Fruit ‘N Filbert Pork Chops is easily my favorite recipe from A Treasury of Prize Winning Filbert Recipes, transforming a usually bland and dry pork loin into a delicious weeknight meal. The fruit is arguably central to the flavor profile, but the recipe still showcases the toasty bitterness of roasted hazelnuts. It’s also deliciously old……
Ingredient: chopped sweet onion
Spam Puffs (adapted from Sunset Cook Book, 1949)
Say what you will but I’m a big fan of Spam. No irony, no poverty cuisine voyeurism, no pining for some lost Hawaiian vacation: fried Spam is a genuine treat for our family. At any given time we’ll have a half a dozen cans on hand, ready to whip up a quick batch of musubis……
Tuna Cashew Casserole (Various, 1960s-1970s)
Several of the church cookbooks I own have some variant of a Tuna Cashew Casserole. The proportions and details vary, but the key ingredients are the same: cashews, canned tuna, cream of mushroom soup, and fried chow mein noodles. There’s usually a crunchy vegetable in there as well, usually celery but some times bean sprouts……
Hay & Straw (adapted from Pasta Cookbook, 1990)
One of my favorite recipes in Pasta Cookbook is “Hay & Straw”, which is the perfect complement to a broiled salmon fillet or simply prepared chicken breast. The Hay and Straw refer to the two different colors of pasta used in the recipe – the spinach fettuccine is hay and the regular fettuccine is straw. ……