The I Hate to Cook Book Read Online Free PDF Page A

minutes.
         CELERY FISH STICKS     
    4 servings
    1 package frozen fish sticks, thawed
    1 can condensed cream of celery soup
    ½ cup milk
    1½ tablespoons chopped chives or green onion tops
    1 tablespoon lemon juice
    3 tablespoons grated Cheddar
    paprika
    Put the fish sticks (3 to 4 per person) in a shallow buttered baking dish. Thin the celery soup with the milk, and measure outa cupful. (Save the rest for somebody’s lunch or throw it out.) Add the chives, lemon juice, and cheese to the thinned soup, pour it over the fish sticks, and sprinkle with paprika. Bake it at 425˚ for twenty minutes.
    A parenthetical note here. It is understood that when you hate to cook, you buy already-prepared foods as often as you can. You buy frozen things and ready-mix things, as well as pizza from the pizza man and chicken pies from the chicken-pie lady.
    But let us amend that statement. Let us say, instead, that you buy these things as often as you dare, for right here you usually run into a problem with the basic male. The average man doesn’t care much for the frozen-food department, nor for the pizza man, nor for the chicken-pie lady. He wants to see you knead that bread and tote that bale, before you go down to the cellar to make the soap. This is known as Woman’s Burden.
    But sometimes you can get around it. Say, for instance, that you are serving some good dinner rolls that you bought frozen and then merely put into the oven for a few minutes, as the directions said to. At dinner, you taste them critically. Then you say, “Darn it, I simply can’t make decent rolls, and that’s all there is to it!”
    If you are lucky, and have been able to keep him out of the kitchen while you were removing the wrapping, he will probably say, “What’s the matter with you? These taste swell.”
    Then you say, in a finicky sort of female voice, “I don’t know—they just don’t seem as
light
as they ought to, or something….” And the more stoutly he affirms that they’re okay, the tighter the box you’ve got him in. Admittedly, this is underhanded, but, then, marriage is sometimes a rough game.
    And don’t worry one minute because it’s a little more expensive to buy these things than to make them. Maybe you’re hellfor house cleaning. Or maybe you do your own wallpapering, while that lady down the block, who so virtuously rolls her own noodles, pays vast sums to paper hangers. Maybe you make your own clothes, or sell Christmas cards at home, or maybe you’re just plain cute to have around the house.
    As we slog our way through the month, let us not forget about BEANS . It is a rare budget that doesn’t benefit from a modest bean dish once in a while.
    Most of the time, when you hate to cook, you just add a little extra chopped onion, chili sauce, and a tablespoon of molasses to the can of beans you bought at the grocer’s, and you bake them about thirty minutes at 325˚, and they’re very good, too.
    If you feel exceptionally energetic, though, you can also add a can of apple slices and a can of chopped luncheon meat to those other ingredients. This is good makeweight for growing boys, should you be blessed with any.
    Also, if you have some kidney beans around, you can make
         HOMEBODY BEANS     
    3–4 servings
    (This couldn’t be better or simpler, except that you must be around to service it every two hours for six hours. Don’t be afraid those already-cooked beans will cook to a pulp. For some mysterious reason, they don’t.)
    2 average-sized (1-pound) cans kidney beans (do not drain)
    3 big raw tomatoes (or an equal quantity of drained canned tomatoes; raw are better)
    2 raw onions, sliced
    ½ pound bacon, the leaner the better
    In a casserole dish, alternate layers of the beans, the thick-sliced tomatoes, and the onions till you run out. Bake at 300˚ for two hours, uncovered.
    Now cut the bacon in half (the short strips work better) and lay half of them on top. Put the casserole back in the