Like this blog, but pictures.

Bacon-wrapped meatloaf with Mac 'n' Cheese filling

This is a day to mark with a white stone.* Or maybe a tub of Cool-Whip. Because Twitter (which hadn't even been invented when I started this blog) has just informed me of the existence of the following:

This is Why You're Fat

and it's genius.

GENIUS, I tell you.

*Hey, all you hipsters: that was a Biblical reference. See, I'm not just an idiot who starts a blog and only updates it every year and a half ... I'm a well-read idiot who etc., etc.

Welcome to ... Hell's Kitchen.

*This is a sticky post--new stuff follows.*



Welcome to Horrifying Foodstuffs, a blog that doubles as a virtual Home Economics classroom.









Read on as recipes--culled from my
collection of Junior League and
community cookbooks--are sent
to the front of the classroom, where they are taunted mercilessly.


Bon Appetit!

*This is a sticky post--new stuff follows.*

Non-Horrifying Recipes

Once in a while, I go all braggy and foodie--(not here, but on my main blog)--and have to let the world know that I actually cooked something. From scratch, even.

It happened again yesterday, and I've had two requests for recipes. So here they are, as a piquant change of pace from the usual lack of action around these parts.

All recipes serve a family of two voracious males, one picky little princess, and one quite normal adult sized female with a healthy appetite, thank you very much. With enough leftovers for a second meal.

Pulled Pork with Midwestern Red Sauce
This is easier than it sounds. Once the meat is on the grill, you only have to visit it every half hour or so. Some people baste the meat, but I don't bother.

3 pound shoulder of pork
1 heaping tbsp paprika
1 heaping tbsp salt
pepper
hickory chips for the kettle grill

Combine the seasonings and rub into the pork shoulder. Put it in a big plastic bag and refrigerate it overnight.

The next day, soak your hickory chips. Place a drip pan in the middle of a kettle grill. Ring it with charcoal. After lunch, fire up them up. When the coals are glowing/ashy, half-fill the drip pan with water. Place the pork over the drip pan. Put some wet hickory chips over the coals and put the cover down. Open the vents and watch for smoke. About every hour, add a more charcoal. Add more soaked chips about every half hour. Yes, your neighbors will hate you. Cook the pork to an internal temperature of 165. This takes about four hours. Remove the pork and let it cool, then shred with two cooking forks. Mix with sauce.

Midwestern Red
OK, this is not the real deal. We're boring, and my kids don't like their food too spicy. It also contains both tomato and vinegar, which is "inauthentic." But we're doing this in Illinois, for God's sake.

2 cups ketchup
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 Tbsp cider vinegar
2 Tbsp prepared mustard (And I don't care what kind)
1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

Mix up. Shake in some Jane's Crazy Mixed Up Salt, garlic salt, celery salt, or whatever you like--some people like to add cayenne, hot sauce. My husband adds hot sauce at the table.

So that's the meat. Most people serve this on buns, but yesterday was cool enough for mashed potatoes, so I plated it foodie style on top of mashed spuds.

Mashed Potatoes
This is actually as fast as pasta and doesn't heat up the kitchen as much as you'd think.

Potatoes
Butter
Milk
Salt

Make one potato for every person there, plus maybe a couple extra. Wash the potatoes well and cut into quarters. Place in a large pot with enough water to cover and about a tablespoon of salt. Shut up. Cook, covered, over high heat until boiling, then lower heat to medium. Cook until you can stick a fork into them. This will take about 15 minutes. Yes, really. Remove and drain. Put blob of butter into the hot pot you cooked the spuds in. Put a food mill over the top. Place the potatoes in the food mill and start turning the handle. The potatoes will head south and the peels will stay in the food mill. When all the potatoes are in the pot, dump the food mill into the sink. Using a fork or whisk or whatever weapon is handy, mix in some milk until the consistency is right.

Cole Slaw
This is the way I like it--not chopped, not too sweet, with a nice mustardy bite.

1 head cabbage
mayonnaise
1/2 onion
mustard
vinegar
sugar

First make the dressing: plop four heaping tablespoons of mayo into a big bowl. With the small side of a grater, grate half an onion into the mayo. You just want the juice. Mix in a couple of splashes of vinegar and some dry mustard (I always have this around, but I suppose you could use prepared). I use about two heaping teaspoons of dried mustard, but I like a spicy slaw. Mix in about a tablespoon of sugar.

Wash, quarter, and core the cabbage. With the sharpest knife you have, slice the cabbage as thinly as you can. As you slice, dump the cabbage into the bowl with the dressing and mix it up. Don't worry if the slaw seems a bit dry when it's done; the cabbage will weep a bit as it sits.

The books will tell you that you need to chill the slaw for two yours, but it's good right away. Some people like to add grated carrot, celery salt, celery seed, or caraway seed, but I don't bother.

Corn on the Cob

Put big pot of water on to boil. Add a tablespoon of salt. Shut up. While you wait for the corn to boil, husk the corn and remove all the little bits of silk. When the water boils, put the corn in. Turn off the heat and let it sit. Shut up. It turns out perfect. The corn they grow nowadays is so tender it really doesn't need cooking.

