February Thrifty - Week 2 #2 ~ Junior League, St. John Style and Vintage Salads

At Your Service - Southern Recipes, Places & Traditions, published in 2001. All recipes were compiled by the Junior League of Gwinnett and North Fulton counties in Georgia. Next to a few of the selections are entertaining ideas, wine suggestions and a fun fact or two about the dish.
As always appetizers are first up with a few Brie choices, salsas, dips and beverages (both with and without alcohol), followed by breads & breakfast including casseroles, stratas and quiches. Continuing on there are soups (chowder, chili & stew), salads and entrées ~ beef, lamb, pork, seafood and chicken. Coincidentally or not, I found the SAME chicken enchilada recipe in this book that I make often from ANOTHER Junior League book .

Side dishes are mostly vegetable options, a relish or two and even a baked fruit salsa. The desserts kick it off with cheesecake, then delve into brownies, cookies, cakes, and trifles - including a Punchbowl Cake: cake mix, pudding mix, whipped topping, nuts, cherry pie filling and banana all layered in - you guessed it - a punchbowl. The last chapter offers up menu suggestions and serving ideas. 

St. John's Style - Islander's Favorite Recipes, published in 1994.  All the recipes were solicited from the residents of St. John Virgin Islands and are simple yet elegant, reflecting the breezy life style of the island. Due to limited choices available - specialty items are rarely available for purchase - and the infamous five stop shopping (one shopping trip could require five stops to find the ingredients for a single meal) many of the dishes contain just a handful of ingredients.

We start with appetizers ~ dips, cheese balls, pates, a mousse or two, soufflés, fondue and a few Brie options ~ while the soup & salad chapter contains nary a congealed salad, it does have many pasta, fruit and vegetable choices, including a Rolex salad (similar to a club salad but with Roquefort dressing) and a Daiquiri salad. Next up are breakfast  & breads, casseroles and sides, with vegetable and rice dishes.

The meat section has recipes for beef, veal, pork and lamb, while the poultry chapter has a delectable sounding pecan crusted chicken breast, in addition to options for turkey and Cornish game hens. As befitting an island cookbook, the seafood portion features many dishes utilizing the local fare of crab, scallops, shrimp, mahi mahi, swordfish and grouper. The desserts range from light sorbets to cookies, brownies, parfaits, plus cakes and pies ~ in fact there are TWO recipes for a Margarita pie as well as one for a Daiquiri pie.

Favorite Recipes of America - Salads ~ including Appetizers, published in 1968. Right out the gate we begin with Salad Dressings, there are a few vintage sauces rarely found in today's cookbooks: Green Goddess and a Condensed Milk dressing. I have made a red potato salad with a green goddess dressing versus the usual mayo and it was divine. In Seafood and Fruit Salads, suggestions for fruit combinations and special tips/hints begin this chapter which contains an abomination titled Gumdrop Salad - GUMDROPS, mini marshmallows and maraschino cherries are involved.

Cleansing our palate, Congealed Salads is one of several sections containing the word congealed and also gives hints on unmolding your masterpiece. Vegetable Salads offers bean salad ideas, coleslaw and an Amish Dandelion Salad. Up next is our second congealed option, this time for Congealed Vegetable Salads with an appearance of Perfection Salad and Aspic. Mixed Fruit and Vegetable Salads with a few coleslaw & fruit dishes is next, followed by Meat & Poultry Salads featuring a Beef Burger Loaf (congealed) and Pressed Chicken.

Seafood Salads include the ever popular West Indies salad, with Cereal & Pasta Salads giving a myriad of macaroni and rice options. Egg & Cheese Salads contains 18 Egg Salad recipes with just a mere two for deviled eggs. In Party & Dessert Salads, there is Ambrosia, Egg Nog Salad and The FLAMING Christmas Candle Salad which is horribly wrong but also amazing! Basically, mix together cream cheese with pineapple juice, then on lettuce leaves (arranged artfully on a plate) place  1-2 pineapple rings, add a dollop of the cream cheese mixture to the leaf inside the pineapple ring, then place a banana  (cut flat on the bottom side) on top of the cream cheese mixture (the pineapple rings are the anchor). To the top of the banana add another dollop of the cream cheese mixture then place a sugar cube (dipped in lemon extract) on top the cream cheese - then LIGHT the sugar cube.

Sadly the remaining recipes are not as spectacular not are they flammable. Foreign Salads gives us a few from Germany ~ Potato Salad and Red Cabbage Slaw, plus Tabbouleh from the Middle East. Appetizers finish out the recipes with canapes, cheese balls, dips, meatballs, a fruit kabob and beverages.