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00:00Happy Sunday everyone! I'm back with more vintage recipes. This time I'm cooking from out of our
00:06league. This is a junior league cookbook that was published in 1978. It was originally from 1978 but
00:12my my copy is a reprint from the 90s from 1994 and that happens sometimes with community cookbooks.
00:20They are so legendary or people love them so much you know they use them the copies wear out maybe
00:25they want a new one or maybe they want to give it as a gift to someone. This particular book
00:31this is
00:31how it appeared in 1978 but it was reprinted one two three four five eight times. Well as of this
00:38as of this 1994 edition it was printed reprinted eight times. Maybe it's been printed more than
00:44that. Do you have this book in your collection? I want to know. Please tell me in the comments.
00:48Now my first recipe is going to be for spinach dip. This spinach dip right here. Did I choose
00:55this whole cookbook for purely selfish reasons because I love spinach dip? Maybe. Who's to say?
01:02I do really love spinach dip. I think it's great. Typically when I've made it myself in the past
01:07I've used like the Knorr. I think it's like a Knorr vegetable soup packet that has like seasonings in
01:13it and dehydrated vegetables and stuff. This recipe doesn't have that and that's why I want to try it
01:17because it has some more fresh herbs and things. It's just a little different than what I'm used to
01:23and I was like maybe I like it. I think spinach dip is great with vegetables. This recipe says to
01:29serve it with potato chips. I've never tried it that way but usually we would eat it with little
01:33chunks of pumpernickel bread. This recipe says can do ahead. I'm gonna just amend that and say must do
01:41ahead. You need to make this recipe ahead of time. I actually made this recipe this morning and I have
01:46some footage of that that I'm gonna share with you. I've let this dip sit in the fridge for four
01:50and a
01:50half hours at this point so we'll try it in a moment but here is how I made it. I
01:54am cutting
01:54this recipe in half. So I began by combining half a cup of sour cream and half a cup of
02:00mayonnaise in
02:01a medium bowl. Next I added my seasonings and that was half a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of
02:08Beaumont seasoning, and a quarter teaspoon of dried dill weed. So I whisked all of this together. I like to
02:14combine the mayonnaise, the sour cream, and the seasonings before I like get into the vegetables for a dip
02:19like this. I think it just mixes it more evenly that way. Next I added the juice of half a
02:23lemon.
02:24This is an unusual one. I've never made spinach dip with lemon juice in it so we'll see how that
02:28turns out. Next I added a quarter cup of chopped green onion and a quarter cup of chopped fresh parsley.
02:35Yes I got some fresh parsley! And finally I added the spinach. This was five ounces of frozen spinach
02:41that I thawed and drained really really well. You want to get as much moisture out of this
02:45as possible. Another thing about spinach, if you have fresh spinach in your refrigerator and you
02:50think you're not going to use it up, you're like, oh the spinach, it is not long for this world.
02:54I'm
02:54not going to eat the rest of it. Put it in your freezer. You can freeze fresh spinach. It's not
02:59going to go back to being like salad worthy, but if you're going to cook with it, you know, make
03:03something
03:03like this, or if you're going to put it in a like frozen spinach in a smoothie. I know some
03:07people like
03:08to do that. It's perfect for that. And then you don't end up wasting spinach that, you know, might,
03:12might be on its way out. So I just mixed in the spinach with a spatula, covered this and put
03:18it
03:18in the fridge for about four and a half hours. I made a little sample plate here. I've got some
03:25carrot sticks. I have some chunks of bread. I said, you know, normally we would eat this with like
03:30pumpernickel bread. This is like leftover wheat bread, honey wheat bread from eating at a restaurant.
03:35I don't want to waste it. So this is what we're going to do with it. I am going to
03:38start with a carrot.
