Mock Guacamole

Mock Guacamole
submitted by Janet Seal, location unknown
compiled by Linda Taylor

How fondly I remember my childhood in the sun-dappled fields south of San Luis Obispo, when we children would pluck artichokes fresh from the stalk, and Maria (our kindly maid) would make us her homemade hollandaise to dip the fresh-steamed leaves in.  When mother and father returned from solving their most recent murder mystery...

...oh wait, that was my pretend tv family, not my actual family.

My actual family, in the suburbs west of Columbus, Ohio, DID have hollandaise, but mock hollandaise - mayonnaise, lemon juice and garlic powder, microwaved into a yellowish blob of goo with the viscosity of shaving cream.  Still, pretty close to the taste of actual hollandaise with less than half the effort of making it.

Which led me to believe, naturally, that any foodstuff with "mock" preceding it was supposed to approximate the taste of the food it was mocking. Spoiler alert in case you don't want to read to the end:  I was wrong.

A recent second-hand store find was the colorful binder pictured below, titled "Linda Taylor's Recipes" on the front, and full of hand-written and newspaper-clipped recipes lovingly pasted, scrapbook-style, onto pieces of notebook paper.

Mock Guacamole, found only six pages in, perhaps comes from the days before you could find six bushels of avocados languishing in your grocery's produce section, ready for purchase year-round.  It also seems to be a dietetic alternative to real avocados, before we knew that some sorts of fat were good for you (though, as it appears on the same page as bacon-wrapped scallops, I'm not sure that's what Linda Taylor had in mind).

At any rate, it's horrific.

Here's the recipe:

2 (10 1/2-ounce) cans cut asparagus, drained.
1 cup finely chopped tomato
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon reduced-calorie mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon hot sauce

Position knife blade in food processor bowl; add asparagus. Process until smooth; transfer to a mixing bowl. Stir in tomato and remaining ingredients. Place mixture in a paper towel-lined wire-mesh strainer or colander, and let drain 1 hour. Cover and chill at least 3 hours. Serve with baked tostito chips, instead of fried.

Don't get me wrong, I love asparagus. Fresh, preferably, but I'm not opposed to canned if it's all that's available.  But let me tell you something, there is NO WAY to process asparagus until "smooth". It's stringy and slimy and lumpy, and to make it smooth would defy the laws of physics.

Already suspicious by the texture of the pureed asparagus, and skeptical of the upcoming instruction to drain in a paper towel-lined colander, I threw caution to the wind and went ahead and used real full-fat mayonnaise. It didn't help.

What we thought: Husband wouldn't touch it, leaving me to taste-test it myself.

It's canned asparagus run through a food processor. That's exactly what it tastes like. Horrible. This is coming from someone who's eaten Banana Salmon Salad and Ring-Around-The-Tuna. Don't make this, even as a dare.

Our Rating: I don't know...what's the rating when Husband won't even try it?

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

Avocado Strawberry Ring

Avocado Strawberry Ring
"It's a delight to serve a light green and vivid red delicacy."
Joys of Jell-O, p. 41

Surely you'll have noticed by now that it's not a ring at all.  Which can be easily explained by my hurry in trying to get this ready to actually take to a neighborhood gathering. Aren't I the daring young thing?

Reading the recipe in print, it seemed like sort of an unusual combination to me, but an acquaintance I was talking about it with nonchalantly reported that she used to eat avocados and strawberries laced with balsamic vinegar quite frequently as a child.

As for me, I never even heard of avocados until about 1986, long past my childhood.  Maybe I was just sheltered, for I've come across more than a few mid-century recipes calling for them, and my crack Googling skills tell me that using them in sweet dishes isn't all that unusual at all.

The recipe:

1 package Jell-O Lemon or Lemon-Lime Gelatin (I used Lemon - do they even make Lemon-Lime anymore?)

