Breakfast:

Stewed Dried Peaches 291

French Omelet 400

toast with butter, jelly 709 (grape jelly)

coffee for adults (milk for children)

Luncheon:

Rice and Vegetable Soup Casserole 1116

whole wheat bread and butter

head lettuce with Peanut Mayonnaise 844

raw apples

tea for adults (milk for children)

Dinner:

Pork Sausage Patties 565 with Milk Gravy 468

Baked Potatoes 1067

Stewed Tomatoes 1111

bread and butter

Cottage Pudding 353 with Lemon Sauce 934

coffee for adults (milk for children)

Oh là là! A French omelet for breakfast! Or what I would usually just call an omelet.  The most interesting part was that it called for 4 eggs to serve 5 (one whole omelet cut into 5 pieces).  I split the recipe in half and made a two egg omelet.  The amount pictured is one eggs worth, but I wantonly ate the whole thing  (because what am I going to do with the other half?)  I’m guessing eggs were a bit more expensive when this book was written.  Which reminds me of this awesome article my husband found about Thanksgiving dinner prices in 1929.   In any case, a tasty and satisfying breakfast.

I was really looking forward to lunch due to 1116 Rice and Vegetable Soup Casserole since it had a rather processed ingredient compared to  most of Meta’s recipes:  condensed canned vegetable soup.  Foreshadowing of what was to come in the next few decades?

It was actually pretty good, if odd,  but heavily carb-y since it contained rice, breadcrumbs and the pasta in the vegetable soup.  The crispy breadcrumbs made it.  It was a bit of a long baking time for a working person though (30 minutes of baking not including the rice boiling time since I made it ahead).  I had eat this meal in a hurry to make it back to work (and ended up taking the apple to work to eat).

Also a shout out to 844 Peanut Mayonnaise (the recipe being chopped peanuts mixed in any desired proportion with mayo).  I’m still dubious about mayo being a salad dressing, but the peanuts make it much better than mayo alone.

Dinner got the nod from my husband except for 1111 Stewed Tomatoes.  I’ve never encountered stewed tomatoes before except as an ingredient in a recipe so it seemed a bit like eating straight marinara sauce or salsa.  Not quite right.

However, 565 Pork Sausage Patties with 468 Milk Gravy couldn’t help but please.  I also took the liberty of adding a bit of parsley to the potato since the meal was looking a bit on the brown side.  Meta writes that, “The basic foods should be selected not for food value alone, but also for texture, color and flavor contrast, which helps make the menu attractive and interesting.  For example, a meal in which all the foods are white or light colored has little eye appeal.  In such a menu, yellow turnips (rutabagas) will be more appetizing in appearance than white ones” (4).  I’m not sure I’d pick a rutabaga as the example of a colorful addition, but a good point.  I suppose Meta would argue that the red of the tomatoes provides contrast; it does, but I think a meal benefits from more than two colors.

I didn’t have high expectations for dessert, but 353 Cottage Pudding with 934 Lemon Sauce smelled fantastic and was light and delectable.  My husband said that it suffered from a marketing problem and should be called “Air Cake” instead.  This was closer to the British “pudding” definition than the current American usage since the texture was more cake-like.

Overall, an interesting menu for the day (and pretty quick too!)

1116 Rice and Vegetable Soup Casserole

1 cup uncooked rice

1 tin condensed vegetable soup (10 1/2 oz)

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup grated cheese

buttered bread crumbs

Boil 2 quarts of water with 1 TBSP of salt added.  Wash rice and add to the water, cooking 15 to 20 minutes until just soft.  Stir occasionally.  Drain and rinse.  Combine with soup, water and cheese and put in a buttered casserole dish.  Sprinkle with crumbs and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

353 Cottage Pudding

1 1/2 cups cake flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup shortening

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Sift flour and resift 3 times with the baking powder and salt.  Cream shortening with sugar.  Beat egg and beat into shortening until fluffy.  Mix in vanilla.  Add flour mixture alternately with milk.  Pour into buttered baking pan (7 x 11 x 1 1/2 inches) and bake for 30 minutes.  Cut into squares and serve with Lemon Sauce 934.  Makes 6 to 8 servings.

934 Lemon Sauce

1 TBSP cornstarch

3/4 cup sugar

dash salt

3/4 cup water

1 egg, separated

1 TBSP butter

2 TBSP lemon juice

On top of a double boiler, mix cornstarch, sugar, salt and water and cook stirring constantly until it boils and thickens.  Stir in a beaten egg yolk and cook 2 minutes longer.  Remove from heat and add butter and lemon juice.  Cool.  Beat egg white until stiff and fold in.  Can be served hot or cold.  (Increase cornstarch to 3 TBSP to make a cake or pie filling).  Makes 5 servings.  (I found that the egg whites didn’t really fold and just created a white foam at the top.  If I make this again, I’d just leave out the egg whites and I don’t think it will make a difference).