Sometimes when you use recipes from old cookbooks, they can seem a bit “tone-deaf” when it comes to modern-day sensibilities about race and culture. Despite a questionable name, 11-36: Hong Kong Shrimp contains many ingredients commonly found in Chinese food.
I love the porcelain bowls they served the example dish in. The wooden chopsticks are also a great touch. What a great photo!
The quote from the front of the recipe card for 6-27: Sweet-and-Sour Chicken is as true as anything I could write about this recipe:
“Cook chicken legs and thighs the Chinese way, in a sweet-and-sour sauce. This is such a simple way of preparing bargain chicken and the result is just terrific.“
Sweet-and-sour sauce tastes great when you make it fresh, but it’s just as easy to buy the thick, red sauce in a jar and call it good.
Scones have a lot of different methods of preparation, usually depending on varying geographical interpretations. There’s even different pronunciations of the word “scone”–some rhyme it with “tone”, while others rhyme it with “gone.”
Simply Delicious‘ take, 17-11: Scones, seems to most closely adhere to the British version of scones in that they make theirs into round cakes, score them, and then break them apart into triangle shapes after baking. The North American versions tend to be individually-sized, round, and more often than not closely resemble what we refer to as biscuits.
One of my first memorable experiences with scones were at an 18th birthday tea party I attended in the last few months of senior year of high school–we had just come back from a Spring Break trip to England & Ireland, and I came to the tea party prepared with white gloves and pinkies up. They had scones with clotted cream & jam, finger sandwiches, and lots of flowery, delicate pots of tea. ☕️
Wouldn’t have been my choice for an 18th birthday party (I spent a good portion of mine in my freshman dorm room hungover from the Halloween extravaganza the night before), but it was definitely unique.
A recent Sunday brunch called for a special treat: 17-65: Giant Caramel Rolls. Similar to “sticky buns“, these rolls have been taunting me for a while. I decided to make a batch and drop them off for brunch–that way most of them gets eaten by everyone else.
Don’t get me wrong–there’s still two in my freezer as I type this. But that’s better than ALL of them. Plus, there wasn’t room for all of them–I still had 16-14: Orange-Almond Cake in there, too. The rest of these ended up in my mom’s freezer instead.
17-25: Almond Rolls are kind of a bonus holiday baking (XMAS 16) post for me–only one person received the bulk of these, as they made up part of a week-long Secret Santa gift-giving event that my work puts on. ?? My giftee for Secret Santa not only got these, but a batch of 17-9: Brownies with toasted hazelnuts both in the batter and on top, as well as a batch of my family’s chocolate chip cookie recipe with red & green M&Ms swapped in for semisweet bits. ??
These almond rolls are similar to cinnamon rolls/buns, and like the recipe that Simply Delicious provides for cinnamon rolls, these ones lack a glaze/icing as well. However, given the sweetness of the filling and the fact that these are a gift for someone, I’ll forgo adding icing on my own this time. ?
I went pretty cookie-heavy last year when I baked for the holidays, so this year (XMAS 16) I only included one cookie recipe: 17-20: Macadamia Chip Cookies. These ones got pretty rave reviews as well (17-42: Luscious Lemon Bars received the most accolades this year), and I definitely found myself sneaking a few before I packed up and shipped off everyone’s treat packages. ?
Simply Delicious is right about one thing: these cookies do make a great gift, and they ship well. Macadamia nuts are a smooth, mild nut that most people won’t be offended by, and the combination of white and semisweet chocolate are the best of both worlds.
I don’t often have ground pork on hand, but I happened to pick some up at a supermarket sale a few months ago and had been holding it in the freezer for a Simply Delicious recipe–I knew there were a few that called for it. 9-9: Pork Meat Loaf with Horseradish would have been a silly recipe to sub in ground beef for (my usual move), so this one will get the honor of being used with actual pork. ?
You guys, this picture does not look promising. Meatloaf is already difficult to get excited about, and I’m not sure if a creamy horseradish sauce is going to be enough to save it. Despite the copy reeking of desperation at the bottom of the recipe card (does this look “extravagant” to you?), I’m still willing to give it a shot. ?
One of the two desserts I made for this year’s Thanksgiving (TGV 2016) was 16-52: Apple Nut Saucepan Torte (the other was 15-49: Chocolate Pudding Deluxe). I wanted something “of the season”, and this seemed like a cross between apple pie and fruitcake.
This was the second dish I made, starting off the Wednesday 11/23 portion of my holiday cooking marathon. Since this cake holds well at room temperature, I planned to just slightly underbake it, and then finish it off for 5-10 minutes in a preheated oven to warm it up for dessert on the day of the holiday.
If I hadn’t made this for Thanksgiving, I think it’d make a great gift (mailed or delivered in person) or potluck dish, especially for an office or somewhere where it would sit for a while. Even though Thanksgiving is over for the year, it’s totally still the season for a cake like this one.
I made another “New Orleans” recipe at the same time as this one–you can go back and read 12-29: New Orleans Beans and Pasta for what is essentially a pasta version of this dish. Either one is a hearty and relatively inexpensive meal. Since the two share a lot of ingredients, consider making both–they store and reheat well. ?