the good old days

This was the worst thing I’ve made in a while. (Not as bad as Jellied Frankfurters, but then what could possibly be as bad as Jellied Frankfurters?) Today’s fable has many morals, and I’ll walk you through each one of them. Consider it a rough draft for the home economics book I could write someday.

1. When you want to cook, have a recipe.
Unless you’re Masahari Morimoto, it’s risky to just throw things together and expect them to taste good. It can work for stir fried vegetables, but not for baked goods.

2. Having a recipe in the house isn’t enough. Know where your recipe is and look at it before you start
Unsurprisingly, this is where my problems started. I knew I had a lemon meringue pie recipe on an old Jello advertisement I’d previously used for a retro recipe.

I also knew I had some lemon gelatin. So, I started making the lemon gelatin.

3. When you have found your recipe, and when you realize you haven’t been following it at all, and in fact it’s not a recipe but an instruction to look somewhere else that doesn’t exist, don’t start combining other recipes.
When I decided to actually look at the recipe, I panicked. There wasn’t a recipe there at all, just this annoying little note:

Directions on the box?!?

At this point, I realized (a) I should have been using Jello Pudding, not Jello Gelatin and (b) Jello Pudding does not print lemon meringue pie recipes on its Lemon Jello Pudding boxes any longer. Arrrrrgh.

So I had no recipe. Thanks to Google, I managed to find one that called for lemon Jello combined with Cool Whip, and then made another critical mistake…

4. “Whipped topping” and “cream cheese” are not the same thing.
While it’s possible to combine cream cheese and gelatin (I’ve seen it done and it’s quite tasty), it’s almost impossible to do so by hand with cold cream cheese.

Before:

After (in crust):

See the little white bits? That’s teeny chunks of cream cheese which weren’t properly blended. Whisking by hand just won’t work for this.

I tried to repair my mixer (which won’t turn off and smells of burnt wiring, ever since it sucked up Election Cake batter), and Buzz and I each wasted a good half hour trying to remove this one stupid two-inch-long bolt that was holding the damn thing together. All the others came out fine, but THAT one had to strip. And if you can’t get into a mixer, you can’t clean out the gunked-up motor, so you can’t keep it from wildly sparking and potentially electrocuting you while mixing.

5. You won’t get nice stiff peaks in your egg whites if you whisk by hand.
Same problem as with the lemon filling… not enough mixing power without my mixer, although I came close before my arm fell off. The peaks were present, but wimpy rather than stiff. My pie topping desperately needed Viagra. (Meringue lasting more than four hours… ?)

Without those spiky little peaks, you don’t get the same light browning and drying-out that makes for a really tasty meringue.

6. Meringue is not spelled with a “Q”
I don’t know why, but I have a constant compulsion to type MERINQUE. No wonder my blog only rates at a junior high school level.

It isn’t the worst pie I’ve ever had, but it’s down there. The filling was bland, the meringue was insipid, the overall experience was thoroughly pointless. It was a refresher course in culinary stupidity, though, as well as a compelling argument to buy a new mixer

Another Historiann Recipe, this time for Tuesday instead of Thursday because hopefully nobody will be election-obsessed in two days time. (Seriously, Nation, I would like an election that’s over the same day it starts this time. Is that too much to ask? No more 2000/2004 drag-it-out bullshit, there’s a good country.)

Considering today’s long lines, it’s a good thing there was a tasty cake waiting at home. Even though I got to cut in line because I had a toddler with me. Did you know that parents with kids under 6 and anybody over 65 years of age gets to cut in line at the polls? I didn’t. I thought the person who said we could go to the front was kidding. Part of me felt bad, like I took advantage of my son to get out of there faster — but another part says to hell with that, I didn’t want to stand in the cold drizzle with him for two hours. (If you do take an adorable child to the polls with you, just make sure you don’t let it push the buttons for you. My kid kept trying to change the selections. If Chuck Baldwin takes South Carolina, I blame the “under two” voting contingent.)

Hartford Election Cake
1/2 cup each yellow and dark raisins
4 t dried coriander seeds
¼ C brandy
2 packages active dry yeast (2 T)
2 ½ C warm water
½ C nonfat dry milk
7 C all-purpose flour
¾ C sugar
½ lb. butter (2 sticks)
¾ C brown sugar
4 eggs
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
½ t freshly grated nutmeg
½ C sliced citron
Molasses

Soak the raisins and coriander in the brandy for 3-4 hours.

