Meatless Monday Meets Movie Memories

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       THE ALL-AMERICAN Cowboy Cookbook, Home Cooking on the Range is one of my favorite cookbooks. The recipes in this have all been submitted by cowboy and cowgirl stars of gone by years. The book is filled with lots of pictures of the stars who portrayed these cowboys on the silver screen, on television or in real life.
      Some of my earliest memories come from Saturday morning television when the good guys wore white hats and you knew who the bad guys were. They wore black hats ! You also were likely to hear a western song or two especially if Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Rex Allen, Gene Autry or the Sons of the Pioneers were in the show.
      Gail Davis was an actress who played Annie Oakley in her own television series from 1953 to 1958 and co-starred in a few Gene Autry films. I am almost old enough to remember this series but probably my memories come from re-runs. Gail Davis has submitted a couple of soup recipes to the cookbook and one I find particularly easy to make and tasty to eat.

 This potato soup recipe is as easy as it gets. The hardest part is peeling the 5 pounds of potatoes. Grate some onions and celery, add salt and pepper to taste, bring to a boil then simmer until the potatoes are cooked tender the add onion flakes and parsley flakes and let set for 5 minutes or so. I like to mash the potatoes pretty fine to make the soup thicker and add some milk and butter to make it a little richer. If you like big chunks of potato in your soup just don't mash them up. I have tried adding a lot of milk and butter and I also have just barely put some in. You can make it to your personal taste. I have added ham and bacon to this soup at different times. Both are good, but I usually make this meatless. We like to have ours with grilled cheese.
      There are so many of my favorite western movie stars in this book that I pick it up just to look at the pictures and to reminisce of an easier time when a child's fantasy could take him to the wild west and he could wear the oversize white hat and ride off on the white horse having saved the day, again.
Then I consider my own grand children and their obsession with Mine Craft, Peppa Pig, and Harley Quinn and realize, maybe we aren't so different. Our heroes will just be wearing different hats.
       If you get a chance, check out this cookbook and watch an old western. The kids may not get into the old time western but I bet they will eat the food.