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup boiling water

3/4 cup cold water

1 tbsp. lemon juice

3 tbsp. mayonnaise

1 avocado, pared and mashed

1 pint fresh strawberries (or use 2 packages [10 oz. each] Birds Eye Strawberry Halves, thawed and drained)

Dissolve Jell-O gelatin and salt in boiling water. Add cold water and lemon juice. Chill until slightly thickened. Stir in mayonnaise and avocado, blending well. Pour into a 3- or 4-cup ring mold or individual ring molds. Chill until firm. Unmold and fill center of ring with berries. Makes about 2 1/2 cups gelatin, or 5 servings.

As mentioned above, I was in a hurry, so I did the first chilling in the freezer, which may have been a mistake as it got a little too firm before adding the mayo and avocado.  The finished product was a little lumpy as a result, not the shimmering sea-foam green delight promised by the Joys of Jell-O photo illustration. I only have one ring mold, and I'm not sure the recipe as printed would have made enough to adequately fill it, another reason I chose the loaf pan shape.  

I am also excessively proud of my decorative skills, which looked better in real life than the picture above would lead you to believe.

What we thought: I took this dish to game night at the neighbor's, not knowing that the hostess has a known distaste for avocado. Nonetheless, she gamely took a taste, and then she and her other guests set about guessing what was in it (Husband was on his way, but hadn't arrived yet).

Surprisingly (to me, at least) the avocado adds a creaminess to the sweetness of the lemon Jell-O /strawberry combination somewhat like a cheesecake base.

"Creamy, refreshing and cool" is what husband had to say when he arrived.

I am a convert. I'll probably try this again, or at least try combining avocado with a fruit salad.

Our Rating: Zero Screaming Husbands!

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

Special Edition: Bone Appetit!

Well, I've taken it into my head to create my own molded food recipes. Imagine, me, a molded food cook!

I wanted to start with something, though, that wasn't too difficult to make, and would be sure to be eaten without complaint.  So I decided to make something tempting for the Dogs.

Now, I'm not one to spoil my dogs, unless you count brushing their teeth every night, or buying a bigger bed so that they could sleep with husband and me, or planning entire vacations around the availability of favorite dog-sitters.

But, they do enjoy the occasional break from canned food (albeit the highest quality canned food) so, after ensuring that gelatin was indeed non-toxic to dogs, I set about creating the following recipe.

I used a basic aspic recipe as the template. I'm not entirely happy with the beef broth, because of the sodium, so maybe next time I'll just use the boiling water from the chicken.

So, here's the recipe:

1 envelope Knox unflavored gelatin
1 3/4 cups low-sodium beef broth, divided
1 chicken breast or thigh, boiled and diced
2 large carrots, cooked and diced
1 apple, peeled and diced

Sprinkle gelatin on 1/2 cup of the beef broth to soften. Place over low heat and stir until gelatin is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in remaining 1 1/4 cups of broth.

Pour 1/2 inch layer of broth mixture into a rectangular mold.  Chill until firm.

Meanwhile, boil chicken and carrots together in unsalted water. Simmer until chicken is cooked.  Dice chicken and carrots.

Artfully arrange diced chicken and carrots atop layer of firmed gelatin. Top with diced apple.  Pour remainder of gelatin into mold and chill until firm.

Unmold on serving plate and garnish with kibble, if desired.

The Dogs had already had their evening meal, so I just gave each of them a small sample to try.

What they thought:

They also each had a larger serving for breakfast next morning, with similar enthusiastic results. I'd say that the recipe makes about 8 meal-sized servings for a 20-40 pound dog, more if you're using for treat purposes only.

Our Rating: Zero Whining Dogs!