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in ½ C of the warm water and let stand a minute. Add the remaining water, the dry milk, 4 C of the flour, and ¼ C of the sugar and beat well, about 100 strokes by hand or 3 minutes on the electric beater. Cover with plastic wrap and let this sponge rise for about 3 hours.

Cream the butter* with the remaining sugar and the brown sugar, then beat in the eggs, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Turn this mixture into the sponge, stir in the remaining flour, cup by cup, using enough to form a soft dough. Add the citron and the raisins and coriander, along with their juices, and a little more flour, if necessary to make a cohesive dough. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise again until double in volume.

Beat down the dough, adding a little more flour again if it is too sticky. Divide in half and placed in two greased 9-inch cake pans, cover lightly with a towel, and let rise again for 30 minutes. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 55 minutes. Turn out of the pans onto a baking sheet. Drizzle molasses over the tops and slip the cakes under the broiler until the glaze bubbles. Let cool on racks

* This is an excellent time to realize you don’t have as much butter as you thought you did, swear for a while (”I have coriander but I’m out of butter?“), then drag a sleepy toddler to the store to buy more. When you arrive home, inhale deeply to appreciate the mingling aromas of brandy and yeast and realize your kitchen smells like a brewery (and not in a good way). Definitely adds something to the baking experience.

The only brandy we have in the house is Armagnac. Now, Armagnac is one of those drinks that you hear about and think, “Wow, that’s really expensive, it must be totally awesome. Why would you be using it to make alcoholic raisins?” In fact, Armagnac tastes like liquid leather. We have been trying to get rid of this for years, and twice managed to get Buzz’s father to drink a shot because he believed it was totally awesome. (Unfortunately, he’s learned his lesson by now, so we are resorting to eggnog and alcoholic raisins to get rid of it.)

The initial “sponge” wasn’t terribly interesting. When the sponge, creamed butter, and additional flour came together, however, things got messy. Extremely messy.

I got batter up inside my mixer and had to finish combining everything by hand. Luckily I remembered to take rings off beforehand, or we’d be able to play a fun election game where the person who finds my ring gets to be vice-president for the next year.

And doesn’t the cake batter liook like Clayface? Maybe it’s just because I’ve been playing too much Lego Batman, but the resemblance is uncanny.

No?

I tried to draw an elephant and donkey with the molasses but they turned into runny blobs. So, in a fit of pique, I just dribbled the molasses all over the place instead.

I haven’t actually tasted this yet, although it smells good enough. I’ll have it tonight, though, while watching poll results come in. It’s a massive cake (two massive cakes!) and not the typical flat, only-slightly-risen cake that you would frost and top with candles… definitely suitable for an election festival day.

UPDATED 11/4 — It’s delicious! I really like the citron, it’s got a very bright flavor that goes well with the cake. (The raisins are decidedly “meh”, in contrast.) I agree with Historiann’s recommendation, it’s probably best without molasses but with a generous slather of butter on each piece.

However, without a version which calls for baking powder instead of so many rises, I don’t know if I’d make it again. At least Election Day only comes once a year, right?

Speaking of legumes during the Depression years…

I found this YouTube clip via Vegan Lunch Box. (I don’t remember how I found that blog, since I’m not a vegan, but anyway.) This video is totally awesome. Not only do you learn how to make Pasta with Peas, you hear a cool story about the Depression and bootleggers.

“It’s not expensive, and it’s nourishing” — the two centrally important features of Depression cooking.

So this is my heavily paraphrased transcription of Clara’s Pasta with Peas recipe.

Dice a potato. Dice an onion. Fry them in some oil for a while. Add water and let simmer. Add can of peas (including liquid). Add pasta. Add tomato sauce if you feel like it. Cook for a while. Eat.

This appeals to my haphazard cooking technique, because it’s rather vague about quantities. It means that while my engineering side is huddled in the corner sobbing because she needs defined limits on how much water to pour in, my disorganized side is cheerfully throwing things in the pot in the optimistic belief that it will turn out just fine. In things such as soups or stir fry, Engineering Side can just go dither somewhere else, we don’t need her right now. (I prefer the theory that a balanced approach to life is very healthy, as opposed to a sign of advanced MPD.)

The hardest part was cutting the potatoes and onions into pieces. And that’s really not that hard.

I added some turkey bacon because it has been in my fridge too long, really needed to be eaten, and I figured it would help round out the dish.

Dump in a couple cups of water, peas, and dry pasta, then go sit somewhere for 10 minutes while it simmers. This is incredibly easy.

