 My name is Kat, and I'm waaayyy hooked on vintage cookbooks. Pamphlets, too. Spiral or comb-bound community or church cookbooks are instant twitterpation. It's not just visual kitsch for me; chances are that if you come to my home for a party or a meal, I'll serve you at least one dish from a recipe published well before either one of us was old enough to wield a box grater. What's the appeal? For one - the recipes WORK. They have to. If it's from a product pamphlet (like the bacon meatloaf above, published in an Armour and Company 1925 pamphlet "Slices of Real Flavor"), it's likely been through endless testing to ensure that the ingredient is being touted to its best advantage. In a community cookbook, Mrs. Husband's Name isn't going to submit anything other than her show-off recipe. People would talk! But besides the efficacy of the recipes, they're a wonderful window into a place and a time gone by - before the Food Network, celebrity chefs, Paula Deen's Butt Rub and the EVOO-ification of ingredients. This is how our families fed themselves at home and I'm going to put my faith in the wisdom of the ages on occasion - even if they're trying to murder me with bacon.
The Vintage Cookbook Vault highlights recipes from my insane stash of books and pamphlets from the early 20th century onward. It's going to be a regular thing. Announcement about how you can play along coming soon. And holy crap, do I love a spiral-bound community cookbook. |
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I started off cooking learning from my grandmother of course. No matter how many places I travel or eat it, her brocolli casserole with Ritz crackers is the bomb. Also, my own site of course too! http://www.travelbyfork.com
I found this interesting!
http://www.gourmetrestaurantrecipes.com/recipes/recipes2.php
I usually make my own recipes up, and sometimes modify written or printed recipes... even making a recipe "mash-up" from time to time. I don't need a recipe to tell me that bacon on or in your meatloaf is tasty! Bacon goes good on or in almost anything!!
I am currently working on perfecting my recipe for what I call the Tri-Meatloaf; meatloaf with 3 types of meat (1.5 lbs of chicken, 1.5 lbs of beef, and 1 lb of BACON) swirled into a decorative pattern, spiced with the 'Holy Trinity' of peppers: Ancho, Mulato, and Pasilla. Top it off with some homemade BBQ sauce, and I'm blissfully full.
Get creative with your recipes! Use the recipe as a guide, NOT an instruction manual! You may be surprised at how well you can cook.
I made the Bacon Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and cauliflower with cheese sauce yesterday. It was a hit! I really love the meatloaf, and will keep it on my must have recipe list. Thanks a lot for sharing! :)
Definitely all of the above. I got to the local goodwill quite a bit, so I have more cookbooks than I can count. I find that lately styles of cuisines or cookbooks that are centered around one ingredient helpful. Use all recipes quite a bit as well.
My Grandma is moving and she was reviewing her recipe box. And while a few of her dishes were in there, there were literally hundreds she's known for missing. She told me she never writes them down and always does those from memory. If most people's Grandma's are like this-how many fantastic recipes are lost when we lose them?
"All of the above", for sure! I have my mom's Betty Crocker 3-ring-binder cookbook from the 1950s. Cook's Illustrated is excellent, both for reading and for cooking from. I have a small collection of international cookbooks, as well as several "church lady" volumes.
I also clip recipe from magazines and print ones I find online. These go in an accordian file by category. I usually try at least one new recipe a week, and if it's good, it goes in my computer file (hardcopy in a binder). So, I'm gradually building my own personalized cookbook. Very handy.
I usually just make up my own. I don't claim to know how to cook really. I've never been trained or anything. I just begin with some basic meat, veg, and starch and kind of start adding a little of this and some of that. It usually turns out quite tasty (to me at least)...USUALLY! lol
This poll needs and "all of the above" choice.
food.com is where I get most of my recipes, I also get a lot from allrecipes.com and I've cut and pasted at least 1000 to Word docs and saved them over the past several years. I like to save them as Word docs so that I can add changes I make to the recipes, many of which I try to improve on from time to time. Somehow I missed epicurious.com as a great source, but just did a look through and like it a lot. Like food.com you can select "print" and get the recipes in a form that's easy to print on one-page or cut-and-paste to a doc. One edge food.com has, that I like, is a nutrition label for each recipe (calories, fat, carbs, protein, vitamins, sodium, etc.).
