Jensalittleloopy Cooks the Oldies: Carrot Concoction

Mmmmm.  Doesn’t Carrot Concoction sound delicious?  Today we’re stepping back to 1969 and visiting the Salads Cookbook, published by Favorite Recipes Press.  I have to tell you, there were a TON of recipes in this book that were hard to resist – especially the “congealed salads.”  We’ll try one of those later when I am not trying to impress a bunch of church ladies with my culinary skills.

So I recently joined the Presbyterian Women’s Group at my church, and every year we have a Salad Supper.  Everyone brings a salad to share and after we eat all of the healthy things we have cake and punch.

What a perfect opportunity to whip up a vintage salad recipe!

I chose Carrot Concoction because in my brain it seemed like the ingredients would lend themselves to an interesting and pleasant eating experience.  And also because all foodstuffs should be called concoctions when they include such dubious flavor combinations as mustard and sweet cream.

Ok let’s do this!

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup raisins, rehydrated
• 3 cups grated carrots
• 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, drained
• ½ cup cocktail peanuts
• 1 cup cooked cornbread stuffing (I used Stove Top)
• 1 tsp. yellow mustard
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 4 tbsp. heavy cream

Instructions:

• To rehydrate your raisins, soak them in a bowl of hot water for 10-15 minutes.
• Mix the raisins, carrots, pineapple, and peanuts together, and refrigerate for 1 hour.
• Combine mustard, sugar, and heavy cream, and then mix into the salad.
• Add cornbread stuffing just before serving.

Serves 12 as a side dish.

This sounds vile, right?  There is a LOT going on with this recipe but it was surprisingly good!  (I tested the dressing before I ruined the salad with it and it was pretty tasty.)  It was definitely an improvement over the usual carrot and raisin salad.  The pineapple flavor got a little lost, but the peanuts added some texture and made this a more substantial dish.  I LOVED the dressing so much more than mayo, which is usually used for this kind of a salad, because it tasted lighter.  Even though there were a lot of sweet things in the salad, it didn’t taste super-sweet.

The ladies all seemed to enjoy it and it did get eaten (I was checking!) so I’m going to call it a win.

To me it was a little bland, though.  Next time I make it I’m going to add a bit of curry powder and turmeric because those spices would be perfect in this dish.  And I’ll eliminate the cornbread stuffing because it doesn’t add much to the salad except calories.

I have to say, though, I am a little sad nobody brought the lime green jello with carrots and onions last night.  Maybe next year.  😉