Phyllis tucked a second copy under the wire rack. Who should it go to?
Eagle Food Centers — Test Kitchen Pamphlet No. 47
A Bushel of Autumn
six tested recipes for the McIntosh-and-Cortland season
OCTOBER 1962 — FREE WITH ANY PURCHASE
EAGLE FOOD CENTERS — 47 STORES
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Any Eagle House-Brand Product · Good Through Nov. 30, 1962
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↘ Pick up your free copy at the demonstration table — Mrs. Phyllis Krzykwa, Saturdays 11am–2pm
I have been doing the demonstration table at the Palatine store since 1957. I have given out forty-one thousand pamphlets across these years. I know most of the Saturday customers by name now.
— P.K.
Eagle Food Centers — Test Kitchen — Rolling Meadows, Illinois
A Bushel of Autumn
Six tested recipes for the McIntosh-and-Cortland season · October 1962
Pamphlet Number
47
Oct. 1962
Cortlands 19¢/lb this week — get 4 lbs
A small note from the test kitchen. Six new recipes built around what Mr. Vesper is bringing in this month — McIntoshes from Berrien County and the first Cortlands out of Sturgeon Bay. Mrs. Bechtelheimer, Mrs. Padgett, and Mrs. Tallakson worked every recipe three times across August and September. Each one comes in under $1.85 for a family of five and under forty-five minutes of stove time. They are honest recipes. Cook them on your own counter and tell me how they go. — A.V.
1 Honey-Sweetened Apple Butter
Prep 30m · Cook 2hYields 4 pints
5 lb McIntosh apples19¢/LB
1½ cups Eagle Brand honey
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
1 cup apple cider, fresh
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Peel, core, and quarter the apples. Place in a heavy enameled kettle with the cider. Simmer covered 45 minutes until tender. Press through a food mill. Return to kettle with honey and spices. Cook uncovered over very low heat, stirring often with a wooden spoon, until thick enough to mound on a saucer — about 1¼ hours. Pack hot into sterilized jars. Seal.
Test kitchen tip. A teaspoon of butter dropped into the kettle in the last ten minutes will keep the surface from skinning.
I started this one in August with the second crop of McIntoshes Mr. Vesper had in the cooler. The first batch Mrs. Bechtelheimer made was too thin — she had it on too high a flame and we ended up with apple sauce. The trick is the wooden spoon and the patience. Two and a quarter hours on the lowest possible flame and you can stand it up on toast.
— A.V.
2 McIntosh Brown Betty with Caramel Sauce
Prep 20m · Bake 40mServes 6
6 McIntosh apples, sliced19¢/LB
2 cups soft bread crumbs
½ cup Eagle Brand butter, melted67¢/LB
¾ cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp nutmeg
For sauce: 1 cup brown sugar, ½ cup heavy cream, 2 Tbsp butter
Heat oven to 375°. Toss crumbs with melted butter. In a buttered 1½-quart baking dish, layer half the crumbs, all the apples, the brown sugar mixture, then the remaining crumbs. Bake 40 minutes, covered for the first 25. For the sauce: simmer brown sugar, cream, and butter 4 minutes; pour warm over each serving.
Test kitchen tip. Slice the apples to the thickness of two stacked nickels. Thinner and they collapse; thicker and they will not soften in the time.
The Brown Betty is the oldest recipe on the page — my grandmother in Decatur made it every October when I was small. The caramel sauce is mine. I added it during recipe 2 development in late August after Mrs. Padgett said the original was too plain to recommend to her daughter-in-law. She was right. The sauce makes it a Sunday dessert.
— A.V.
✓
3 Cortland-and-Cheddar Skillet Supper
Prep 10m · Cook 25mServes 5 · $1.78
4 Cortland apples, cored & sliced19¢/LB
½ lb Eagle Brand sharp cheddar, cubed49¢/LB
1 lb pork sausage, bulk
1 medium onion, sliced
3 cups cooked egg noodles
1½ tsp dry mustard, salt, pepper
Brown sausage in a heavy skillet; drain off most of the fat. Add onion; cook 4 minutes. Layer in the noodles, then the sliced Cortlands, then the cubed cheese. Sprinkle the mustard, salt, and pepper across the top. Cover; cook over low heat 12 minutes until the cheese has melted down through the apples and the apples are just tender. Bring the skillet to the table.
Test kitchen tip. The Cortland is the apple for this recipe — it will not break down on you. Do not substitute McIntosh.
double the sage — Don likes it stronger
This is my answer to the Sunday-evening question of feeding five people for under a dollar eighty-five in under thirty-five minutes with what is already in the icebox. I built it in early September after Mrs. Padgett mentioned her husband had asked her three weeks in a row what to do with the cheese end of the brick. The Cortland was the breakthrough. McIntosh turns the bottom of the skillet to mush. The Cortland keeps its shape and the cheddar runs down between the slices like it was meant to. This one will be in the November pamphlet's recommended-from-October sidebar.
— A.V.
