Date I made this recipe:
June 14, 2015 – Flag Day!
The Philadelphia
Published by: Kraft,
Inc.
© 1981
Purchased at BCPA – Bloomington Crime Prevention Association
– annual book sale, June 2015
Recipe: Garden Macaroni Salad – p. 45
Yesterday was Flag Day and I know you all know this because
your calendar likely told you so. And
this is a good thing because otherwise, many a holiday would fly under the
radar, unnoticed by one and all.
Andy and I don't have a flag to fly for the occasion (my
parents did though, and I think at last count when I cleaned out their house
was four – impressive!), but in my book, we had the next best thing: a Philadelphia cookbook, from Philadelphia Cream Cheese, to honor the
only, the only, the flag-sewer herself, Betsy Ross who hailed from
Philadelphia.
I sincerely hope that high school history classes cover
Betsy Ross and her flag, but in case they didn't, here's a little
tutorial: Betsy (Elizabeth) Griscom,
born January 1, 1752 in Philadelphia, died January 30, 1836, in Philadelphia,
is credited with creating the American flag although according to Wikipedia, no concrete proof exists to
show she did. Well, let's just give her
the benefit of the doubt, shall we? I
mean, we can look out our windows and see flags everywhere so somebody figured
out how to sew them and if not Betsy, then who?
Exactly.
Surprisingly, Betsy was married three times and whoa! - I do not recall getting this information in
any of my history classes! Husband number one was John Ross – thus her last
name – and their marriage turned out to be controversial in that she was a
Quaker and he was an Anglican. The
Quaker religion did not want its members marrying outside the Quaker faith and
she was expelled from her family and her friends. Seems a tad harsh but she got the last laugh
when she and John Ross started and ran upholstery business which is how she
likely acquired her valuable sewing skills. (By the way, I could not type
"John Ross" without inserting the last name of "Ewing" from
the TV show, Dallas .
I can't help it, my brain just goes there.)
After John Ross died in 1776, she married husband number
two, Joseph Ashburn, but alas, he died in 1782.
So onto husband number three she went, John Claypool, who managed to
last 34 years with Betsy before dying in 1817.
Good heavens. Betsy though, lived
until the ripe old age of 84, and so thank goodness for that! Men did not fare all that well in the early
years of this country's founding. (The
source for most of this information came from Biography.com)
As to the flag, it was rumored to have been created after a
visit by George Washington, or at least that's the story that's told at the
Betsy Ross house in Philly. Hey, it
works for me.
Given that I seem to have a cookbook to mark every occasion,
I am sad to report that I didn't have anything for flag day nor did I have –
like I thought I had – a Philadelphia
cookbook. I could have sworn that I had
one from the Philadelphia Museum of Art
but it turns out the cookbook was from the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts. Well –
oh-so-close, am I right?
Left without a good, bona fide source, I turned to Martha
Stewart, who had she been alive at the time, might have instructed Betsy on how
to sew the flag together because Martha is like that you know. In fact, Martha has probably sewn her own
flag, but only after dyeing the fabric she probably wove with her own two hands
into red, white and blue, using fruits like raspberries and blueberries grown
on her property in Maine .
Actually, I am sure she would have left
the "white" fabric alone as that is how it would have been done back
then and our Martha is a stickler for detail.
Anyway, the best recipes I could find befitting a Flag Day
observance were from Martha's American
Food cookbook (as yet unused) . Up
for consideration was a Chicken Pot Pie
(very colonial) as well as a Mile-High
Apple Pie (very American) but the making of each of these would have had me
in the kitchen for days on end and so I passed.
I mean, not to whine, but for the pot pie, I would have had to capture
and pluck a chicken cook the chicken separately and then all the vegetables
separately and then make a crust separately and...and...and....zzzzzz. Same with the pie; silly Martha wanted me to
peel 5 freaking pounds of apples for this mile-high pie. I should think not. Still, it was my only hope until....
...I spied The Philadelphia
Brand Cream Cheese Cookbook I
had set aside for the 4th of July.
Screw that! We needed a Flag
Day-related recipe and we needed it now.
This was a Code Red if we ever saw one.
And so I made the Garden Macaroni
Salad recipe on Flag Day, bought a rotisserie chicken from Kowalski's to go with it and ta da –
dinner!
Now if you've read my last two blogs, you are probably
thinking that I was all kinds of crazy to make yet another dish with cream
cheese but folks, the third time was the charm.
This was easy and delicious. And
although I had my heart set on making this salad, everything else in the book
looked awesome, most especially, and I know you will laugh, the Frosted Sandwich Loaf found on p.
35. I remember seeing these sandwiches
in many a cookbook while I was growing up and loved them because they were just
so pretty! My mom may have made them for
a bridge party once or twice although I can't recall for sure. Yet another mystery – like Betsy Ross'
flag-making – that will go unsolved.
I don't think you can go wrong with any recipe in this book
– well, except for Peppermint Cheesecake
(p. 124) but that's because I hate peppermint – but I will surely double back
come the holiday season to make some of the cookies and bars for my annual
holiday party – yum!
So here you go and unless I find another Flag Day-related
cookbook for next year, this may be it folks so make it and enjoy it!
Garden Macaroni Salad
– 6 to 8 servings
2 cups (7 oz.) elbow macaroni, cooked, drained
1 cup chopped cucumber
½ cup chopped green pepper
½ cup radish slices
2 tablespoons chopped onion
½ teaspoon salt
1 8-oz. pkg. Philadelphia Brand cream cheese
¼ cup Kraft mayonnaise
¼ cup sweet pickle relish
1 tablespoon Kraft Prepared mustard
Combine macaroni, cucumber, green pepper, radishes, onion
and salt; mix well. Combine softened
cream cheese and remaining ingredients, mixing until well blended. Add to macaroni mixture; mix lightly. Spoon and gently press into lightly oiled
6-1/2 cup ring mold; chill several hours or overnight. Unmold onto serving plate. Garnish with cucumber slices and radish
roses, if desired. Variation: Substitute
lightly oiled 9-inch springform pan with ring insert for ring mold.*
*Ann's Note: Or, you
could pull out the ring mold, in this case my mother's, look at it, decide it's
too much work to oil (!) and just leave the macaroni mixture in the bowl you
mixed it in.
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