The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken Read Free Book Online Page A

quarters of it in a bowl. Set the rest aside for topping later.
    Now mix up with the noodles you put in the bowl
    1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
    ¼ cup water
    1 cup diced leftover pork
    1 cup sliced celery
    ¼ cup chopped onion
    ½ teaspoon salt, pepper
    2 teaspoons soy sauce or sherry
    ¼ cup chopped cashews or walnuts
    Put this into a buttered casserole dish, top with the rest of the noodles, and if you have any more nuts around, in addition to that quarter-cupful, put them on top of the noodles. Bake, uncovered, at 350˚ for thirty minutes. (This is very good, incidentally, made with a 7-ounce can of chunk tuna instead of the leftover pork.)
    L EFTOVER CHICKEN : Who ever has any leftover chicken? I never have any to speak of, and neither does anyone else I know—just a leftover drumstick once in a while, and what you do with that is eat it.
    L EFTOVER TURKEY is, of course, a bird of a different feather. The following two recipes are good because they don’t make the starry-eyed assumption that you have a lot of gravy and dressing left over.
         TURKEY DIVAN     
    5–6 servings
    1 can condensed cream of chicken soup (thinned slightly with 2 tablespoons sherry and a little heavy cream)
    1 package frozen broccoli, cooked (or thawed and drained)
    6 good-sized slices of turkey
    grated Parmesan cheese
    Put about one-fourth of the soup mixture in a buttered casserole. Put the broccoli in, cover it with slices of turkey meat, and pour on the rest of the sauce. Sprinkle the Parmesan generously on top and bake at 350˚, uncovered, for about twenty minutes.
         TURKEY TETRAZZINI     
    5–6 servings
    (This isn’t exactly a lead-pipe cinch, because you have to make cream sauce; but if you ever have to have company the day after Thanksgiving, you’ll thank me for it.)
    ½ pound uncooked spaghetti
    ¼ pound fresh mushrooms
    5 tablespoons butter
    cup flour
    2 cups turkey or chicken broth
    1 cup light cream
    salt, pepper
    2 tablespoons sherry
    2 cups diced turkey
    ½ cup grated Parmesan
    First you cook the spaghetti the way the package tells you to. Now slice the mushrooms and sauté them in a tablespoon of the butter till they’re light brown.
    Then you make the cream sauce: Blend four tablespoons of butter with the flour in the top of a double boiler, add the turkey or chicken broth, and cook it, stirring, till it’s smooth and thick. Add the cream, salt, pepper, and sherry.
    Now divide the sauce in half. In one half put the turkey meat, and in the other half put the mushrooms and cooked spaghetti. (At this point you may wonder why you ever started this, but actually you’re nearly out of the woods.)
    Put the spaghetti-mushroom half in a greased casserole and make a hole in it. Into the hole pour the turkey half. Top it with the Parmesan and bake, uncovered, at 400˚ for twenty minutes.
    And next time, for heaven’s sake, get a
little
turkey!

CHAPTER 3
Vegetables, Salads, Salad Dressings
    OR THIS SIDE OF BERIBERI
    O nce I knew a girl who just loved vegetables. You didn’t dare leave this little bunny alone with a relish tray or it would be instantly deflowered of its cauliflower florets and stripped clean of its carrot strips.
    But this girl is in the minority. For cold scientific proof, do this: On one side of a plate, put a stack of marinated string beans; on the other side, put a heap of smoked oysters. Then observe carefully which gets left. You needn’t even be that fancy. A canof salted peanuts will win over the string beans, hands down, every time.
    Facts must be faced. Vegetables simply don’t taste as good as most other things do. And there isn’t a single vegetable, hot or cold, that stands on its own two feet the way a ripe peach does, or a strawberry. Even sweet corn needs butter and salt. (It is interesting to note that vegetables beginning with A are the most self-sufficient: artichokes, asparagus, avocados, which have really slithered out of the fruit kingdom by this time into