Dutch Lunch Vintage Menu Madness

 

Hello!  Its Tuesday and you know what that means!  Its another Vintage Menu Madness day!  The day where I cook an entire menu from one of my vintage cookery books.

That's a full menu with a main dish, some fabulous sides and a dessert. Often a bread or an appetizer as well, depending on the menu!

I just adore vintage cookbooks and have been acquiring a collection of them. My love of vintage recipes started with a cook book in my mother's collection (of two or three books) entitled the "Money Saving Cook Book" by Ida Bailey Allen. 
 

It was a part of The Essential Home Library and was only one of about six books.  The cook book was my favorite (no surprise there!).  I used to spend hours perusing it's pages. It had  a whole section of menus.  It started my love of Vintage recipes. I was thrilled when I left home to move out West and my mother gave the book to me. It has been a prize in my collection of books ever since!

The Menu I am sharing with you today comes from the Betty Crocker Book, the "Good and Easy Cook Book" which was published in 1954.  Alas, mine is just a reprint of the original book, but it has promised that nothing in it is changed and so far that is true.

This particular menu was entitled Dutch Lunch and above you can see the photo of the luncheon from out of the book, along with the very extensive menu!  That's a whole lotta food.  I expect it was probably planned for a get-together of people, rather than a family meal.

I decided not to cook the full menu and switched it out a bit to make it more family friendly, but the basics of the menu I kept the same.  Here is what I served:

QUAILS

POTATO SALAD

EASY BAKED BEANS

CORN MUFFINS & BUTTER

DILL PICKLES

CREAMY RICE PUDDING

All of the recipes bar the corn muffins were taken from the book.  I got the small batch corn muffin recipe from another vintage cookbook of mine, entitled A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband, originally published in 1917.

I did cut the recipes back to serve only two people as well, since I am a person who lives all on their own. If you are wanting the recipes to serve more, simply jot me a comment and I will be happy to oblige.

 

The main item on the menu was something which was called Quails.  Don't worry it is not the bird. Instead it is a hot dog which has been split and stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon.  This is then grilled under a broiler on both sides until golden brown.

Here are the instructions from the book as it is not a recipe per se, leaving you free to make as many "quails" as you wish. I have put them into my own words and made them more user friendly:

Split frankfurters/weiners lengthwise, almost all the way through (so that you can open them up like a book). Place 1/4 inch sticks of sharp cheese into each, along the length and then close the weiners to enclose them for the most part.

Take one slice of streaky bacon for each, and wrap it around the cheese stuffed frankfurter, securing the ends with a toothpick at each end.

Heat your grill/broiler to high.  Place your "quails" onto a baking sheet (I would line with some aluminum foil for easy of cleaning up afterwards), cut side down.  Broil until golden brown and then flip over and brown the other side, until the bacon is crisp.

One of the tasty side dishes for this menu was Quick Baked Beans.  These were meant to mimic baked beans from scratch, but with the use of a tin of baked beans and a few tasty ingredients. 

 

I chose to spoon my baked beans over one of the corn muffins I also baked. I just split and buttered it and then ladled on some baked beans.  I will include the corn muffin recipe with the baked bean recipe.  

You don't have to eat it the way I did, but I can tell you it was awfully good eaten this way!

Quick Baked Beans and Corn Muffins

Yield: 4

Author: Marie Rayner

Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 1 HourTotal time: 1 H & 15 M

A deliciously quick way to make beans that taste just as good as homemade. The corn muffins are a tasty addition.

Ingredients

For the beans:

• a few pieces of crispy fried bacon, crumbled or some fried salt pork
• 1 tin (9 ounce/255g) baked beans
• 1 TBS cider vinegar
• 1 TBS molasses or soft light brown sugar (optional)
• 1 TBS tomato ketchup
• 1/4 tsp dry mustard powder
• 1 medium brown onion, peeled and chopped

For the muffins:

• 1/2 cup (80g) yellow cornmeal (coarse polenta)
• 1/2 cup (70g) plain all purpose flour
• 3 TBS sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 large free range egg
• 1/2 cup (120ml) whole milk
• 1 TBS butter, melted

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4. Combine all of the ingredients for the baked beans in a 1 QT/liter casserole dish. Cover tightly with aluminum foil.
2. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour.
3. While the beans are baking make the corn muffins. Butter a six cup muffin tin really well.
4. Whisk the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together in a bowl to combine well.
5. Whisk together the milk, egg and melted butter. Pour this on top of the dry ingredients in the bowl and whisk together just to combine. Divide the batter between the prepared muffin cups filling each 2/3 full.
6. Bake along side the beans for the last 25 to 30 minutes of their bake time.
7. Remove both the beans and the muffins from the oven. Let the beans sit for 10 minutes before serving. Tip the muffins out onto a wire rack to cool slightly.
8. Serve both warm.

