A friend points me to Batter Blaster, or pancake batter in a can. You must watch the demo video. I have to admit that when I first heard the jingle, I wondered if this might be a parody by the Apple Sisters, but no, it's sincere. Jump to the Press page: They were on "Regis and Kelly"! (But the video is no longer available. I can't be too sorry; about all I can say in praise of "Regis and Kelly" is that it isn't "Regis and Kathie Lee.")
According to the article that accompanies the now-defunct video, the product is available in the Bay Area, at high-end stores and at Costco. Apparently it was hard to get startup funding, though; the article quotes inventor Sean O'Connor as saying "Try telling someone, 'I have this idea. We're going to put pancakes in a can,' and not have them laugh you out of the room." I would imagine.
OK, the batter is USDA Certified Organic--that's something. The can is entirely recyclable. And apparently the propellant is not suitable for huffing. But this product is clearly targeted at the incompetence market. The article acknowledges this, implying that the product might be a hard sell for people who are capable of making their own pancake batter, and noting the price as an obstacle ($4.99-$5.99 per can). O'Connor counters this by comparing the product to pre-bagged salad, which certainly supports his vision from a marketing perspective but doesn't really refute what the article dubs "its contribution to laziness in American kitchens." My initial thought was, I firmly believe that if you are an otherwise healthy and moderately intelligent adult and you find that making pancake batter is beyond your capabilities, you are just not trying. O'Connor notes that the canned batter would be more suitable for singles and empty-nesters. But for that price you could probably go to a diner.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
More Fun With Velveeta
Ask and ye shall receive: I was wondering what I could quickly find to write about today, and in the mail I found a little “Simple Shortcuts” booklet from the Kraft Food & Family people. Most of the recipes were probably OK to eat and could only be faulted for their overreliance on processed foods (Kraft brands, of course), but this one seems pretty alarming. Oh, it looks harmless enough:
What could possibly go wrong?
Velveeta plus spaghetti sauce. Sure, uh, what? Inasmuch as Velveeta can be considered cheese—and I am not saying that it can, just to be perfectly clear—it does not seem like the kind of cheese that goes with spaghetti sauce. I can grudgingly see a role for it with salsa and tortilla chips, but with marinara and pasta? Uh, no.
Unless the spaghetti sauce doesn’t actually have any flavor beyond tomato, which is true of some commercial sauces. Maybe that’s what they’re going for. I was a little surprised to see no brand being touted here; surely Kraft owns a spaghetti sauce brand? There are other recipes in the booklet that call for similarly nameless sauce, which probably rules out the idea that the recipe creators just decided none of the house flavors really were suited to the recipe.
The nutrition information for all recipes is listed in the back of the booklet. This recipe has 520 calories per serving, 14 grams of fat (7 g saturated), 100 mg of cholesterol, 1,000 mg of sodium, 55 g of carbohydrate, 3 g of fiber, 11 g of sugars and 40 g of protein. Which to me looks like it has too much of everything but fiber. Not too surprising; I’m pretty sure the U.S. RDA of Velveeta is zero.
Cheesy Chicken Italiano
3 cups rotini pasta (1/2 lb.)
4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1 lb.)
1 jar (14 oz.) spaghetti sauce
6 oz. Velveeta, cubed
COOK pasta. HEAT a large skillet sprayed with cooking spray over medium-high heat. ADD chicken; cook for 2 min. on each side. ADD sauce; cover and simmer over low heat for 10 min. or until chicken is cooked [165° F]. ADD Velveeta; stir until melted. TOP pasta with chicken and sauce. SERVES 4.
Turn this dish into dinner just by adding cooked green beans.
From Kraft Food & Family Simple Shortcuts Fall 2008
What could possibly go wrong?
Velveeta plus spaghetti sauce. Sure, uh, what? Inasmuch as Velveeta can be considered cheese—and I am not saying that it can, just to be perfectly clear—it does not seem like the kind of cheese that goes with spaghetti sauce. I can grudgingly see a role for it with salsa and tortilla chips, but with marinara and pasta? Uh, no.
Unless the spaghetti sauce doesn’t actually have any flavor beyond tomato, which is true of some commercial sauces. Maybe that’s what they’re going for. I was a little surprised to see no brand being touted here; surely Kraft owns a spaghetti sauce brand? There are other recipes in the booklet that call for similarly nameless sauce, which probably rules out the idea that the recipe creators just decided none of the house flavors really were suited to the recipe.