4 Pork Chops Braised with Apples & Sage
Prep 15m · Cook 40mServes 4
4 thick-cut pork chops, bone in
3 Cortland apples, sliced ½ in. thick19¢/LB
1¾ tsp rubbed sage
1 medium yellow onion, sliced
¾ cup apple cider
2 Tbsp Eagle Brand butter, flour, salt, pepper
Salt and pepper the chops; brown both sides in the butter in a heavy skillet, 3 minutes per side. Remove. Cook the onion soft. Return chops. Pour in the cider. Lay the apple slices over the chops. Sprinkle the sage carefully — one and three-quarters teaspoons exactly across all four chops. Cover; braise over low heat 28 minutes. Lift chops out; whisk a tablespoon of flour into the pan liquid for the gravy.
Test kitchen tip. The pan must be heavy. A thin pan scorches the cider in the last six minutes and you lose the sauce.
I built this one around the Cortlands because the McIntosh breaks down too soft in the braising liquid — Mrs. Tallakson made it twice in August with McIntosh and the apples turned to applesauce by minute twenty-two. The Cortland holds its shape. The sage proportion is the small specific thing — Mrs. Padgett tried it at one teaspoon and it disappeared, I tried it at three teaspoons and it tasted like a teabag, the one-and-three-quarter teaspoons in the printed recipe is where Mrs. Bechtelheimer landed after her third attempt and it is exactly right.
— A.V.
5 Spiced Cider Punch for the Halloween Party
Prep 10m · Steep 25mYields 8 quarts
2 gallons apple cider, fresh
1 quart orange juice
1 cup brown sugar
12 whole cloves, 4 cinnamon sticks
1 whole nutmeg, cracked
1 lemon, sliced thin
Tie the cloves and cracked nutmeg in a cheesecloth bag. Combine all ingredients except the lemon in a large enameled kettle. Bring barely to a simmer over medium heat — do not boil. Hold at the just-trembling point 25 minutes. Remove spice bag. Float lemon slices on top. Ladle into a punchbowl set on a hot pad.
Test kitchen tip. Do not let it boil. Boiled cider turns sour at the back of the throat. The trembling point is the right point.
The Halloween punch was my answer to Mrs. Bechtelheimer's question last September — twenty trick-or-treaters and the mothers stopping in from the sidewalk. I wanted a punch the children could drink that the mothers could recognize as a real recipe from a real home economist and not a bowl of pop with food coloring. The trembling-point instruction is the one I most want followed. Boiled cider tastes like apple vinegar at the back of the throat and the whole batch is lost.
— A.V.
6 Three-Apple Streusel Coffee Cake
Prep 25m · Bake 45mServes 8
1 Cortland, 1 McIntosh, 1 Jonathan, all sliced19¢/LB
2¼ cups Eagle Brand all-purpose flour
¾ cup Eagle Brand butter67¢/LB
1 cup brown sugar, ½ cup white
2 eggs, ¾ cup buttermilk
1½ tsp cinnamon, baking powder, salt
Cream butter and white sugar; beat in eggs. Add buttermilk alternately with dry. Spread half in a buttered 9×13. Layer all the sliced apples — Cortland first, McIntosh, then Jonathan on top. Cover with remaining batter. Streusel: cut ½ cup brown sugar and ¼ cup butter into ¾ cup flour with cinnamon; scatter across the top. Bake 350° for 45 minutes.
Test kitchen tip. The three-apple filling is the recipe. Substituting a single variety produces a different cake entirely.
Test-kitchen window in September.
Three apples — Cortland, McIntosh, Jonathan — in one bowl together.
Bringing the finding to the November meeting.
— A.V.
RECIPE 7 — ADDED FOR THE CUSTOMERS WHO CLIPPED THE RESTMrs. Vonnegut's Own Sunday Apple Pie — the one she makes for her own family, not Eagle's
2 Cortland apples
2 Jonathan apples
1 McIntosh apple
½ cup Eagle Brand sugar
3 Tbsp Eagle Brand butter
½ tsp cinnamon — from the small tin in her own kitchen cabinet (not the Eagle house-brand spice line, which she has never quite gotten to taste right)
¼ tsp fresh-grated nutmeg — from the nutmeg her son Roger sent her from his Bradley University food-science class trip to the spice market in New York last March
1 Tbsp cold heavy cream, stirred into the filling at the last moment
This is the pie I make for my husband Carl every Sunday in October at our own kitchen on Algonquin Road and it is not in the pamphlet because Mr. Hendrickson would say the cinnamon should be the Eagle house-brand and I would have to argue with him about it and I have decided some recipes belong to the test kitchen and some belong to the kitchen at home. If you clipped the other six you have earned this one. The crust I make is the same one printed in pamphlet No. 31 of Spring 1959, you can request a back issue from the Eagle corporate office and they will mail it to you.
— A.V., Rolling Meadows, September 12, 1962
Tested by Mrs. Adelaide Vonnegut · Eagle Food Centers Test Kitchen · Plum Grove Road · Rolling Meadows, Illinois
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Member, Illinois Home Economics Association since 1949