It’s delicious. It didn’t need the turkey bacon (although the nice salty bits of meat did add variety). And it was totally awesome rewarmed the next day for lunch. Inexpensive, delicious, and with lots of room for variation — this is a totally great recipe. (And you’ll notice it was just a recipe that somebody made up, NOT some ridiculous concoction from Imaginary Expert at International Food Corp. That probably explains why it’s so edible.)

This week’s retro cooking was inspired largely by comments on Historiann’s post about my Not-So-Orange Velvet Pie. I’d never heard of the Mock Apple Pie which was mentioned by a few people, and I was intrigued.

Apparently, the mock apple pie was invented in 1852 by pioneers who missed apple pie, but didn’t have the critical apple ingredient. It must have taken quite a creative cook to figure out the right balance of carbs, acid, sugar, and stuff, but they managed to work out a convincing imitation. During the Great Depression, apples were expensive and crackers were cheap, so Mock Apple Pie enjoyed a resurgence — helped along, no doubt, by Ritz Cracker advertising the recipe on the box.

While the current Slightly Less Great Depression isn’t likely to make apples unaffordable, I decided to try Mock Apple Pie this week in solidarity with my 20th century forebears who probably couldn’t afford apples at some point. (Actually, in that era my family included a NY State Senator on one side, and Boston socialites on the other. They could afford apples. But by my generation all the money has pretty much dried up, wasted on expensive apples. Priorities…)

Um, anyway, here’s the Ritz Mock Apple Pie recipe.

Pastry for two-crust 9-inch pie
36 RITZ Crackers, coarsely broken (about 1 3/4 cups crumbs)
1-3/4 cups water
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Grated peel of one lemon
2 tablespoons margarine or butter
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Roll out half the pastry and line a 9-inch pie plate. Place cracker crumbs in prepared crust; set aside.

Heat water, sugar and cream of tartar to a boil in saucepan over high heat; simmer for 15 minutes. Add lemon juice and peel; cool.

Pour syrup over cracker crumbs. Dot with margarine or butter; sprinkle with cinnamon. Roll out remaining pastry; place over pie. Trim, seal and flute edges. Slit top crust to allow steam to escape.

Bake at 425°F for 30 to 35 minutes or until crust is crisp and golden. Cool completely.

It was tempting to go with an original pioneer version.

Bet I have learned to make a new kind of Pie I think you all would like them they taste just like an apple pie make some and try them see if you dont love them. Take a teaspoon heaping full of tartarlic [sic] acid and dissolve it in water a teasp [sic] full of sugar and stir it in the acid then take cold biscuit or light bread and crumble in it. have enough to make to [sic] pies put it in a crust and one over it and bake it they are fully as good as Apple pies the spoonful of acid and cup of sugar is enough to make two pies

Charming, but a bit vague on the quantities. While I’m an advocate of casual measurement rather than obsessive accuracy, there’s too much difference between a teasp and a cup for even my loose standards.

While cooking, my first problem was that the sugar syrup boiled over while boiling, and burned on the stovetop. Luckily, we have one of those flat range thingies (easy to clean), but it made a very smokey mess. (And since I was worried about setting the kitchen on fire, I completely forgot the cinnamon.) My second problem was that the sugar syrup boiled over while baking and made a big smokey mess in the oven.

Oy what a mess. Luckily, I have a “self-cleaning” oven, and it’s rather overdue for a self-cleaning anyway.

When the syrup first boiled over, Buzz called downstairs to compliment me on the delicious caramel smell that was wafting upstairs. He was a bit less pleased with the smell when he actually came into the kitchen. (The house reeked of burnt sugar for about six hours. Oops.)

But I’m sure you don’t care whether my house is destroyed, you want to know how this pie turned out! Well, here it is! (I apologize for the blindingly white plate underneath. I finished this late at night, it was dark, the flash was uncooperative…)

Looks pretty good, right?

Even the inside looks like apple pie.

I frankly can’t think of many situations in which one would be forced to make this. Vegans can eat apples, I don’t know of any apple allergies, and apples are incredibly affordable. The recipe is definitely a curiosity more than a necessity nowadays. But what really surprised me: it tastes like apple pie. It helps if you haven’t recently eaten a good apple pie, because it’s not quite the same. While surprisingly accurate (if you’re picturing apple pie with extremely small pieces of apple), it’s just not quite perfect… it reminds me of what cheap mass-produced fruit “pie” snack makers think apple pie filling should taste like. But I can definitely imagine a poor apple-less pioneer mother being overjoyed to be able to make this for her homesick, sobbing children.

