I had a ton of fun doing my Vintage Menu Madness last week, and I think you all really enjoyed it too. If you are reading this for the first time, Vintage Menu Madness is a new feature I have added to my blog. Once a week, I will explore a menu from one of my many Vintage Cookery Books.
I love Vintage Recipes and Recipe books. It is a love that started when I was a child. I think there is a lot of value in these older recipes. In my case, it reminds me of meals my Grandmother would have cooked and also of meals that I enjoyed as a child.
When I was in Grade School (Kindergarten to Grade 5) my father used to come home for his dinner at noon. Our school was only a short walk from the house, so we were able to also come home. My mother always made our big meal at noon in those days and I have really fond memories of many of them. She often also included a dessert and some kind of bread, even if the dessert was only tinned fruit.
She took her mother's job to provide us all with nutritious, healthy, and well balanced meals very seriously! I don't think we put as much care into planning our meals and menus these days as they used to do. Meal planning was very serious business way back when! A large portion of these Vintage Cookbooks was given over to meal planning and menus. I like that!
Mind, most women did not work outside the home and so they had a lot more time for these sorts of things!
The Menu I am sharing today comes from a reprint of the 1954 cookbook by Betty Crocker called The Good and Easy Cook Book. I got my copy on Amazon.
Betty Crocker was never a real woman, but a character created by the General Mills company and has come to symbolize food and recipes which are synonymous with quality, reliability and trustworthiness. I have a few Betty Crocker Cookbooks, and whether a real person or not, they are some of my favorite books to use.
This book is a wonderful reprint of an old 1951 classic and would make a great addition to anyone's cookbook library. It is filled with an abundance of valuable, stalwart tried and trues, timeless classics and hidden gems.
Since we are now coming into Autumn, I thought I would choose a menu this week that very much spoke to me of the "ber" months, with a Baked Ham Dinner. It sounded delicious and actually was incredibly tasty. Everything went together like "peas and carrots!"
This menu was for a Baked Ham Dinner. I made very few alterations to the menu, although I did choose to cook a Baked Ham Slice rather than a whole ham, being that there is only myself in the house. Here is the Menu I cooked:
BAKED HAM SLICE
HORSERADISH SAUCE
CANDIED SWEET POTATOES
GRAPE, APPLE & CELERY SALAD
PUMPKIN PIE
I chose to add a small batch of North American Style Biscuits to round out the menu. My mother would have always added a bread of some sort and I felt that they would go very well with everything else.
The recipe I chose for my Biscuits was my QUICK & EASY BUTTERMILK BISCUITS FOR TWO. The recipe makes only four of the most delicious, light as air buttermilk biscuits that you could want to eat!
It is the ideal recipe for the smaller family, or for a meal where you are feeding four people and don't want a lot of leftovers.
Of course the star of this menu is the Baked Ham Steak. Although I was not able to get a ham steak the exact size of the one in the recipe, the one I was able to get worked very well. There was no fatty edge to insert cloves in and so I just added about 1/4 tsp of cloves to the orange juice before pouring it over the steak and baking.
This was such an easy entree to cook. Just lay the steak in the dish, pour over the juice, sprinkle on the brown sugar and bake. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't like a sweet and tender glazed ham steak with bright citrus notes, can you?
Yield: variableAuthor: Marie Rayner
Baked Ham Slice
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 2 HourTotal time: 2 H & 10 MTender and juicy with a nice flavored glaze and notes of citrus.Ingredients
- 2 inch thick center cut slice of ham (see notes)
- cloves
- 1 cup (240ml) of pineapple or orange juice
- 1/2 cup (100g) soft light brown sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325*F/165*C/ gas mark 3. Cut slashes in the fatty edge of your ham every two inches and insert a whole clove into the fat.
- Place the ham into a baking dish large enough to hold it snuggly. Pour the fruit juice over top and then sprinkle evenly with the brown sugar.
- Bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, basting two or three times during the bake time.
Notes
My ham was a center cut round ham steak which was only 1/2 inch thick. I used roughly half the amount of brown sugar and orange juice and added a generous pinch of cloves to the orange juice. It was cooked perfectly in about an hour.
Did you make this recipe?
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I did not have cooked sweet potatoes. They are not something you really see in a tin here where I live in Canada. This is what I did. This made a generous serving for two people.
I took a medium sized sweet potato and peeled it. I cut it into six nice chunks and popped them into a baking dish along with about 1/4 inch of water. I covered the dish tightly with a sheet of aluminum foil and then baked them along side of the ham steak in the oven.
As soon as they were fork tender, I drained off any water and then dotted each piece with a bit of butter and a sprinkle of brown sugar. They caramelized beautifully.
Again, because there is only me I cooked only 2 portions of cauliflower. I broke four decent sized florets of cauliflower from a head of cauliflower and placed them into a saucepan. I covered them with water to which I had added a teaspoon of vinegar. (This helps to keep the cauliflower white.) Do not add salt at this time.
Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 to 15 minutes until the cauliflower is to your taste. I like my cauliflower to be crispy tender.
Drain well and then toss together with a tablespoon of butter, a pinch of salt and some cracked black pepper.
The salad suggested in the menu sounded very delicious to me! However, there was no recipe in the book for one. I did a search online and found one on the Martha Stewart site. It sounded perfect!
It was light and fresh, with only a simple vinegar and oil dressing. I figured it would be perfect as with everything else in the menu, you didn't need anything really heavy to go alongside. I was right.
This was crisp, tart as well as being a bit sweet from the grapes at the same time. I really enjoyed it! I also took the liberty of cutting the recipe in half as I felt that would be plenty. I also left out the toasted pecans.
Apple, Grape, and Celery Salad
Yield: 2Author: Marie RaynerPrep time: 10 MinTotal time: 10 MinFresh, light and tasty!Ingredients
- 1 stalk of celery, trimmed and thinly sliced on the diagonal
- 1/2 Granny Smith Apple, stemmed, cored, and thinly sliced
- 8 seedless red grapes, halved
- 1/2 TBS white wine vinegar
- 1/2 TBS extra virgin olive oil
- coarse salt and black pepper to taste
- celery leaves to garnish
Instructions
- Combine the celery, apple and grapes in a bowl. Add the vinegar and olive oil and toss everything together to combine. Season to taste with some coarse salt and black pepper.
- Garnish with some celery leaves and serve.
Did you make this recipe?
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The final part of the menu was Pumpkin pie. Once again I did not want to bake a full pumpkin pie as I am only one person. Instead I baked Pumpkin Pie for one in a 4 inch round deep pie dish. You can get that recipe here. It says that it is perfectly sized for one, but I have found that, especially with a full menu like this one, it is perfect ample enoug for two people to enjoy, especially with some squirty cream on top.
If you are wanting to feed more people I can highly recommend my recipe for Easy Pumpkin Pie. It makes a 9-inch pie, suitable to feed 6 to 8 people!
I thought this was a really delicious meal. Very well structured and nutritious without going over the top. The meat was tender and juicy and had a lovely flavor. I used a bottled horseradish sauce to dollop alongside.
That salad was crisp and fresh and really tasty! The sweet potatoes just sweet enough without going over the top and becoming dessert. The cauliflower went well with everything else and looked nice on the plate.
The biscuits were not really necessary but I thought they made a nice extra touch, and the pie, well, it was the perfect finish for what was a really delicious Vintage Menu Madness meal! I thoroughly enjoyed this!
Tune in next week to see what Vintage Menu I will be cooking up next!
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