03:44I can taste the lemon in there, but I don't think it's overpowering. It's good. It has like a really
03:48fresh taste to it. That's how I can describe it. I think it's like all the, you know, the fresh
03:52green
03:52onion and the fresh parsley. All right. I'm going to try a little bread with it. Like it a little
03:58bit better with the vegetables in this case, but it's not as like savory and salty as the recipe
04:03that I'm used to with like that soup packet, which makes me think maybe it needs a little bit more
04:07salt
04:07or beaumon or something. But what I'm going to do, I'm going to actually let this, you know,
04:11stay in the fridge overnight. I'll try it again tomorrow and see if that makes a difference.
04:14All right. We're on day two for this spinach dip here. I wanted to see if more time would make
04:20it
04:21taste different. You know, I like to give as much time as possible for like dips and things like
04:26that. Sorry, a Robin just like flew away from my bird feeder. I got distracted. I like to give dips,
04:32you know, extra time to sort of like for the flavors to come together. I wanted to see if like
04:37overnight would be better. And I did actually find some potato chips in my pantry. I'm not used to
04:42eating spinach dip with potato chips, but that's what it says to do. So I'm going to try it with
04:47a
04:47potato chip because I'm really curious. Not something I would normally put together, but it's fine.
04:55I'm more used to like vegetables and chunks of bread. So that's what I'm going for next.
05:01Got to do the full range, the full range taste test.
05:08Great with the carrot. I think, I think that extra time really helped. I really do. I got to do
05:13the
05:13bread chunk. Yeah. We always had like those, you know, those pumpernickel rounds, this big,
05:19big round loaves of bread and you just like tear it or you would make it into a bread bowl
05:23to serve
05:23the spinach dip from. Okay. One, one last taste test. You got to do this for overnight. The
05:31cookbook says can do ahead. This is, I would say more than four hours. Um, I think it's got to
05:37go
05:37overnight. I think I said yesterday it had a very fresh taste to it. I think that still stands. What
05:42this tastes like to me is a slightly fancier version of the spinach dip I'm used to. I love
05:48spinach dip. I'm not going to like throw shade at that one with the North soup packet. I think that's
05:53so delicious. This is sort of like elevated, like a slightly fancier, more elevated version of that.
05:57Anyway, we got to move on to the next recipe. You know, I am forever on the lookout for small
06:02batch
06:02recipes and I found one in this cookbook. It's baked eggs for two. This recipe starts with plain
06:07croutons. Do you think I was going to go out and buy plain croutons just to have a quarter of
06:12a cup
06:13that no, no, I had leftover bread. So I cut it into small cubes and let it dry. And like
06:18I toast it
06:18in my toaster oven. Voila. That is one quarter of a cup plain croutons. And I have to toss that
06:26together with a tablespoon of melted butter. Let that sink in there. Again, there's a robin at my
06:31feeder and they're robins are so much bigger than you think they are compared to like chickadees and
06:36stuff. Add the eggs. So I have two eggs here. I need to get some salt and pepper. It's not
06:45listed
06:46in the ingredients list. It's just kind of like incorporated into the instructions. Pinch of salt
06:50and pepper. Add cheese and ham. So I have a tablespoon of finely shredded Swiss cheese
06:56and two tablespoons of diced ham. That didn't take long. I'm actually going to attempt to bake this in
07:02my toaster oven because it's small. I like to use my toaster oven for small things whenever I can.
07:07I didn't really want to turn on my regular sized oven for something like this. Pour into custard
07:11cups or a one quart baking dish. I have this very cute little sort of mini casserole here that is
07:19green. My favorite color. So let's pour that on in. I'm preheating my toaster oven right now because
07:25it does have just like a regular bake setting on it. Gosh, you probably could even go a little smaller
07:31on this. It's not very big at all. I did butter this casserole dish before I poured the eggs in.
07:37To the toaster oven I go. Okay, so I have the temperature at 350. It says for 15 to 20.
07:44I'm
07:44going to do 15 and check on it. I ended up going the full 20 minutes on this. I think
07:56it needed it.
