Date I made this recipe:
Saturday, October 15, 2017 – The eve of the annual Packers v. Vikings game,
game 1 of 2
Good Food
Ideas – Kraft Cheese Cookbook by Kraft Kitchens
Published by A Benjamin Company Book
© 1977
Purchased at Arc’s
Value Village Richfield
Recipe:
Cheddar Meatloaf – p. 45
Cooking in
Door County (Wisconsin) by Pauli
Wanderer
Published by Voyageur Press
© 1985
Purchased at BCPA (Bloomington Crime Prevention
Association) Annual Sale
Recipe: Morels (or another mushroom) a la Crème – p.
51
All right then, so yesterday (Sunday) was the annual
[Green Bay] Packers (my team) v. [Minnesota] Vikings game. It is a game that is always fraught with
peril and this year it was a disaster as the Packers quarterback broke his
collarbone halfway through the first quarter and the backup quarterback had to
finish the game. “We” as in my Packers
lost 23-10.
This was not supposed to happen. Nope.
You cannot believe the anti-jinxing rituals I go through just to make
sure we win each one our games, and as faithful readers know, these rituals
extend to my cookbooks and the game day recipes I select to spur my team to
victory.
This time around, I found two cookbooks, one, a cheese
cookbook from Kraft kitchens, and the
other, a cookbook from Door County, Wisconsin.
(Door County is a “resort” area in northeastern Wisconsin, just north of
Green Bay.) Since food is love and I love my team, I felt sure that the two
recipes I selected would bring good luck their way. I even made them the night before for an
extra good luck push and to free me up on game day. Both recipes even had
cheese for crying out loud which is the food of the gods in Wisconsin. It is not for nothing that Packers fans are
called “Cheeseheads!”
All sign then pointed to “yes.” Unfortunately, the recipes were good but not
great and that should have been my first clue to the upcoming Football Apocalypse
(2017). More on that in a minute.
So that was Saturday night, and on Sunday morning, my
birthday twin and fellow Packer fan, Deb, and I went to breakfast for a late
birthday celebration. We agreed
originally to meet at 11:00 and that was fine by me. Then Deb texted me asking if we could change
that to 10:00 (yes) and switch venues so she could watch the game.
Ten o’clock was fine but watching the game was a
problem for me and so stay with me while I explain it.
In addition to trying to make food befitting a
football game (not all Packers games, just some of the more important ones), I
have come to believe that sometimes it is more helpful to the team if I don’t
watch the live broadcast. I always record
it and will run it back no matter what, but I have found they win if I’m not
watching them. It’s crazy thinking to be
sure, but it seems to work. There are also times, like this past Sunday, when
my schedule doesn’t always allow for me to be at home when the game is on. This week’s exciting task that took me away
from the game grouting our new tile for our upstairs bathroom remodel. Three
hours and a lot of grout dust later, we finally finished but alas, at that
point, it was all over but the crying (and the last 45 seconds of the game).
Anyway, Deb said that if she watches them, they
win. I suggested to her that we just
canceled each other out which was not good!
This is also foreshadowing of the debacle that followed.
Okay, so to recap, I made a Packer-related dinner, Deb
and I canceled each other out on watching live/not watching live, and this
brings us to the third and final nail in the coffin: team apparel/team colors.
My unwritten rule of “game” apparel is this: Thou
shalt not wear “enemy” (i.e. opposing team) colors three days before game time. By “apparel” I mean everything from underwear
to eye wear. I say this because for years
now, I have had a pair of purple glasses and a pair that is not purple. I do not wear the purple frames games at all
three days before a game, regardless of whether it is the Packers v. Vikings
game, because purple is a Viking team color and I don’t want to send any good
juju their way, only bad!
You can call me crazy if you like, but all this is
mild compared to some fans I know. It’s
all about not jinxing our team so that all they do is “win, win, win, no matter
what!” (Thanks, DJ Khaled!)
Okay, so now that you know this, here’s what happened
at breakfast: Deb inadvertently wore a
sweatshirt containing lettering in purple and yellow and yellow, the other
Vikings color. Vikings colors are enemy colors and sheesh, talk about picking
the wrong day to wear that outfit! I learned that Deb does not take things as
far as I do but she should because look.what.happened.
In conclusion, and as I mentioned earlier, we were now
up to three signs of the upcoming Football Apocalypse (2017): Bad Juju Moment #1 – Saturday dinner; Bad
Juju Moment #2 – Watch/don’t watch, and Bad Juju Moment #3 – Enemy apparel. We inadvertently doomed our team before they
even took to the field.
Our sincere apologies to Packer Nation for these
actions.
Let’s backtrack then to the recipes that I made and
how they fared. First up: Good
Food Ideas – Kraft Cheese Cookbook.
This cookbook contains recipes for every type of cheese
dish imaginable. Naturally, Kraft wants us all to use Kraft cheese products, but I cheated and
purchased a Wisconsin cheddar at Trader
Joe’s. Now for all I know, this private label product was made by Kraft but I didn’t really care because
the label said “Wisconsin” cheddar and that’s all I needed to know.
Okay then, so let’s take a look at the Table of
Contents:
- · Social Snacks
- · Hot and Hearty Soups and Stews
- · Feature Attractions
- · Zesty Vegetables
- · Special Salads and Salad Dressings
- · Savory Sweets
- · Wonderful Happenings
- · From Oven to Table – Homemade Bread
- · Sandwiches to Remember
- · Sauce Sorcery
- · Eye Openers – Breakfast and Brunch
- · Microwave Magic
- · Enough for a Crowd
- · Perfect Partners – Cheese and Wine (no recipes)
- · Through the Ages with Cheeses (no recipes)
I finally decided on the Cheddar Meatloaf from the “Feature Attractions” chapter because it
had cheddar cheese in the mixture. I
pictured it as a great big cheeseburger with cheese molten like lava flowing
out of the middle. Naturally, that is not at all what I got.
