Renovating recipes

I was a child of the ‘60s, when food and its preparation was going through a renovation. Convenience was the goal and frozen vegetables were the norm, as there was, at that time, a movement away from canned vegetables, which had little nutritional value. 

One of the most important evolutions (or should I call it a revolution) was an explosion of recipes using a variety of Campbell’s soups. Those days, a beloved Friday night dinner in my parent’s home was baked chicken thighs slathered in a mixture of cream of chicken soup combined with a tablespoon or two of Lipton’s onion soup mix. 

In retrospect, I wonder if it was as tasty as it was because the sodium level was so high—or were our young taste buds not developed yet? The chicken thighs were sprinkled with paprika, a spice used extensively in those days. It might have resulted in a flavorful addition except for the fact that, more often than not, that bottle of paprika had been sitting in the spice rack for years. A good indication of its age was that it had faded from a vibrant reddish hue to a more muted brown or dull orange. 

We adored that meal. It was accompanied by canned peach halves placed on a baking sheet a short time before the chicken was fully baked. Mom would lay the peaches upright and place a dab of butter in each cavity, as well as a sprinkling of cinnamon. The savory chicken in its creamy ‘gravy’ was served with the tangy, sweet, brightly-flavored peaches. 

Mom’s macaroni and cheese was another favorite dinner meal. I would help her cut a block of Velveeta cheese into little squares, popping one or two into my mouth as I worked. Let us take a moment to contemplate the idea of a “cheese” product that can sit on a shelf without refrigeration for years. Hypothetically, the world could come to an end and Velveeta and billions of roaches and water bugs could stay on earth indefinitely. Hungry yet?

Back to Mom and me. I was an eager young chef, and we continued working together until all the cheese had been cut into soft, little squares. The cheese would be added to a pot, joining Campbell’s tomato soup plopped from the can and a can full of whole milk, which was added to the pot and heated until the mixture was smooth and creamy. Next came the velvety—hence the name—cheese cubes, which quickly melted. Cooked elbow pasta was stirred in and Mom’s bright orange mac and cheese was ready to be ladled into bowls. The dish was not baked. We ate it straight from the pot. The following day I would enjoy it crisped in a frying pan in a tablespoon or two of melted butter. 

We often ate the mac and cheese with a fresh salad (iceberg lettuce, cucumber slices, halved cherry tomatoes and carrot curls made with a vegetable peeler). The vinaigrette was Good Seasonings Italian dressing, which came in a bottle (with a green snap-on lid) to which vinegar and oil were added before it was shaken vigorously and poured over the salad. If we didn’t have salad, Mom went with creamed spinach. In those days, creamed spinach was sold frozen in boxes. My memory is that it came in packages that were immersed in boiling water and left there, simmering, until softened and hot. The spinach was carefully squeezed from the bags into a serving bowl, with no further adornment needed.

These dishes have morphed, or been renovated if you like, over the years. I would no sooner use Velveeta than I would margarine or marshmallow Fluff. I neither eat or cook with Campbell’s soup. And if I bake chicken thighs, which are my go-to part of the chicken, I have devised myriad recipes over the years that have no preservatives, food coloring or MSG. 

Luckily, it has not been very difficult to bring these dishes from the past into the present. The mac and cheese primarily needed a change of the type of cheese used, and to be baked so the top became golden and crusty. And I transformed the creamed spinach into a more sophisticated version, but still used frozen chopped spinach because it’s always flash-frozen, and the idea of cooking down pounds of fresh spinach, placing it in an ice bath then rolling it in a kitchen towel to squeeze out all the moisture seemed more time consuming than appealing. 

You might, moving forward, find yellowed, stained recipe cards from a relative who passed them down to you years ago in the hopes that you would keep them alive. Instead, liven them up!