The nutrition information for all recipes is listed in the back of the booklet. This recipe has 520 calories per serving, 14 grams of fat (7 g saturated), 100 mg of cholesterol, 1,000 mg of sodium, 55 g of carbohydrate, 3 g of fiber, 11 g of sugars and 40 g of protein. Which to me looks like it has too much of everything but fiber. Not too surprising; I’m pretty sure the U.S. RDA of Velveeta is zero.
Cheesy Chicken Italiano
3 cups rotini pasta (1/2 lb.)
4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1 lb.)
1 jar (14 oz.) spaghetti sauce
6 oz. Velveeta, cubed
COOK pasta. HEAT a large skillet sprayed with cooking spray over medium-high heat. ADD chicken; cook for 2 min. on each side. ADD sauce; cover and simmer over low heat for 10 min. or until chicken is cooked [165° F]. ADD Velveeta; stir until melted. TOP pasta with chicken and sauce. SERVES 4.
Turn this dish into dinner just by adding cooked green beans.
From Kraft Food & Family Simple Shortcuts Fall 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Short takes for the holiday
A few quick thoughts as I catch up on other things:
Twinkie, Deconstructed
I'm partway through a fascinating book called Twinkie, Deconstructed. The author traces the origins of the ingredients in processed food, working from the ingredient list on a package of Twinkies. You will never think the same way about cornstarch again. Recommended reading.
Food Cellar
Yesterday I visited a new upscale supermarket in the Long Island City neighborhood, Food Cellar, an offshoot of the Amish Market chain. The store is gorgeous--spacious, well-lit, and not crowded. I cannot stress enough how exceptional that is in New York City, where most grocery chains haphazardly cram maximum product into minimum space and shopping at the Whole Foods in Union Square is practically a combat sport. Food Cellar is clearly aiming for the new population of the gentrifying neighborhood, people who would otherwise be taking the subway to one of the Manhattan Whole Foods locations or ordering from Fresh Direct. There really don't seem to be other supermarkets in the immediate neighborhood, even mainstream ones like FoodTown and Associated, though if you head just a few subway stops east into my neighborhood you can find several of those. For me Food Cellar represents an opportunity to get organic or humanely raised meats without having to schlep into Manhattan and change trains, and if I want any of the frozen foods I can probably get them home without melting. I also wonder how much more crowded it will get after the holiday weekend; New York seems to empty out for Labor Day, so I need to reserve judgment. But Food Cellar has a lot more space for the masses than pretty much any other food store I've seen in the city.
Paton Oswalt on Black Angus
I saw a variation of this bit on Oswalt's "Comedy Central Presents" special recently; be warned that there is a fair bit of offensive and adult language in this clip. He certainly has a point; some of these chains are pushing food in quantities that go beyond appetizing to frightening.
Twinkie, Deconstructed
I'm partway through a fascinating book called Twinkie, Deconstructed. The author traces the origins of the ingredients in processed food, working from the ingredient list on a package of Twinkies. You will never think the same way about cornstarch again. Recommended reading.
Food Cellar
Yesterday I visited a new upscale supermarket in the Long Island City neighborhood, Food Cellar, an offshoot of the Amish Market chain. The store is gorgeous--spacious, well-lit, and not crowded. I cannot stress enough how exceptional that is in New York City, where most grocery chains haphazardly cram maximum product into minimum space and shopping at the Whole Foods in Union Square is practically a combat sport. Food Cellar is clearly aiming for the new population of the gentrifying neighborhood, people who would otherwise be taking the subway to one of the Manhattan Whole Foods locations or ordering from Fresh Direct. There really don't seem to be other supermarkets in the immediate neighborhood, even mainstream ones like FoodTown and Associated, though if you head just a few subway stops east into my neighborhood you can find several of those. For me Food Cellar represents an opportunity to get organic or humanely raised meats without having to schlep into Manhattan and change trains, and if I want any of the frozen foods I can probably get them home without melting. I also wonder how much more crowded it will get after the holiday weekend; New York seems to empty out for Labor Day, so I need to reserve judgment. But Food Cellar has a lot more space for the masses than pretty much any other food store I've seen in the city.