My only caveat is to make sure your bottom crust is fresh(ish), instead of one that’s been sitting in your freezer for a year. Mine had freezer burn and cracks, so the syrup leaked all over the inside of the pie plate and glued everything in place. The crust matters here more than in other pies.

This week is the South Carolina State Fair, and since for once we’re actually living in a state capitol, Buzz and I took the kids. And it was great. We saw some really cool pheasants, lots of dairy cows, horse slalom (I don’t know the correct term for this, but it’s riding a horse as fast as possible weaving through some poles), very neat crafts and artwork, and of course the obligatory midway rides, games, and carnival food.

One of the first booths by the entrance had the infamous Deep Fried Candy. Snickers, Oreos, Reeses Cups, Cookie Dough, even Pepsi (I’m surprised it wasn’t Coke, since this is The South) — all battered and deep fried. So Buzz bought us some deep fried chocolate chip cookie dough.

Now, I’m a fan of cookie dough. The yield of a “makes 60 cookies” recipe will, for me, probably be 20% less. (I blame the economy.) However, I only like cold cookie dough. At room temperature, it starts to taste a little less appealing, and you might as well just bake it. And now I know that if it’s hot… if it’s been, let’s say, deep fried… it’s disgusting. I’ll eat pretty much anything, but I didn’t want another one of those.

What struck me as particularly odd about it was that it had dusting of powdered sugar. When you’ve just invented deep fried cookie dough, it takes a particularly dedicated sweet tooth to say, “This would be totally awesome if it just had more sugar on top!” Maybe there’s a demented dentist out there creating this crap.

And the scariest part of the experience? Six hours later we were leaving the fair. I thought to myself, Gosh, I’d like some more deep fried cookie dough. And then I thought, Um, WHAT? That was horrible, I don’t want more! My stupid side replied, Ahhh, c’mon! It’ll taste good this time. Mmmm, cookie dough!

I didn’t get more.

Photo borrowed from the Food Network, which has a recipe if you’re crazy enough to want this when the fair isn’t in town.

From 1967 (via Kitchen Retro) comes this week’s “exotic” recipe… Tijuana Hash.

1-1/2 cups Pillsbury’s Best All Purpose or Self-Rising Flour
3-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup Land o’ Lakes Butter, softened,
15-ounce can Mary Kitchen Corned Beef Hash
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/4 cup chili sauce
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Combine flour, cream cheese and butter in mixing bowl; mix until a dough forms. Press into 12 greased and floured muffin cups. Combine remaining ingredients except cheese in saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until heated through. Fill pastry. Bake at 425° for 12 to 15 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake 2 minutes longer, until cheese melts.

I don’t have a can of hash on hand (when the nuclear apocalypse comes, I’m gonna starve), and substituted ground turkey. It’s a good thing I don’t hold to the particular brand demands of these recipes, because I honestly don’t think Mary Kitchen Corned Beef Hash is in grocery stores anymore. (But then, I don’t go looking for corned beef hash in cans, so what do I know?)

I also had to make my own chili sauce. And it’s a good thing Buzz looked this up for me, because I was just thinking “hot sauce” but couldn’t really reconcile “hot sauce” and “1/4 cup”… that just can’t be healthy.

Substitutions: 1 cup tomato sauce + 1/4 cup brown sugar + 2 tbsp vinegar + 1/4 tsp cinnamon + dash of ground cloves + dash of ground allspice = 1 cup chili sauce

It tastes good, although I wouldn’t call it “chili”. So I will use that substitution as a scapegoat if things go wrong. It’s totally the faux chili sauce’s fault, man!

Anyhoooo… Once the filling was mixed, my daughter took a picture of it going into the little pie crusts she had made in the muffin pan. (She also took a few dozen out-of-focus pictures of her socks, the cat, a light bulb, the refrigerator, and a spoon. Thank goodness for digital.)

And after a brief stint in the oven, they came out looking really delicious. (hehehe… they’re BAKED!)

This was the only point at which I ran into a snag — they didn’t really want to come out of the pan, despite adequate grease-and-flouring, and the crust was flaky and crumbled easily. On the left is what Pillsbury promises you’ll get, on the right picture is reality.

Actually, looking at them side by side, I’m in favor of mine. What did Pillsbury use for that crust, Play-Doh?

While there is merit to food’s visual appeal, I’m more interested in flavor — and this stuff tasted good. (I shouldn’t be surprised; this wasn’t created by a brand-name company’s Home Ec “expert”, it was sent in by a normal person.) I will absolutely make this again. The only change I could suggest is a firmer crust, or just foregoing the little pie shape altogether and serving it over rice (although teeny meat pies would be great for a potluck).