Philadelphia Ice Cream
We use a Donvier Chillfast ice cream maker. I got it for $5 at a local thrift shop. It's one of those metal things you keep in the freezer. We make ice cream and sorbet two or three times a week with this thing. It's insanely easy, and you barely need to stir it at all.

4 cups light cream
1 cup sugar
1 tbps vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt

Mix the ingredients and freeze. It's slightly better if you let it ripen in the freezer for a couple of hours, but it's damned good fresh out of the ice cream maker. At the moment, we're eating it covered with fresh raspberries.

How many deaths must a chocolate die?

My friend Joke has a blog. (Doesn't everyone?) And once in a while he posts a recipe.

I never cook any of Joke's recipes, even though I've heard it said that Joke is a good cook. I mean, he tells me this all the time. But--for one thing--his recipes are always for sort of grill-happy, extra-virgin-olive-oil laden foods that seem, somehow, out of season most of the time. Could this be because he lives in Miami, home of the South Beach diet, and I live in Chicago, home of the Vienna hot dog, the pierogi, and the Tootsie Roll?

And yet, even in this god-awful, fatty meats-guzzling spot, I entertain from time to time. And once in a great while, I get asked for a recipe.

The thing is, the recipes people want? Are always for those "doctor-up-the-cake-mix" desserts. Never anything I can actually brag about. In fact, I'm always embarrassed to confess the dreadful truth, fearing that I will lose face among the Martha Stewart wannabes of Newtopia, the lovely suburb in which I entertain.

Question: has anyone else has ever thought of coming up with a real, whole-foods, from-scratch version of a popular, yet embarrassing favorite recipe? A version that comes up with pretty much the same dish, but doesn't involve opening a single boxes of instant pudding, let alone cake mix?

Because I have discovered the answer in Dom DeLuise's Eat This, You'll Feel Better. I don't actually own this cookbook--with one exception, that being James Beard, I tend to avoid buying cookbooks by grossly overweight individuals. Call me superstitious, but I'd like to give my metabolism at least a fighting chance. And call me prejudiced, but it does strike me that if the author weighs 400 pounds, there is a pretty good chance that his idea of a serving size and mine might differ--you should excuse the term--substantially.

But. I remembered that long ago, when I took Dom's cookbook out of the library, I was struck that one of his recipes, Death by Chocolate II, was identical to one I had been using for years. I'll call mine "Alexander's Favorite Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cake," because that's what Linda Sunshine called in Plain Jane's Thrill of Very Fattening Food. If you do a search on Dom's version, you'll find it all over the internet. To wit:

Death by Chocolate II

1 box chocolate cake mix
1 box instant chocolate pudding (4 serving size (1/2 cup
per serving)
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup water (I sometimes substitute Grand Marnier here)
1/2 cup sour cream
4 eggs
12 oz chocolate, semi-sweet chips


Mix ingredients in order listed. Pour into greased Bundt pan. Cook at
350 for 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes and remove from pan. Believe me,
frosting is not necessary with this cake.

I found zillions of versions on the internet. But when I searched for Dom's by-scratch version, Death by Chocolate I, I found only one version, to wit:

Death by Chocolate I

2 c. flour
1 tbsp. double-acting baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 c. sugar
2 large eggs
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature, quartered
1 c. sour cream
1/2 c. water 2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. plus 2 tbsp. cocoa
1 12-oz package semi-sweet chocolate chips
powdered sugar

Sift flour, baking powder, and baking soda twice. Place in a small bowl. Beat the sugar and eggs in a large mixing bowl until sugar is dissolved. Add butter and mix into egg mixture thoroughly. Add sour cream, water, vanilla extract, and beat. Add flour mixture and cocoa and beat slowly just until flour is absorbed. Do not over-beat. Fold in chocolate chips and pour into buttered Bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour. When cool, sift powdered sugar on top. Variation: Replace 1/4 c. of the water with Grand Marnier.

Clearly, the internet is far more interested in quick-and-dirty cakes than more laborious scratch versions of the same thing. Because like me, the internet is a big sleazebag.

But I can outfox the internet now, and so can you. Go ahead and bake the easy version--I've done it myself more times than I can count. Every time I get asked to bring a dessert to a function, this is what I bring. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked for a recipe. And now, when the person who asks is someone I don't like very much, if at at all, I can give her the recipe for Death by Chocolate I. I might even have her separating the eggs, sifting flour four times, and tempering the chocolate, just to be really evil.

Instant entry; just add Google

Who needs to think about what to post when there's Google images to do the posting for me! Click on any of the below, and I guarantee that those pictures will be worth a thousand of my words.

1. Jello mold
2. Casserole
3. Tater tots
4. Potluck recipes
5. Crockpot recipe

Let this be a lesson to you, folks. You might think the recipes I'm mocking over here are corny. And that nobody cooks that crap any more. Well, the pictures in Google are up to the minute. Somebody is still cooking this crap.

Now, what are we going to do to stop it?

Just add water.

When inspiration palls, what's a Horrifying Chef to do?

Run this blog through the Dialectizer, of course, choosing the oh-so-appropriate, Muppety-fresh Swedish Chef dialect.

Enjoy, and bork bork bork!

Talk about cheesy!

Tonight I felt too lazy to get out of the extremely comfortable armchair I'm sitting in, so to find a topic for today's post, I did a search for "cream of mushroom soup." And can you believe it--this was the first recipe that came up.

