Plum Daft

This double plum was nestling in our fruit bowl.

What a .... Hmmm. Not sure!

It reminds me of several movie thingies, the alien child in ALIEN Resurrection, the bear monster baby in Prophecy, a Wookieling.

What does it remind you of?

What's for Tea?

It's a Friday night Blighty classic here, egg, sausage and chips, salt and vinegar and hot sweet tea! Ah, the good life! Now, where's my Beano comic to read with it!

What are you having for tea readers?  or whichever meal it is where you are on the globe?

🫖

Steak Canadian and the Rockin' Boys

I couldn't believe my eyes down at Farmfoods. There in the frozen food compartment was a pile of Steak Canadian! Those flat wafer-thin steaks that fried in seconds! 

Wow! Cor! Did that bring back memories. Back in the mid 1970's I'd invite mates round to listen to rockers like Budgie, Skynyrd and Rush on the music-centre in my Folks' breakfast room. I'd raid the chest freezer in the shed and grab some steak canadian. Then I'd peel spuds, slice 'em up and make fab home-made chips. Topped off with marrowfat peas, it was the real reason my rockin' mates came round! 😃 Sometimes I'd change the menu to include frozen chicken and mushroom pies - with my own gravy. I even knew how to make a roux! I was way better at cooking age 14 than I am now! 

I shall once again relive those halcyon days soon and make the steak Canadian special again and crank up the stereo. Alas, the rockin' boys are distant memories now. 

Did you, do you like Steak Canadian? 🎸

Waffling

Not having had enough yesterday on Pancake Day our Moonbase grandkids made waffles this morning, with a little help from us. 

It's waffle Wednesday! 

Do you like waffles? 

Say Cheese!

 Dairylea was and is a favourite of mine. Those little wedges of soft cheese wrapped in foil are straight from my childhood, always a handy and tasty snack, whether straight from the foil or on a butty!

Being so popular with kids Kraft's famous cheese has always been marketed in a creative way. 

And yep, they did a JAWS spread!!

Now that's soft cheese with teeth! 

A more familiar Dairylea collectable for me have been from that other 1970's cinematic behemoth, Star Wars.

I used to find these Star Wars -related VHS videos all the time at car boots:

Ewoks

And Droids. 

Where the more episodes?

Both cartoon shows came in neat card slipcases and it was always a thrill finding one, which I haven't for years now.

Do you remember them?

Captain's Captain Scarlet Cup

 During a clearout of Captain Grandson's room at home, before it's redesigned, Now he's older, I claimed this old neat plastic Pizza Hut cup we got him about five years ago.

When Pizza Hut was king in the UK this is part of their 1990's Captain Scarlet cup range, this one sports the SPV.

I have a feeling there's a small Captain Scarlet missing from the slide-out chair.

Do you have any of this range readers? 

Where Have All The TV Dinners Gone ?

Hi Woodsy

Here is one for your Food Files. 

When did manufacturers and retailers stop using the term 'TV Dinner' for a pre-cooked, frozen meal that you just heated up in the oven ? 

I do not think I have seen or heard 'TV Dinner' in decades. In the olden days they came in metal trays for heating in a real oven, not plastic trays designed for microwaves.

Remember them readers?

Paul from NZ

*

From Woodsy:

A 'TV dinner' ( roast chicken microwave meal) I had last year from the shop Iceland.

Brian's Monster Christmas Stuffing!

Hi Woodsy.

You seemed interested in my Celery and Onion Stuffing, so I'm giving you a basic idea of what goes in it.

Cubed, toasted bread of your choice( I prefer white or sourdough), diced onion and celery, sautéed in lots of butter.Add Chicken or Vegetable Stock to cover.Bring to boil.Add bread to vegetables toss to coat bread.Cover pot and let it sit a few minutes on low heat.

The bread absorbs the liquid and the steam softens it a little The bottom heat toasts some of the cubes and adds texture.The seasonings I use are garlic powder, dried Sage,Thyme,and Parsley.Its pretty simple and really tasty!

I don't like to put stuffing inside a Turkey,I think there's a risk of bacteria from raw meat leaching into the stuffing.I just serve it on the side!

I didn't include exact measurements because you might prefer metric(which I don't know too well)and also because you don't really need measurements for this recipe.You can go with your intuition on it.

