I'm Turning into My Mom - Vintage Pyrex Mixing Bowls

Every now and then a memory surfaces.  Growing up, Mom would let us loose in the kitchen from time to time.   

We used to make Chef Boy-Ar-Dee pizza kits, usually on Friday nights.  These kits came in a box containing a bag of crust mix, a small can of sauce, and an even smaller can of grated Parmesan cheese.  

To make the crust, you mixed warm water into the crust mix and let it sit in the bowl several minutes.  There was yeast in the mix and so it needed to sit and rise.  I loved the smell of the dough rising!  When the time was up, we'd grease up our hands with Crisco shortening and stretch the dough over the pizza pan, then pour on the sauce and sprinkle the cheese.  Bake it in the oven, cut it up, and EAT!  Those were the simplest, least complicated pizzas ever, and were they ever CHEAP! 

We used a Pyrex mixing bowl (the smallest one) to mix the dough for the crust.

Another favorite kitchen creation was chocolate chip cookies.  Good old Nestle Toll House cookies (but no nuts - yuck!).  Out came another Pyrex bowl - the largest one.  Mixing the cookie dough took real effort - we should have had one arm more developed than the other just from mixing.  I'm lazy now - thank heaven for my stand mixer!  

I loved those Pyrex mixing bowls.  We used them for everything.  If it needed mixing, out came the Pyrex bowls.  Over the years, they disappeared one at a time - breakage took its toll.

I've had different mixing bowls over the years, and never found ones I really liked.  About a year and a half ago, one of my friends and I were heading home from southern Indiana and decided to stop at a huge flea market.  Let's go browse!  In one of the first few booths, there they were - vintage Pyrex mixing bowls!  

Oh, how I coveted those bowls!  But they were expensive - $75 for a complete set. Oh my.  I showed great restraint, however, and deferred the decision.  Since then, I picked up a couple of the largest bowls and one of the second-largest.  The two smaller sizes are difficult to find because they were generally used the most, so suffered more breakage.  

I looked online; I looked in antique stores.  What I found were bowls that had been well used - they weren't glossy anymore, and even worse, places where the color had worn off.  I despaired of completing my set.  Finally, I walked into my favorite LOCAL antique mall, and there they were - pristine!   Amazing.  

I gave the extra of the largest bowls to That Girl so she can make "puppy chow" (A.K.A. Chex Muddy Buddies) and I have the rest.  I LOVE using those bowls.  They make me happy.

I guess I'm trying to relive my childhood.

Not a bad thing.

Lime Perfection Salad (From Mom's Recipe Card File)

My sister and I went to lunch with one of our cousins a while back, and saw Lime Perfection Salad listed on the menu as one of the choices of side items.  Well, it wasn't what I expected; it was lime Jell-O with pineapple in it, and a dab of mayonnaise on the side.  There were a few things missing from it, as far as I was concerned.

This is another vintage recipe from my mom's recipe card file.  She got it from one of my great aunts, Auntie Ruth.  She married my dad's mother's brother, Raymond, and they treated Dad like their own son, so we visited them quite a bit.  When we ate dinner with them, more often than not, they'd have Lime Perfection Salad, and that's where I first had it.

In their younger days, Auntie Ruth and Uncle Raymond had run a tea room in Boston, and this is something they served there.  If I had known what the ingredients were ahead of time, I probably would have refused to eat it, but it is delicious!  I used to make it and take it to work for lunch.

Just for fun, I Googled "lime perfection salad" and oh, the hits!  But there was only one that was even close to what I'm used to.  Most had lime Jell-O, pineapple, and CABBAGE as ingredients.  Uh, NO.  One was almost the same, except for the addition of sweetened condensed milk.  I think that would be too sweet.  A couple had cream cheese in them.  Hmmmm...

Anyway, here's the version I'M used to, and it's pretty good!

Lime Perfection Salad (8 servings)

1 large package of lime Jell-O (or lemon!)
2 c boiling water (NO COLD WATER)
2 c cottage cheese
1 20-oz can crushed pineapple, undrained
1 c mayonnaise

Dissolve the Jell-O in the boiling water.  Stir in the remaining ingredients.  Pour into a gelatin mold, or divide among 8 small molds or bowls.  Refrigerate until well set.