Paton Oswalt on Black Angus
I saw a variation of this bit on Oswalt's "Comedy Central Presents" special recently; be warned that there is a fair bit of offensive and adult language in this clip. He certainly has a point; some of these chains are pushing food in quantities that go beyond appetizing to frightening.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Sweet, sweet cauliflower
Once again, I must apologize for protracted absence and reassure you that, as Granny Weatherwax would insist, I aten’t dead. I have just been doing other things. You can accuse me of having my priorities out of whack.
But you cannot accuse me of suggesting that you could pour Coca-Cola over cauliflower and call it food. That crime is ascribable to the editors of Consumer Guide, who in their 1984 More Favorite Brand Name Recipes Cookbook offer this among other less sinister recommendations for working brand-name foodstuffs into your cooking. Sadly, the book does not have many photos, just a few more presentable concoctions in a center-pages insert; I regret this because I would really like to know what this cauliflower mess looks like when ready to serve, but I am not about to waste a perfectly good head of cauliflower to find out for myself.
I’m also utterly mystified about what makes it Japanese. And for that matter I have my doubts about its “pickled” status; to me, the combination of about a cup of sugar and cola with 3/8 of a cup of vinegar and half a tablespoon of salt seems more likely to result in syrup than brine. Perhaps “candied cauliflower” didn’t test well with audiences.
Most of the other recipes in the book are less bizarre than the combination of Coke and cauliflower, but they still include a lot of stretches to include brand-name ingredients where other, less processed foods would probably do just as well or even better. A pork and cheese casserole calls for a particular brand of bleu cheese crumbles, but I’m pretty sure you could substitute whatever kind you had handy. “Chinese Skillet Dinner” lists only one brand-name ingredient, Premium Saltines, half of which are crumbled and mixed in with a combination of butter, celery, scallions, chicken and rice soup, chicken, frozen broccoli, lemon juice and soy sauce; the other half are thinly sliced (yeah, right) and used to scoop up the mixture. Many of the recipes make this halfhearted effort at brand loyalty. Perhaps the editors of Consumer Guide realized what a joke this all was.
The dessert chapters look comparatively good, largely because most of the brand-name ingredients required there are things like Pillsbury flour, Hershey’s chocolate chips and Libby’s canned pumpkin—items that many cooks would already use, or that are easily replaced with better-quality offerings like Ghirardelli. But even in these sections some weird items appear: Superose Liquid Fructose, Butter Buds, Sweet & Low, Dr. Pepper. Significant effort and expense went into producing a book of recipes that would have been far better in the aggregate if readers had been advised to turn away from processed mixes and substitutes and just cook with real food.
Japanese Pickled Cauliflower
1 medium sized head of cauliflower
1 green pepper
½ cup very thinly sliced celery
¾ cup Coca-Cola
6 tablespoons wine vinegar or white vinegar
¼ cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
Break off each floweret in cauliflower, wash and drain. Wash and remove seeds from green pepper; cut into thin 2-inch strips. In large bowl, combine cauliflower and green pepper. Cover with boiling water; let stand 2 minutes; drain thoroughly. Add celery. In small pan, heat Coca-Cola with remaining ingredients. Pour over vegetables. Toss lightly with a fork, and pack into a 1-quart glass jar. Push down lightly so liquid covers vegetables. Cover and chill overnight. This keeps in the refrigerator for several days.
Makes about 1 quart
From More Favorite Brand Name Recipes Cookbook, by the Editors of Consumer Guide. Skokie, Ill.: Publications International Ltd., 1984.
But you cannot accuse me of suggesting that you could pour Coca-Cola over cauliflower and call it food. That crime is ascribable to the editors of Consumer Guide, who in their 1984 More Favorite Brand Name Recipes Cookbook offer this among other less sinister recommendations for working brand-name foodstuffs into your cooking. Sadly, the book does not have many photos, just a few more presentable concoctions in a center-pages insert; I regret this because I would really like to know what this cauliflower mess looks like when ready to serve, but I am not about to waste a perfectly good head of cauliflower to find out for myself.
I’m also utterly mystified about what makes it Japanese. And for that matter I have my doubts about its “pickled” status; to me, the combination of about a cup of sugar and cola with 3/8 of a cup of vinegar and half a tablespoon of salt seems more likely to result in syrup than brine. Perhaps “candied cauliflower” didn’t test well with audiences.