07:56So 20 minutes 350 toaster oven. Your mileage may vary. It was a little bit puffier right when it
08:02came out of the oven, but I had to take photographs. So it has fallen just a bit, but it
08:06smells very
08:06good. And I'm going to actually, it's still really hot too. One thing I was kind of surprised I didn't
08:13see in this recipe is like milk of some kind. Usually when you're doing some sort of egg bake like
08:18this, there's like milk or cream, but we'll see. Pretty good flavor. Decent, decent texture,
08:26even without the milk. I think I would still add a little bit. I'll drop some on the counter. We'll
08:29eat it later. This is pretty tasty. It's very simple, basic ingredients. You know, you don't
08:34have to use ham and Swiss. You can kind of like sub in what you want. I think this makes
08:38a really
08:38nice light lunch or even breakfast, brunch, that kind of thing. Yeah. And it didn't take that long.
08:44It wasn't very hard to put together. And it's a small batch recipe, which I love. My final recipe
08:48is going to be this artichoke mushroom casserole, which promises to be an elegant gourmet treat.
08:54I really love mushrooms and artichokes. So this one is definitely for me. I'm melting
08:59three tablespoons of butter in a skillet because I'm cutting the recipe in half.
09:19And to my melted butter, I'm going to add eight ounces of sliced mushrooms. And I need to let
09:24these cook in the butter for 10 minutes. Cooking these mushrooms. And you can see that, you know,
09:29some of the butter absorbed, they released a little liquid. They kind of started to cook down a little
09:33bit more. Actually need to, I turned the heat off and I need to remove these from the pan and
09:38reserve
09:38the liquid that's in there. So I'm just going to try to take those out the best I can. Set
09:44my
09:44mushrooms aside. And now I just have my pan with the butter and the liquid from the mushrooms.
09:51And to that, I need to add half a cup of sour cream. This is definitely making me think
09:56of the Smoky Mountain skillet beans I made a few videos back. Just, just the way the sauce is kind
10:03of made with sour cream in a very similar way. And to that, I'm supposed to add a pinch of
10:07dried
10:07parsley and half a teaspoon of that. I'm not going to measure it. Oh, well, I probably added a little
10:16more than half a teaspoon. I think it's probably going to need it though, because there's not a lot
10:20of other seasonings included in this recipe. I'm going to bring the heat back just on sort of a low
10:26temperature. And I need to mix this all together until it's nice and incorporated. I have a one
10:32quart casserole dish, a little corningware, and I've placed 14 ounces of canned artichoke
10:37hearts that I've drained. Uh, you're supposed to use plain and I could not find plain at my store
10:42the day that I was there. So these are slightly marinated. I did kind of rinse them a bit, but
10:48they do have some extra herbs and things on them. I'm supposed to put the mushrooms over those.
10:55I'm preheating my toaster oven right now to 350 degrees. So the sour cream sauce I just made,
11:00which by the way, I added a pinch of salt to it. I just, I just feel like it's going
11:04to need it.
