3-2: New England Clam Chowder

3-2: New England Clam Chowder

3-2: New England Clam Chowder is one of two recipes that I cooked and photographed before I took an extended break from cooking for this project. Therefore, my memories of the process of this dish may be a little fuzzy, but I think I’ll make some sense of it.

Clam chowder is something that I’ve loved since I was a kid. My husband is from New England and when we go back to visit, it’s always an anticipated treat. We made a pretty decent clam chowder in the restaurant I worked at, too, and this recipe comes pretty close.

Of course, it’s mandatory that it be referred to as chowdah–say it right!


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12-7: Fettuccini with Creamy Chicken

12-7: Fettuccini with Creamy Chicken

Here’s a recipe I’ve actually made before–it’s been a while since we’ve seen one of those. When I was about 8 or 9, my mom decided that she, my dad, and I were going to take turns making dinner each week. One of the recipes I actually planned for and made (before this grand plan inevitably fell apart) was this one: 12-7: Fettuccini with Creamy Chicken.

I probably was drawn to this one because my favorite meal as a kid was fettuccini Alfredo, and this one seems relatively similar (to an 9-year old). I also remember being fascinated with the fact that I got to use alcohol in something.


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9-44: Wok-Fried Beef Patties

9-44: Wok-Fried Beef Patties

There’s not a lot of NEW options when it comes to ground meat. Tacos, stroganoff, lasagna, burgers, meatloaf, etc. This one isn’t exactly new either, but hey–we can always use another ground meat recipe.

Even Simply Delicious knows they aren’t treading on new ground here. However, here’s the one warning about working with a wok: have a HOT stove. If you don’t–woks don’t work so well.


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12-1: Lasagna

12-1: Lasagna

You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t had lasagna before. It’s not very difficult to make, but often very time-consuming. The first entry in the Pasta & Rice section is the old standby: 12-1: Lasagna. 

This version is different than what I’m used to making: it uses a cheese sauce (similar to a béchamel) in place of a ricotta/egg mixture. It was good, but I think I’d choose the ricotta/egg mixture in terms of what I think of when I think of “lasagna”.


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11-12: Creamy Sautéed Shrimp

11-12: Creamy Sautéed Shrimp

Alright. This is my FAVORITE recipe out of this entire book (at least, as far as I know). My mom always referred to it as “Shrimp Something”, but its official name is 11-12: Creamy Sautéed Shrimp. 

You can tell by the state of the card how often we cooked this recipe. This was always a big deal for me when I was a kid and my mom would make this dish.

I also cooked this one for my husband (then-boyfriend) when we were first dating, as a “here’s who I am” kind of a thing. What I’m trying to say is that this dish has a lot of feels attached to it.


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9-25: Juicy Grilled Meat Patties

9-25: Juicy Grilled Meat Patties

This recipe was cooked in tandem with an earlier recipe, 9-31: Savory Turkey Patties. We had some different dietary preferences in our dining group that evening, so I used the opportunity to knock out two recipes at once. 🍔

I think it’s interesting that they refer to the burgers as “meat patties” and not “pork” patties or burgers. Just a thought.


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4-19: Twice-Baked Potatoes

4-19: Twice-Baked Potatoes

Here’s another potato recipe for you. I had a LOT of potatoes to cook. This was the complement to 11-16: Indian Fried Fish, which I posted a few days ago.

4-19 Twice-Baked Potatoes

This one got stuck to the page before it in the book–hence the destroyed-looking card. You can still see the important parts though–these are mighty tasty. My notes indicate I made it in a chipotle-style a few Christmases ago–we’ll do it legit for this one. For science. 🔬


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6-22: Crispy Chicken Drumsticks

6-22: Crispy Chicken Drumsticks

Who doesn’t like drumsticks? Vegetarians, I suppose. But this is not a recipe for them. Book 1, Group 2 (Main Courses), Subgroup 6 (Poultry & Game) gives us 6-22: Crispy Chicken Drumsticks. This was cooked in tandem with 4-21: Herb-Roasted Potatoes.

Drumsticks were on sale, so drumsticks you will get. I think this is one of the ones I was making before I went out of town a few weeks ago, but I’ve been a bit behind, so the details have escaped me a bit. Not that it matters to you, anyway. 🙂


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11-16: Indian Fried Fish

11-16: Indian Fried Fish

Another bit of real life distractions, but I refuse to let this die. Back to it, with an interesting dish: 11-16: Indian Fried Fish. 🐟

Um, okay. “Indian” is being used liberally here, as far as I can tell. It was an okay dish, but didn’t exactly conjure up images of India. This seems more like West Indies/Caribbean “Indian” than India “Indian”.


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6-4: Easy Stuffed Chicken Breasts

6-4: Easy Stuffed Chicken Breasts

In 3-13: Velvety Carrot Soup, I talked about how I love old cookbooks for their colorful attempts at trying to make boring recipes sound exciting. Another cookbook “trope” is putting words like easy, simple or quick in the title of a recipe that would otherwise sound…well, not those things.

Sometimes they live up to their titles, and sometimes not. A prime example of the former would be 6-4: Easy Stuffed Chicken Breasts. To be honest, stuffing chicken breasts doesn’t even sound that hard to begin with, so I suppose it didn’t even need that qualifier.

Unless it sounded hard to you–if that’s the case, ignore that last sentence. 🙂 It’s really not that hard, is what I’m saying.


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