Cocktail Friday!

Fridays, we have decided, will be dedicated to cocktails. Look here every friday for a new cocktail recipe either new or retro!

Hoochie Mama

1 1/2 oz. vanilla vodka

3 oz. pineapple juice

1/2 oz. sweetened lime juice

1/2 oz. melon liqueur

1 maraschino cherry

Combine in shaker. Shake vigorously. Serve in martini glass or on the rocks. Garnish with a cherry.

Blogger's Note: Stolichnaya makes the best vanilla vodka I've ever had. The rest, including that one from Sweden, taste artificial and edgy.

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This is a recipe I've been making for many years now. It's my own creation, and as far as I can tell it's completely original. When I first made this cocktail it took me several weeks to figure out what it tasted like. Then it came to me: Pistachio Fluff. Yep, for those that enjoyed the "salad" or "dessert" in the 70s and 80s, it's now available in cocktail form. Enjoy.

Please drink responsibly. This drink is sweet, fruity and does not taste boozy. If you aren't careful you'll end up under the dessert table, which may be slightly cleaner than being on top of it, but it's still not a desirable fate.

Sharon's "Old-Fashioned" Cinnamon Rolls

Sharon's "Old-Fashioned" Cinnamon Rolls

1 loaf frozen bread dough

6 Tbsp butter (room temperature)

1/4 cup cinnamon

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

Frosting:

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 Tbsp milk

Thaw 1 loaf of bread dough. Roll dough flat. Spread 6 Tbsp butter on dough. Roll up dough and cut (approximately 10) and put rolls in 9x13 cake pan. Let rise. Bake 10 to 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Frosting: Mix butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and milk.

Submitted by Derek Owen

Book: Oregon Preschool Cookbook -- Oregon, WI (1999)

Blogger's Note: I changed the name of this recipe. The name in the Oregon Preschool Cookbook is ingeniously called “Cinnamon Rolls”.

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The reason for the name change is because on rare occasions in my childhood my mother would make these exact cinnamon rolls (mostly on Sunday mornings). Luckily the Sundays that weren’t graced with this delicious recipe were graced with the fine baking’s of The Quality Bakery in downtown Dodgeville, WI. If you’re in the area, you need to check them out! (They don’t have a website, but here is their information.)

The simplicity of the rolls ingenious! Do all the prep work the night before and let them rise overnight. The next morning throw them in the oven.

I will admit, it is no simple feat rolling out the pre-made dough. If you go to the gym, I’d suggest skipping it the night you plan on making these. You’ll be getting quite the upper body workout.

The frosting recipe is not the same as Sharon uses. The one listed above, for my liking, is too sweet. You tend to lose the cinnamon roll to the richness of the frosting. Also, the mixture of cinnamon and sugar is way too much. I used an excessively generous amount and still threw a lot away. It could easily be reduced by half.

Easy Shrimp Casserole

Easy Shrimp Casserole

3 cups medium noodles

1 can cream of shrimp soup

¾ cup of milk

¼ cup diced celery

1 tbsp green onions

¼ tsp salt

1/3 cup shredded natural cheddar cheese

1 cup cooked shrimp

¼ cup chow mein noodles

Cook noodles according to directions; drain. Combine soup with milk, mayonnaise, celery, onion and salt. Mix well. Stir in cheese, shrimp and cooked noodles. Turn into a 1 ½ quart casserole. Bake uncovered in 350 degree oven for 30-35 mins. Top with chow mein noodles. Bake 10 minutes longer.

Yield: 6 servings.

Submitted by Dawn Jacobsen of Madison, WI

Blogger's Note: Good luck finding cream of shrimp soup. I substituted cream of mushroom soup, and I think it made a better dish. Shrimp have a powerful taste, and to add more shrimp flavoring could have made the dish a smidge on the gross side. Also, I upped the amount of shrimp to 1 ½ cups to make up for the lack of cream of shrimp.

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This is an extremely easy recipe to make. I think it’s interesting to note that this dish is meant to serve six people. That says something about the proportions of a pre-McDonaldized nation. We had a glass of wine with some brie goat cheese followed by a simple green salad while the casserole was baking. While serving it I made a very conscious effort to serve smaller portions and I’m really happy I did. I can only speak for myself, but I was full the rest of the night. Even after a few cocktails with a friend.

Homorific pre-meal munching aside, this dish really reminded me of what my mom made as a child. Granted, shrimp was probably a little on the fancy side for Sharon, but I do remember eating a lot of casseroles as a child. Not to mention, you don’t have to fight a kid to eat creamy artery claughing goodness.

With that said. there isn’t a whole lot about this dish that is healthy, but with few minor changes it can become slightly better for you; like using fat free mayo (which I did).

American "Chow Mein"

American "Chow Mein"

1 lb. hamburger

1 cup chopped onion

2 cups chopped celery

1/3 cup soy sauce

1 cup uncooked rice

1 can cream of chicken or mushroom soup

1 can water

Brown hamburger and add to other ingredients in baking dish. Bake 1 hour in a moderate over, stirring occasionally . It may need additional water. Serve with chow mein noodles.

A very good main dish for supper or lunch.