And we’ve got to do something about the name. “Little savory meat pies” and “Tijuana Hash” just aren’t logically compatible, are they?

Want to try an Orange Velvet Pie, but don’t have an OSTERIZER or reasonable blender substitute? Try this substitute from the Back of the Box Recipe site…

Cool ‘n Easy Pie

2/3 cup boiling water
1 package (4-serving size) JELL-O Brand Gelatin Desert, any flavor
1/2 cup cold water
Ice cubes
1 tub (9 ounces) Cool Whip Whipped Topping, thawed
1 prepared graham cracker crumb crust (6 ounces)
Assorted fruit (optional)

Stir boiling water into gelatin in large bowl 2 minutes or until completely dissolved. Mix cold water and ice to make 1 1/4 cups. Add to gelatin, stirring until slightly thickened. Remove any remaining ice.

Stir in whipped topping with wire whisk until smooth. Refrigerate 10 to 15 minutes or until mixture is very thick and will mound. Spoon unto crust.

Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm. Just before serving, garnish with fruit, if desired.

This recipe created by Kraft Foods.

No OSTERIZER needed, just a good ol’ fashioned wire whisk!

While it definitely lacks the complexity and depth of flavor that the Orange Velvet Pie had, the saved time makes up for it (and some fruit on top — or even mixed in before the gelatin sets — would make up for the bland flavoring). Orange Velvet Pie was never going to be a gourmet treat; it’s more something you’d take to the neighborhood potluck… and who wants to spend an hour fiddling with a dozen ingredients for that? Jell-O and Cool Whip are good enough for those people.

When first browsing for vintage desserts (to make up for the fiasco that was the Jellied Bouillon From Hell), I thought this one said “Orange Velveeta Pie.” Ewww. Luckily, it actually says “Orange Velvet Pie.”

The recipe, posted to Flicr by Cowtools, is a suggested use of your OSTERIZER. (We’ll pretend my KRUPS blender is actually an OSTERIZER.)

Now, according to the recipe illustration, this is supposed to make a septagonal pie.

I’m not kidding, count the sides. I thought I was too tired, because it sure LOOKED like an octagon but I just couldn’t get the edges to add up. And for extra trippy goodness, it’s got five triangles radiating from the middle, making easy serving implausible. Since I believe that pi and pie are intricately linked, I instead approximated the pie as a circle. Reverse calculus! (Buzz tried to discuss theorems about the constructability of polygons at this point, which is when I realized we should probably just apologize for the mathiness and return you to your regularly scheduled retro recipe…)

The crust and chocolate garnish are pretty straightforward. The orange velvet part requires some overly complicated instructions.

3/4 cup whipping cream
3 eggs, separated
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup hot water
3/4 cup sugar
6 oz. can orange concentrate
1/2 slice lemon, peeled
Dash of salt
2 tbsp. sugar for egg whites
9″ chocolate wafer pieshell

Method: Prepare your favorite chocolate wafer pie shell and set aside. Soften gelatin in cold water. Dissolve in hot water. Put the cream in the OSTERIZER container. Cover and mix at Lo Speed until thick. Spoon into a cup. Put egg yolks in glass container with any of the cream that adheres to the blades. Cover and run at Lo Speed until lemon colored. With the OSTERIZER running, add gelatin, sugar, salt, lemon, and orange concentrate, through the feeder cap opening in the cover. Turn to Hi Speed and mix until smooth. Beat egg whites with a rotary beater until foamy. Gradually add 2 tablespoons sugar. Fold the orange mixture into the egg whites. Fold in the whipped cream. Pour into chocolate wafer crust. Chill until set. Garnish with chocolate bits.

Yield: 9-inch pie

You’ll notice all those emphasized bits are cleverly interwoven descriptions of the wonderful feature of your lovely OSTERIZER blender. It has two speeds and an opening in the cover. You’ll also notice the speeds are named “Hi” and “Lo” — don’t want to confuse the fragile housewife brain with too many complicated letters…

I digress. When everything is dumped into the blender and blended at whatever speed it needs, it’s poured into my favorite chocolate wafer pie shell and chilled. Really not that hard.