11:04I'm supposed to put that sauce over everything. This is reminding me, there's a sandwich at
11:09Penn Station. Like if you know that sandwich chain, that's, it's like a hot artichoke and mushroom
11:16sandwich. Kind of reminds me of this. I'm going to spread that all over the top and top with bread
11:23crumbs. It doesn't give you an amount of bread crumbs. It just says bread crumbs. I'm using some
11:27panko bread crumbs that I have that I want to use up. There's no mention of butter. There's butter
11:34in the sauce, but there's no mention of like adding a little melted butter to the bread crumbs
11:38or dotting the top with butter. So I'm going to see how well it does without me doing that. You
11:44know, I love a little buttery bread crumb topping on a casserole. Well, there it is. Now I need
11:49to put this in the oven at 350 for about half an hour. Definitely smell the lean parents in
11:59there. That's like the very first thing. It is a very pleasant, warm, comforting kind
12:03of smell. Let's look in here. Let's get, let's get up close and personal. The crumbs did brown
12:09somewhat on the top. Probably dot this with butter. Get some mushroom. These artichoke hearts
12:18were already cut up. I might even cut them up a little bit more. Yeah. I have, I already
12:22have thoughts. I haven't tried it yet, but I do have thoughts. Hmm. Needs garlic. This tastes
12:28pretty good, but it needs garlic. I think garlic would go very well with both the artichokes and
12:33the mushrooms. Rather than just having the sauce on top, I would almost rather incorporate this,
12:37maybe like incorporate half of it into mushrooms and artichokes and then save the rest to go on
12:43top. I think it like needs to be together. You know, this is very layered, but you know,
12:52I love mushrooms and I love artichokes. So I think this is a very good side dish. I also think
12:56the
12:56three dishes I made today, they kind of go together, don't they? I could see this being
13:00sort of like a brunch or like have a friend over for lunch, that kind of thing. Like one other
13:06person
13:06have a nice gab, have this with your egg bake. And then, you know, your spinach chip as a starter
13:11and then just go buy dessert, go buy dessert at a bakery. Hmm. That was my best bite. I don't
13:17know
13:17what was different about that. You know, I think it was like a piece of artichoke came in contact
13:23with direct contact with this sour cream mixture. Yeah, I think it needs to be like mixed up a little
13:30bit before it's baked and maybe just have some of the sauce on top. But overall, I like this
13:34combination of ingredients. Out of Our League was published in 1978, although my copy is a reprint
13:41from 1994 and it comes to us from the Junior League of Greensboro, North Carolina. It is a community
13:47cookbook. Now, a community cookbook is a collection of recipes that have been submitted and compiled
13:53by people of a community. Usually it's like a social club, a church, a school. Sometimes it's a
13:59small town or a hospital even, you know, any kind of like community group of people. And they can be
14:05compiled, these recipes, and published as a book for a number of reasons. A lot of times these books
14:10are used as a fundraiser, but they can also be put together to commemorate something. Small towns,
14:16I think even my small hometown, had like 150th anniversary cookbook. So, you know, maybe it is
14:22also a fundraiser put together by like the Chamber of Commerce or something, but it is there to sort
14:27of commemorate an event. Now, a lot of times with like church cookbooks and things like that, church
14:32community cookbooks, those recipes tend not to be tested. People just kind of submit them and they get
14:36they get published in a book. These Junior League cookbooks, something I've noticed across different
14:42chapters, I guess. Usually the recipes are compiled over a longer period of time and it does say that
14:49they are tested. I think this one says something about they compiled recipes for over three years
14:54and tested them rigorously. So I think that is maybe one small difference. I would say for most
14:59community cookbooks, they don't do that. I want to give you a closer look at this cover because I love
15:04it. I love the color scheme. I believe that is like a chafing dish. I don't know. I'm going to
15:10say
15:10that's beef burgundy. That's I'm just making it up. I know it has mushrooms and chunks of something.
15:15Oh, it could be. Yeah, it could be beef burgundy. It could be something else. Nothing on the back.
