A-Zof Cooking - Retro Food For Modern Times

23
Oct
2017

REPOST – Eggs With Spinach and Fashion Tips From Dinah Shore

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Spinach, Supper

Eggs and Spinach are a classic combo. Think Eggs Florentine, Spinach Quiche or Spinach Soufflé. Well today we are using eggs and spinach to create a twist on the dish The A -Z of Cooking calls Eggs With Spinach. Uh huh. What it lacks in imagination, it makes up for in precision. But it’s also from a chapter called Watching Your Weight and, to be honest, the original recipe was a little meh….So, whilst staying in the spirit of Eggs with Spinach here’s my version. What it lacks in weight watching, it makes up for in flavour.

Given that choice, always make flavour the winner. Just go for a run the next day!

My eggs and spinach recipe contains spinach lightly sauteed in garlic, mixed with a little cream, sprinkled with nutmeg, topped with cheese and baked with an egg until the white is set and the yolk is runny perfection!

Did anyone say brunch? These eggs with spinach scale up really well for a group at brunch or make a great quick and easy supper for one!

I used fresh baby spinach in my Eggs with Spinach, however you could use frozen. Below is a great vintage ad for frozen spinach. Note the awesome striped t-shirt being worn by Dinah Shore and the perfectly coordinated polka dot apron. She’s rocking my favourite patterns and showing that the rule of “blue and green should never be seen” is as dumb AF. Go Dinah. OMG, I only just noticed her gorgeous green shoes with the bows. I want that entire outfit! I wonder if back in the day women everywhere were also exclaiming “Glory be….fuck the spinach, get me that t-shirt and those shoes…”

Does anyone say “Glory be” anymore?

Did anyone ever?

Before we travel down that etymological rabbit hole here’s the recipe:

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Eggs with Spinach

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A delicious quick and easy dish for brunch, lunch or supper!

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

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500g baby spinach
1 garlic clove, crushed
25g butter
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp cream
4 tbsp grated cheddar cheese

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Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced.
Lightly grease four 3/4 cup-capacity ovenproof dishes.
Wash the baby spinach.
Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat and add the garlic.
Saute for a minute or two until the garlic softens but does not change colour.
Add the spinach and stir until just wilted, about 2 minutes.
Take off the heat and stir in the cream and nutmeg.
Divide the spinach into two and place in two ramekin dishes.
Make an indent in the middle and break and egg into each.
Sprinkle the cheese over the top.
Season with salt and pepper.
Bake for around 15 minutes or until the egg white is just set but yolk is still runny.
Remove from oven. Stand for 2 minutes.
Serve with toast.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 2

If you would also like to rock Dinah’s look here is my take on it:

That was awesome fun! Now I gotta go do it in real life. Have a good one!

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05
Oct
2017

Profiteroles For Very Special Occasions

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Desserts, France, Pastry

You might think that five and a bit years into this that I would cease to be surprised. Both when things go awry and when by some stroke of mad luck things work out just as they should. Such was the case with the Profiteroles I made on the weekend from the Very Special Occasions Chapter of The A- Z of Cooking (1977). When the profiteroles came out of the oven looking like, well, profiteroles, there were whoops of joy, squeals of excitement and a bit of spontaneous kitchen dancing!

Yep, in this house, this:

Equals This:

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet. First. Hello V. And whilst we’re on the subject let’s’ all note the name of the chapter. Not just Special Occasions. Very Special Occasions. Requiring very special dancing apparently. And also requiring several goes at making something that was worthy of posting. After all, it’s a very special occasion.

First up there was a go at Carpetbag Steak. Now, if you lookup Carpetbag Steak anywhere on the interwebs, you will more than likely read that it is a famous Australian recipe. I’ve lived here virtually all my life and I have never head of it. However, I really liked the idea of steak and oysters. I made the recipe and it looked and tasted meh.

Then I made a Beef Stroganoff. Tasted good. Looked terrible in all the photos. I think it’s that thing that Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers told me about where brown food just doesn’t photo well. This was about the best…

So then I made Carpetbag Steak v2. A modern recipe this time. Still looked and tasted meh.

I was left with a choice. Champagne and Orange Juice. Or Profiteroles. And believe me . You came so close to having Champagne and Orange juice as your very special occasion meal. Because this is what happens inside my head whenever pastry is mentioned:

The profiteroles only happened because the very special occasion was a long weekend due to the Football Grand Final being the next day. I know right. Who has a holiday BEFORE the big day?

“It’s the dumbest reason for a holiday ever” I said.

“Come to work then” said my boss.

“It’s the best holiday ever. Better even than Jesus being born. Or dying.”

So anyway, on the holiday for best/ worst reason ever I got a little bored in the evening and thought that I would have a flick through The A-Z of Cooking, to plan V-Z. The profiterole recipe caught my eye and I realised that I had every ingredient. And a whole heap of bravado due to being about 3/4 of a bottle of a wine in.