You can tell I’ve been watching too many episodes of Food Network’s “Chopped,” because I told
Andy “I like it, but the tomato soup flavor overpowers all the other basket
ingredients.”
I am totally qualified to be a judge on
that show.
Not only did the tomato soup overpower the other
ingredients, but the cheese seemed to disappear in its entirety. I’m not sure it was supposed to but it did. This was not a good sign.
Still, we ate it because it was tasty even if it was a
tad on the tomato-y side.
And then there’s the second book, Cooking in Door County (Wisconsin) which looked cute and all, but I
must tell you that I was hard-pressed to find a recipe in this book to my
liking. Why? Well, because of a smattering of recipes such
as these: “Smelts” (a tiny bony fish, more fun to catch than eat); “Brussels's
Belgian Tripe;” “Pickled Pig’s Feet,” and “Head Cheese.” Now if I was on Chopped, cooking with these ingredients would be one thing but I’m
not on Chopped so I was free to ditch
those ingredients, thank goodness, and continue my search.
Sadly, it only seemed to get worse. Take for instance, this chapter - Water and Shore- and some of the
offerings: “Whitefish Liver Pate,” “Mud Lake Mallards,” “Wild Goose and Red
Cabbage,” and “Venison Pot Roast.”
Eesh! I suppose
I could be persuaded to eat whitefish but not a whitefish liver pate, nope. As
to the duck and the goose, my dad used to hunt and so I’ve eaten both but
cannot get past the gamey taste and smell.
Same goes with venison. No matter
how my mom prepared it or what she added to it, I just didn’t like it which of
course did not make my dad very happy.
The rest of the recipes in this cookbook was a
complete mishmash. Woods and Byways contains lots of wild mushroom recipes and it’s a
shame that morel season is over because I love morels. My dad used to go and pick them and sauté
them in butter and they were delicious.
The rest of that chapter though, is dicey except for a few recipes for
wild jams that sounded interesting.
Overall, Orchards
and Fields yielded the most edible
recipes such as “Door County Cherry Pie,” “Swedish Apple Cake,” and “Zucchini
Stew.” Alas, I just wasn’t struck by any
of these enough to go ahead and make them.
Roots is the chapter that yielded some of the god-awful
dishes mentioned above although thankfully, other recipes balanced that horror
such as “Vivian’s Pea Soup, “and “Swedish Meatballs.”
Since I was in a cheese sort of mood, I decided on Morels and Macaroni a la Crème from the Woods and
Byways chapter, only I substituted shiitake mushrooms for morels.
Just like the Cheddar
Meatloaf, this recipe had potential to be blockbuster but wasn’t. Turns out there was an unspecified amount of
time to keep this on the stove top so it would stay rich and creamy and I went
over that limit (apparently) by just enough to cause the cheese to
coagulate. Damn and blast! The result was totally edible but the
appearance suffered. We’re talking
minutes here people, minutes if not seconds.
Moral of the Morel and Macaroni Mixture? Keep your eye on the prize!
As with the meatloaf, the mushroom flavors got buried
under the cheese and macaroni and that irked.
If I made this again, I would cut down on the macaroni, amp up the
mushrooms, and definitely add a lot more salt and pepper. Oh well, live and
learn.
In conclusion, all my attempts to will my Packers on
to victory failed and so now Packer Nation must pick up the pieces and move on.
My husband always says “It is so hard to be a Packers fan” and he is not
kidding! As I said, the recipes were good, but keep your eye on both the oven
and the stove and perhaps adjust your ingredients to bring out other flavors.
Cheddar
Meatloaf – 6 servings – from Good Food Ideas Cheese Cookbook by Kraft
1 ½ pounds ground beef
1 ¼ pounds dry bread crumbs
1 4-ounce package Kraft shredded sharp natural cheddar
cheese
1 10 ¾-ounce can condensed tomato soup
1 egg
¼ chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped, fresh parsley
½ teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper
Combine all ingredients; mix lightly. Shape into loaf in 11 ¾ x 7 ½-inch baking
dish. Bake at 350° F, 1 hour.
Ann’s
Note: I made a half recipe and so used
half the can of soup and I still thought the tomato flavor overpowered the
cheese so you might want to hold off on using the entire can if making the full
recipe.
Morels
(Shitake) and Macaroni a la Crème – serves 8 to 12, depending on appetites
1 pound macaroni
6 tablespoons butter
1 pound Swiss cheese, grated
4 egg yolks, gently beaten
2 cups cream
1 cup morels, chopped fine (Ann’s Note: or substitute shitake or chanterelle)
Pinch nutmeg
Salt and pepper
Boil the macaroni and drain. Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed
pan. Frizzle the morels for a
minute. Add the macaroni, the egg yolks
mixed with the cream, and the cheese. Mix the cheese in gradually as you stir and
life over a low heat.
When all the ingredients have reached a creamy
consistency (this will be in a matter of minutes), stir in the nutmeg and salt
and pepper to taste.* Heap this delicious mess on a large, deep
platter and garnish with tomato slices.
*Ann’s Note: One
minute, the mac and cheese was all creamy and dreamy, but I left it on the
stovetop just a hair too long and that made the cheese coagulate. What the author failed to mention is “Remove
from the heat immediately and then serve.”