15:21Just the orange, just the orange. We also we don't get food photographs in this book, but we do get
15:27some some illustrations and things. So at the beginning of each chapter, you get a little
15:31something. There's the meat chapter and vegetables. I like these. I think they look like nice like pen and
15:38kinds of drawings and they're printed in a dark green. And then over here, you'll notice you get
15:43some little drawings on the pages between recipes in the margins. Something else of note with community
15:50cookbooks. Sometimes they become very popular in specific towns or communities. And maybe they'll do
15:56an initial printing of a certain number. I think the first printing of this one was 7000. But they become
16:02so popular that people like later on actually want them or they want a new copy. So the first printing
16:09I said, yes, 7000 copies. And then the next year they printed 10,000 more. And then the year after
16:15that, 20,000 more, 30,000 more. Up until, you know, they did as of the printing of this 1994
16:23edition,
16:24they had done eight printings. And the printing number for this one was 36,000 copies. So quite a lot
16:32of these probably floating around there. I love community cookbooks because a lot of times people
16:37are submitting like their best stuff, maybe not their top secret recipes, but they want to make a
16:42good showing, right? They don't want people to like say, oh my gosh, her lemon pound cake was
16:47disgusting. Maybe you don't want to give away all your secrets, but you want something good. You want
16:52people to think your recipes and your cooking is good. So you can usually find some pretty decent things
16:58in here. And these recipes are usually a good reflection of maybe the region and the time frame
17:04that these were published in. That's something I like to keep an eye out for when I'm buying community
17:09cookbooks. There are so many of these types of cookbooks out there. I am never going to have all
17:13of them. You're never going to have all of them. That is part of the fun. They can be a
17:17little bit
17:18hard to track even. It's not like they're going through big publishers. I like to pick up community
17:22cookbooks when I'm traveling sometimes or when we lived in California. That was really fun
17:28because I could find some cookbooks from like a past time period, but the recipes that were compiled
17:34in, you know, within the book were very different than what I would have gotten here in Ohio, maybe.
17:40So that's kind of something that makes it an interesting way to sort of like track food trends
17:45and different things like that. They also make really good souvenirs if you're traveling and you have
17:49some space, like maybe if you're taking a road trip, maybe not a flight, but a road trip, you can
17:55pick up
17:55a few of these. The secondhand stores are usually full of them. This is interesting, I think. Much of
18:01the time in these types of cookbooks, you'll get the recipe and it'll say, you know, submitted by
18:06Mrs. Molly Smith or something and it'll give her like, you know, maybe where she works, where she's from
18:12or something like that. The individual recipes in this book, they are not attributed to individual
18:18people, but they do have a list at the beginning of the book. So it's, you know, it's just a
18:25list
18:25of names. It doesn't say which recipe or idea they contributed, which I think is kind of a shame.
18:30That's one of the things I usually like about these books is like you can, you can trace a recipe
18:33to
18:33a person. Now, one thing I do like is that almost all the recipes state whether you can make them
18:38ahead
18:39of time, whether you should make them ahead of time, whether you should serve them immediately. I think
18:43that is very helpful, especially if you're planning a party or something and you want to make a lot of
18:48the dishes ahead. Not that I agreed with what they said about the spinach dip necessarily. In this book,
18:54we also have a few special sections like this one, gifts from the kitchen. So gift worthy food items
19:01and keep the kids busy. So things that you can do with your kids, activities, how to make Play-Doh,
19:08how to make paper mache, bubbles, finger paints. This would be great in the summer when the kids
19:17are home from school. A crystal garden. I remember doing one of those. They have party suggestions in
19:22here. And there's also a series of menus according to what month it is, what occasions you might
19:28encounter. All kinds of different things. But to get to the recipes I tried today, my first recipe
19:34was for spinach dip. And I'll be truthful. That's the first recipe I chose. And that's really kind
19:40of what made me decide to go with this book. I really enjoy spinach dip. Usually I make it with
19:45mayonnaise and sour cream and that Knorr soup packet and spinach. This one, the ingredients were a little
19:51bit fresher, I guess. We use some fresh herbs. And it says that you can do this ahead. You have
19:56to.
19:56The flavor was just so much better the next day. I had some with my lunch today. This is now
20:01like two
20:02days after I made it. It was just delicious. And it didn't need anything else. I think the flavor is
20:08like a little bit fresher and brighter from the lemon juice. I think the brightness is that like
20:13little bit of citrus that you get in there. I thought it was going to be too much. But I
20:18think
20:18the flavor kind of like blends and mellows over a couple days. And it just kind of, it just kind
20:22of
20:23makes sense with everything else. It says to serve this with potato chips. I really liked this with
20:27carrot sticks. I thought it was good. It was like kind of a nice change of pace from like dill
20:31dip.