Banana Salmon Salad

Banana Salmon Salad
500 Delicious Salad Recipes, p. 8

One of my recent eBay acquisitions was the delightful "500 Delicious Salad Recipes" published by the Culinary Arts Institute in 1951.  A wonderful compilation, valuable for its extensive instruction on home-made dressings alone, as well as an entertaining primer from the dawn of congealed salads and HOLY CRAP BANANA AND SALMON SALAD

Being that the recipe was published in 1951, it's undoubtedly a nod to the craze for "Polynesian" foods that swept across middle class America from the late forties through early 70's.  (If the thought of Polynesian Restaurants and Tiki Lounges dotting the landscape doesn't make you nostalgically melancholic, then you're probably in the wrong place.)

We can largely credit Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron and his chain of restaurants for igniting the craze, and satisfying the hunger for foreign-esque foods that our boys had brought back from the Pacific theatre of World War II.  The formula is simple:  take any savory substance, preferably a roasted meat of some kind, and add overwhelming amounts of a sickeningly sweet glop, like grape jelly, pineapple, or maraschino cherries. Or a combination of the three.  Add a banana for a little texture variation and, voila! you've got yourself a backyard luau!

(The rise and fall of Polynesian cookery is superbly chronicled by Jane and Michael Stern in their books The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste and American Gourmet, both sadly out of print but well worth tracking down.)

So, here we go:

3 ripe bananas, diced
1/2 cup diced canned pineapple (about 2 slices)
1 1/2 cups canned salmon
1/4 cup diced celery
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chopped pickle
Mayonnaise to moisten

Mix bananas and pineapple together. Add flaked salmon. Fold in remaining ingredients. Garnish with crisp lettuce or other greens and lemon slices. Serves 8.

Let me state at the outset that canned salmon is a horrid thing. Unlike canned tuna, a can of salmon contains bits of skin and bone and is a messy reminder that what you're about to ingest actually came from nature.  So "flaking" (otherwise known as "meticulously picking through to ensure that you got all the tiny needle-thin bones out") is a necessity.  And the intoxicating smell of salmon being flaked is sure to attract an attentive audience.

Also, there's a very fine line between "dicing" and "pulverizing" bananas.  Use a delicate touch, gals, and make sure that your bananas are not over-ripe!

I wasn't sure about the last two ingredients:  "chopped pickle"....was I meant to chop my own, or was there actually once a product called chopped pickle that one could buy?  Should I chop dill or sweet pickles?  Since another recipe in this book specified chopped dill pickle, I assumed sweet was what was wanted, so I just used garden-variety sweet pickle relish.

And mayonnaise to "moisten"...I used a heaping tablespoon, which from the resulting consistency of the dish may have been a bit too much, but if I've learned anything thus far, it's that mayonnaise never hurt anything.

What we thought: Not wanting to alert Husband to the presence of fish and banana in the same dish, for the taste test I made him close his eyes while I ladled a dollop of the salad into his mouth.  I recorded his impressions, which are transcribed below:

"Why would you mix all those flavors and textures together?"

"Did I just eat egg, and...green pepper, tuna, and.....strawberry?"

"Can I have another bite?"

"Are there potatoes in that?"

"Definitely celery."

"It's so confusing! Is there tuna in this? Chicken?" 

(I then showed him page 8 of the book and told him that the recipe was on that page.)

"Oh My God it's Banana Salmon Salad. Oh that's delicious!  That's canned salmon? Bobb that's fantastic!"

For my money, it's awfully reminiscent of good old American tuna salad.  In fact, it tastes almost exactly like tuna salad, if tuna salad had bananas in it.  If I make it ever again, I'll just go ahead and use tuna, to avoid the hassle of picking through the salmon.  I honestly can't even distinguish the pineapple taste, so if you're tempted to try this at home, you might up the amount to give it more of a Polynesian exoticism.

Our Rating: Zero Screaming Husbands!

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

(Not my) Granny's Tomato Aspic Ring

Granny's Tomato Aspic Ring
submitted by Stefania Butler, The Internets

So, here's how it all went down; Husband informed me we were to host a birthday potluck for a work associate of his.  Besides supplying my regionally-favorite Sky-like Chili and Pigeon Pea Dip (both to be featured soon in this very spot!) I was determined to try my hand at supplying a molded salad and subjecting my party guests to a taste test.