This was started as just a person-to- person E- Mail, but if you should like to post it, you may.

Merry Christmas!

-BrianF

Monster Base

NJ USA

Past Food

The taste of youth! Well mine at least: Arctic Roll, Angel Delight, Chicken crispy pancakes! heaven! Was it yours too?

And look at those huge Wimpy meals! I thought it was just a burger joint! Not a place I went although Preston did have a Wimpy bar. Everything was so cheap!

Did you have a Wimpy?

And Down Under those pastes must have tasted so good! 

What's the taste of your childhood readers?

BRAAAAAINS!

 

I wouldn't take it to Titan but I'd have it the day before I left.

A blast from the past, Mr. Brain's Pork Faggots, found in the frozen aisle at Farm foods! They'd been there fifty years! Ha ha!

Bread and butter, Yorkshire tea and three hot faggots with gravy.

Nostalgia never tasted so good! 

How does it look? Were and are you a fan?

Your Top Five Foods to Take to Titan?

If you were a castaway on Titan and could take your top five foods with you, what would they be readers? You can delve into history, we can provide anything! 

My own Top Titan Five would be:

1. Hot sugared ring donuts from the seaside

2. Sugared pancakes

3. Steak and kidney Suet pudding, chips, peas and gravy from the chippy

4. Roast Chicken and chips

5. Thick plain pork Richmond sausage sandwich on white bread.

A substitute would be a curry. Oh yes!

With these, any drink will do! 

Silly Season: Terranova's Pickles

I recently made a couple of batches of pickle cucumbers, which is a family tradition.

Over the years I have obtained a few pickle items, as pictured.

In the foreground is Superpickle a crib toy from the 80's that I bought in NYC when my mother visited from London and passed on her pickle recipe.

The large soft mastachiod Mr Pickle was won by my wife at an amusement park.

On the right is a plastic pickle that was a container for some figures related to 'The Beavis and Butthead Cartoon Show'

When I was assembling the three items to photograph them I noticed that the plastic pickle can be used as a money box so chalk up another part of my collection that was never collected.

This email comes under the heading of newspaper Silly Season.

Terranova47

USA

Hhhh

In Praise of Beef Paste

As we are caravanning I've no access to toys so other things are filling my mind ...  Such as Beef Paste this morning for breakfast!

I saw it in Farmfoods and thought yes! I remember, I used to love beef paste butties as a kid. My Mum made them with thick white bread and butter, altho' it may have been marg - Stork?

Did you eat beef spread butties readers?

Beef paste or spread is basically potted beef of old sold in little handy pocket-sized glass jars. As a kid the biggest brand was Shippams. There was always a thin layer of hardened fat on top. That stuffs delicious!

They did chicken paste as well, which was equally fabtasticle.

My late Grandad, old Jack the postie, liked his beef dripping. Now I don't remember it exactly but I imagine a combination of beef and fat is essentially the same as beef paste or spread. Can anyone confirm this?

Even more nostalgic and the nub of a few jokes is the next spread on my Farmfoods shopping list, Sardine and Tomato paste! 

C'mon Mum, slap it on! 

LIVE AND LET DIET!

I'm currently on a diet with the Missus. It ain't easy and I'm dreaming about food. My favourite foods!

Here are my top ten fave foods - just a small fraction of what I'm dreaming about! Nothing healthy!

1. Pancakes
2. Nutella
3. Prawn puree, in fact any Indian food
4. Pancakes, crispy bacon and syrup
5. Hot sugar doughnuts
6. Beef Olive, Dumplings, braised red cabbage and gravy
7. Steamed Chinese pork dumplings, in fact any Chinese food
8. Golden Cup chocolate and virtually any type of milk chocolate
9. Chocolate covered flapjack
10. KFC

and I'd love to know which are yours readers!

Biscuits on the Base

I saw this old tin on Ebay last year. I kept the pics.

It depicts a fabulous space city on the lid and the sides.

The space base is really well conceived. Do you agree?

It was released by Elkes Biscuits of Staffs, England.

 Do you know them?

Christmas Snacks

Food from Christmas past. Ah, the kitschy nibbles I miss so much, the party food that made Sixties and Seventies Yuletides swing.

Here are a few of my festive favorites.