All my recipes come from my deluxe leatherbound personally-autographed edition of "To Serve Man." I kinda look down on people who use other sources for their ideas. Sorry.
"Whether we are on the ship with him or back on earth, it does not matter; we will all be on the menu." Hehehe.
I have a pertty big collection of cookbooks covering a wide range of topics. I kept my mother's copy of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from the early 50's and one of my mother-in-law's cookbooks from the 60's as references to show how things were made before we were told fat, salt, et al were bad.
I too collect vintage recipe books, but mostly get new ideas from various websites. It's easy to read a recipe posted on sites like AllRecipes and determine whether it's going to be tasty or not.
The ONLY cooking show I watch anymore is "Bitchin' Kitchen". Nadia G's. recipes are great, and this kitschy show is a lot of fun to watch.
I have a number of old family recipes, some cookbooks, etc. I often go online and look up recipes for dishes, even with the books. Though I am a great lover of books, I am also an evil offspring of technology. So while I use my family recipes judiciously, I tend to look online for new recipes first – unless I'm looking specifically for vintage recipes for specific foods. The cookbooks that I have collected are mostly specific to a type of food or a historical time period. I have some civil war era recipes that are quite interesting.
I bet I have more vintage and spiral bound cookbooks than Kat, – literally hundreds, and my mission is to revive in popularity some of the great old recipes, like molded salads, oxtail soup, ambrosia etc. I'm making some headway!!
I love old recipes and have lots of cookbooks. The best are from my Mom and her sisters. I try to cook just like them as they were the best.
I love making from scratch and working with yeast and flour.
Old recipes are the BEST. When I was in high school (more decades ago than I'd like to think) when I babysat for spending money I used to spend my time after the kids were in bed looking through my employers' old cookbooks and magazines that had recipes. I scored one recipe that was touted as over 100 years old at the time so now....very old :) I make it every year for Christmas to give away. Last year I gave it to a neighbor who just put it in the freezer as 'yet another Christmas thing' and forgot about it. She noticed it in July and decided to thaw it out for lack of anything else to serve for dessert that night. That very evening she was on my doorstep, saying "I can't BELIEVE I didn't open it until now! It's the best I've EVER tasted!" And of course she begged for the recipe :) I love old recipes.....
I wanted an "all of the above" option too! I like to try a variety of things and depending on my mood is where I am going to look for recipes. I got out some of my vintage books today as we had a blizzard here. I have a 1934 Detriot Times book that has hundreds of recipes that just make me laugh. Especially the parts that talk about the proper way to set the table and etiquette and such. I also have a 1960's 'The Modern Family Cookbook' amazing stuff...I don't know which recipe to try first!
I have a stash of maybe 200 vintage & community cookbooks, including a ton of those small-sized pamphlets you find at the checkout counter. I use about another 150 cookbooks I've collected over the years. I also have a personal set of almost 2,000 recipes I've tried, tuned and written up. I guess I like food! In the last decade, I've turned more towards zesty/spicy foods, many of which include chile peppers of one sort or another. Old taste buds need extra stimulation...
I still maintain that my mom is one of the best scratch cooks I've ever known, and I'm working to capture her wisdom. It would be a shame for her legacy to be lost. More than recipes, she's all about patterns, techniques and "rules of thumb." What the really good cooks use anyway...
that picture looks disgusting. the popular bacon craze is just proof that people are sheep. What's next? bacon-coated breakfast cereal? bacon toothpaste?
@DJ...as someone who has made bacon meatloaf in the past, let me tell you that it is delicious!
At home, the majority of things we make that need recipes come from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. If we're at work and need to shop on the way home, then it's typically epicurios and foodnetwork.com.
my recipes come from all over, i have long since collected cookbooks from all over for over 20 yrs. fanny farmer is great as are the church cookbooks, i also have some from 1800's maryland's way is one that comes to mind although trying to convert times and temps from wood burning to our conventional ovens is always fun. love love recipes!! and now the internet makes it easier to collect.