Don’t judge. That produced these. Light as air, melt in the mouth, boozy cream filled and shiny chocolately pastry balls of deliciousness,

The basis for profiteroles, and the reason for my hissy fit is pastry. Choux pastry to be exact. I have made choux pastry exactly once before. For a recipe called Cherry Fritters from The A-Z of Cooking. Don’t bother searching the archives for them. They were a total disaster and I didn’t post them.

But choux starts with a roux…actually no. According to The A-Z of Cooking choux pastry starts with 63g of flour. Yep. 63. Not 60. Not 65. 63. And seeing as this was a very special occasion, 63g of flour it was.

This became this:

Which became these. I couldn’t find a piping bag and my piping skills are non-existent so I just blobbed spoonfuls of the pastry onto the tray. Also, I wasn’t really expecting this to work. And need I remind you about that bottle of wine that was now 5/6’s gone?

Well, slap my arse and call me Charlie if those funny looking blobs didn’t turn into these. They’re shall we say “rustic” but on a scale of one to ten of being recognizable as profiteroles, they have to be at least an eight.

So then fill and ice and sprinkle and you get these: (even more profiteroley).

Here’s the recipe direct from The A-Z of Cooking:

I tweaked the recipe by swapping out the rum for Amaretto and adding some sprinkles.

Make, eat, enjoy, do a little dance of sheer pleasure.

And have a great week!

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29
Nov
2016

REPOST – Potato Almond Balls

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Potato, Recipe Fail, Starters

When a chapter called Nuts about Nourishment contains a recipe for Deep Fried Mashed Potato Balls, you know it has to be 1977. And that we are about to delve into The A-Z of Cooking. Potato Almond Balls. I was so excited about these, I ate salad for a week to pre-compensate for the delicious calorific overload.

And then they didn’t work.

The problem was that the egg and almond crust split in many places…and when it did, the mashed potato kind of disintegrated. So in a lot of instances I ended up with the almond crust and not much else. Where they remained whole, they were totally delicious sprinkled with a bit of smoked paprika and dipped in some of my favorite green sauce.

I’m putting the failure of the balls down to the wrong temperatures. Either the balls were too cold or too warm or the oil was. Is it significant that The A-Z of Cooking has no pictures of this dish? It is possible that their Potato Almond Balls also broke into bits?

Here’s the recipe for anyone who wants it, I hope you have better luck than me!

To counteract the effect of deep fried potato balls (and because I had no other photos) I thought I would give you all an update on my attempts at the C25K running program. Today I started week 7 of the program and ran for 25 minutes which was not only the longest time but also the furthest distance I have done so yay me!

Mind you, this is probably a very apt description of both my pace and my style:

Personally, given my new obsession with the ‘My Favorite Murder Podcast,, this might well become my mantra:

And this is probably closer to the truth:;

Next time in The A-Z we are moving onto O for some “Old Fashioned Favourites”. I was hoping to be done with it by the end of the year but given it is nearly December (how the hell did that happen?) it seems unlikely. I’m now aiming for end of summer.

Have a fabulous week everyone!

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24
Feb
2016

Breakfast Banana Cream

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Bananas, Breakfast, Coconut Yogurt, Vegan, Yogurt

I know I said that we were going to skip the G is for Good Health section in the A-Z of Cooking because I had already made the Cheese and Date Bread. Then I remembered that the banana cream I have been eating for breakfast for weeks came from this same section. And for those of you who care about such things my favourite version is also vegan because guess what? The Banana Cream contains no cream. That’s 1970’s health food for you.

So pretty. And it’s delicious too. And so easy to do. It takes all of about 30 seconds to make .

But first a little digression. They…whomsoever they may be…say that you are what you eat. It might be why health food often gets such a bad rap. I mean who wants to look like the burghul salad which is the first recipe featured in the G is for Good Health section of the A-Z of Cooking.

So back to breakfast and the no-cream banana cream. This tastes and feels rich and luscious so you can almost feel a bit decadent when eating it. The basic recipe for the banana cream is bananas, yogurt, honey, lemon and crushed nuts. I have played with this for a number of weeks now and my favourite combination is to use coconut yogurt and maple syrup. The one highlight of that time I did Paleo was discovering coconut yogurt. OMG that stuff is the BEST. Shame it is so hideously expensive. At the time I looked into making it and it can be done relatively easily. I’ll add that to the to do list! And maple syrup is one of my favourite flavours. Its so good. But you can use plain yogurt or honey – whatever your favourites are.

I have also eaten the banana cream as a topping for granola and swirled into warm oatmeal //porridge and it is good with both!

I have used walnuts as the nuts in these pictures but almonds are also good. Sub in whatever you like. Or, if you hate nuts, use a sprinkle of granola for a lovely crunch!

I’m not overly fond of bananas but I have eaten the banana cream a couple of times a week for a few weeks now and there is no sign of it going off high rotation. I make the serving size below and put half in a container in the fridge for the following day – it keeps quite well overnight. Quick, versatile, delicious so simple and healthy to boot! So much nicer than that burghul salad!

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