So as not to completely overwhelm them (I mean, at the moment we're pretty dependent on Husband's salary to survive, so...) I decide to go with a simple, classic tomato aspic.  I have dim memories of eating such a thing on occasion in my childhood, and my mother still extols the virtues of the dish, but my memories weren't recent enough to recall the taste, and certainly not the making of.

There are so many variations of the recipe, that I let my Googling skills determine one of the simplest, which I found here.  The recipe, as printed:

1 quart tomato juice
1/3 cup finely diced onion
1/4 cup finely cut celery leaves
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 small bay leaves
4 whole cloves
2 tbsps unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1 cup thinly sliced celery
crisp salad greens
for garnish: mayonnaise, avocado, and/or small bay (salad) shrimp

Combine tomato juice, onion, celery leaves, sugar, salt, bay leaves, and cloves in an enamel or glass saucepan. Simmer five minutes over medium heat. Strain.

Soften gelatin in cold water and stir into hot tomato mixture. Add lemon juice. Chill until partially set. Add celery. Stir gently.

Pour into lightly oiled 1 1/2 quart ring mold. Chill until firm. Unmold onto salad greens. Fill center with cold mayonnaise and/or with sliced avocado and shrimp.

One problem - I didn't adequately anticipate my shopping needs. Thinking I had tomato juice at home, I didn't buy any.  What I thought was tomato juice turned out to actually be V-8...exactly 1 quart.  So I took a chance and used it (as one party guest remarked, "it's probably what saved it.")

Working with unflavored gelatin is still new to me and still gives me a thrill.  I feel like I'm doing a science project. Seems like some enterprising young buck could do a bit of creative brainstorming and see what sorts of crazy flavor combinations he could come up with.  Oh wait, that's me.  Stay tuned!

The rest of the recipe came together fairly easily.  Because I was working with V-8, I cut back a bit on the onion, celery and salt, but went full in with the brown sugar.

The mold chilled about five hours in a copper mold, and was just a bit runny when I unmolded it, but didn't fall apart.  In a nod to the directions in the recipe, I surrounded the ring with avocado and canned salad shrimp, but left the mayonnaise on the side to be used at the diner's discretion.

What we thought: Me - anything reminiscent of a Bloody Mary is aces in my book. I'm thinking of adding horseradish and vodka and trying for a Bloody Mary Jell-O shooter next time.

It really wasn't bad at all, but as with the Ring-Around-The-Tuna, a dab of mayonnaise makes it go down pretty easy.  The salad shrimp and avocado were a nice touch, but not completely necessary other than for presentation purposes.

Husband - "The Tomato Aspic had a nice refreshing flavor, a nice balance to the heavier dishes in the potluck. I don't know why people stopped making it."  I can confide that husband didn't care for the salad shrimp at all.

Party Guests - admittedly, I didn't interview them all individually, but there were ten guests, and only about a serving and a half left at the end of the night. So someone must have liked it.

I'm going to make it again on Easter Sunday for mother and see if it stands up to her standards. In all, I think it's probably something I wouldn't mind making, non-ironically,  and on occasion, perhaps alongside a chicken or fish dish.

Our Rating: Zero Screaming Husbands!
(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

Ring-Around-The-Tuna

Ring-Around-The-Tuna
"A beautiful jewel-like entree salad for your luncheon or buffet table!"

-"Joys of Jell-O", page 65

In for a penny, in for a pound they say. So I've been scouring eBay for vintage recipe books (that are in my price range, which limits me quite a bit.)

My first triumph arrived in the mail yesterday, the 1963 edition of "Joys of Jell-O". I literally squealed with delight when I opened the package.

Not only recipes, but so much more - recommended chilling times, tips on un-molding, and even a delightful preface, "The Story of Jell-O...And Why It Grew";

Jell-O Gelatin first grandly shimmered its way into American dining rooms in 1897. Just how many brands in your kitchen go back 65 years? Very few, you can be sure, and fewer still have continued to grow in popularity the way Jell-O Gelatin has each year.

