Cookbook Corner: Chuck’s Spring Brunch Pick

After learning about Chuck’s incredible cookbook library, we were inspired to get in there with him and explore the depths of its riches. This time of year, all we can seem to think about is brunch – whether it’s Mother’s Day or the Kentucky Derby, or just any old Sunday – who doesn’t love a good brunch?

On his shelves we found this gem: the Good Housekeeping Cook Book from 1955. Oh, the glory days of condensed soup and gelatin molds. This book is full of advice for the novice home chef, but it also hits a homerun with every one of its 3,000 recipes.

See below for the dish on the Benedict-Style Poached Eggs that graced the tables of today’s Baby Boomers when they were tots.

Benedict-Style Poached Eggs

2 tablesp. butter or margarine
½ cup minced onions
1 can undiluted cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup
1/3 cup milk
6 eggs
3 split English muffins
6 thin slices cooked ham

In butter in skillet, cook onions till tender; blend in soup and milk; heat till boiling; then lower heat. Carefully break eggs, one by one, into saucer; then slide into sauce, side by side. Cook, covered, about 10 min., or until eggs are of desired doneness. Meanwhile, toast and butter muffins.

To serve: Top each muffin half with ham slice, then with egg and some of sauce. Makes 6 servings.

Note: Pacific Natural Foods offers the only organic (and only gluten-free) condensed soups on the market. With just 10 pure, simple ingredients such as crème fraiche and organic roasted chicken, with no added MSG, flavors or sugar, it’s the next best thing to homemade. Visit our condensed soup product page for more information.

Cookbook information:
Good Housekeeping Cookbook
Edited by Dorothy B. Marsh
Director of Foods and Cookery, Good Housekeeping Institute
Copyright © 1955 by the Hearst Corporation