Vol-au-Vents. Yes, those flaky cups of gooey goodness, vol-au-vents were the fanciest horses doofers around. Puff or choux or flaky - who knows - but oh, was that baked beaker so damn good when it was chock-full of creamy mushrooms, topped with a pastry disc like a school cap. Good God they were tasty. I haven't had one since 1976 and miss them every day.

Celery sticks with cream cheese. My, these simple batons of chlorophyll were mightily snackable when ladened with philly or primula. A flick of salt and white pepper ( we didn't know black existed ) and it was grand to be a vegetarian for those two minutes. How I miss those stringy sticks of green.

Quartered pork pies. The stuff champions are made of, these little slices of sausage pie where always a tasty salty treat on the Christmas paper plate. Packed with processed pork and delicious pig jelly, they could only be improved by a chutney dip or squirt of mustard. Heaven in pastry form.

Crisps, twiglets and nuts. Scattered throughout the house, plastic dishes and steel trays of salted peanuts, marmite-flavoured sticks and plain salted crisps were de-rigeur in our festivities. Always there when you needed a boost in any room including the bathroom, crisps, twigs and nuts weren't just for Rudolph and Santa. For the adults who liked a tipple, there were dry-roasted planets in little ring-pull tubes too. I thought they tasted like carpet.

Mixed Nuts with a nutcracker. For the more serious feeder, larger plastic wood-effect bowls were provided filled with rock-hard Brazils, Walnuts, Hazelnuts and Almonds. The biggest issue facing such earnest grippers was what to do with the empty shells? Ash tray, open fire? Grandma's handbag? Nah, just chuck 'em back in the bowl! 

And finally, the ultimate seasonal treat, a taste of the exotic, from darkest Morocco: a polystyrene canoe of dates stuck together in a long tacky block with a small plastic fork plastered to the top with date glue. Each one had a lethal stone within, which could only be removed by astute tongue action. I really adored dates when Mum decided we were ready.

What were your favourite Xmas snacks readers? 

TYPHOO TEETERS

 

Another sad day for iconic brands from our childhood. Typhoo Tea are about to call in the Administrators.

I remember collecting their tea cards as a kid, along with PG Tips and Brooke Bond.

I've drunk Yorkshire Tea for years now, so I haven't helped Typhoo either.

Will you miss Typhoo Tea?

WILL'S CHOCK O BLOCK WRAPPER 2

Hi Woodsy

Re. yesterday's mystery Chock O Block wrapper post, Reader Lewis thinks that the gold wrapper may be from the back of the McVities captain scarlet chocolate bar set , and I think he may be right , as these wrappers came to me at the same time. 

Do other Moonbasers concur? 

Will O

Cowboy Beans

Over the summer me and Junior cooked outside on a camping stove. 

A simple single ring with a gas canister below. You know the kind, Action Man's Explorer had one! 

We ate beans. Baked beans. I had pepper on mine too. Black pepper.

We had metal plates too like cowboys, scooping up the beans noisily and clattering the spoons down into the empty plates at the end!

All that was missing was steaming black coffee in tin cups from a blue enamelled pot! 

Cooking beans reminded me so much of doing the same as a kid, emulating my cowboy hero shows like Bonanza and High Chaparral.

Did you ever eat cowboy beans from a metal plate or even cold straight from the can?

Comin' Right Up!

There's no point me denying it, I like McDonalds.

I've been eating their fries and burgers for decades. It was a go-to place to take our kid daughter growing up and the plastic Happy Meal toys were collected with gusto. She still has them somewhere. She's 40! 

OK, the plastic toys have gone, a sign of the times, and prices have gone up but the food remains the same.

Now me and the Missus are busy Grandparents, in Thackley and Shipley every week, two eateries have become important stops for quick tasty grub.

McDonalds for their breakfasts - who can resist a sausage and egg McMuffin - hash brown combo? We relish this after dropping the two Grandkids off at two different schools first thing. The coffee is top bean too 

The second is our Granddaughters favourite, which she calls Shipperleys. It's actually the market cafe beneath the famous clock tower in Shipley, where Lil Miss enjoys a small plate of beans on toast and a milky PG Tips! The friendly owner always gives her a KitKat as well, a nice gesture. We all enjoy going in between charity shopping round the town centre. To finish, Miss feeds the pigeons.

Do you like McDonalds or another food outlet or cafe readers?