It just goes to show you that whenever you go looking for your heart's desire, you shouldn't go any further than your own back yard.

And now with a tip of the hat to the lovely and talented Judy Garland, I bring you:

Broccoli-Rice Cheesy Bake

INGREDIENTS:
2 (10 ounce) packages frozen chopped broccoli
3 cups instant rice (I use 3 cups of plain rice, which cooked is about 6 cups. It's a lot.)
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 1/4 cups water
1 (16 ounce) package processed American cheese, cubed
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:
Cook broccoli and rice according to package directions. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a medium saucepan over low heat, mix cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, and 1 1/4 cups water. Gradually stir in cheese until melted. Be careful that the cheese doesn't burn.
In a large mixing bowl, combine broccoli, rice, soup and cheese mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Pour mixture into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, until bubbly and lightly brown.

---
This is almost Horrifying Foodstuffs nirvana. I mean--two cans of condensed soup? Not to mention instant rice and processed cheese?

However, I'm sorry to say that this recipe's purity was sullied by the inclusion of frozen chopped brocolli. Oh well ... nothing's perfect. It's a fallen world we live in, after all ... but at least I can take comfort in the fact that the brocolli was frozen.

Also, the one and a quarter cups of water? Let's hope it's polluted.

How the mighty have fallen.

If you're like me (although, luckily for you, you probably aren't) you don't just have a perverse fascination with Junior League cookbooks and recipes involving heavy artillery, like condensed cream of mushroom soup or Cool-Whip™, you also have a perverse fascination with awful-sounding recipes that you've seen over and over and over on boxes of packaged foods. You grew up reading the backs of cereal boxes, and you got into the habit of reading boxes. You spent years reading any box or can you saw. You started to wonder about these recipes you kept seeing--the Dream Whip cake, the Campbell's Tomato Soup cake, and most of all, the Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie. What are they actually like?

Yes, I've thought long and hard about back-of-the-box recipes, but never--before today--did I have the nerve to actually cook one of them.

This afternoon I wanted to make cookies--without having to run out to the supermarket to buy any ingredients. I rummaged around the baking supplies cupboard to see what I had on hand. To my surprise, I found a package of Nestle's Butterscotch flavored chips. "Where the hell did these come from?" I wondered silently to myself.

And then it struck me. I could make Oatmeal Scotchies!

Maybe you haven't been as fixated on Oatmeal Scotchies as I've been some people have. But for me many people, Oatmeal Scotchies have been the subject of intense interest.

As the lovely and eloquent Caryn puts it:

"One of our families favorite cookies. I often bake these to take to different events and am always asked for the recipe since they are such a different cookie from the standard cookie."

(By the way, did you know that eating butterscotch morsels kills brain cells? Or that butterscotch morsels consume 48 times their weight in excess punctuation marks? But I digress.)

So anyway, today I fulfilled a long-cherished dream. I baked a batch of Oatmeal Scotchies. I creamed the butter, I zapped the brown sugar to get it soft enough to pack into the measuring cups, I used organic vanilla extract--I did everything right.

Then it was time to add the butterscotch morsels. I opened the bag. They were a bizarre orange color. I put one in my mouth anyway. Ew. The taste was very artificial and vaguely boozey, and the texture was both revoltingly greasy and tongue-coatingly waxy.

I realized what butterscotch morsels taste like: they taste like a Butter Rum Lifesaver enrobed in a tasty layer of Crisco.

I baked the cookies anyway. After all, I had gotten that far. But, as the poet asks, "what happens to a dream deferred?" And I answer, "it vomits up a bunch of cookies."

I took the pan out of the oven. They. looked. like. dog. vomit. See?

Thank your lucky stars that shot was out of focus. Trust me; you don't want to get too close to these things.

And the weird thing was--the recipe actually yielded more cookies than it said it would. When does that ever happen?

Here--take one. These are some of the choicest of the batch, because there were lumps of brown sugar in them. So they give the best technicolor lumps-of-dog-hurl effect of all.
Extreme close-up!!!!!!!


Run away! RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!

p.s. Guess what? My husband loved them.

Poppy Toast

No, this isn't another recipe. It's the result of my entering this blog into a Blog Explosion contest. I got my rump tenderized, to use the argot of the chef de cuisine.

Of course, being the competitive sort, I'm not content to rest upon my non-existent laurels.

No, I bravely forget ahead, sugar bowl in hand, peering into the stew pot that is this blog, wondering how much sugar I'll need to add to eradicate the effects of having accidently dumped too much salt into the ragout.

One thing I'm thinking about is tweaking my template. I don't know whether I feel like getting a snappy professionally-designed template, like the one on my other blog. I mean, hey, that design cost money! No, I was thinking along the lines of what I've been doing to my other other blog. Just fooling around with the colors.

I've started by turning the blog titles avocado green. My question to you, oh non-existent readers, is whether I should continue in this direction. I was thinking a pale, sickly shade of yellowish green for the background, and maybe make some of the other fonts show up in a dark, badly-bruised-looking shade of purple.

What do you think? It makes perfect sense to me that, since my topic is basically, nausea, I should make this blog as horrible looking as I can. And since so many of the recipes I mock are from the 60s and 70s, I thought a hideous color scheme of avocado green, harvest gold, and burnt pumpkin would work nicely.