NOTE:  It's not necessary to stir after first mixing in the cottage cheese, pineapple, and mayonnaise.  The mixture doesn't tend to separate like most gelatin molds do.

Sweet and Sour Chicken (or Pork) - A New-to-Me Vintage Recipe

One of my friends posted a recipe on her blog, and it sounded so delicious I just had to try it!  I used a dutch oven, but a wok would be better.  I even have one, but I didn't think about it when I made the recipe.

She says she found this recipe years and years ago on the back of a can of Dole pineapple.  Sometimes recipes on food packages aren't all that good.  Not this one!  YUM!  The original recipe called for 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, but so many times I've followed a recipe to the letter and the soy sauce seemed to overpower the dish, so I made the executive decision to halve the amount of soy sauce, which made it just about perfect (to me).

I actually doubled the recipe the first time I made it because I only had a 28-oz can of pineapple!  It worked just fine.


Sweet and Sour Chicken (or Pork) - from a Dole pineapple label

1 lb chicken breasts or pork tenderloin cut into 1" cubes
1 T canola oil
1 medium onion, quartered
1 clove garlic, minced
2 carrots, sliced
1 medium bell pepper, cut into chunks
1 15-oz can pineapple chunks, undrained
1/4 c vinegar
3 T brown sugar
3 T catsup
1 1/2 T lite soy sauce
1 T cornstarch
1 t ground ginger

In a large skillet or wok, heat the oil and brown the chicken.  Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is translucent.  Add the carrots and bell pepper and cook until the carrots are tender.

In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients, then add to the cooked chicken and vegetables in the wok and bring to a simmer.  Cook about 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened and become translucent.

Serve with rice.

Chicken Velvet Soup from L. S. Ayres (A Vintage Non-Trendy Comfort Food Recipe)

The flagship L. S. Ayres department store in Indianapolis closed in 1990.  It was nine floors of shopping Nirvana.  In the basement were a pharmacy, florist, music department, books and magazines, stamps and coins, greeting cards, and the bargains and closeouts from all the other floors.

The first floor had cosmetics, jewelry, accessories, and all the typical "entry" departments.  There were floors for furniture, linens and kitchenware, and clothing - the higher, the more expensive the clothes, until you got to the Crystal Room - WAY out of my price range!

There were beautiful brass and glass elevators, but I like riding the escalators to the eighth floor - the top floor - where there were a Godiva candy kiosk, auditorium, hair salon, and the famous Ayres Tea Room, haunt of "ladies who lunch" and downtown workers.  One of the iconic menu items was the Tea Room's Chicken Velvet Soup.  There's nothing like it.  I've been to plenty of restaurants that list Chicken Velvet Soup on the menu, but when I've ordered it, it's turned out to be plain old cream of chicken soup, sometimes even with vegetables in it - blashphemy!  The real thing has a smooth, creamy, velvety feel on the tongue and a pale golden color.  The Indianapolis Star newspaper published the recipe several years ago, and I finally got around to making it.  Perfection!!!


CHICKEN VELVET SOUP

3/4 c butter
3/4 c flour
1 c warm milk
2 c hot chicken stock
1 c warm cream
4 c chicken stock
1 1/2 c chopped cooked chicken
1/4 t salt
dash white pepper

Melt butter in a saucepan and blend in flour.  Add warm milk, 2 cups of hot chicken stock, and warm cream, stirring constantly, and bring to a boil.  Turn down to let simmer.

Add remained chicken stock and cooked chicken.  Add salt and pepper.  Bring back to a boil, then serve.

NOTE:  I used some shortcuts when I made this recipe, and it came out exactly how I remembered it to be.  Instead of chicken stock, I used chicken broth fortified with chicken base (Tone's or Better Than Broth are good choices).  Instead of cream and milk, I used half-and-half.  I used canned (GASP!) white meat chicken.  And, I did it all in the microwave!  (I halved the recipe.)