Free The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken Page A

mix and butter together. Spread this on all the cutsides, then put them back together again, wrap the loaves in aluminum foil, and throw them in the back seat of the car. When you get to the party, you can ask your hostess nicely to put them in a 350˚ oven for twenty minutes. Open the foil a bit to keep them crisp.
    Another good gambit, when a Potluck is under discussion, is to move in fast with the dessert. You say, “Girls, I’ll bring my wonderful Hootenholler Whisky Cake!” (These things must always be done with a good show of enthusiasm.) Suggesting this Whisky Cake is a shrewd move, too, because you can make it six months ago; it’s easy and very good; it’s cheap, as good cakes go; and as good cakes go, it goes a long way. Also, it has a rakish sound that is rather intriguing.
         HOOTENHOLLER WHISKY CAKE     
    ½ cup butter
    1 cup sugar
    3 beaten eggs
    1 cup flour
    ½ teaspoon baking powder
    ¼ teaspoon salt
    ½ teaspoon nutmeg
    ¼ cup milk
    ¼ cup molasses
    ¼ teaspoon baking soda
    1 pound seedless raisins
    2 cups chopped pecans (walnuts will do, but pecans are better)
    ¼ cup bourbon whisky
    First, take the whisky out of the cupboard, and have a small snort for medicinal purposes. Now, cream the butter with the sugar, and add the beaten eggs. Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg, and add it to the butter mixture. Then add the milk. Now put the baking soda into the molasses and mix it up and add
that
. Then add the raisins, nuts, and whisky. Pour it into a greased and floured loaf pan and bake it at 300˚ for two hours.
    Your Whisky Cake keeps practically forever, wrapped in aluminum foil, in your refrigerator. It gets better and better, too, if you buck it up once in a while by stabbing it with an ice pick and injecting a little more whisky with an eye dropper.
    Another good thing to jump at is the dip and/or canapé bit. This may seem a little odd to the other ladies, but you can say—to the prospective hostess—“Oh, let me bring some odds and ends, and you won’t have to go to all that bother.” Nor will you, because all you need to do is pick the easiest dip recipe out of Chapter 8 —say, for instance, the onion-soup-mix–avocado business on here —and assemble a few boxes of variegated cocktail crackers. If for some reason you want to indicate that your heart is really in this, you can also put some 5 O’Clock Biscuits ( here ) on a cookie sheet and bring them as well.
    And don’t forget about the salad!
    “I’ve got this gorgeous new dressing I think you’ll love!” you can cry. You can then collect some varied greenery, arrange it in a bowl, and bring along a jar of:
         PRETTY TOMATO DRESSING     
    Just mix these things together
    3 whole green onions, minced
    3 sprigs parsley, chopped fine
    2 large tomatoes, diced
    ¼ cup Parmesan
    1 teaspoon paprika
    1½ teaspoons salt
    1 tablespoon vinegar
    1 cup sour cream
    Another good salad you might volunteer to bring is Aunt Bebe’s Bean Bowl, which has a number of plus factors in its favor. You make it the day before, men usually like it quite well, and it’s easy to carry—just a jar of the bean mixture and some lettuce to line the salad bowl. Don’t be afraid of that three quarters of a cup of sugar, incidentally, as I was. I thought, “This will
never
work out!” And I thought, further, “Who is
that
fond of beans?” But it did and I was.
         AUNT BEBE’S BEAN BOWL     
    6 servings
    Mix everything and marinate for twenty-four hours
    1 cup canned green beans (cut beans are better in this than julienne)
    1 can cut wax beans
    1 can red kidney beans, with the juice thoroughly washed off
    1 medium chopped onion
    ¾ cup sugar
    1 teaspoon salt
    ½ teaspoon pepper
    ½ cup canola oil
    cup vinegar
    Stir it a few times, if you happen to think of it, while it marinates. Before you serve it, drain all the dressing off and pour the beans into a lettuce-lined bowl.
    Then there is the matter of the