Betty, Please ... Chicken Tetrazzini!

I first heard of Chicken Tetrazzini in the late 70's while I was in fits watching the hilarious Laverne & Shirley episode where they attempted to open a diner called 'Dead Lazlo's Place.' The clip is below but even before youtube I always remembered Laverne stuffing a whole chicken in a pot of boiling water in an attempt to make the dish. Now, shield your eyes from the SPOILER ALERT: Hopes for the diner didn't pan out and by the end Shirley (responding to Laverne's sweaty calls of 'Betty, please' and 'Pick Up, Betty' as you may remember) suffered a total collapse and ran out shrieking at the grabbing hands and demands of the unruly customers and a burned mess of 'hash blacks.'



Somehow over the years however,  the dish lingered in memory ... then I happened to be poring through a grand, gilded-in-bronze edition of A Treasury of Great Recipes by Vincent Price (yes, that one--the celluloid ghoul of legend who also provided the cackle at the end of 'Thriller'). I discovered in its glorious pages a recipe for Emince of Chicken Tetrazzini au Gratin that he and his wife enjoyed at Sardi's. It may surprise you to learn that the Prices were international epicures and the cookbook reflects their culinary journeys, laboriously detailed with menus from some of the world's most historied chefs. But oh boy, was this glogging Tetrazzini loaded with fat on top of fat (ie. adding heavy cream to an already rich veloute sauce and then sour cream). No, no--although it may have been created for the opera star Luisa Tetrazzini ("when calories didn't count"), I have no plans of padding my bellows to thunder through a tempestuous Wagnerian epic. I enlisted the help of another, less frantic Betty instead, that old gal Betty Crocker came through. Armed with a cooked rotisserie chicken and low-fat cream soups (subbing for the veloute sauce), I easily prepared her much trimmed-down version of Chicken Tetrazzini, great for any night of the week and quick to go as well. So ... pick up, Betty!

The link is here. So, my suggestions? Just shred that aforementioned rotisserie chicken, and for the suggested soups, use one can each of low sodium/fat Campbell's cream of chicken and cream of mushroom with a can of 2% milk and 1/3 reduced fat sour cream. Pre-sliced baby bellas fit the bill for the mushrooms.

And in case you'd like to watch the entire Laverne & Shirley clip, in its hilarity, click here!

A Transporting Cake!

I had appropriated the Betty Crocker's Cake and Frosting Mix Cookbook ("featuring more than 300 recipes for every occasion") years ago from my parents' basement but it was only recently when thumbing through the candy-colored pages filled with rainbow nonpareils, glaceed cherries, and sparkling sugar that I pointed out the "Choo Choo" Birthday Train to Baby. He was immediately taken by it, remembering the sweet embrace he felt as a child when his mother made it once for him. So I thought, what a wonderful surprise if I created a special train for him--what a charming dessert with a cargo of Sweetheart candies and jelly beans for a transporting Valentine's Day! It was all really quite simple to put together and such a beautiful laugh riot--Baby's eyes became moist as the cake itself! Great for a little one's surprise party or anytime for inspiring the child in all of us. So find the recipe below and climb aboard!



Outfitted on a rustic wood slab cutting board and a pitcher of two dozen roses as back drop. The marshmallows dipped in cocoa powder with mini-marshmallows were my idea, suggestive of snow covered boulders. The wheels are peppermints but Lifesavers would certainly do, carting the sparkling sugar dusted cargo of Jelly Belly mixed jelly beans and those Sweethearts with little Valentine's Day messages on them! A Twizzler is the smokestack and string licorice made tracks.

An aerial view!

"Choo Choo" Birthday Train
(My notes in italics)
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour six small loaf pans (I only used two, it was only for the two of us!), and an extra pan (for the batter that doesn't fit in the 'cars'). Prepare Betty Crocker Devils Food cake mix (yellow was Baby's preference) as directed on package. Fill each loaf pan half full of batter and pour remaining batter into the extra pan. Bake loaves 20 to 25 minutes. Cool.

Prepare Betty Crocker chocolate fudge frosting mix as directed on package (I used a can of B.C. classic chocolate frosting). Place each small loaf upside down on individual aluminium foil "plates" or large serving tray. Frost sides and tops of loaves. Decorate with hard candy circle mints for wheels and candleholders (no candles here), red 1-inch gumdrop for smokestack. Use candles on engine and first car. "Fill" each additional car with one of these: red cinnamon candies, nonpareils, peanuts, and colored decorator's sugar.

Place in line down center of table. Serve on aluminum foil "plates," one for each child, or cut in half to serve two. Little balloons, sparklers, plastic grass or wrapped, beribboned candy crackers for additional display at your discretion!

Orange Banana Cake

I never met Baby's mother, as she passed a few years before he and I met, but her loving memory looms large when related in the many stories told to me by her family and friends. Just the other day Baby told me about the Orange Banana Cakes she used to make for his birthdays when he was growing up. Well naturally, I set to work right away for a surprise! It doesn't seem like the Orange Chiffon cake mix exists anymore, so I used a Betty Crocker Butter Recipe Yellow cake mix and zested an orange into it along with beating 1 1/4 cups water, a stick of unsalted sweet cream butter and three eggs together as the back of the box suggests. I made Jell-O Banana Cream instant pudding separately and let it chill and thicken for a few minutes before folding it into the mix. Instead of making a whole cake, my batch was spread into a pan of mini bundts (12 all told) sprayed with Pam three times. After the whole thing rested for 10 minutes, I loosened the little beauties from the pan over a cooling rack and with no apologies, put a dollop of Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting on top of each. Marvelous!