Happy Wednesday everyone!  Welcome to Mid-Century Menu, where every week I reproduce a vintage recipe as accurately as possible, and then force my husband to choke it down no matter how bad it is.  Even though he has started to enjoy it, for some strange reason.

Today’s feature recipe is from the same great cookbook as last week’s recipe, Meat Recipes for the Family “Chef”, published by the Economics Department of the National Livestock and Meat Board.  And who can argue with the choices from the Meat Board?  Not me.  All they do is meat, right?  They would never give me bad advice or ruin the lovely meat I paid for? Right?

(Insert expletives here)

Aaaaanyway, as I mentioned last week, this cookbook has helpful little menus in it telling you exactly what to serve with your delish main dish of choice.  I swore last week that I was going to serve the whole meal with this week’s recipe, but in the end I just couldn’t do it.  It was too much food for two people.

Hmmm…a Chef’s salad and a meat pie for dinner?  Why, I would have never known this cookbook was from some sort of Livestock and Meat Board!

However, I did make the hot dog pie, the veggies and the Washington Cream Pie.  Just because I had no idea what Washington Cream Pie was or how to make it.  I will post the Cream Pie later this month.  It actually turned out well.

In any case, here is the recipe for today’s culinary wonder.

It appears to be a version of Shepherd’s Pie with hot dogs. Blah.

The only thing I really balked over was the 1 pound of frankfurters. One pound?  Seriously?  Normally a recipe calls for a number, like 6, but a whole pound? Wow. But I am ok with this, because it led to one of the best prep photos of all time. Look at this!  This is what one pound of hot dogs looks like!  It is pretty safe to say that Hubs and I went over our daily recommended dose of hot dogs for the day.  Whatever that is. Sheesh.The hot dogs, all cut up.  Still an impressive amount of dogs. The rest of the prepped ingredients, going to their doom. And yes, the little black ramekin on the right contains one TABLESPOON of Worcestershire sauce, the primary seasoning for this dish. The onions, green peppers and celery all cooking in 3 tablespoons of butter. And yes, it was a lot of butter.

The hot dogs added to the pan. 

The great thing about this recipe was that it didn’t have one of those steps that I knew would result in culinary doom like the last couple of dishes.  By this point it just smelled like hot dogs cooking in butter. Which may not be great for you, but doesn’t smell bad.

The hot dogs & company swimming in gravy.  And yes, that “gravy” was a homemade bechamel sauce. It was perfect, and a complete waste on hot dogs, especially after adding all that Worcestershire sauce.  Oh well, chalk it up to practice, I guess.

Dumped in the dish, waiting for the mashed potato crown.

Ready for the oven.

So, a pretty mundane dish this time, which was a nice change.  I am sure the posts were hilarious, but I wasn’t looking forward to forcing anything nasty down.  Even Hubs was subdued during this one, talking mostly about his day rather than laughing at the horror of our food.

Our cute table, ready to eat.  The only bad thing was this:Awwwww! Doesn’t look very appetizing does it? Yech. But we closed our eyes and dug in. It didn’t taste too bad, basically like hot dogs with mashed potatoes on top.  I was just happy that the recipe didn’t call for any ketchup, because I don’t think I want to try ketchup and cream sauce again. Ever.

The Verdict: Edible

Hubs remarked that the gravy part tasted like the casserole should have had beef in it, but then you got a hot dog and it was kind of jarring.  Other than that it was fine. I have no intention of making it again, but I would go as far to say that it was good. I had seconds, and Hubs had thirds.  Granted, it was mostly just hot dogs and mashed potatoes, but you know, if that is as bad as it gets, then that is just fine with me.

This post has been hooked up with Ann Kroeker’s Food on Friday blog party and The Grocery Cart Challenge’s party!  Check out what everyone else is cooking up…