Recipe-less

I've still been looking at too many cooking magazines lately. So another inspired but no specific recipe meal:

Grilled zucchini, sweet onion, red pepper, kale, and steak seasoning baked with fresh parmesan and crumbled ritz crackers.

Herb low fat cream cheese on a warm brown-at-home baguette, topped with hard boiled egg, watercress, tomato, and a little low fat mayo.

Very nice for a hot summer day.

Creole Mystery

Tucked in the back of my copy of The Household Searchlight Recipe Book, 1936, is a little slip of paper with the following list of ingredients, no name, no instructions. Chocolate cake? That's a lot of eggs, chocolate souffle?

2 cups sugar

1 cup butter

5 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

1 t salt

1 t baking soda

1 cup sour milk

4 oz. chocolate


It's followed by a recipe for Creole sandwiches.
Cream 4 T butter
Add 1/2 t minced onion
1/2 c finely flaked shrimp
t lemon juice
1/2 t prepared mustard
2 T chopped olives
salt as needed

Sandwiches are beautiful

Sandwiches are beautiful,
Sandwiches are fine.
I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time;
I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch;
If I had a hundred sandwiches, I'd eat them all at once.

Fred Penner singing the sandwich song on youtube

I’ve noticed that cookbooks from the 20s-40s  tend to have whole chapters devoted to sandwiches. Over a career spent working side-by-side with foreign workers, my Uncle Mohammed came to the conclusion that sandwiches constituted a staple food for Americans. I suppose that’s not far from the truth. In fact, slapping something between slices of bread seems like such a primeval food experience I’ve always doubted the Earl of Sandwich could really have invented them.

Here then are some ideas for new/old sandwich fillings from The Good Housekeeping Cook Book, 1942.

Combine ½ lb. cottage cheese, 2 T minced green pepper, 1 T minced onion, 1 dash of cayenne pepper, and 1 T French dressing.

Mix 1 ½ 3 oz. pkgs cream cheese with 15 chopped salted almonds, ½ 8 oz. bottle maraschino cherries, drained and chopped, and 1 T cherry juice. (This must have been a favorite of the book’s previous owner as it has a check mark next to it.)

Blend 1 3 oz. pkg cream cheese, 1 T grated orange rind, and 1 T orange juice. (Another favorite.)

Blend 6 hard cooked egg yolks with 2 T melted butter, 1 T French dressing, ¼ t prepared mustard, 1 t Worcestershire sauce and a pinch of salt.

Mince the egg white left from above; blend with 2 T pickle relish, 2 T minced green pepper,1/4 c mayonnaise, and a pinch of salt.

Flake 1 7 oz. can tuna fish, add ½ t lemon juice, 1 T ketchup, 3 T salad dressing, and ½ t Worcestershire sauce.

Combine 4 slices crisp bacon, diced, ¼ c. minced mustard pickle and 1 c canned baked beans.

Combine 1 3 oz. pkg. cream cheese with 1 T chili sauce. Sprinkle with 4 slices crisp bacon.

Combine ¼ c drained canned crushed pineapple, ½ c minced chicken and 2 T mayonnaise. Chopped nuts may be added.

Combine ¼ lb minced salted almonds with ¼ c minced stuffed olives, 2 T mayonnaise, and 1 t French dressing.

Combine 6 T minced salted peanuts, ½ c mayonnaise and 1 t minced onion.

Sandwich Ideas

The previous cookbook has a section devoted to appropriate etiquette and menus for meals, teas, picnics, etc. Sandwiches make a steady appearance in the lists, so here are some of the ideas from the recipe section, including the original recipe for a PBJ!


Open Sandwich
3 eggs
1/2 t paprika
3/4 t salt
3/4 lb bacon
3/4 lb cheese
Beat eggs until light. Add grated cheese. Add other ingredients and mix well, then spread on eight slices of bread cut 1/4" thick. Cut bacon in very thin slices the length of the slice of bread. Cover cheese with bacon ten minutes in hot oven. Garnish with parsley.


Cream Cheese and Date Sandwich
To one cream cheese add ten dates, cut fine, and one-half cup chopped nuts. Add mayonnaise dressing to spread. Put between slices of graham bread, cut thin and buttered.


Cheese Dream
Cut bread very thin. Spread with butter. Between the slices place thin slices of American cheese. Fry in butter. Turn once. Serve at once garnished with jelly. (I didn't know American cheese existed in 1929.)


Delicious sandwich
Mix together equal parts of cream cheese and apricot pulp made by pressing through a sieve stewed or canned apricots which have been well drained. Add mayonnaise dressing to taste. Spread between thin buttered slices of bread. Nuts may be added if desired.


Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam Sandwich
Spread two slices of graham bread with butter. Cover one with peanut butter and the other with strawberry jam. Fold together. Cut in half before serving.


The International Cookbook, Margaret Weimer Heywood, Merchandisers Inc., 1929