Ha! I was going to say I think ours had some sour cream in it as well as the cream cheese, but then I doubted my memory, since I was just a kid then. It got me thinking about the Lipton-onion-soup-mix dip, too, which was ubiquitous back then.
Wikipedia has an entry for everything, lol!
Also (changing the subject), it wasn’t until after we talked about caraway seeds and Queen Anne’s Lace, above, that it dawned on me that your user image is, so apropos, the QAL plant 
Found it:
8oz low moisture mozarella, shreded.
1 cup bread crumbs.
2 cans clams, with juice.
1 stick of butter, melted
2 cloves garlic, minced.
2tbls dried oregano or italian seasoning.
1tbls dried parsley.
Black pepper to taste.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
The recipe calls for 1 can of clams. But my grandmother always liked it better with 2. And we typically don’t use anywhere near that much dried oregano, or really stick to the list of herbs at all. Especially if we’re using seasoned “Italian style” breadcrumbs. Just kind of put a heavy shake of thyme, oregano, and parsley up in there.
I got remarkably close given I haven’t actually read the recipe in about a decade. It’s a pretty easy recipe to mess with provided you get the moisture level right. Should come out something like a dough. It’s good with sausage or bacon added. Can be made with almost any other seafood (though you’ll need stock or clam juice). And you can sub any smooth melting cheese for the moz, though milder ones work better.
We also regularly make it with fresh clams when we have them. Shucked and chopped. And it’s what I use for my baked clams. Basically just pack the mix into the shells and bake at 350.
you noticed.
I started making these little ‘zines a while ago to learn about different so-called weeds that grow around here. I had big ambitions of doing one each month and changing my profile pic to the weed of the month. I started with QAL. I’ve done 3 others, but never found good pics for my profile, so just stuck with the original. C’est la vie.
Made some instant pot bbq beef for dinner. Not bad for what it was. Recent meals included shrimp stir fried with chestnuts and cabbage and roast chicken and potatoes.
And I made some instant potatoes. :shame-faced:
Seriously, I did. I bought them while trying to stock my covid-pantry for the winter, not knowing how bad things might get. And they aren’t as bad as I thought they would be! (I mean, instant potatoes aren’t as bad as I thought they would be. Things are pretty bad, obviously.) My mom made them occasionally when we were kids, but I’d never bought or made them as a grown-up. Pandemic cooking for the win.
They’re not good as mashed potatoes. But they’re useful for things. Can be used for breading and as a binder in various things. And you see a lot of recipes using them for things like gnocchi, latkes, and boxty. See it a lot in gluten free cooking and it comes up quite a bit in modernist/sciency cooking as a trick.
The important bit is it can’t be subbed for potato starch/potato flour which is used pretty frequently especially in Jewish cooking around high holy days.
Unfortunately I don’t have any examples around. But if you poke around a bit you don’t have to make sad mash potatoes until they’re gone. They’re also useful for arts and crafts, I remember making paint or glue or something out of them as a kid.
Good to know, thanks!
That reminds me how my mom used to make paste for us out of flour and water. Many happy hours at the kitchen table with our construction paper, scissors, crayons, and flour-and-water paste
When I was stirring the mashed potatoes, I was thinking you could probably make some kind of play-dough-like substance with it.
I made chicken sausage rolls last night.
Second worst moment: Taking the thawed box of “two sheets of folded puff pastry” out of the fridge to find that it was a fused block of dough. No parchment paper or even flour dusting to allow separation. Vowing never to buy that supermarket’s house brand ever again!
Worst moment: Remembering that that’s what I said the last time. 
I grabbed a roller and flattened it out, but the end result was more like Pillsbury wiener wraps than flaky pastry. Still, the filling was tasty, so it wasn’t a disaster.
It might have been that. Or some variation of paper mache.
I just remember my mother being horrified at having to buy them, and the box stuck around for years. Instant potatoes were a core part of food assistance back in the day. And she grew up having them at every meal.
I have made that mistake every time I have ever purchased puff pastry.
No shame.
I have a partial envelope of dried milk, not sure where it came from, but I think pre-COVID. It occasionally comes in really handy. This weekend I made a chocolate cake (with peanut butter frosting) and needed milk for the cake but didn’t have any and didn’t want to use up the little bit of half and half I had for coffee. Dried milk to the rescue! Cake came out tasty.
Are you trying to get me to confess that I used dried milk in my instant mashed potatoes? Because I did! 
I used extra dried milk, even, and I think it made them taste richer.
Your cake looks so good!
We do this as a New Year’s Day tradition (from my grandmother’s family in VA). We use 1/4 cup of finely chopped yellow onion, and a dash of black pepper instead of garlic. When served with potato chips, it’s gone in an hour. I usually double the recipe and serve it in two parts - half with chips and the other half with Town House crackers (grandmother’s favorite). 
Though we are vegetarian now, I used to make Bo Ssam as a celebratory meal. It’s the only meat dish my wife occasionally pines for.
I could drown in Ssam sauce and be A-OK with it.
It’s Hannukah! So there was braised beef and latkes for dinner. Last night was rather a failure, as the glaze I used on the fish didn’t give it much flavor at all, and the fish itself ended up rather tough. Ended up using the glaze as a kind of broth in the bottom of the plate, and that helped.
Worth a thought as play doh isn’t gluten free.
