The I Hate to Cook Book (27 page)

Luncheon Menu No. 2.
Soup-Salad

India Chicken Soup with slivered almonds

Fresh Fruit Salad with Chutney Cream Dressing (
here
)

Hot Rolls

Oddments

Coffee

     INDIA CHICKEN SOUP     

for 4

1 teaspoon curry powder

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup

1 chicken bouillon cube dissolved in ⅔ can hot water

cup cream

2 tablespoons slivered toasted almonds

First mix the curry powder with the soup, using the top of the double boiler. Then add and blend everything else, heat it through, and when you serve it, sprinkle slivered toasted almonds on top.

Luncheon Menu No. 3.
Salad-Sandwich

Friday-Night Sandwich

Small Green Salad with Vinegar-Oil Dressing

Oddments

Coffee

Friday-Night Sandwich is the rich crabmeat-cheese-bacon affair on
here
. You can make them well in advance, then shove them under the broiler just before you call the ladies to lunch.

Luncheon Menu No. 4.
Hot Main Dish
(A)

Beef à la King on split, toasted English Muffins

Fresh Fruit Salad with Orange-Mayonnaise Dressing (
here
)

Oddments

Coffee

Beef à la King is that fantastically easy dish on
here
. It will stay hot and good in your double boiler for a long, long time.

Luncheon Menu No. 5.
Hot Main Dish
(B)

Hurry Curry with Rice and Chutney

Green Salad with Mandarin Orange Segments

Oddments

Coffee

Hurry Curry is the ultraswift curry on
here
. It, too, keeps nicely in the double boiler if the ladies happen to want another Southern Comfort before they eat.

Luncheon Menu No. 6.
Hot Main Dish
(C)

Chicken-Rice Roger

Fancy Sliced Tomatoes

Hot Rolls

Oddments

Coffee

Chicken-Rice Roger is the simple chicken dish on
here
, which you can prepare at any time, then put in the oven before you eat. The tomatoes (
here
) can be prepared, if you like, even the night before.

OR WHO STARTED THIS BUSINESS?

I
t is an interesting fact that people who hate to cook love to talk and, in general, make merry. When the sun is over the yardarm and the party starts to bounce, you want to be in there bouncing, too, not stuck all by yourself out in the kitchen, deep-fat frying small objects or wrapping oysters in bacon strips.

This is one of the many drawbacks to the Canapé. Most canapés take a certain amount of doing. Not only must you make them and remember to serve them, but you must also service them—refilling and reparsleying—because as time ticks by, those platefuls of appetizers tend to acquire that lived-in look, and by eight
o’clock they look as though the guests have been walking through them barefoot.

Indeed, though I don’t like to pick on something so much smaller than I am, it is hard to think of a kind word to say about the canapé. If canapés are good, they are usually fattening; and they are also expensive, not only in themselves, but in the way they can skyrocket your liquor bill. The stouter a canapé base your guests lay, the more cocktails they can carry, and goodness only knows when you’ll get them into the dining room. Then, when you finally do, they’re apt to be too full to eat much, which is the worst thing of all. When you hate to cook, it’s more than flesh and blood can bear to go to all the trouble of cooking dinner only to have it merely pecked at.

Actually, the only possible excuse for canapés is when you are having a cocktail party pure and simple, with no dinner to follow. And, by the way, entertaining in this fashion makes a certain crafty sense. People sometimes become befuddled at cocktail parties, and later they may invite you for dinner when they only owe you for cocktails.

If, in addition to your canapés and cocktails, you have a large tureen of soup on the sideboard, with some cups and saucers around and a plate of crackers, your prospects become even brighter. Your women guests, especially, will appreciate you for this. They will probably see to it that their husbands inhale enough soup to make it unnecessary to go home and cook dinner; and your bread may come back gloriously buttered. (You can make a triple recipe of one of the soups on pages 31-32, or you can buy several cans of any good New England-style clam chowder and beef it up with a can or two of minced clams and a lump of butter.)

And so to the
CANAPÉS
.

There are, as you know, some fifty or sixty thousand possibilities to pick from: open-face sandwiches, closed-face sandwiches, wee sausages in dozens of disguises, oysters ditto, corn chips, chili chips, cheese chips, puffs, biscuits, water crackers, and enough dunks and dips to float the R.M.S.
Queen Elizabeth
.

When you hate to cook, you rely heavily on store-bought items, and quite rightly, too, because many of them are very good. A dish of Macadamia nuts is usually emptied faster than the plateful of bread rounds fancied up by loving hands at home. There are some excellent frozen and refrigerated dips available, too, not to mention tubs of delicious cocktail cheeses and boxes of exotic crackers to spread them on, and prepared pizzas you can buy from the pizza man, and bake yourself, and then cut into small segments.