I know its sinful, but Paula Deen's Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf if amazing
I've also been looking in the free books over at Google for old cookbooks (early 1800s is about as far back as they go at the moment). Some get really specific with measurements (but have to be flexible on temps- it's not like everyone had ranges/ovens with gas marks and thermometers! And others keep things a bit mysterious- chef secrets and all.
Same thing with the medieval and Renaissance cookbooks that one can find online (and their translations).
And to reply to the poll- I get recipes from all of the above, and some from my own experimentation.
I get my recipes anywhere and everywhere...I do like culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com for wild and different desserts. She's funny and imaginative and some of her concoctions are to die for.
Since it's been proved over in the Vintage Cookbook Vault that some people get the images blocked, here's the text of the recipe.
Bacon Meat Loaf
Serves six Preparation, 1 hour
1/4 lb. Star Bacon 1 green pepper
1/2 lb. lean veal 2 Cloverbloom Eggs
1 lb. lean beef 1 cup milk
6 slices Star Bacon 1 cup bread crumbs
Grind the meat. Mix with chopped pepper, eggs, milk, and bread crumbs. Line a baking pan or casserole with strips of Star Bacon. Fill with the meat mixture. Lay strips of bacon over the top. Bake in a 400* F. oven for 45 minutes. Turn upside down on a large platter and garnish with vegetables or mashed potatoes.
the recipe calls for 6 slices of bacon but the loaf in the picture only has 5........did the cok eat the other one?
Best cookbook out there: The Encyclopedic Cookbook from the culinary institute. circa 1955-60. The recipes are very basic, but it has all of the classic cooking techniques, and it provides a VERY strong base for experimentation. I have to warn you, though, it is VERY dated, and the Chapters are very sexist.
Interestingly, though, it does have a detailed description of how to field dress a deer in the middle of the book.
The one from the 70s isn't that good I don't think. Very detailed, but not a lot of things in there for working women to make. I don't have time nor energy after a day at work to spend 2 or 3 hours making a gourmet meal.
I mainly get ideas from allrecipes.com and then create my own dish by adding other ingredients.
SheKnows.com and FabulousFoods.com
I will either start with an epicurious recipe and add/subtract as I see fit - or obtain recipes from someone I know and trust who are willing to share. We have several recipes that are "our own" family recipe which have been big hits at potlucks and dinner parties (like our Mexican Casserole) but for the most part, I've found that many recipes online are missing a little "something" and maybe that's just because I am a flavor junkie and like real taste and real ingredients while online recipes maybe written to cut out fats and salts.
One of the best cook books is from America's Test kitchen (from the show on PBS). Everything is always excellent.
As for the Bacon Meatloaf recipe, just the mention of bacon causes salivation in my family.
Don't forget Cooks Country by America's Test Kitchen. I love both shows!
http://www.youtube.com/epicmealtime
thats where i get all my legendary recepies. check it out
Try frying sliced bacon, drain the grease, and then add to your meat mixture.
I love the really cool website, http://www.theotherwhitemeat.com. It has a great variety of recipes depending upon amount of time prep, cut of meat...It's a great resource
the inability to pick more than one option makes that poll and the results useless
Mary Mergaret McBride Encyclopedia of Cooking from the 60's. It was sold in sections in grocery store checkout lines and could be combined into a massive bound book. My grandma collected them all and now I'm the steward of all the fantastic recipes. It's the kind of recipes that aren't afraid to use butter or lard, or other more natural ingrediants that modern cookbooks are afraid of. My plan is to digitize it, since the pages are really starting to see signs of age and wear.
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook !
These recipies are hilarious. I recently bought a bunch of early 1960's magazines and they have the most bizzare dinner ideas in them like a tomato sauce jello mold. - Yumm And my personal favorite ingredient in one of the recipies: 1/4 teaspoon MSG. Not surprising there were also so many life insurance ads back then.
Love anything with bacon. Love the rich, smoky flavor it gives it's "host" food. Plus, it's a great way to keep other meats tender and moist – self basting!