On the other hand, if I make people spew all over their keyboards, I'll never win the Battle of the Blogs.

All suggestions gladly accepted. Comment away! "Love," as the singer was wont to sing "has no pride," and I do love this silly little blog.

Dinosaur Eggs--They're What's For Breakfast!

Ack, I just realized that I entered this blog into a Blog Explosion challenge against Jane Loves Tarzan. When I really meant to enter my other blog, which is a more general, personal diary type of read. Whoops.

And now I've got 30 credits riding on a blog whose sole purpose is to make fun of a bunch of bad recipes. What to do?

Jump right the hell in, that's what.

So here's the latest monstrosity I discovered. Something short, if not sweet. For the record, this recipe comes from the River Road Recipes cookbook, a publication of the Junior League of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. No, I don't have the cookbook handy. It's elsewhere. So unfortunately, I can't type in the recipe verbatim. But why would I need to? This recipe only has two ingredients:

Dinosaur Eggs

Four eggs (chicken eggs, duh)
One can Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup

Break eggs into bowl. Mix until well scrambled. Mix in can of soup. (Do not add water!) Scramble in a pan over low heat. Serve.

Mmm-mm good!™

Actually, it sort of sounds like dog vomit.

And I don't care how many home economics graduates the Campbell Soup company can get to line up and assure me, one after the other, that this glop would be edible. I cry foul.

[Or fowl. Hee!]

At any rate--not to sound like Pat Robertson, but a recipe like this makes you realize why Hurricane Katrina whalloped Louisiana, doesn't it?

Once in a while, I'm not reading cookbooks to find horrifying recipes.

Once in a while, I'm reading cookbooks so I can actually cook something good. You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything new here in a while. But it's because I was actually cooking real, live, home-made, only-very-lightly-processed food. There was nary a can of cream of mushroom soup or a tub of Cool-Whip to be found chez Poppy.

But it's the new year, and guess what? All that not-mushroom-souped or Cool-Whipped food is now lodging in fat cells all over my body. Which is good news for you, because it means that once more, I am obsessed with foods I have no business eating.

And when you're surviving on rice cakes and miso soup, what better than to read old Junior League cookbooks, searching for the ultimate cheese ball recipe?

So ... I'll be back.

--P.

I'm baaaaack--and just in time for Halloween

What can I say to excuse my appalling neglect of this excellent blog?

I can't argue that I've been so busy making ultra-high-quality entries to my other blog--at least, not with a clean conscience--because while I have posted there fairly often, it's not like the editor of The New Yorker is reading it, moved to speechlessness--nay, awestruck--by my brilliance, and is wondering shyly whether I'd laugh in his face if he flew me to New York to offer me a column.

No, as readers of my other blog will testify, I had baseball to watch, chipmunks to chase, and idiotic internet quizzes to take.

But this morning I realized something. What better way to discuss Horrifying Foodstuffs than to take on--honestly and fearlessly--an important sub-category of HFs. Which is, of course, the completely unappetizing (if not inedible) pseudo-food I had--up until today--completely neglected. And that is essentially unappetizing combinations of pre-packaged dessert mixes that boldly make a show of their own inedibility. Campy? Yes, of course. But in-your-face. Politically charged. Powerful.

Accordingly, I now present the Gay Pride marcher of cake mix recipes. The Stonewall of instant puddings. The ACT-UP drag-queen of Duncan Hines.

So with no further ado, I bring you

Kitty Litter Cake

1 German Chocolate Cake mix
1 white cake mix
2 large pkg vanilla instant pudding mix, prepared
1 large pkg vanilla sandwich cookies
green food coloring
12 small Tootsie Rolls®

1 new kitty litter pan
1 new plastic kitty litter pan liner
1 new pooper scooper

Prepare cake mixes and bake according to directions (any size pans).

Prepare pudding mix and chill until ready to assemble.

Crumble white sandwich cookies in small batches in food processor, scraping often. Set aside all but about 1/4 cup. To the 1/4 cup cookie crumbs, add a few drops green food coloring and mix until completely colored.

When cakes are cooled to room temperature, crumble into a large bowl. Toss with half the remaining white cookie crumbs and the chilled pudding. Mix in just enough of the pudding to moisten it. You don't want it too soggy. Combine gently.

Line a new, clean kitty litter box. Put the cake/pudding/cookie mixture into the litter box.

Put three unwrapped Tootsie Rolls in a microwave-safe dish and heat until soft and pliable. Shape ends so they are no longer blunt, curving slightly. Repeat with 3 more Tootsie rolls, and then bury them in the mixture. Sprinkle the other half of cookie crumbs over top. Scatter the green cookie crumbs lightly on top of everything -- this is supposed to look like the chlorophyll in kitty litter.

Heat 3 Tootsie Rolls in the microwave until almost melted. Scrape them on top of the cake; sprinkle with cookie crumbs. Spread remaining Tootsie Rolls over the top; take one and heat until pliable, hang it over the side of the kitty litter box, sprinkling it lightly with cookie crumbs. Place the box on a newspaper and sprinkle a few of the cookie crumbs around for a truly disgusting effect!

No, really??? People wouldn't want to eat cat shit? I'm shocked.

Would it help if we added some Cool Whip?

