Faithful Shmaithful

This week I'm cooking from the 50th Anniversary edition of Peg Bracken's I Hate To Cook Book. The book was widely used by cooks in the 1960s and 1970s.


You can't go wrong with a recipe titled "Old Faithful," can you? The title of the recipe on page 16 led me to believe that the recipe would be stupendous. It makes me think of national parks, gushing water, all things beautiful in nature. And it makes me think of mashed potatoes, mom's beans, and Oreo cookies: my personal comfort food.

Old Faithful lists a handful of ingredients. I added to the list because I'm just like that - and it looked like it could use a little help. I mean a casserole of pork chops, rice, tomato, green pepper, chicken broth, marjoram and thyme might sound good to you. To me it sounded like a casserole in need of flavor.

I added some chopped garlic and some bottled roasted red peppers. Technically, roasted yellow peppers, but neverthless, keeping in the spirit of the book, they were bottled. I did not roast them myself on my stovetop. I used Minute Rice in place of uncooked rice.

I browned the chops and set them on top of the rice in the casserole. The same casserole I made the Chicken and Artichokes in. I was praying for something better.

The vegetables I chopped and poured over top. The roasted pepper jar was a pain to open, so I ended up running hot water on it. That did the trick.

I measured the chicken broth, spices, and poured over. then it was covered, and went into the oven.

The recipe calls for a full hour of cooking. I kind of halved the recipe - using only one tomato instead of two for example, but with the addition of Minute Rice, I figured it wouldn't take as long to cook.

Boy, am I glad I only let this go for a half hour. The recipe calls for a full hour. If I would have waited the full hour, I can't imagine how dried out the chops would have been. I like the addition of chopped garlic. The roasted peppers seemed to make no difference at all. The rice was very tasty.

This is another one of those home cooking meals that are reliable (hence "faithful?") but nothing I'd trot out for guests. I'm not sure Ill give it another run through my kitchen either. Old Faithful? Nah -Old Boring is more like it.