I usually start with an ingredient and general idea of an outcome, then either go looking for a recipe that catches my eye or make one up. Sources run the gamut and nothing is off-limits – recipe web sites, family recipes, new cookbooks, and yes, from time to time, celebrity chefs – and I search until I've found one that I think will work for what I had in mind.
Other
All of the above... I see recipes or techniques on TV and try it. I have something new at a restaurant and i attempt to make it at home. If it's something I'm unfamiliar using or if it's baking chemistry, I'll look up a recipe (web, magazine, cookbook, etc)... then modify to taste.
Taste everything. Develope a full palate.
I have the very cook book this recipe is from. I have a stack of old recipe booklets from the early 20th Century, and Armors' Slices of Real flavor my be the most entertaining of all.
OK listen up hipsters: The 'bacon chic' is over. Played. Done. Enough already. Bacon Cupcakes? Give me a freaking break. You numbskulls will seize on ANYTHING and declare it 'cool' and then run it into the ground and beyond.
Enough.
You don't get it. We don't think bacon is "cool" or "hip," we love bacon because it tastes good in everything. Adding a little pork to my day always makes me smile. And bacon cupcakes are a gift from God. You should try one
No. You think it's hip and cool and flog it out of all proportion with how good it tastes. I call shenannigans.
They feature bacon in cupcakes all the time on "Cupcake Wars". If I weren't a vegetarian, I'd try one! I love morninstar farms veggie bacon- maybe I'll try it in a recipe- I make spicy corn muffins, I'm sure it would compliment it.
I make a mean meatloaf...if I do say so myself! :)
The best meatloaf should contain the best ground beef, and onions. And , please, please , don't forget the green peppers.
No green peppers. Yuck.
nearly all of list, rarely follow a recipe 100%, mix several together. I have a MasterCook computer program. I do an ingredient search of my main ingredient, identify the recipes that suit the ingredients I have on hand, what I want to serve, and start putting something together. I have a large store of cookbooks, community cookbooks, handwritten family recipes, clipped recipes from magazines, newspapers, boxes and even advertisements. I copy recipes from internet sources into the computer program and place them in a cookbook names "recipes to try" so they are available in my searches.
All of the above... or a mish-mash thereof. I love reading my mom's old cookbooks from the 50's. They are hilarious and kind of gross at the same time.
Bacon Meat Loaf...
Heck wrap a T@rd in bacon and it would be good to eat.....ok almost
I'd have to disagree on that one, JJ. :(
I'm also hooked on old cookbooks, especially the unintentionally crazy old recipes. I have a number of those examples with snarky commentary on an old semi-abondoned blog: comicalcookbooks.com If you like this, you'll like the 20 or so I wrote up.
My deceased mother wasn't the greatest cook but she made the most delicious fried apple pies and I never got the recipe, they looked like apple turnovers. If anyone knows the recipe, please e-mail me.
To make the best fried apple pies, find some dried apples and cook with a splash of lemon juice and water to make a chunky paste. You can make your own pie crust out of biscuit dough, or roll out canned buscuits in a thin circle. Place the reconstituted apples on one side, fold over and crimp with a fork. You may wish to add a little light brown sugar in the apples. In a frying pan, put in a little criscio oil and fry the little pies until golden brown on both sides. Take out and drain on paper towels, sprinkle a little baking sugar on the top and enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee. Not for those who are on a diet, but wonderful for a special treat.
Yummmmm
I usually use websites if just need to look up something quickly, like a rough idea of oven temp or cooking time.
Usually (about 80% of the time), I'm trying out new ideas, techniques and flavours for new dishes that will eventually make their way onto my menus.
When I am following someone else's recipes, I want something *old*- I have a collection of cookbooks (sadly, mostly reprints) dating back as far as the Roman era.
If I had to narrow it down, I'd choose two: "The Gold Cookbook" by Louis Pullig De Gouy and "Le grand dictionnaire de cuisine" by Alexandre Dumas (that's right! The author of "The Three Musketeers", "The Count of Monte Cristo" etc)- although you'll need to learn French to read Domas' cookbook as the sole english translation is actually a very poorly translated "novelty" peice with all the recipes eliminated!