...Jell-O Gelatin's long-time popularity comes from many good things. Its lightness is one - a big one. Jell-O Gelatin is so light it seems to make any meal sit a little lighter. Its fresh fruit taste, so much like the fruit that inspired it, is utterly satisfying. And its easy to fix in all kinds of ways - some we'll wager that have never entered your mind. 


Fair enough. Encasing tuna fish in lime Jell-O never would have entered my mind (and this is coming from someone who's already put corned beef in Jell-O.)

But, come on. It's called "Ring-Around-The-Tuna". How could I not. It's like Joys of Jell-O was daring me to make it.

As I've come to find out, one of the major frustrations when making a savory Jell-O dish is trying to balance out the sweetness of the fruit flavoring.  Jell-O in fact did address this problem, briefly, in the 1960's, by developing four savory flavors:  celery, mixed vegetable, seasoned tomato, and italian salad.

For some reason, the savory flavors weren't so popular, and were discontinued shortly after their introduction. Oddly, I remember a box of tomato flavor Jell-O which sat, unused, in our pantry through most of my childhood.  Though likely to be inedible after 50 years, you can still find unopened boxes of these flavors for sale if you're so inclined.

The more standard method of turning sweet-to-savory is by adding vinegar and grated onion.  In an earlier recipe, I pooh-poohed the idea of grating onion versus fine dicing, but I have finally seen the light; grating produces an onion slush that can mix in and flavor the entire mold, rather than bits of flavor here and there.

Now then, here is the recipe in all its glory:

1 package (3 oz.) Jell-O Lime or Lemon-Lime Gelatin

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup boiling water

3/4 cup cold water

 2 tablespoons vinegar

2 teaspoons grated onion

1/2 cup diced cucumber

1/ cup diced celery*

2 tablespoons chopped pimiento*

2 tablespoons sliced stuffed olives

1 can (7 oz.) tuna, drained and flaked

* or reduce celery to 1/4 cup and substitute 1/2 cup chopped tomato for the pimiento

Dissolve Jell-O Gelatin and salt in boiling water. Add cold water, vinegar, and onion. Chill until very thick. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into individual ring molds or a 1-quart ring mold. Chill until firm. Unmold on crisp salad greens. If desired, serve with additional tuna and top salads with mayonnaise. Makes 3 2/3 cups, or about 4 entree servings.

This goes together fairly quickly, the most time consuming part was grating the onion.  Husband got a peek at the recipe title as I was putting it together and gasped, "Wait, there's not tuna in it, is there?"  Heh.

Now, the officially-approved trick to adding items to Jell-O is to "chill until very thick, not set".  Maybe  judging the point at which Jell-O is very thick but not set was a skill taught in Home Economics classes back in the day, but frankly it caused me a lot of anxiety. I watched it like a mother hen. And I'm still not sure if I chose the right moment to add everything in, but made my best guess.

Whether because of my mixing style or timing, my mold ended up being somewhat cloudier than the photo sample provided in Joys of Jell-O:

Mine

Theirs

I am exceedingly fond of my radish roses, however.

What we thought: This is actually not the most disgusting thing I've ever had in my mouth (no gay jokes, please). You can definitely tell that there's tuna in it, but it's not an overpowering taste.

Husband likes the mix of textures. The most jarring thing for both of us is the uneasy mix between sweet and salty - unlike, say, salted caramel, the two extremes here don't mix quite so well. Nonetheless, husband said "I would almost welcome that on a hot summer's day."

We each tried a second taste with a dollop of mayonnaise on top, and it worked much better at smoothing out the salty-sweet disparity.  A quarter cup or so of mayonnaise mixed in before chilling might not be such a bad idea. Were it still available, I wouldn't be opposed to trying this recipe with celery-flavored Jell-O, or even the discontinued lemon-lime. In fact, lemon might even be a better fruit-flavored choice for this particular recipe, especially with the addition of mayonnaise.

