Recipes From The "I Hate to Cook" Cookbook

The I HATE TO COOK book! Imagine seeing a title like that! I found this little book, published in 1960, and was curious with what kind of recipes it would have from 50 years ago, a time I thought all women loved to cook! It's really a book about "quick" dishes or meals. I didn't find many that would be suitable for the "healthy choices" we're all trying to make these days, but here are a couple I thought ThriftyFun friends would enjoy - I do!

Cheese Wedges

• 1 pkg. tube-type refrigerated biscuits
• 1/4 cup grated cheese
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Cut each biscuit into 4 little wedges, roll them in melted butter and the grated cheese; then toast them in a 400 degree F oven about 12 minutes.

Betty's Cocktail Cookies

Mix together:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 jar processed bacon-cheese spread

Now shape it into a neat roll, wrap it in waxed paper, and refrigerate it. When it's firm, slice it as you would cookies, and bake them at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes. (Don't bother to grease the pan.)

Apple Cream

Grate 3/4 of a cup of raw red apple with skin on, using the medium grater. Then combine it with:

• 3/4 cup heavy cream, whipped until stiff
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• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice
• pinch of salt

Now put it in an ice-cube tray (with divider removed) and freeze it until it's solid. If you happen to think of it, beat it once, an hour or so later. Serve it in sherbet glasses.

Cockeyed Cake

(This is a famous recipe, I believe, but I haven't the faintest idea who invented it. I saw it in a newspaper years ago, meant to clip it, didn't, and finally bumped into the cake myself in the apartment of a friend of mine. It was dark, rich, moist, and chocolatey, and she said it took no more than 5 minutes to mix it up. So I tried it, and, oddly enough, mine, too, was dark, rich, moist, and chocolatey. My own timing was 5 1/2 minutes, but that includes hunting for the vinegar!)

• 1 1/2 cups sifted flour
• 3 Tbsp. cocoa
• 1 tsp. soda (baking)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 5 Tbsp. cooking oil
• 1 Tbsp. vinegar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup cold water

Put your sifted flour back in the sifter, add to it the cocoa, soda, sugar, and salt, and sift this right into a greased square cake pan, about 9x9x2 inches. Now you make three grooves, or holes, in this dry mixture. Into one, pour the oil; into the next, the vinegar; into the next, the vanilla. Now pour the cold water over it all. You'll feel like you're making mud pies now, but beat it with a spoon until it's nearly smooth and you can't see the flour. Bake it at 350 degrees F for half an hour. Then frost. Here are some easy frostings.

Good Old Confectioners' Sugar Frosting

Sift 2 cups of confectioners' sugar with a dash of salt. Then add a tsp. of vanilla and beat in enough cream to make it the right consistency to spread.

Jelly Frosting

In the top of your double boiler, over boiling water, put 1/2 cup any of jelly, 1 unbeaten egg white, and a dash of salt and beat this with a rotary beater for about 5 minutes, or until the jelly has disappeared. Now take it off the heat and keep beating until it stands in stiff peaks, then spread it on the cake.

Maggie's Sugar Topping

Bake your cake 5 minutes less than the recipe says to. Take it out of the oven, but don't turn the oven off. Let the cake cool just a bit. Then on it spread this mixture:

• 4 Tbsp. softened butter
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp. cream
• chopped nuts or coconut (as much as you want, or have)

Set the cake back in the oven for 5 minutes, or until the frosting bubbles.

Easier still, you can put chocolate-covered peppermints on top of a hot cake, put it back in the oven until they melt a bit, then spread the melted mints around with a knife.

Hope you enjoy!

By Caseye from Plano, TX