Attack of the Mystery Loaf - Part One

This weekend, I am featuring a 2-part series of loaf-related recipes at the 1972 Retro WW Experiment. So hold onto your Pepto Bismol bottles, ladies and gentlemen!

For my first loaf, I will be featuring a Soybean and Vegetable Loaf. I chose this obscure little recipe, because it is one of the few meatless main dish recipes in the 1972 WW Revised Program Cookbook, and since I try to lean towards a mostly vegetarian diet, I thought I would really enjoy this dish. Plus--I thought it would be perfect for the Lenten Potluck Season! *Wink*

Jean Nidetch calls soybeans the "Little Honorable Plant of the Orient." Right you are, Jean. And what better way to use soybeans than to cook them, drain them, and puree them into a ground-up mystery food?

The recipe calls for the following ingredients to be pureed and placed in a small loaf pan or casserole then baked for about an hour and topped with tomato sauce:

• 9 oz. cooked soybeans
• 1/2 c sliced celery
• 2 oz. sliced onion
• 2 oz. sliced carrot
• 1 cup green beans
• 2 Tbsp. water
• salt & pepper

I added a few drops of hot sauce for flavor.









As the dish was baking, the house was filled with a lovely aroma. A few times, I almost tricked myself into believing I had a real meatloaf in the oven. However, upon removing it from the oven, the lovely bright green color served as a gentle reminder that it was in fact, not meatloaf, but rather something else entirely.




I happen to LOVE soybeans, so I really enjoyed this dish. In fact, I will probably make it again. But I have to admit that as I was assembling this recipe I couldn't help but imagine Charlton Heston screaming, "Soylent Green is made out of people!!!!"

What is your favorite loaf?