Most of the other recipes in the book are less bizarre than the combination of Coke and cauliflower, but they still include a lot of stretches to include brand-name ingredients where other, less processed foods would probably do just as well or even better. A pork and cheese casserole calls for a particular brand of bleu cheese crumbles, but I’m pretty sure you could substitute whatever kind you had handy. “Chinese Skillet Dinner” lists only one brand-name ingredient, Premium Saltines, half of which are crumbled and mixed in with a combination of butter, celery, scallions, chicken and rice soup, chicken, frozen broccoli, lemon juice and soy sauce; the other half are thinly sliced (yeah, right) and used to scoop up the mixture. Many of the recipes make this halfhearted effort at brand loyalty. Perhaps the editors of Consumer Guide realized what a joke this all was.
The dessert chapters look comparatively good, largely because most of the brand-name ingredients required there are things like Pillsbury flour, Hershey’s chocolate chips and Libby’s canned pumpkin—items that many cooks would already use, or that are easily replaced with better-quality offerings like Ghirardelli. But even in these sections some weird items appear: Superose Liquid Fructose, Butter Buds, Sweet & Low, Dr. Pepper. Significant effort and expense went into producing a book of recipes that would have been far better in the aggregate if readers had been advised to turn away from processed mixes and substitutes and just cook with real food.
Japanese Pickled Cauliflower
1 medium sized head of cauliflower
1 green pepper
½ cup very thinly sliced celery
¾ cup Coca-Cola
6 tablespoons wine vinegar or white vinegar
¼ cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
Break off each floweret in cauliflower, wash and drain. Wash and remove seeds from green pepper; cut into thin 2-inch strips. In large bowl, combine cauliflower and green pepper. Cover with boiling water; let stand 2 minutes; drain thoroughly. Add celery. In small pan, heat Coca-Cola with remaining ingredients. Pour over vegetables. Toss lightly with a fork, and pack into a 1-quart glass jar. Push down lightly so liquid covers vegetables. Cover and chill overnight. This keeps in the refrigerator for several days.
Makes about 1 quart
From More Favorite Brand Name Recipes Cookbook, by the Editors of Consumer Guide. Skokie, Ill.: Publications International Ltd., 1984.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Completely crackers
I've been neglectful of the blog because I've been busy with work. NOT because there's any dearth of material, oh no. Two quick notes:
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Crackers
How many times have you said, "I like Cheez-Its, but they taste too much like actual cheese, and they're not bright enough to read by at night. What can I do?" Your troubles are over with the introduction of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Crackers. Yes, really.
Is Cereal Supposed to Be Bad for You?
I spotted this at a local grocery store and could hardly believe it: Chocolate Chex. Next to it on the shelf was Strawberry Chex. No. No, no, no. Chex is supposed to be a decent cereal, a not-so-sweet cereal. It's supposed to be one of the few mainstream brands on the cereal aisle that might be a little bit good for you. Turning it into candy is just wrong.
OK, I'm going to go eat some peaches. I'll write more soon.
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Crackers
How many times have you said, "I like Cheez-Its, but they taste too much like actual cheese, and they're not bright enough to read by at night. What can I do?" Your troubles are over with the introduction of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Crackers. Yes, really.
Is Cereal Supposed to Be Bad for You?
I spotted this at a local grocery store and could hardly believe it: Chocolate Chex. Next to it on the shelf was Strawberry Chex. No. No, no, no. Chex is supposed to be a decent cereal, a not-so-sweet cereal. It's supposed to be one of the few mainstream brands on the cereal aisle that might be a little bit good for you. Turning it into candy is just wrong.
OK, I'm going to go eat some peaches. I'll write more soon.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Fresh Tomato Shortcake: Bisquick Ick
I’ve been awfully busy of late, which means I’ve been sitting on a gold mine: A cookbook titled More Favorite Name Brand recipes Cookbook and a 1967 Bisquick cookbook. I’m leading off with Bisquick.
