Nuts to you

I spent the day at a vintage goods and new crafts flea market. I picked up two new cook books and I wish I could have brought home more. But I settled on Menu Magic in a Nutshell by the California Walnut Grower's Association, which is probably from the 1950s, based on the illustrations, and yet another Metropolitan Cook Book from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

Let's start with some Menu Magic. "Many a fine cook's reputation is based on a trick of kitchen magic--the little flick of the wrist that empties a cup of walnut kernels into some simple recipe! What menu magic these golden kernels work! How they add eye appeal, flavor, and food value to even old favorites! How they transform ordinary dishes into extraordinary treats!"

I can get into adding them to chicken salad, and maybe even the potato salad would be interesting to try, but I wish they didn't ruin a Pear, Cheese & Walnut Salad with celery. I'll have to come up with a good substitute. I do have all these darn apples rolling around the kitchen table.

Pear, Cheese & Walnut Salad
1/4 c cream cheese
1/4 cup celery, chopped fine
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped fine
cream
salt, pepper, and paprika
6 halves canned pears
mayonnaise
lettuce

Mix cheese, celery, and walnuts. Moisten with cream and season to taste. Place pears on lettuce leaves, fill centers of pears with mixture and garnish with mayonnaise.

Walnut Potato Salad
2 cups cold cooked potatoes
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1 small onion, minced
2 T parsley. minced
1/2 t salt
2 small sweet pickles, diced
mayonnaise
lettuce
walnuts
cheese wafers

Cut potatoes into small cubes. Mix potatoes and walnuts with onion, parsley, salt and pickles, using sufficient mayonnaise to moisten. Serve on crisp lettuce leave with small cheese wafers and garnish with walnut halves.

The recipes I really find interesting though, are the ones that use walnuts as a meat substitute: a vegetarian option for the Depression. If you had walnut trees and time and couldn't afford meat...

Walnut Loaf
2 cups cold baked beans
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
3 T minced onion
1 t salt
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
2 T melted fat
1/2 t paprika
1 1/2 cups canned tomato juice
2 cups tomato sauce

Mix all the ingredients except the tomato sauce and put into a greased loaf pan. Bake in a moderate oven (350) for 60 minutes. Serve with or without a well-seasoned tomato sauce.

Walnut Sausage
1 cup soft bread crumbs
1 T butter
1 cup cooked rice
2 t sage
1/2 t paprika
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 t salt
1/4 t celery seed
1 t minced onion
4 T fat
crisp bacon as garnish
1 1/2 cups white sauce
Blend all ingredients except fat, bacon and white sauce. Shape mixture like sausages and brown well in the hot fat in a skillet. garnish with bacon and serve with a white sauce. (Okay, I know the fat and bacon are hardly vegetarian, but you don't have to have garnish you know, and you can always use a vegetable based fat instead.) (Do you usually garnish you sausage with bacon??)

Vegetable Loaf
1 cup canned or cooked peas
1 cup cooked, mashed carrots
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3 T minced onion
1 cup soft bread crumbs
1 cup milk
1 T melted fat
2 beaten eggs
1 t salt
1/8 t pepper
2 cups tomato sauce
Mix ingredients in order given, omitting tomato sauce, and put in a greased loaf pan. Bake in a moderate oven (350) for 60 minutes. Serve with a well-seasoned tomato sauce.

All in all, a fun little book to have picked from the tree. And remember: "[M]ake it a rule to "Just Add Walnuts" to at least one dish every day."