Classic Americana recipes from those by gone days of yore are, almost without exception, bland and tasteless if prepared as directed by the recipe. Garlic was unheard of. Hot pepper? That's for those hot blooded latins! Pepper? Well, maybe a small dash but no more! I mean look at the above recipe for bacon meatloaf. There isn't a single solitary seasoning to be found. You do get some salt from the ground bacon but that's about the only thing in there providing any flavor at all. You'd have to slather the thing with ketchup just to make it passingly palatable.
Sure, maybe it's kitschy and ironic to fashion a feast out of these nuggets of pablum but there is a *reason* why Julia Child's revolutionized eating in America – she introduced the average American to spices and herbs. She didn't cover everything in pasty white sauce (bechamal without the flavor). She let us put down the bland tasteless calorie carriers of the 40s and 50s and helped us learn to love food that appealed to the palette and not just the belly.
I'm sorry Kat, if you really and honestly believe that Mrs. John Dimplewhistle's recipe for Ambrosia is the height of home culinary excellence I can't help but believe that you are either a) an ironic hipster in skinny pants and rides a fixie to your Williamsburg apartment or b) have a palette so boring that these sort of gustatory abortions are actually delectable bon mots.
Do I sound like a snob? Sure, maybe I do but I actually love food, not nostalgia.
Mmmmmmm! Bacon! A lot of the recipes we use come from family and friends. Some of these (like my wife's Great-Great-Grandmother's ginger snaps) are generations old. Others are "Hey, I saw this on ... and it turned out great! Try it!" Also, I found an old cookbook prepared by one of the Ladies' groups from our Church. The recipes in that were great "comfort food" that were simple in preparation and delicious!
I have an old, spiral bound, cook book that was published for Wiedemann's beer. One recipe in particular calls for "butter the size of an egg."
all of the above!!!
Though I can't follow a recipie faithfully to save my life, even box cakes get something additional or instead of whatever it says on the side!!
Actually that (creativity) is the sign of a good cook.
I tend to read cookbooks like novels - then go create my own version. I often use food.com or sometimes I google a particular ethnic specialty. I LOVE old cookbooks, and have a ton of them, plus family recipes. I like to cook from scratch, so I usually make up my own version when a recipe calls for canned or processed stuff. LOVED the bacon meatloaf! I'm pretty sure I ate this at my grandmother's house when I was growing up. (We ate fried Spam for breakfast there, too!)
On my browser, right next to the photograph of your fantastic looking bacon shrouded meatloaf, an ad for an insurance company says "If you died today, who would take care of your family?" hmmmm... I wouldn't let that deter me from trying the dish anyway; it looks sooo good!
I have made the bacon meatloaf many times in the past and it's always a big hit around here. I have changed it a bit by flattening out the hamburg on parchment paper and layering ham, cheese and spinach and then rolling it and sealing the ends. Delish!!!!!
A friend of mine makes hers with an itialian sausage baked in the middle. Sounds delish!
These days, as ashamed as I am to admit it, I eat a diet consisting purely of those Quacker rice cakes and Diet Coke. It's unhealthy. I know. I only consume around 200-250 calories every day (I've struggled with anorexia in the past). Here's hoping I can get it together. Thanks for the article.
The first step is admitting you have a struggle. There are so many resources out there- look up a good counselor or dietician who can help you. Don't forget that a balanced diet is essential for your health and well-being. Go on the internet or look up this information in the yellow pages. Best wishes!
One of the funniest recipes I ever saw in a "group" (church, neighborhood association, etc.) cookbook was the recipe for "Homemade" Fried Chicken, which basically said to stop by KFC, take it home and put it on a warmed plate, and pretend you'd been cooking all day!