Ah, Bisquick. The convenience food that frees you from the trouble of finding and measuring actual ingredients when you want to make biscuits or breads. I hadn’t thought that measuring flour and leavening was especially difficult, but apparently there has long been a demand for pre-mixed ingredients, standardized, shelf-stable, safe from the annoyingly delicious flavor of dairy fresh butter, replete with partially hydrogenated oils. I know our family had a box of the stuff on the shelf for a while; kind of a long while, actually, as I think my mom was quick to realize that she could do a lot better herself when she chose to. But Bisquick is still available, in Original; Heart Smart; Bisquick Complete, enabling you to make biscuits in the flavors Buttermilk, Cheese-Garlic, Honey-Butter and Three Cheese; and now in a “Shake and Pour” jug to which you add water so you can make pancakes. The Web site suggests this enables you to make pancakes for the family in minutes, but doesn’t bother to point out that the time-consuming part of making pancakes is cooking them.
But Bisquick is so much more than pancakes. It’s muffins, dumplings, hamburger pancake roll-ups, meatball pie, chicken fricassee, and country-fried steak. All these and more can be found in So Quick With New Bisquick, a 1967 recipe book that helps home cooks work from breakfast to dessert with the box of lumpy powder. I’ll be fair: Lots of the recipes in the booklet are innocuous, the basics of short dough and casserole thickener and dessert pastry. They might be better if made from scratch—they would certainly be less likely to contain trans fats—but they’re probably not that bad made with the mix. But 1960s color photography and food design seldom disappoints me for long, and I soon found a glorious image of the Fresh Tomato Shortcake.
I’ve given the recipe below, but I admit the description of the ingredients is more appealing than the picture. Far more scary recipes in the book include Ring Around Tuna (canned tuna, cheddar cheese and biscuit dough), Batter Franks (deep fried in a Bisquick batter), and Oriental Meat Pie, which combines ground beef, chopped onion, cream of mushroom soup, milk, soy sauce, salt, olives, parsley and Bisquick biscuit dough in a casserole. I think the soy sauce is supposed to be what makes it “Oriental”; but seriously, that’s quite a stretch.
Here’s the tuna ring:
Upsetting, isn’t it?
And here’s the Chicken Fricassee and Dumplings:
Which doesn’t look quite as awful but is rather pale. There’s a sauce that says, mmm, flour and milk; white, white goodness.
The booklet is full of breathless, cheerful prose exhorting the reliability and speed of Bisquick, and promising that you’ll become the most popular hostess and a well-loved mom if you spoon up Bisquick delicacies from dawn to dusk. One section titled “Remember Gramma’s?” promises you traditional foods like pancakes, chicken and dumplings, and fruit cobbler, in less time, all thanks to the magic of Bisquick. Gramma probably didn’t have the heart to tell readers that making cobbler from scratch doesn’t add more than about five minutes to the effort.
Fresh Tomato Shortcake
Bacon, tomato and cheese flavors—good with lettuce wedges.
Prepare Cheese Sauce (below). Keep sauce hot over hot water. Prepare Shortcakes from Basic Recipe (below), except—omit sugar. Cut 3 tomatoes into thin slices. Fry 6 slices of bacon until crisp; drain on paper towels. Split shortcakes crosswise; spread butter on halves. Place tomato slices between layers and on top of each shortcake. Spoon Cheese Sauce over shortcakes and garnish each with a bacon slice. 6 servings.
Cheese Sauce
3 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. New Bisquick
¼ tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
¼ tsp. dry mustard
1/8 tsp. ground thyme
1 ½ cups milk
1 ½ cups shredded process sharp Cheddar cheese
Melt butter over low heat in saucepan. Blend in Bisquick and seasonings. Cook over low heat, stirring until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in cheese. Cook and stir over low heat until cheese melts. Makes about 2 cups.
Basic Recipe for Shortcake
2 1/3 cups New Bisquick
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
½ cup milk*
Heat oven to 450 degrees. Mix all ingredients with fork to a soft dough. Knead 8 to 10 times on lightly floured cloth-covered board. roll dough ½ inch thick. Cut with 3-inch floured cutter. Bake on ungreased baking sheet about 10 minutes. Split warm shortcakes.
* If desired, omit butter and add 2/3 cup light cream.
So Quick With New Bisquick: A Betty Crocker Cookbook for Breads, Main Dishes, Desserts. General Mills. New York: Golden Press, 1967.