However, I will note: don’t use your blender to make whipped cream. I thought it would be easy, but it turned out that a top layer was perfectly whipped, a middle layer which was partially solidified but mostly liquid, and a bottom layer (most in contact with the blades) was thoroughly curdled. The partially-whipped cream would have been fine, but chunks of fat are extremely disgusting in whipped cream; I had to whip up more with my mixer to replace it, before folding everything together.

I added some chocolate curls to the top. (Eight of them. Take that, assymetry.)

The taste and consistency is exactly what you’d expect from orange juice, whipped cream, egg whites, and a bit of gelatin. But the amount of ingredients and work required for is crazy, considering that you would get the same result with orange Jell-O whipped and folded with whipped cream — which has the additional advantage of no raw eggs for the egg-wary.

It’s also really a Yellow Velvet Pie; a few drops of red food coloring would have helped.

If you’ve got time on your hands and an OSTERIZER that’s gathering dust, this might be worth trying. It certainly tasted fine However, the recipe certainly was created by an appliance company trying to oversell its product. Blenders are great for a few things, but not everything.

I’m posting this to remind myself that however bad the Retro Recipes get, they could always be a lot worse.

Before we delve into this week’s recipe, I’d like to share something that’s been bugging me for a few days. Now, I’m sure you’re reading this thanks to phonics, that wonderful system by which a word like “antidisestablishmentarianism” can be broken down into reasonable sections, and thereby pronounced. Unfortunately, phonics fails me when I have to use Knox Gelatine in a recipe. It’s that pesky “e” at the end of the word. It makes a long-I, which says EYE, instead of a short-I, which says EEE. So, a word spelled G-E-L-A-T-I-N-E is technically correctly pronounced “jell-a-tyne.” Without an “e”, it would be “jell-a-tin.”

So when I see Gelatine, I hear “gelatin” in my head because that’s a much more familiar pronunciation (even Firefox spellcheck is refusing to acknowledge gelatine as valid). But I see the “e” at the end and an annoying little voice shouts, “Jell-a-TYNE! Um… jell-a-teen?” This results in a temporarily distraction from my normal sensible approach to food, and I end up cooking something like Jellied Bouillon with Frankfurters.

(I actually found this after first landing on the terrifying Corned Tongue in Aspic. I will not buy tongue. It’s not gonna happen. Look elsewhere for sheer masochism. I don’t even know where to buy tongue, and I am not going to find out.)

JELLIED BOUILLON WITH FRANKFURTERS
Use beef stock; place frankfurters upright; hard-cooked eggs, sliced; diced celery. Frankfurters take on new glamour in this gleaming aspic.

From 500 Snacks: Bright Ideas for Entertaining (1941), Culinary Arts Institute

Glamour indeed. I challenge anyone to come up with a sentence using both “frankfurters” and “glamour” — and I won’t accept “Frankfurters are not usually associated with glamour.”

Anyway, Jellied Bouillon with Frankfurters appeared quite simple, like any good ingredient-centric recipe. I decided to jazz it up a little bit by making the frankfurters more visually appealing. (I had to do something — my hot dogs were too tall to fit in my bundt pan.) You can’t do much with diced celery, jellied bullion, or sliced eggs — but hot dogs, those turn into adorable little octopi.

Cut the bottom of the hot dog into 8 eighths, cook, and voila, curly little legs. You can even carve teeny smiles and eyes into them. Guaranteed to make preschoolers happy.

Once the eggs and celery were cut up and my hot dogs were octopussed, they all went into the bundt pan

and got covered with gelatined broth. (Ewwwww.)

Then it sat in the fridge for two hours. Reeeeally easy. Even popping it out of the mold was easy. But that’s when I started to have some misgivings. Some of the bouillon I’d used to make broth hadn’t dissolved, so there was some grit on top of the molded ring. You also couldn’t see anything besides the hard-boiled egg slices. The aspic was not “gleaming” so much as “very muddy”.

The pretty celery leaf garnish didn’t help. It tasted worse than it looked. Much worse.

While hot dogs, celery, and egg are tasty on their own, or even together, they are NOT tasty when coated in salty beef jelly. In fact, they are downright disgusting. Even hours after dinner, my stomach was angrily reminding me that I was a horrible person for expecting it to digest this foul mush. Utterly revolting.

It was just wrong. It should be sent to the Fail Blog. It was so bad I gave my child a piece of cake instead to try to make up for this heap of crap. If I cooked like this regularly, it would be grounds for divorce — if the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, this dish is a shortcut to a restraining order.

But on the plus side, the preschooler was very pleased with the octopi, and the dog thought he had gone to heaven when he got the vast quantities of leftovers. And it was a hell of a good laugh.