I got a cookbook once that had a recipe for buttered toast. It had an editor's note that said that was the only thing the guy knew how to make (I think he was married to one of the main contributors to the cookbook). :-)
bacon meatloaf is what my mother made and what i have always made but you put catsup on top before you bake it yummm just the right tang. i have tons of cookbooks, clippings and handed down recipes and i also use allrecipes and other sites. i love that on allrecipes you can adjust the quantity and it will calculate the ingredients quantity for you great with recipes you use for a crowd or a few. love cookbooks!
Recently my beloved Granny passed away at the ripe old age of 98 and in cleaning out her place I found her recipe box! Like a golden treasure from the past, with recipes like moldy cake (pistachio) and biscuits they have so much lard in them my thighs grew just reading it.
My daughter and I are now on a quest to make at least one of her recipes a week tell we get through them all (hundreds). Of course we are going to have to add additional time on the treadmill but worth every bite!!
My family has provided my wife and I with numerous recipes, but I also like watching "America's Test Kitchen" on PBS.
from my wife
I like to look at several online recipes for a given thing and reference The Joy Of Cooking. That way I can identify the what the primary elements of the recipe are, and which are optional or style-based.
All of the avove are sources. The bacon meatloaf is a hoot! LOL
Love the vintage! Alas for the days when bacon and lard were not dirty words! Collect the vintage too Recommend' Fit for a king the Elvis Pressley cookbook', great old school recipes from his cooks southern style. Some are republished, but a lot out of print ,wish we could share some vintage finds.
Anyone here ever heard of Lebanese food? It's really popular in Quebec but what about the U.S?
Yes, we have a Lebanese bakery in my hometown!
It is a mix really. There are some that we use from magazines and cookbooks. My wife actually got a binder with ones from family and friends at her bridal shower which we still use today 7 years later.
I am constantly looking for good recipes that I know my family will enjoy. I have lots of old tried and true family recipes as well as many old local cookbooks, which are wonderful. I love to search websites for a recipe and then I will tweek it to suit my family's tastes. Eventually, I will pass all of my recipes down to my daughter for her family to enjoy.
James Lileks has many wonderful collections of photos from old cookbooks accompanied by his own (often hilarious) comments and observations. To find it, search for "regrettable food" and click the first link that comes up. Enjoy!
I lovelovelovelovelove Lileks. Much of the content has been taken offline to be put into the book, but there's still plenty here: http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html
I don't discriminate in where I get recipes. I'll use anything from TV shows to magazines to new/old cookbooks. And often, I find something that looks interesting and then look for ways to make it my-own. For example, I came across a chipotle/lentil soup; it was okay, but needed something more so I started experimenting with other ingredients to really make is something special. The addition of a bunch of fresh herbs and spices and some chorizo (which is sometimes a little hard to find in upstate NY!) took it from okay to amazing!
Hi Kat,
I have a bookshelf full of old cookbooks, recipes torn from magazines and newspapers, and also some of those old recipe booklets put out by manufacturers of food products and cooking tools. Some of my old spiral bound cookbooks I purchased only to help in the fund-raising causes. Those spiral bound books are fun to read through and since I have relocated a number of times, they nudge my memories of places I've forgotten.
P.S. Yesterday I made a meatloaf, my own design with only 1 strip of bacon, trying not to fatten up the meal! Thanks for this interesting look back in time.
I typically pull ideas from the internet and coookbooks equally, but I rarely use recipes anymore except to look up techniques and cooking methods – oh yeah, and I don't bake, baking would require recipes. On the rare occasion I do bake, it's from an old cookbook or recipe clipping.
This is shmeatlof, not a meatloaf. Check out noshmeat.com to see what I mean.
You must be getting you meat from Walmart or Food City. Most reputable farmers treat their animals humanly and have a better quality meat as a result. Cook up a 5lb roast from a low end grocery store and another from any other store and you'll see what I'm talking about. You'll wind up with more EDIBLE meat with less water in the pan. Visit a diary and you see a barn cleaner and the cows more pampered the most family pets. I bought a pig for my freezer, went out to the farm to choose the pig, ( grain fed and very clean environment ), it was put down very quickly and humanly, and after about a month for the meat to cure, had the best, leanest bacon I have ever eaten and smoked ham that would make a grown man weep. But, that information doesn't sell news or promote causes.