Guilty Pleasure #1: Peg Bracken

Exhibit A--Isn't it cute?
Originally uploaded by Trilby.

I've put off talking about Peg Bracken until now. I don't know why, exactly. When it comes to horrifying foodstuffs, Peg is a seminal figure. She's right up there with C. W. Post, Clarence Birdseye, and Lucretia Borgia. How can I have avoided her this long? She's like the proverbial elephant in the room that nobody is talking about.

Now, this is the point where the astute essayist gracefully inserts some useful background information, since not everyone remembers eating "Sweep Steak" (pot roast made with cream of mushroom soup) or saw the advertisements where Peg talked our mothers into buying Bird's Eye frozen vegetables. Lucky stiffs.

Well, Ms Bracken--whose name, funnily enough, sounds a great deal like "brackish," although I believe there is no etymological connection--but I may be wrong--was essentially a humorist who chose to hand out advice to housewives. She was sort of an Erma Bombeck figure, if that's helpful. (But it probably isn't.) Or a Helen Gurley Brown, if Helen had written about the kitchens of respectable married ladies instead of the bedrooms of single girls.

Peg's first best-seller, The I Hate to Cook Book, was published in 1960. Now, for foodies, the 1960s are the crucially important decade. The 1960s were the decade in which Julia Child not only published Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but starred on television as "The French Chef." The sixties were also the decade where food faddism stopped being solely the territory of cranks like Gayelord Hauser and Adelle Davis and started to go a bit more mainstream. And most importantly, it was during the sixties that packaged convenience foods hoisted their flag over the American pantry, witih the result that many Americans had no idea what fresh vegetables tasted like.

Clearly, the forces were in place for a foodie revolution.

So Peg Bracken is the standard holder for the instant, frozen, just-add-water school of mid-century American "cooking" that was about to be subsumed by blanquette de veau, granola, regional Chinese food, Northern Italian cooking, sushi, and sun-dried tomatoes. Her books are loaded with recipes made from canned this, frozen that, and instant whatchamacallit.

You'd think I'd have tarred and feathered her long ago.

Except she's a great writer. And she's funny. I suspect that if I didn't have the post-modern, post-foodie outlook I do have, I'd want to be her when I grow up.

On top of that, her books were illustrated by Hilary Knight, who also illustrated the Eloise books and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. So we have to give Peg a break, because even if she was hooked on dried onion soup mix, she had excellent taste in illustrators.

On the other hand, Peg still provides a lot of material for mockery. For example, there's her

1976 Trifle

[which] takes

1 strawberry jelly roll--about a pound
2 small packages strawberry Jell-O
1 cup sherry
1 package cook-type vanilla pudding (not the kind you merely mix)
whipped cream
some maraschino cherries

and preferably a transparent bowl to put it in. Line the bottom of with the jelly roll, cut in one-inch slices. Make the Jell-O according to directions EXCEPT use only half the water it calls for and make up the difference with sherry (Not cooking sherry, which is salty.) Pour it on the jelly-roll slices and mush it together gently, then put it in the refrigerator to set while you cook the pudding. Pour it on the top of the Jell-O and let it set. Before serving, decorate it with the whipped cream and the cherries.

Now, this is not the vilest glop I've ever swirled over my mental palette, but it does seem like a lot of bother, considering the number of instant and store-bought ingredients and the time it would take to assemble them. I mean, why not just buy a bakery cake? For all the time and effort involved, you could make a custard and produce a real trifle. So why bother?

Also, the name is bothersome. It's been a long time since I studied American history, but I believe the American colonists fought the revolution and broke the chains of fealty to England in order to avoid eating English food--you'll notice the first thing we did was stop drinking tea--so why make a "1776 Trifle," when clearly, if we're celebrating the Bicentennial, what is called for is apple pie?

So Peg Bracken, Queen of Culinary Incorrectness, is my guilty pleasure. It's probably shocking--as though Oprah Winfrey had been caught reading The Surrendered Wife under the covers with a flashlight--but there it is.

--P

As Seen on TV!

Betty Crocker Bake and Fill
Originally uploaded by Trilby.

I think I may have just stumbled upon something my daughter has been babbling about for a couple of weeks. I gather that Cartoon Network or The Fox Box or some other Children's Television Network From Hell is running back-to-back advertisements for this weird cake-baking doo-hickey.

(I'm also hearing a lot about something called "The Chocolate Factory," where you make chocolate fondue, chocolate lollipops, etc. But while grossly overpriced, at least The Chocolate Factory involves chocolate. Which is pretty hard to make Horrifying enough to deserve inclusion in the Horrifying Foodstuffs canon.)

However, the Betty Crocker Bake 'n' Fill monstrosity wants you to use cake mix (three guesses which brand) and bake two layers of cake in such a way that you have a big hollow space just waiting to be filled--with some Cool-Whip™-addled substance, I have no doubt--unless General Mills, parent company of Betty Crocker, has a different product they'd like me to use.

But what's a mother to do? My daughter wants me to buy it for her. I'll probably cave.

Unless a new advertisement for some new mass-produced atrocity comes along to divert her attention. Even a gross of My Little Ponies is a small price to pay to avoid having to bake a giant lady bug cake.

--P.

A cornucopia of Cool-Whip™

Teddy Grahams caught by paparazzi; film at eleven
Originally uploaded by Trilby.

