Have you noticed that there are currently more of those Asian spam bloggers posting new articles on MyBloggers than the rest of us? Fortunately our little remnant clings to the rock of friendship and support, but we can't afford to get in a snit with anybody because then we'll be narrowing our circle.

I'm going through a stack of Home Cooking magazines (published by Women's Circle) that I bought at an auction maybe 20 years ago. Here are some recipes from July 1987:

Prize Winner Recipe of the Month:

Mixed Baked Beans

1 1/2 pounds ground chuck (or your choice of a leaner ground beef)
1/2 cup diced raw bacon
2 medium onions, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1/2 tsp prepared mustard
1/2 tsp catsup
1 can butter beans aka lima beans, drained
1 can pork and beans
1 can kidney beans, drained

Saute the bacon, onion, and green pepper until the vegetables are tender but not brown. Add the beef and brown. Drain grease and add remaining ingredients. Refrigerate several hours. Place beans in a 2-quart casserole dish (or the crock pot) and bake at 325 degrees for one hour or until bubbly.

Comments: good heavens, but that seems like a lot of bacon, I would use about 1/4 cup at the most, but that's just me. The woman who submitted this recipe lived in Illinois, and maybe that's how they do things there, or maybe it was because it was 1987. Regardless of how much you start with, I think I would drain off some of the bacon grease before I browned the beef because then you'd have bacon grease flavored with onion and green pepper to use for seasoning. The mixed bacon/beef grease would have water in it, and not be worth keeping. What I do with mine is pour it into a paper cup and freeze it until trash day, or sometimes I pour it over bread to give to the fox. I also wonder if that is enough mustard and catsup to make a difference in the flavor.

Gas Grill Chicken Bake

3 pound chicken fryer, cut up
8 carrots, sliced lengthwise
1 large onion, chopped coarsely
4 stalks celery, sliced
8 or more potatoes, with skins
2 cloves whole garlic
2 bay leaves
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp rosemary
3/4 cup dry white wine
Salt and pepper

Make a big foil pocket and lay chicken on foil. Place vegetables on top and around chicken. Sprinkle spices over the top and pour on the white wine and season with salt and pepper. Seal up the foil ends. Grill on gas grill over medium heat for 15 minutes, then on low heat for 45 minutes. A delicious meal with no messy cleanups.

Comments: I don't have a gas grill, so don't have standing to say much, but I think since it's all sealed up like that you could put some sour cream in there. And/or since bacon is such a big deal these days, some diced raw bacon laid on top of the breast of the chicken to give it some moistness and flavor.

Kool Aid Punch

2 packages Cherry Kool Aid
2 packages Raspberry Kool Aid
1 (16 oz) can pineapple juice
1 (12 oz) can frozen lemonade concentrate
3 to 6 quarts water (to taste)
1 quart 7-Up or gingerale

Combine all ingredients but the 7-Up and refrigerate. Just before serving add it to the punch and pour over ice in glasses.

Comments: this sounds pretty good, and makes me think of backyard weddings. Back in the 1970s the big rage was to float scoops of sherbet in the punch bowl when you served the punch. Years later I read about freezing fruit or even washed flowers in ice and floating them in the bowl (probably a Martha Stewart thing). I had a crazy aunt who made a special punch from frozen lemonade and grape juice concentrates, and we don't know what else. Endless family debates on this subject have not come up with any consensus as to the recipe.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream Topping
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
6 tablespoons cold water
5 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Bring the sugar, corn syrup, and water to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes to make a syrup. Cool. Slowly blend this into the peanut butter until smooth and stir in the vanilla. Serve over ice cream.

Comment: I would try drizzling a little chocolate syrup on top of this topping for a change of pace.

Sunflower Seed Cookies

Makes 9 dozen.

1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 cups quick (not instant) rolled oats
1 cup sunflower seeds

Cream together the first 5 ingredients. Add the next 3 ingredients and mix. Add the next 4 ingredients and blend well. Mix in sunflower seeds. From in long rolls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill. Slice 1/4 inch thick and place on ungreased cookie sheets to bake about 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Comments: My mother-in-law used to make these all the time before she decided to go on a gluten free diet and everyone liked them a lot. I got the exact same recipe from Stone Buhr mills, so that woman in Wash State who sent this in to Home Cooking must have plagiarized it.

Okay, this is enough of trip down memory lane, not that I remember much about what I was cooking in the 1980s.

Stay cool out there, which reminds me that in 1987 I don't think everyone was abusing the word 'cool' or sometimes written as 'kewl' as much as they do now. Jeez, I hate that just as much as I hate the abuse of the word 'awesome.'

"Cool ... Awesome" was the big expression for drugged-out weak-minded folks sometime in the early 1980s. I can remember a team in our bowling league around then that we called the Cool and Awesome team because that's all they ever said when one of their members got a strike or spare. I'm not saying all these soccer mom yuppies currently abusing those words are on drugs, just saying it doesn't speak well for their thought processes.

Just like clothing styles, when it comes to inanity, what goes around comes around. Hah! How's that for a worn out phrase?