I just think of a meal and Google its name plus recipe. Add "easy" to the search for the lazy version with fewer ingredients.
I get recipes from many sources.
I have cook books dating back into the 1800's – I look on-line at tons of places, blogs, discussion groups, etc....
I create many of my own recipes. I get inspired by cooking shows. I gather recipes from magazines and most any printed material. I would not want to restrict myself to a single source. it will never hold enough information. BTW – have you tried smoked meatloaf?
Hmmm, smoked bacon meatloaf, maybe some spicy bbq sauce to go with it, I see a weekend experiment coming!
My husband grew up surrounded by amish and mennonite culture and food so i love to use amish cookbooks. mennonitegirlscancook.com is fun too!!All the old cookbooks have fun tips like how much food to make for a barn raising.
I love the homestyle type recipes from these cultures as well. Thanks for the site referrence!
its great makes a great sandwich
I use websites more and more, but primarily I use the cookbooks that I have accumulated since I was in college – so over the last 30 years. Not new, but also not vintage...
I usually watch the cooking shows on the weekend and if I like what they are doing, I go to the website and try it, exactly as written. I also have old family recipe's which are a challenge as granny never measured anything! Her recipe for chicken n dumplings: get a big fat chicken and put it in a pot of water...when done drop in some biscuits mixings.
Truly I get my recipes everywhere...but lately, for convenience, I use All Recipes and Food.com (Formerly Recipezaar)...I do, however, only use highly rated recipes from those sites.
All Recipes is a good site, especially for crock pot cooking.
Allrecipes is my fave online site, the feedback has always been really helpful when I'm deciding what version of a recipe to try.
If I ate that my cardiologist would resign from me, although I must say it looks, and sounds, great!
This article has at least two major spelling/syntax errors, making it difficult to read.
Unless you have an impairment that prohibits your brain from making deductions and correcting the errors internally, GET OVER IT. YOU ARE NOT THE GRAMMAR POLICE!!!
The Grammer Police live inside of my head.
The Grammer Police won't be nice til I'm dead.
The Grammer Police their coming to correct me oh nooooooo!
If you haven't you need to check out the recipes at the LA Times web site. Very good. Made the Neapoliitan (sp?) style ragu, it was restaurant quality, and everyone loved it. And it came out of MY kitchen! Whoo-hoo!
Gosh, that sounds goooodddd.. Bacon Meatloaf..... anything with bacon is gooodddd
The bacon has to be crisp, though. I tried making meatloaf draped with bacon once, and the bacon stayed limp and fatty. It was not as I expected. The same goes for bacon on a sandwich. When the bacon is cooked and then kept cold, it sometimes loses its crispiness. But what IS yummy are bacon-crackers. Rectangular or oval buttery crackers wrapped in a slice of bacon, sprinkled with brown sugar, and baked at 250f for like two hours. Like meat candy.
Oooh, thank you! That sounds yummy!
what is even BETTER is the litlle cocktail weiners wrapped in bacon & put in a HOT oven until the bacon is nice & crisp..then serve with spicy brown mustard.....YUMMMMOOO!!!
Wow, my heart started to palpitate just from reading that recipe.
We broil it at the end to crisp up the bacon.
@skippy – If you like sweet and salty, do the little smokies wrapped in bacon and bake with brown sugar and syrup... delicious! They are a hit at every potluck.
Not everything with bacon is good... I once stayed at a boarding house while skiing in Park City (before it became Uber-trendy). Meals were included, and served 'family-style'. For 7 straight nights the owner served a pork-based main course – topping it off the last with 'pork-loaf' wrapped in bacon. I think my arteries are still softening and that was ~15 years ago...
I have a ton of vintage cookbooks over the last 80 years, especially the spiral bound church/women's group type, and product cookbooks from the 40s-70s. That stuff is genius.
Kat said that she's going to come up with a way that readers can submit gems from their own collections... Please join us?