20:32This does have a little bit of dill weed in it, but it also has green onions and parsley.
20:37And then the spinach kind of comes in and it's the start of the show. Also great that you use
20:41frozen spinach with this. I try to keep frozen spinach in there in my freezer for occasions
20:47like this or to make like a hot artichoke and spinach dip. You know, it's just nice to have
20:51something on hand like that. So you can whip something up kind of quickly. My second recipe
20:55was baked eggs for two. This was pretty good, but I'm not going to say that it was like my
20:59absolute
20:59favorite baked eggs recipe. I've done an entire video on egg recipes actually a few years back
21:05that I had a ton of fun making it. So I will link it in the description down below in
21:09case you missed
21:09it. I thought it was really good and I came away with some new ideas on what to do with
21:13eggs. But
21:13anyway, baked eggs for two. There was no like milk or cream or anything in this recipe. I think it
21:19could
21:19have used a dash of that for just like maybe some added moisture, but it did give me sort of
21:24an idea
21:24of like, oh yes, I don't have to make a giant egg bag or egg casserole. I can do one
21:29that's very small,
21:30do it in a small casserole dish or a custard cup, just make it for one or two people. I
21:36think
21:36something like this, it makes a good breakfast prep. So you can maybe throw a few of these kinds
21:41of things together and then bake them off because it really only takes like 15-20 minutes. Or if you're
21:47having a brunch or like a light lunch for just two people, this would be a good main dish. Start
21:52with
21:52your spinach chip. I think the spinach chip would go well with this. And then my third recipe also,
21:58they kind of like, I didn't intend for this to be a menu, but I feel like all three of
22:01these dishes
22:01really do go together. One thing I didn't mention when I was tasting this, I really liked the toasty
22:07bread cubes in this. Usually when I've made sort of like an egg casserole, you just tear up, like sort
22:14of dry it out or like even fresh bread you can use. These, for this one, I actually did dry
22:20out the bread
22:20cubes in the oven and made croutons myself. I wasn't going to buy them for this small amount.
22:25And I think it made a big difference. The egg did absorb into the bread. Not completely. I kind of
22:31liked that change of texture. It kind of like broke up the sameness of everything. But then, you know,
22:36the Swiss cheese and the ham, really good compliment to the egg. Classic combination. I think you could put
22:42kind of whatever you want in this though. My final recipe was artichoke mushroom casserole. And this
22:47promised to be an elegant gourmet treat. And I think that statement is correct. I think the
22:52artichokes maybe make it gourmet. I don't know. It did need a little bit more seasoning though. I think
22:57garlic would have gone really well. Maybe garlic salt. So then you kind of solve the like non-salty
23:02problem. But I love mushrooms. I love artichokes. They were really good together. And then that creamy
23:08sauce was particularly nice with this. I don't love how it was layered. I followed the recipe and like
23:14what they said to do. I think I would just mix it. I think I would mix the artichokes and
23:19the
23:20mushrooms together. I would combine it with some of the sauce. I think the sauce like needs to touch
23:24those things. And then I would put some of the sauce on top. I would butter the breadcrumbs. You
23:29know, I love a toasty buttery breadcrumb topping. This had the breadcrumbs but no butter. So this was a
23:34really good one. Putting those two things together. Like I've had dishes with artichokes and mushrooms,
23:40but it's not something I usually cook at home. So I think that was a really good idea. It made
23:43me
23:44like think a little bit. I think it just needs a little bit of modification. Not anything too
23:49huge. Just a little bit more seasoning and just a change to how it is assembled. Do you have a
23:54favorite community cookbook in your collection? I'd love to hear about that. So please leave me a
23:58comment. I'd like to say a special thank you to my Patreon supporters. If you'd like to join us over
24:02there, I'll have a link in the description so that you can do that. Don't forget to look out for
24:06each other and take care of each other, and I'll see you in my next video. Bye!