One Brave Follower...

One day, on Facebook, I begged asked for volunteers to do a guest post for my very special meat & gelatin recipe from 1978 - and out of HUNDREDS of followers, only one brave lady stepped forward. 

My dearest Cynthia G. -- you are a true Retro WW warrior and a hero. I salute you. I am proud to call you my Facebook friend and Retro WW Soul Sister.

The Recipe:

Chicken Sandwich Loaf!

The Source:

The Guest Post:

Isn't this beautiful? So exciting to prepare a tasty, visually appealing Weight Watchers recipe for Mimi!

Oops, sorry gals. These gorgeous vegetables would be in a 2012 Weight Watchers recipe...

This is 1972:The Retro Weight Watchers Experiment. You don't really expect colorful, do you?

Here are the ingredients for Chicken Sandwich Loaf, submitted by Donna Naugle in 1978. Clearly Donna was half-starved to come up with a recipe with these ingredients:

First, in keeping with the bland and colorless theme, I poached the chicken breast in water. No low fat spray, olive oil, butter. Just water. Amazingly enough, the chicken had it's own fresh, sweet taste. Let's see if we can change that.

The next step was to sprinkle the Knox gelatin over 1/2 cup water until soft.

Easy enough...

Now we're getting creative. I couldn't find onion bouillon at any of my local grocery stores, and Lipton Onion Soup mix contained actual pieces of actual dehydrated onions, and sugar, and flavor, so I rebelled a bit and used two chicken bouillon cubes instead of one.

Hypertension in overweight individuals was not apparently a concern in 1972.

Now for the really spooky part of this recipe! Here we have a tender, nicely cooked and naturally flavorful chicken breast. Today we would eat it as is. In 1972, we do something completely different: BLENDERIZE it.

Here I'm pouring the chicken bouillon-plain gelatin concoction into the blender with the poached chicken....
.

 3...2...1...

BLENDERIZE!

And now I am pouring the glop into my vintage gelatin mold. (Mom made many a lime gelatin with cottage cheese and pineapple in this!)

Looks like hummus; smells like the chicken sandwich meat you buy in the deli.

Well, there it is in all it's glory. Now to chill it. And eat it.

Impressions: Color is underwhelming and not at all appealing, especially when I took my fork and attempted to pick off a bite. Rubbery, but not tough. I finally pegged what it reminded me of.   Have you ever had Hormel's canned chicken spread? THAT'S what it tastes like, only low fat. Rubbery, low fat, congealed Hormel's canned chicken spread. 

I would question the perversion of a decent chicken breast into a bouncy, pale gelatin, but this recipe IS from 1972, and we all know what sort of debauched gelatin-based cookery went on back then.

 

Stick a fork in it. It's DONE!

Meat FAIL

I told you I was going to struggle with this damn MEAT rule.

OK. So it has taken me over a month to summon up the courage to post something about meat.

And I am now here to tell you that I have officially "chickened out" -- no pun intended. OK. Major pun intended.

After a month of screwing around, I am happy to report that I have found a poor sucker brave and wonderful person to do a guest post for my Retro WW meat recipe! Now I don't have to do it! Hooray!

The recipe our guest poster will be making is a little treasure from 1978 called "Chicken Sandwich Loaf", and it was inspired by one of my favorite Weight Watchers Icons of all time.

The One. The Only...

Her confidence literally gives me goosebumps.

 (source: askflorine.com)

FLORINE MARK!!!! I love this woman. Everytime she walks into a room, I imagine a horn section following her around just to announce her entrance with a "TA-DA!!!" She is classy and coiffed and professional. Florine is one of the leading WW Franchise Owners in Weight Watchers history. She talks the talk and walks the walk.

Get ready for a Florine-inspired meat & gelatin combo that will make your hair curl and your butt clench. Stay tuned...

Also--I am very excited to be participating in yet another Retro Blogging Challenge. And this one has a HALLOWEEN THEME! Later this month.....

Oh yeah. It's a Vincent Price Cookalong, baby! My friend Jenny over at Silver Screen Suppers has organized a creepy & crazy blogging challenge involving all recipes from Retro Vincent Price Cookbooks. Who knew this could even be a thing? Let me tell you...This challenge is HUGE. And awesome. In fact, Vincent Price's freaking daughter is even going to participate. I KNOW, RIGHT!?!?

And since my assigned VPC recipe for the challenge involves Chicken. I guess we will be sticking with the meat & poultry thing a bit longer. More meat. More fun. More retro love.


And to think, I was dreading this meat chapter.