Dinner and a Movie: White Christmas, Visions of Sugarplums, and Exciting News

I love picking up old magazines at estate sales or antique stores. This December 1956 issue of McCall's is chock-full of great recipes, including Huntburgers and Polka Dot Pudding, which went perfectly with a viewing of White Christmas (1954). A couple of notes: next time, I'd use homemade marinara sauce in the Huntburgers, so that's what I've listed in the recipe. Secondly, the marshmallow ad has obviously used torched marshmallows, rather than the browned-in-the-oven variety (see my photo). Paul's hoping I'll make this again and let him take his propane torch to the unsuspecting confections.

Huntburgers

2 hamburger buns (unsplit, preferably)
1/3 lb ground beef
1/4 onion, grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
pepper
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons marinara sauce

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Hollow out buns, leaving 1/2" all the way around and on the bottom. Crumble the removed bread into a mixing bowl and add the beef, onion, salt, pepper and 1/4 cup marinara. Mix together then form into two large meatballs and place in the hollowed-out buns. Place Huntburgers on a baking sheet and bake 20 minutes, top with remaining sauce and bake another 5 minutes.

Serves 2

Adapted from Hunt's ad in December 1956 issue of McCall's.

Polka Dot Pudding

2 large sweet potatoes
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup miniature marshmallows

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Peel the sweet potatoes, cut into cubes and boil until tender. Mash them well and measure out 2 cups (if you have much more than that, reserve it for another recipe). Add butter and salt and combine. (I used my hand mixer for all of this.) Transfer to a greased casserole or baking dish (an 8" round Pyrex cake pan in my case) and bake 15 minutes. Sprinkle marshmallows over the top and bake another 10 minutes, or until marshmallows are browned.

Serves 4

Adapted from Kraft Miniature Marshmallows ad in December 1956 issue of McCall's.

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Photo sources clockwise from top left: Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3, Photo 4

OK, so White Christmas is a pretty ridiculous movie. It does, however, have fabulous costumes and the ability to make me want to spend Christmas in Vermont. When I first saw White Christmas, I was twelve or thirteen and in Show Choir. My friend Grace and I went around for weeks doing the "Sisters" number! It's practically an old friend, which makes it the perfect movie for cold and gloomy weather. If I were pretentious about movies, I would decry White Christmas as overly-sentimental drivel. However, all of you know I don't watch very many "serious" movies.

Be sure to check out today's posts from:

Christina at I Gotta Create!
Jennifer at Just Wedeminute
Lori at Choux-choux
Mika at Mika's Pantry

Some very exciting news: my Sachertorte recipe was published in Ruche's A Homemade Holiday. It's actually been up since last month, but I didn't find my acceptance letter until yesterday because either I accidentally deleted it or it was classified as spam. Probably a good idea to remember when newsletters say "please add us to your safe list" to do so. Anyway...

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