OK, so tonight you're getting the Lazy Woman's Blog Entry. I mean, why should I page obsessively through my cookbook collection looking for a new nadir in revolting recipes, when the web has become a moveable feast that can, in a few clicks, glut even Templeton the Rat? And with colored photographs, too.

For example, I just discovered this. An entire website devoted to--you guessed it--horrifying foodstuffs. They have it all: 241 recipes using Velveeta; 769 recipes using Jell-O, and a mind-boggling 803 recipes calling for Cool-Whip. In fact, it looks like every recipe contains at least four non-food processed bullshit ingredients. And there are seasonal delights, too. They have a section devoted to summertime desserts featuring--guess what? Jello-O and Cool-Whip! I mean, what could be cuter than a cake decorated to look like a swimming pool for Teddy Grahams? But they don't stop there! They use the same old processed ingredients in new and exciting ways! Fudge made of cheese! Who would have thought of that? I know I wouldn't. Plus a section devoted to recipes especially for children. What a relief, because I know my kids wouldn't be able to handle the gourmet adult fare featured elsewhere on the site.

Isn't it amazing? Of course, if I were the nervous type, I'd be afraid that this website would put me out of business. Bye-bye blog.

But I have one thing they haven't got.

My secret ingredient.

Sarcasm.

--P.

Sorbet

OK, I lied. No, I haven't found a sorbet recipe that is so revolting that it simply must be included in the Horrifying Foodstuffs canon. No ... although I suppose the field is ripe for a degree of exploration and mockery ... anyone for squid ink/prune? Or tuna/tomato/pistachio? Or raspberry/chive?

You know, I'm sure some foodie somewhere has come up with something really gruesome in the sorbet department. I really should Google something up.

But I digress.

No, as the summer progresses, I've done a bit of cooking. Of decent food, mind you, not the crap I write about here. I've also climbed back onto the organic food wagon. And at the moment, the produce section of the local Whole Foods is a cornucopia of yumminess.

I've come to the conclusion that what this blog needs is some actual food recommendations. So what I'm writing today is a chance to cleanse the mental palette. A metaphorical sorbet. In which we turn away from the apparently infinite number of Horrifying Foodstuffs to think about food that--just this once--won't make you want to puke.

(Don't worry; I haven't lost my edge. I promise I'll Google up some more revolting sorbets real soon.)

OK, good food tips from Poppy:

1. Buy organic produce. Organic milk is also fantastic, but the taste difference from the regular stuff is less obvious. But with produce even the dullest of palettes will snap to attention.

2. If you're tired of grilling (and yes, Joke, this actually does happen to some people) there are ways to cook without heating up the kitchen. Your microwave is your friend. Tonight I poached filets of sole in a court boullion I made in the 'wave and they turned out great.

3. Another appliance I lean on is my rice cooker. Somehow it can cook a ton of rice and keep it warm without blowtorching the kitchen.

4. Also--and I'm going out on a limb here--the crock pot comes in handy. The other day I cooked black beans in mine and they were fabulous. And again--the kitchen remained pleasant. And so did I.

5. I was eating a ton of Ensalada Caprese until I realized that I'm really not all that crazy about basil, and I'm not always in the mood for mozarella. So here is how I'm fixing tomato salad these days: I smash a clove of garlic and rub it all over a platter. Then I slice red, ripe organic tomatoes as thinly as I can right onto the platter--I don't drain the slices; I keep all the juice. Then I splash on some extra virgin olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Then I put the platter on the table and ignore it while I cook the rest of dinner. Maybe I'll remember to flip the tomatoes to get the garlic on both sides of the slices. This is heaven. OK, I'm a tomato fanatic, but seriously, this is so good you'll want to slap your grandmother.

6. I was away for the weekend and didn't have my trusty iron skillet and needed to make cornbread. So I did the emergency cornbread recipe, which is to use the recipe on the Quaker Corn Meal tub, except omitting the sugar and switching the proportions of flour and corn meal. That way you end up with a much cornier bread with more of that wonderful buttery taste and to-die-for ever-so-slightly-gritty corn meal texture.

7. For Independence Day I made strawberry shortcake. And I made real shortcake, the biscuit-like stuff, not the little round cakes from the supermarket. And needless to say, I whipped the cream myself. I did not use Cool-Whip.™

OK, that's enough sorbet. More snarking anon,

--P.

Yellow Alert

My more fanatical readers (and you'd have to be pretty fanatical to consider yourself a "reader" of a blog that is so narrowly-focused and cranky--not to mention that it only gets updated about once every six weeks) will recall that in these ruminations, I have been known to speculate on some fairly deep issues. Such as, say, the geo-political basis of the American main dish casserole.

Well, call me Chicken Little, but it appears to me that the situation is very grave. It appears that open warfare is about to break out. America--and America's casseroles--are being invaded.

Am I overreacting? I think not. Because upon flipping through Pass The Plate, (which again, my fanatical readers will recognize as one of my favorite community cookbooks), I found not one, but two extremely suspicious-looking dishes residing within mere pages of each other.

Now, one of these casseroles could be considered an aberration. But two? A close examination of the ingredients leads me to believe that it is not just people in Tibet who should be concerned about a military build-up in China.