Ah, Bisquick. The convenience food that frees you from the trouble of finding and measuring actual ingredients when you want to make biscuits or breads. I hadn’t thought that measuring flour and leavening was especially difficult, but apparently there has long been a demand for pre-mixed ingredients, standardized, shelf-stable, safe from the annoyingly delicious flavor of dairy fresh butter, replete with partially hydrogenated oils. I know our family had a box of the stuff on the shelf for a while; kind of a long while, actually, as I think my mom was quick to realize that she could do a lot better herself when she chose to. But Bisquick is still available, in Original; Heart Smart; Bisquick Complete, enabling you to make biscuits in the flavors Buttermilk, Cheese-Garlic, Honey-Butter and Three Cheese; and now in a “Shake and Pour” jug to which you add water so you can make pancakes. The Web site suggests this enables you to make pancakes for the family in minutes, but doesn’t bother to point out that the time-consuming part of making pancakes is cooking them.
But Bisquick is so much more than pancakes. It’s muffins, dumplings, hamburger pancake roll-ups, meatball pie, chicken fricassee, and country-fried steak. All these and more can be found in So Quick With New Bisquick, a 1967 recipe book that helps home cooks work from breakfast to dessert with the box of lumpy powder. I’ll be fair: Lots of the recipes in the booklet are innocuous, the basics of short dough and casserole thickener and dessert pastry. They might be better if made from scratch—they would certainly be less likely to contain trans fats—but they’re probably not that bad made with the mix. But 1960s color photography and food design seldom disappoints me for long, and I soon found a glorious image of the Fresh Tomato Shortcake.
I’ve given the recipe below, but I admit the description of the ingredients is more appealing than the picture. Far more scary recipes in the book include Ring Around Tuna (canned tuna, cheddar cheese and biscuit dough), Batter Franks (deep fried in a Bisquick batter), and Oriental Meat Pie, which combines ground beef, chopped onion, cream of mushroom soup, milk, soy sauce, salt, olives, parsley and Bisquick biscuit dough in a casserole. I think the soy sauce is supposed to be what makes it “Oriental”; but seriously, that’s quite a stretch.
Here’s the tuna ring:
Upsetting, isn’t it?
And here’s the Chicken Fricassee and Dumplings:
Which doesn’t look quite as awful but is rather pale. There’s a sauce that says, mmm, flour and milk; white, white goodness.
The booklet is full of breathless, cheerful prose exhorting the reliability and speed of Bisquick, and promising that you’ll become the most popular hostess and a well-loved mom if you spoon up Bisquick delicacies from dawn to dusk. One section titled “Remember Gramma’s?” promises you traditional foods like pancakes, chicken and dumplings, and fruit cobbler, in less time, all thanks to the magic of Bisquick. Gramma probably didn’t have the heart to tell readers that making cobbler from scratch doesn’t add more than about five minutes to the effort.
Fresh Tomato Shortcake
Bacon, tomato and cheese flavors—good with lettuce wedges.
Prepare Cheese Sauce (below). Keep sauce hot over hot water. Prepare Shortcakes from Basic Recipe (below), except—omit sugar. Cut 3 tomatoes into thin slices. Fry 6 slices of bacon until crisp; drain on paper towels. Split shortcakes crosswise; spread butter on halves. Place tomato slices between layers and on top of each shortcake. Spoon Cheese Sauce over shortcakes and garnish each with a bacon slice. 6 servings.
Cheese Sauce
3 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. New Bisquick
¼ tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
¼ tsp. dry mustard
1/8 tsp. ground thyme
1 ½ cups milk
1 ½ cups shredded process sharp Cheddar cheese
Melt butter over low heat in saucepan. Blend in Bisquick and seasonings. Cook over low heat, stirring until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in cheese. Cook and stir over low heat until cheese melts. Makes about 2 cups.
Basic Recipe for Shortcake
2 1/3 cups New Bisquick
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
½ cup milk*
Heat oven to 450 degrees. Mix all ingredients with fork to a soft dough. Knead 8 to 10 times on lightly floured cloth-covered board. roll dough ½ inch thick. Cut with 3-inch floured cutter. Bake on ungreased baking sheet about 10 minutes. Split warm shortcakes.
* If desired, omit butter and add 2/3 cup light cream.
So Quick With New Bisquick: A Betty Crocker Cookbook for Breads, Main Dishes, Desserts. General Mills. New York: Golden Press, 1967.
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