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Another one of the fabulous sides was a delicious potato salad.  It was quite a simple salad, not too complicated. No bells and whistles.  It went together very quickly and easy. It starts off the same as my normal potato salad, by creating a vinaigrette marinade to pop the hot potatoes into.

When you do this, it means that your salad won't absorb as much mayonnaise when you go to add it.

Potato Salad

Yield: 3

Author: Marie Rayner

Prep time: 1 H & 10 MCook time: 10 MinTotal time: 1 H & 20 M

This is a no frills basic potato salad. See variations in notes.

Ingredients

• 4 medium new potatoes, boiled in the skins until tender
• 2 TBS salad oil
• 1 TBS cider vinegar
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 hard boiled eggs, peeled
• 1 stalk of celery, trimmed and finely chopped
• 2 TBS finely chopped onion
• 1/4 cup (60g) good quality mayonnaise
• paprika

Instructions

1. Whisk the onions, oil and vinegar together in a boil. Peel the potatoes while they are still quite warm and dice them into the oil/vinegar mixture, tossing them to coat. Leave to marinate for 1 hour.
2. At the end of that time, dice one egg and slice the other.
3. Toss the potatoes together with the diced egg and the celery. Fold in the mayonnaise until everything is evenly coated. Taste and adjust seasoning as required.
4. Pop into a serving bowl and slice the other egg over top. Garnish with paprika and serve.

Notes

VARIATIONS:

1. Add 3 TBS chopped green pepper, pimento or sweet pickle.
2. Add 1/4 cup of grated carrots, sliced radishes or diced cucumber.
3. Add 1/2 cup diced cooked ham or luncheon meat.

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Originally in the menu, the suggestion for dessert was Brownies and Apples.  I was not in a brownie or an apple mood. If you are, I do have a very delicious Fudge Walnut Brownie recipe here.   These were the brownies that I made for my boss and his family all the time when I cooked at the manor. Its very good.

I also have a small batch version which you can find here.  That recipe makes only 8 fudgy, dense and delicious brownies.

As I said, I didn't feel much like brownies and I felt that with everything else they might be a bit heavy.  I did feel like a rice pudding however, and I felt that it would go wonderfully with everything else. 

As luck would have it there was a tasty looking rice pudding recipe in the book. I cut the quantities in half to make only three servings.

Creamy Rice Pudding

Yield: 3

Author: Marie Rayner

Cook time: 1 HourTotal time: 1 Hour

Rich and creamy. This is the perfect finish to a meal that everyone will love. Its like a warm hug.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups (300ml) whole milk
• 1/4 cup (46.3g) uncooked rice, washed
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 TBS sugar
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg or cinnamon
• 1/4 cup (40g) seedless raisins

Instructions

1. Scald the milk in the top of a double boiler. Add the remaining ingredients slowly, stirring constantly.
2. Cook, covered, over hot water until the rice has absorbed the milk, about 3/4 to 1 hour. Stir frequently.
3. Serve warm with or without cream.

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Altogether this was a very pleasant menu. Everything tasted good and went together well.  In retrospect I think I would partially cook the bacon before wrapping it around the frankfurter/weiners as I didn't think it got as brown as it could have done.  I could have left it under the broiler longer, but all of my cheese would have run out of weiners onto the pan if I had done so.

It still tasted really good as is, but I just would have liked the bacon a bit crisper.  

I would also leave the bacon out of the baked beans because adding it made for a really bacon heavy menu.  I had chosen to lay some bacon on top of the beans as well, and I should not have bothered. It was a bit much in this menu.

I think some crisp vegetable sticks would have been nice rather than the dill pickles.  There really wasn't much in the way of vegetables here.  Other than that I thought everything tasted really nice and the menu went together very easily!

Do come back next week to see which Vintage Menu I cook next!

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