Need proof? Fine. First, I offer Betty Simon's (Mrs. Donn L.)'s

African Chow Mein

which amazingly enough, contains not a single ingredient indigenous to Africa. Although it does contain actual soy sauce. So, naturally, this begs the question: why "African" Chow Mein? Could this be some kind of blind? Or are African ingredients some sort of gustatorial "Ligne Maginot?" Did Africa simply crumble at the idea of being invaded by China? Read on and judge for yourself:

Butter
2 cups boiling water
1 pound hamburger
1 (10 ounce) can cream mushroom soup or golden mushroom soup
3 small onions, chopped
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 cup celery, diced
3/4 cup uncooked rice

Note: Variations are: 1 can drained mushroom, toasted slivered almonds or 1/2 can water chestnuts sliced thinly.

(And don't think I don't notice what the inclusion of these "variations" ingredients do to the balance of power, mmmk?)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown together in a little butter using a large frying pan the hamburger, onions, and celery. Add rice, water, soup and soy sauce and put into large buttered casserole and bake covered for 1/2 hour. Stir and bake uncovered for additional 1/2 hour.

You might be thinking, "for Pete's sake, Poppy--control yourself. It's just another goofy recipe. Cut it out with the conspiracy theories." Well, while I was puzzling over my usual issues, for example, what, exactly, makes this particular dish connote "Africa" to the culinary sophisticate, in turning over a few pages, I discovered

Italian Goulash

in which the citizens of Italy and Hungary have obviously being invaded by The Yellow Peril. To wit:

1 1/2 pounds ground round steak
1 (10-ounce) can tomato soup
3 strips bacon
1 (16-ounce) can spaghetti
4 medium onions, chopped
1 (16-ounce) can spaghetti sauce with mushrooms
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 (8-ounce) can water chestnuts, sliced thin
1 (16-ounce) can Chinese Vegetables, drained
1 (5-ounce) can Chinese noodles (more if desired)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon parsley
Grated cheese

Fry bacon and save for garnish. Add onions and beef to bacon grease and brown. Add tomato soup and sauce with mushrooms. Add green pepper and celery and cook until slightly tender. Add spaghetti, Chinese vegetables, water chestnuts and season with Worcestershire sauce and parsley. Salt to taste. Serve on Chinese noodles and top with grated cheese and bacon. Yield: 8 servings

Italian? Goulash? HA! As if. Eugenia Hofler Clement (Mrs. Robert L.), you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Did you think I wasn't going to notice your perfidy?

Ma'am, I'm going to be honest with you: sneaking all those Chinese ingredients into an Italian Goulash is treacherous and frankly, unAmerican.

For the rest of you--be on the lookout for any more signs of a culinary invasion. And if you find McDonald's starting to hand out packets of soy sauce with their fries, please, alert the authorities.

--P.

Pray for Me; I'm Languishing in Pie Purgatory

2321077_200X150
Originally uploaded by Trilby.

Remember the Lemonade Pie I was whining about a while ago? The bastardized version of Lemon Meringue Pie? The one that Willie Nelson was going to start the Lemon-Aid fund-raising concert for?

Well, I just found another, even more bastardized pie recipe. Can you believe it? This is getting farther and farther from a whatchamacallit--you know, the familiar yellow citrus fruit. If this keeps up, pretty soon it will be Six Degrees of Separation from --wait a minute; it's on the tip of my tongue--oh yes. An actual lemon.

OK, back to this "pie." Surprise, surprise--the situation has deteriorated. At least the first bastard pie had a couple of fresh ingredients. I remember some sour cream--and even an egg or two.

But this latest concoction bears the Mark of the Beast.

I realize I'm going all Book of Revelations on you, but trust me. I read this recipe a while ago, and I'm still shuddering. Go ahead and think my Final Days/Fire and Brimstone/Day of Judgment imagery is over the top--then read this and weep:

Lemonade Pie

One tub Cool Whip
One small container lemonade mix
One small can fat-free sweetened condensed milk
One pie crust bottom

Mix first three ingredients. Place the mixture in the pie crust. Chill for about one hour, then serve.

See what I mean? This so-called "pie" doesn't contain a single fresh ingredient. This pie was invented because it can be mixed together in five minutes. Also, since none of the ingredients is fresh, students in dormitories, people who have been incarcerated, mountaineers on the slopes of Everest, and shipwrecked sailors on desert islands can whip together a tasty Lemonade Pie whenever they're in the mood for something sweet. Also, it is posivitely impossible for this "pie" to go bad. For one thing, it contains nothing that could support life. Have you ever seen mold grow in a bowl of sugar? Exactly. This concoction has got to have a longer half-life than a Twinky.

But I still think the name isn't sufficiently evocative. How about "Lemonade Mix Pie?" Or maybe "Emergency Pie?" Or--because it would apparently hang around for a very, very long time--how about "Purgatory Pie?"

I don't know, though. The idea of Purgatory is that eventually you get to leave and go to Heaven. And call me judgmental, but this is a fate that this pie simply doesn't deserve. In fact, I think this pie would be headed in the opposite direction. So I think the recipe should conclude: "Garnish with 666 colored sugar sprinkles."

--P.

One picture--hold the thousand words.

Tatertot Casserole--or Dog Vomit? You be the judge.
Originally uploaded by Trilby.