Submitted by Mrs. Edith Anderson of Clayton, WI

Blogger's Note: I opted for cream of chicken on this. It seemed a good choice to offset the darkness of the soy sauce. We used Southern Tsunami brand soy sauce but would also recommend Kikkoman, which is brewed in Wisconsin (Check it out here). I also set a 20 minute timer in order to stir it occasionally. I found this worked very well.

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This was incredibly easy to make. chop up a few things and throw it in a casserole dish. It doesn't get much easier. The ingredients are easy to find, easy to use. The hardest part of the dish was browning the hamburger.

This is what it looked like before baking. Pretty gross.

Once it was finished and served for dinner, we were quite disappointed. It was bland, mushy, brown and unappetizing. Although the concoction was edible, we both agreed that the fate of the leftovers was up in the air. Most likely they will end up in the garbage disposal. This was the worst of casseroles. WE HOPE! There are a lot more to go, and we may not yet have plumbed the depths of casseroledom.

The finished product

Fruit Cocktail Cake

Fruit Cocktail Cake

1 cup flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 beaten egg

pinch of salt

1 small can fruit cocktail, undrained

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Mix first 6 ingredients; place in slightly greased pan. Top with brown sugar and pecan mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Serve plain o

r with whipped cream.

submitted by Mrs. Vina Schlindwein of Aurora, IL

Blogger's note: We forgot to buy pecans so we substituted 1/2 cup of

slivered almonds. The recipe also says to put it in a pan. I found an 8x8 baking dish to be the appropriate size.

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This was an extreme simple cake to make. I'm terribly organized in the kitchen and this took me about 5 minutes to get in the pan. Since the fruit cocktail is the sum of the liquids, there was no mess of oils and this promises actually to be a pretty healthy cake as cakes go. It's cooling at the moment. I'll update after dinner to let you know how it turned out.

Update: The cake was nice. Very simple. It lacked the fruitiness I thought it was going to have, but still it was quite nice. It was also not as sweet as I'm used to in cakes. We hypothesized that this was due to the proliferation of bad bakeries in America that equate sweet with good. Fruit Cocktail Cake is definitely more on the savory side of cakes, and the almonds and brown sugar on top made it taste even a bit more like a coffee cake.

The Beginning of an Era

The Foundation:

Here we sit. Day one. It's a Monday, but that's kind of irrelevant, because it's my Saturday. Jeremy and I went shopping today to begin an adventure in cooking. One I've been interested in for awhile. You see, I, Don, grew up in Southern Wisconsin during the 70's and 80's. Jeremy grew up west of Madison, WI (Dodgeville) in the 80's and 90's.

Somehow, the two of us reached our respective ages, 27 and 38 without ever really having had to cook. So, we thought we'd begin to learn at the very beginning. Not with Martha Stewart or even Julia Childs as our guide, although Julie & Julia was a bit of inspiration for us. No. We've found a much more important guide to take us down the road toward cooking for ourselves. In the dusty corner of St. Vincent DePaul's Thrift Store (1309 Williamson St., Madison, WI) we found the tome that will be our guide. What is it you ask? It's a cookbook put together by National Mutual Benefit to celebrate it's 75th Anniversary in 1977. The cookbook was so successful that, unlike most "submit-your-own-recipe" cookbooks, my copy is the third printing of the book. A runaway bestseller in the community cookbook world.

From the opening recipe, a fish fry recipe that dates back to at least 1957, which underlines the importance of regional cooking, this cookbook promised to show us our culinary heritage. Do you know anyone that even cares about a fish fry recipe? I didn't think so. Through the recipes in this book we will get to know the Midwest and the recipes that were so good that families praised them, neighbor's begged for them, and they made Mary Gutsch someone you would want to invite to a party.

The Plan:

We'd like to say that we will make a recipe every day. That's not going to happen. I'm a restaurant manager and he's an interior designer. We aren't always going to be home to make dinner let alone "Allen's Hot Dish". So, we promise to make at least three recipes a week from the NMB (It's our bible, and it will be abbreviated.). The revolution will also be televised. We will be including the recipes here, along with pictures and/or our commentary on the dish.

Our long-term hope is to put together our own cookbook. One that catalogues the recipes of our own childhoods and that reflects the region in which we live. I like to bake and Jeremy likes to cook, so I think you'll see some preferences through what we actually prepare, however, we will focus on being more balanced. We must warn you though, the book is heavily slanted toward desserts, and rightfully so. Who would want to miss the recipe for "Fruit Cocktail Cake", which is in the oven as I type this.

We hope to actually receive submissions, and we'll do our best to try them out. I doubt we'll limit the blog to items that we've actually made, but we're very open to any changes in format that might be necessary.

About The Name:

American "Chow Mein" is one of the recipes in the book. It looks interesting enough, but the title really sums it all up. First and foremost this cookbook is American through and through. The fact that someone has created an American version of Chow Mein (chinese for stir-fried noodles) shows at once the fascination that Americans in the late 70's had with chinese food. It was generally not very good chinese food, but it was somehow close enough that the consumer and the chef felt that they were being multi-cultural and indeed cultured by eating it.

Secondly, the title of the dish most appropriately uses the scare quotes which I'm very fond of. See Cake Wrecks for some of the best uses of scare quotes ever! Including the first discussion of them:http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/06/and-they-say-customer-service-is-dead.html.