Right On Farmer Kid! Those are the kinds of cookbooks we specialize in helping groups create and also sell. checkout our full line at http://www.cookbookmarketplace.com. Largest collection of Junior League type titles from a single resource if you want to expand on your collection! All the best....CookbooksAreMe /aka/ Anne Pritchard
I collect vintage recipes and blog them. Every once in a while I try a recipe. Most recently I've been working on some ham loaf and turkey cutlet recipes that I am adapting to what my family likes. http://gramsrecipebox.com. <–gratuitous plug for my site. :-) I love old recipes because they were the "original social networking" long before twitter/facebook/myspace, etc.
I combine and recreate any and all recipes that I think we'll enjoy. If I see something on a show, I'll recreate it at home. If we eat out and we enjoy the meal, I'll try to do it at home. Vintage and local cookbooks- GREAT! My biggest reason is that not too many shows, restaurants, cookbooks feature good, modern kosher cooking, and I keep a kosher home. It's made me a truly inventive cook (like that bacon meat loaf recipe above, I'd work that with a kosher beef or turkey fry instead of bacon, and some broth instead of the milk). Won't taste like theirs, but I can assure you it would be delicious.
my mother in law makes meatloaf that way...its delicious....and i was just reading in the health section about salt and lowering salt intake...LOL...does CNN contradict itself with its articles....however, the bacon meatloaf is still a delicious wonder.
I see this vintage recipe does not call for additional salt since it uses bacon. Goes to show they must have been on to something.
Yes, I wish there were more cooking shows that would feature kosher cooking (or at least kosher-style – I'm certainly not going to suggest that Iron Chef America go through the full procedure of kashering their kitchen, but they could have a meat meal or a dairy meal using all kosher ingredients). While my kitchen isn't strictly kosher, I don't mix meat and dairy and I don't permit any products in my kitchen that by definition aren't kosher (pork, shellfish, or other specifically prohibited items). Meatloaf, in my house, is a mix of lean ground beef, ground chicken or turkey, and ground lamb or mutton (that's where the fat content comes from), along with eggs, farfel, onions, a small amount of miscellaneous shredded greenery if I happen to have some on hand (bok choy or fresh spinach) and other seasonings.
I trust unmoderated recipe sites as much as I trust lyric sites and Yahoo Answers... pretty much not at all. So I check foodnetwork.com first and if I cant find anything that sounds good I will try some of the google results and inspect them carefully.
How do those "google results" cook up? Do you use garlic?
I love the Scarsdale Diet cookbook- the recipes are great for anyone wanting simply prepared, tasty food- not just trying to lose weight.
It was published in the 70's and I love the Jello mold ideas, the use of pimento, paprika, and all the wonderful casserole recipes. It's weird to think of not having a microwave mentioned in none of the recipes!
I remember my mom having some old Betty Crocker cookbooks I made some of my first cooking experiments from. Also, I think Good Housekeeping put out some good cookbooks as well, if I remember correct.
I'm into vintage recipes too, Kat- so thanks for adding this to Eatocracy!
All of the above, almost equally, plus friends in the field.
As I was reading the list, I was looking for the "All of the above" as well.
Ditto... although (with the exception of a few that have been handed down through the generations) most of mine are my own, albeit inspired by looking at 20 or 30 other ones for the same thing, getting an inspiration and experimenting from there.
I'd choose "all of the above, too." I have a large collection of ancient (Cooking in Ancient Rome by Apicius), vintage (Larousse Gastronomique), ethnic (African to Tunisian) and modern cookbooks. I love to try new/different recipes and explore ingredients and spices that are out of the American mainstream. Although, I won't be trying the fieldmouse recipes from Cooking in Ancient Rome.
I would love to be able to make that meatloaf recipe, but finding veal is really a problem where I live,
Many supermarkets in my area (NJ) sell Meatloaf mix, which is a combo of Beef, Pork, & Veal. That could work. Or you could just use ground beef & ground pork. Its a mixture you need so that the meat is moist after cooking. Hope this helps!
I wanted an "all of the above" choice, too. If I find a recipe I like, I try it. If I don't like the results and can't tell why, I'll look around for different versions.
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