I can't wait to make this for the next dinner party I have for people I hate

This one almost seems like a joke. Like someone made it just to see if anyone would actually eat it, then laughed, silently and painfully, in the closet, while the too-polite neighbor choked it down.

Cottage Noodle Casserole
Salt (How much? A teaspoon? A jar? Until your blood dries up?)
3 qt. boiling water
8 oz. wide egg noodles
1 env. cream of leek soup mix (I don't even know where to go to buy this. Was this a well-known and widespread item in 1971?)
1/4 c. butter or margarine
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
2 c. milk
2 c. cream-style cottage cheese
1 c. grated sharp cheddar cheese

Okay, at this point, it doesn't seem so bad, right? Not delicious, but not awful. I could see this working together.

Wait wait. There's more.

1/4 c. raisins
1 1-lb can applesauce

You have gone completely off the rails, recipe.

Add 1 tablespoon salt to boiling water and add noodles gradually so that water continues to boil.

You know it's a bad sign when the recipe starts out by telling you how to boil noodles so as not to fuck them up.

Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender and drain in a colander.

Dammit! I was going to pour them into my pantyhose and let them drip-dry! However . . . with all of this other detail, it seems like you'd tell me how long it takes to achieve tenderness. 7 minutes? 10 minutes? Until I have a delicious pot of beige goo?

Combine the soup mix, butter, 1/4 teaspoon salt, pepper, mustard, and milk in a saucepan.

Well, at least now I'm getting a better idea how much salt to use. Which would've been nice to know before I sent Junior off to the Salt Mines.

I'm still worried, though, about the cream of leek soup. What if I can't find it? Is French onion okay, if I add powdered milk to it? Wait, I don't have powdered milk. Nevermind, I have Cremora. So, if you don't have powdered cream of leek soup, substitute one envelope of French onion, and some Cremora.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

The soup mix must have cementlike properties, because I cannot imagine how the rest of the ingredients are going to thicken into anything beyond milk.

Add the noodles, cottage cheese, applesauce, raisins, and 1/2 cup cheese and mix well.

Until this moment, I'd convinced myself that you just stirred the raisins into the applesauce and served them as a side dish. Nope.

Turn into a 2.5-quart baking dish and sprinkle with remaining cheese.

I know what this means, but I imagine someone waving a magic wand over this concoction and transforming it into pyrex. I'd be more likely to eat pyrex.

Bake in 350-degree oven for about 3 minutes or until bubbly.

I am truly convinced that this recipe was the inspiration for the dinner made by Jenny Meyer. "It has raisins in it. You like raisins."

I see we failed World Cultures

One theme I've seen in the casserole book, that I will surely revisit later, is what I'm going to call Ethnic Dysphoria. It's when a recipe purports to be one thing, but has ingredients that are either not authentic or downright wrong. Like this one:

1/4 c. butter or margarine
1/4 c. flour
2.5 c. milk
1/2 c. sour cream
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 12-oz package elbow macaroni
1 carton cottage cheese
2 tsp. chopped parsley
1 tsp. oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pkg. sliced mozzarella cheese
1/4 c grated Italian cheese
1/4 cup bread crumbs

Using these ingredients, I want you to tell me the country of origin from which this dish supposedly hails.

What is it with you people and boiled eggs?

I'm going to do some research into this, because I'm truly baffled. Apparently, boiled eggs were a staple in late-60s/early-70s dishes. I've never thought of boiled eggs being all that versatile; perhaps because I find them absolutely vile. However, had I been cooking, or, well, ALIVE in 1971, I would have been a victim of Boiled Egg Peer Pressure. "C'mon, Sally, everyone's doing it."

One of the more stomach-churning examples I found was the following recipe:

Crunchy Baked Eggs Au Gratin
3 tbsp shortening (Good, it's going to be a healthy recipe.)
1/4 c. flour
1/8 tsp paprika (Paprika was also very popular then, but only in the tiniest of tiny doses.)
1 tsp salt
2 c. milk
2 tbsp chopped green pepper (Whoa, don't go crazy there!)
2 tsp Angostura bitters (Wait, what?)
1/2 c grated American cheese
3 cups toasted bread cubes (Thank heavens, all that paprika and green pepper were setting my gizzard ablaze.)
6 hard-cooked eggs, halved

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt the shortening in a saucepan and stir in the flour, paprika, and salt. Stir in milk gradually and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth and thick. (Are there two more magical words in the English language than "smooth" and "thick?" I think not!) Add the green pepper, Angostura bitters, and cheese, and stir until cheese is melted. Fold in 2 cups bread cubes. Arrange eggs in a well-greased 1.5-quart casserole (more grease! woo hoo! although I'm disappointed that it wasn't mentioned in the ingredients; what if I didn't plan ahead and I run out of shortening?) and pour cheese sauce over eggs. Top with remaining bread cubes. Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. 6 servings.

6 servings? Are you kidding me? I'd eat the whole thing in one sitting. Nom nom nom.

The John Birch Society Casserole

As you may or may not know, the John Birch Society actively opposes the United Nations. I imagine that the members of the JBS sit around all the time, fantasizing about the liquidation of the UN, in ways both mild (Let's just disband it!) and extreme (Let's blow it to kingdom come!).

With this in mind, I'm almost sure that a member of the JBS came up with the next offering in the Casserole Book of the Damned (as I have taken to calling it):

Casserole International (Or, "What the UN would have us all eat if they are able to infiltrate polite society")

3 cups cooked roast beef, cut in large cubes
1 cup tomato juice
2 sm. cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. fines herbes
1 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. minced green pepper
1 pkg. frozen chow mein
1 cup cooked fettucine
1/2 cup cooking sherry
1/2 cup grated sharp Cheddar
2 tbsp. minced parsley

In case you can't tell, this is a rogues' gallery of ingredients from various cuisines, none of which I can imagine working very well together. In fact, I think this sounds like one of the more disagreeable concoctions ever.

Well played, JBS. Well played. You have only to feed this mess to as many people as possible, and they'll see what you're talking about: INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION IS AN ABOMINATION AND MUST BE STOPPED.

Back on the Blog Gang

I said, a year ago, that I would blog regularly about the casserole book I bought. Well, best-laid plans of mice and men and casseroles, and all that.

Finally, I'm getting back on the noodle horse, and writing at least a blog a week (but I'll try for more) about the recipes located in this book.

I'm going to start at the beginning, and go forward. I may not do a blog about every one, but I'll do as many as I can.

The first in this series is:

Buffet Casserole

Most of the ingredients sound fine; maybe even edible:

1/2 lb. beef sirloin
3 tbsp. butter or margarine
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 10-oz package frozen green beans
1/2 cup beef bouillon
1/2 tsp salt (although I question the sense of having a half a cup of bouillon AND salt, but whatever)
1 tsp flour
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

Okay, this really isn't all that bad, right? Right.

Well, then you get to the final ingredient:

2 15-oz cans beef ravioli

Wait, what?

You're apparently supposed to mix all of the other ingredients together in a saute, and line a baking dish with the canned ravioli. You then pour the other ingredients into the middle of the ravioli. Think of it as the crust, I suppose.

Doesn't this sound DELICIOUS?

I'll try to remember to scan a picture of this monstrosity tomorrow. Because reading about it is not nearly as horrendous as looking at it.