STILL HAVE TIME! WOooooooooo!!!! I'm gonna work on this now! I thought I had till the 6th. hehehe omg yay!!!!

I will try to get my entry in tonight if I have time - lief has contrived to make entering this difficult. But I will make Avocado Jello Pie!

Any chance this is going to be extended? I would really like to enter but I didn't have the time over the weekend. If not that is fine, I just would love a chance to win Pursuer of Bygone Skies. He is sooo gorgeous.

Click Here to see the site I found it!

Why I chose this dish: Because it is easy to make; Cheap; and contains things I both love and hate.

I am not a person to eat different and strange things but... I figured, its for sams, WHY NOT! ^_^


My ingredients and Sign!


Ingredients Used: Milk, Cream of mushroom soup, Olives, Waffles (I dont have a waffle maker :< ), Canned Tuna (I am a bit broke ^^; Use what I can get)

I have majority of the EASY STEPS in pictures. I have found that most Retro recipes are rather easy to do and don't require much effort.

Here we go!


Open the tuna!


Drain, drain, drain... ^.^


Pop the soup top and pour in the pan!


Add all of the ingredients together in the pan (Except the waffles!) Smells good! Surprisingly. O.O;


Heat and stir!!!


Throw those waffles in the toaster!


Take the waffles and put em on a plate, then pour the goop ontop! Viola!! Tuna N' Waffles!


Me and.. IT...


Dig in! Yummy! O_O


Goooopey! See it dripping >_>;


Chewing...Chewing...


OLIVE!!!!!!!!!!!! Dx Eeeeewwwww...


All gone! Codress, aren't you proud?!

I give this dish a 1.5 out of 5 stars. It actually wasnt that bad, until I hit the olive! Just throws the whole flavor WAY off. Ixnay the olives and it is bareable, in case some crazy granny goes on a retro cooking throw back fit. ^_^

I hope you all had fun with yours! I had a blast with mine!

Thanks for the fun! I had a blast -wiggles- Good luck everyone! ^_^

***PS, I totally forgot to put my user name with the picture of my food :/ I was in such a hurry to get my pictures and stuff posted before the deadline... I ate it.. then tossed it in the garbage (It was driving the cats insane!!! and also... I couldnt stomach anymore of it. lol) So I posted my ingredients containers with a sign... Idk if that works but If I am disqualified, I do understand..I'm just glad I could share! x3 ((I can take a picture of the garbage! >_>;; I just dont have anymore soup or I would make it again....)) I just didnt think about it until after I was reading back through the rules and making my post. V_V;;; Sams 101... (Le sigh) Doyee... Just REALLY wanted to get this up. lol ***

Recipe: Lamingtons
(Or EVIL DEVIL SQUARES OF DOOM.)

Okay, so, originally I was going to make one of the salads in jello, because that sounded awesome, but someone ate all my tomatoes before I got up this morning. *glares daggers at all and sundry* So I had to go with the few basic ingredients I had... And make an old Aussie classic. Of course, never having made Lamingtons before, I assumed they'd be relatively simple. I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE WRONG. I am never making these devil-squares again. I mean, geeeeeeezus. The cake wouldn't stay together, we didn't have any icing sugar so I had to grind some regular sugar into powder, but then the icing wouldn't stick to the cake and tore chunks off when I tried to force it to stick, and I ended up covered in a mixture of cake/icing/coconut.
What should have been a half-hour exercise at most ended up taking well over an hour. FFFFFF. And they still look like they were made by a five-year-old.
... At least they taste good. |D;; All chocolate-y and cake-y.

Entry Photo:


Reaction Shots:
I had both my sister and my brother try this, with vastly different reactions...


My sister, who is a gym junkie and on a constant diet, took some serious convincing to have one. But she absolutely loved it in the end.

Whereas my little brother, we discovered, is not a fan of coconut. XD

I decided to make Candied Crackers because...
Grahm crackers. Yay!
Chocolate. Yay!
Peanuts. Yay!
Brown Sugar. Yay!
Butter. You guessed it, yay!

Sadly, I don't seem to like these things bunched together XD it tasted good, but I don't seem to like the peanuts with it, which is another leading reason as to why I probably don't like snickers?
Though the main reason I did this was because I did have all the ingredients, and I didn't have the time to go all out on a cool recipe (which I am extremely sad about)

http://www.midcenturymenu.com/2013/07/c ... cipe-test/

Candied Crackers
Author: Kansas City Newspaper, 1950's

Ingredients
½ cup butter or margarine
¼ cup brown sugar
6 whole graham crackers
1 cup chocolate chips
½ cup chopped nuts
Instructions
Boil together sugar and butter over medium heat for two minutes. Cool.
Place graham crackers tightly in a shallow pan and pour sugar mixture over them. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 5 mins.
Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips and nuts over the top. Allow bars to cool and cut into desired shapes.








Despite my dislike, it really was "finger lickin' good" (I had to pun, I really did)
And Seren can vouch that this is my face >> XD

These are them after a day (they look uglier because of my phone but shh)


One thing I DO have to say is that you need to wait a good hour at a minimum because these things stay goopy for a while


And I wish I had cookie cutters or something with a shape because they would have been toonnnnnss more fun that way. so for now they remain square XD

You have no idea how excited I was to make something from this cookbook! I chose an apricot mousse served it oatmeal lace cookie bowls!
The 1st batch of cookies ended up becoming one large cookie on the pan, which was perfect for cutting bowls out and placing them on an upside down cupcake tin!
The 2nd batch of cookies.... well they ended up burning and were not fit for consumption. But hey, it came out nice enough!
I was doing so many things at once I only managed to snap a few photos at the start, but it came out delicious in the end!






And Britain was my test subject for this! It came out a delicious after dinner desert!

He hee rikkugirl ate tuna without me wow impressed! Also different and swallowed *claps hands* good girl good girl! Lol yesh wsdnt sble to do this one umless time was backed some but rules are rules and good luck to all!!

other note: csnt wsit to see uou rikku this weekendddddd! Even hot BOTH days off so we can do whateverrr! Soooo excited!! ^_^

Thank you so much for all of these delicious (or in some cases, "delicious?" XD) entries! I hope to have the winners announced before the weekend Good luck, everyone!