Don't you think it's about time this blog got some illustrations? I do. I mean, if I don't get some visuals, how in the hell am I going to compete with the food bloggers who post fifty zillion pictures of the rare asparagus at their farmer's market, or the ginger-infused sun-dried tomato coulis they're currently pureeing to use as a sauce on their foie gras sushi?

Of course, I didn't plan to start my career as The Illustrated Blogger by requiring my readers to look at pictures of dog vomit. I really didn't. I mean, I realize anyone with any imagination has to have a pretty strong stomach just to deal with the recipes I'm posting--let alone the proof that someone actually cooks this crap. And takes pictures of it. And posts them to the web.

People. Have you no shame?

But far be it from me to ignore opportunity when it's knocking on my door. After all, we're all grown-ups, right? We realize that people don't publish recipes with the idea that no one will actually use them, right? (I mean, people except me.) So we're just going to have to forge ahead bravely. However, with an illustration like this, I feel my usual commentary is unnecessary. Nothing I can say can possibly elaborate upon that picture of dog chunk. At any rate, here is an example of one of the foul concoctions being foisted on an unsuspecting public by the pork and canned soup industries:

Tater Tot Casserole

8 to 10 slices of bacon
1 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoon minced garlic
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1/2 lb crumbled blue cheese
1 bag (32 oz) frozen Tater Tots

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9x13 glass casserole dish with non-stick cooking spray.

Cook the bacon until crisp. Drain. Chop.

Brown the ground beef. Add thyme. Drain the beef in a colander. Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onion is soft.

Mix the bacon, beef, onion mixture, and the cans of soup. Spread in a layer in the prepared baking dish. Crumble blue cheese over the mixture. Cover with a single layer of tater tots. Bake for one hour.

Sprinkle saw dust. Sweep up. Put in trash.

--P.

The Lost Cole Slaw

You know how you read some random bit of information somewhere, and even though you know it's random, it still seems to be aimed right at you?

Well, that's what happened to me recently. I was flipping through the coupon supplements of the Sunday paper the paperboy had mistakenly delivered to my house, and a recipe simply leaped off the page at me. It seemed to say "Poppy--read me; become revolted by me; blog me!"

It was one of those recipes apparently devised by a home economist employed by a major food manufacturer. You know, the kind of recipe that just happens to call for six or seven ingredients produced by the company. Well, this particular recipe was for coleslaw, except it had a ton of fruit in it. About half a dozen varieties. If I remember correctly, canned mandarin oranges sections were involved. But before I had a chance to blog and thus immortalize this so-called "coleslaw" recipe, the recipe had gone the way of all recycling.

When I realized that my Canned Fruit Cole Slaw recipe had disappeared, I was distraught. Where would I find a recipe like that again? How could I ever find its like? I felt like the speaker in A Lost Chord. Where could I find a recipe that would lie "on my fevered spirit / With a touch of infinite calm," or, for that matter, could flood "the crimson twilight / Like the close of an Angel's Psalm?" I ask you.

Then it occurred to me. If I did a web search, I might find the website for whichever company was behind this so-called "coleslaw." They might have posted the recipe of which they were--justifiably--so proud.

And lo and behold--a quick web search for "cole slaw fruit" immediately revealed this beauty. I realize it's not the actual recipe. For example, there is a relative dearth of canned fruit. When I read it, alas, I hear no "sound of a great amen." But this concoction has a sheen and a perfection of its own:

Fruit Coleslaw

1 C. Miracle Whip
2 T. cream
2 T. sugar
4 Cs. shredded cabbage
1 1/2 Cs. crushed pineapple, drained
1 c. miniature marshmallows
2 sliced bananas

Mix Miracle Whip, cream & sugar.
Add to cabbage, pineapple & marshmallows.
Lastly fold in bananas. (Put bananas in when about ready to eat salad as they will turn dark if left in awhile.)

Isn't it wonderful? With the exception of The Lost Coleslaw, this is the weirdest excuse for "coleslaw" I've ever encountered. To begin with, there is all that fruit. My mother's coleslaw contained about five ingredients: shredded cabbage, mayo, a bit of grated onion, and Durkee's. It's possible that celery seeds were involved, but that's about it for rococo embellishments. She even eschewed such fripperies as the now-ubiquitous grated carrot.

Well, compare that with the above. It's either an embarrassment or an embarrassment of riches--I can't decide. I mean, first of all, it includes that key ingredient, Miracle Whip. I don't believe I've included a recipe containing Miracle Whip, and it was definitely about time that this member of the Blessed Whip Trinity (the other two members of course being Cool and Dream) appeared in this blog. For that reason alone, I am grateful to the person who posted the recipe.

Second, this recipe is so unashamedly bastardized. I mean, sure, it has four cups of shredded cabbage. But is anyone else here reminded of those so-called "Ambrosia" "salads" you sometimes see for sale in a supermarket deli case? Miniature marshmallows, Miracle Whip, sugar, banana, and canned pineapple? Are they out of their minds? They have the nerve to call this Cole Slaw? If there were any justice in this world, the recipe would call for it to be garnished with an elaborately embroidered "C," a la Hester Prynne's scarlet "A."

So while this recipe isn't the one I saw in the newspaper, it was so uniquely repulsive that it deserves inclusion in the Horrifying Foodstuffs canon.