Murder, She Wrote Cookalong Day 4 – Sterling Work

I’ve been thrilled by how many people have signed up for the cookalong. Some are blogger friends I only know through the ether, some are friends in real life, and some I don’t know from Adam! I am having so much fun reading and compiling all the feedback. I cannot tell you all how valuable it will all be for the Murder, She Cooked book so a big THANK-YOU to all!

Elizabeth Nygaard in Iowa volunteered to test Eleanor Parker’s “wonderful on cool nights” Bean Soup. I was worried that the recipe wasn’t very exciting but Elizabeth was a good sport and made it anyhow! Here’s the finished soup, looking delicious!

Elizabeth has lots of vintage cookbooks. She did some great research and found a similar recipe in her copy of The Household Searchlight Recipe Book from 1943.  Elizabeth suspects that Eleanor had a copy of the book and I do too! I love that idea.

Sophia Rawlinson came to an event I did in Southend-on-Sea when I launched the Cooking With Columbo book and I was so pleased when she volunteered to test something for Murder, She Cooked. Sophia sent some great feedback about the Karen Black 10-Minute-Tomato-Beef-Chinese-Number which is a great name for a recipe! The dish was a hit, and I love this photo of Sophia’s partner Chris patiently waiting for his dinner while a photo was taken!

Lovely Margie Compton is a friend who is a fellow film archivist in the USA. For those of you interested in the wonderful world of film archiving, Margie has a lovely blog all about benchwork – go and have a little visit, it’s fabulous.

Margie chose Samantha Eggar’s Tostada Salad to test and she did a great job. This looks so delectable with some refried beans on the side! It was much enjoyed by Margie and her dad.

Margie told me that one of the reasons she chose Samantha’s recipe was because of this commercial….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysjsawOQ_2M

and Margie’s mention of Samantha in The Collector

sent me straight to eBay to grab it on DVD. I feel a “Dinner and a Movie” coming on, not least because I have had this Terence Stamp cookbook for ages and never made anything from it…

Patricia Villacrusis in Baltimore really made me laugh with her feedback about Donald O’Connor’s Hot Ham Sandwich. She called it “a Tinseltown version of a croque monsieur” and what could be better than that?!

Patricia tested Donald’s recipe three times, what a trooper! The first time she had Singing in the Rain on in the background, saying, “I can neither confirm or deny that tap-dancing on the kitchen tiles took place during “Moses Supposes.”

Haha. The second and third time, as is right and proper, Patricia had Murder, She Wrote on in the background, “No spontaneous singing or tap dancing because, you know: it’s MURDER and some decorum must be maintained, after all.” Haha!

No photographs were taken of the multiple cheesy, hammy, delicious-sounding sandwiches Patricia made. You know what that means don’t you? Just like the Lee Merriweather Peanut Butter Cookies, I’m going to have to try this recipe out myself!

via GIPHY

More recipe feedback coming in the next couple of days. All of these recipes will be going in the book, but if you can’t wait that long and want to cook up one of these dishes for yourself, just email me via the Contact page and I’ll send the recipe on over to you.

There are still recipes available to test cook. At the end of the Cookalong I’ll be writing a post about those that remain untested. It might be too late to join in the Cookalong but I could still use feedback for the book!

Everyone who test-cooks will be getting a special “thank-you” card in the post. It’s under construction right now, but here is a sneaky peek at the wonderful recipe illustration Miriam Figueras is working on…