So mock if you will, but there may be something to this gelatin cookery after all. Or maybe I'm just a fat slob who'll eat anything.  Nonetheless, I'll continue tasting so you don't have to!

Our Rating: Two Screaming Husbands!

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

Cornflower Salad

Cornflower Salad
contributed by Opal Pruitt, Buda, Ill.

Like the beloved Guess What Salad, this sort of ended up looking like vomit encased in gelatin.  But, unlike the Guess What Salad, the main ingredient here is cream corn, which already looks a lot like vomit on its own, so one could reasonably expect that the gelled version would, too.  And yet, Opal Pruitt of Buda, Illinois thought it wise to go ahead with this recipe.

Here it is:
2 no. 2 cans cream corn
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. onion, grated
Pepper to taste
2 tbsp. sugar
3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/2 c. water
6 cooked carrots
6 medium green peppers, hollowed

Blend corn, onion, salt, pepper and sugar. Soften gelatin in water; dissolve over hot water. Add to corn mixture. Put a piece of carrot in each hollowed out pepper and fill with corn mixture. Set peppers in muffin pan to steady them while chilling. Slice and serve on salad greens with dressing.

Two challenges right off the bat - I've never worked with unflavored gelatin, and what the hay is a no. 2 can?

The second question was quickly answered by my crack Googling skills - and here's a handy chart of old-timety can size equivalents for easy reference. Turns out no. 2 is about 20 ounces. Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but if my 7th-grade math skills are serving me correctly, using two no. 2 cans would result in about five cups of cream corn slop.  Having recently dumped a gallon of unused glop down the drain, I decided off the bat to halve the recipe, since it's just Husband and me.

The closest I could get to a 20-ounce can these days was 14 3/4 ounces, so I reckoned that close enough to 20 for my purposes.

Now, the unflavored gelatin.  It's a pretty intimidating process, like conducting a little science experiment in your very own kitchen!  First, you sprinkle the gelatin granules on top of cold water (or whatever liquid flavor base you might be using.)  After a few moments it turns into something resembling tile caulk.  Then, you have to heat it up without adding more liquid, and stir until the gel is all dissolved.  (I set the measuring cup in a pan of boiling potatoes which I was using for another recipe,  Dingle Fish Pie, which is delicious and thus not suitable for this blog.)

Okay, now that I read over that last paragraph, it doesn't sound so difficult or amazing.  But it is a lot less convenient than instant-mix Jell-O, plus at this point I was about two cocktails in.

I also wasn't exactly sure of the benefit of grating onion vs. just dicing it really fine, so I did the latter.

The trickiest part of the entire operation was balancing the cooked carrot in the middle of the hollowed-out green pepper while pouring in the corn slop.  Then trying to ensure that it stayed erect (heh heh) during the chilling process, which took quite a while. Overnight, in fact. (You can see in the above photo how one of the carrots, meant to represent the pistil, got whopper jawed.)

(Incidentally, I'm really impressed with myself that I pulled the word pistil out of my ass just now.  I'm not even sure if it's the right word, but one of my biologist cousins will set me straight if not.)

What we thought:  The gelled corn slop was okay, but not really flavorful enough to cover for the green pepper taste, which sort of overwhelmed.  Also, the gel doesn't really adhere to the green pepper very well...once sliced, one would need to serve right away, as the gelatin tends to slip out of its protective pepper-frame.

I really didn't like this one bit, owing in large part to my dislike for raw green peppers.  Which biases me, and what I think is not germaine anyway.  I might have liked it better had I followed the suggestion to serve "with dressing" but I couldn't imagine what would go with it. Ranch?

Husband....loved it. It might be his favorite thing I've made yet.  Go figure.

Our Rating: Zero Screaming Husbands!

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)