Argyle Centennial Cookbook

When I was at my mom's, I was paging through the Argyle Centennial Cookbook. (Argyle is the small town in northwestern Minnesota that I grew up in. The Centennial Cookbook is its cookbook.)

I had an idea earlier this week of making all of the recipes in that cookbook, and writing about it on my blog. (You know, like how that lady did it with Julia Child's cookbook.) This would be a hilarious endeavor because all the recipes are so... small town cookbook.

But then I got to looking at this cookbook again, and I realized that I didn't really want to make all of the recipes in there.

Here is what I found:

• 8 recipes for cheese balls
• 13 recipes for banana bread
• A significant amount of recipes containing Velveeta cheese, Cheese Whiz or a cream of something soup (see my recipe for No Peekie Stew, for example).
• The "Salads" section featured mostly Jell-o salads, some of which included a Pinneapple Cheese Jell-o Salad, a Molded Vegetable Jell-o Salad (ingredients: lime Jell-o, salad dressing, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, green pepper, onion, vinegar, salt, paprika), and something called a Cherry Coke Salad (1 can cherry pie filling, 1/2 cup sugar, 1-1/2 cup water, 1 large package cherry Jell-o, and 1 can of Coke). What the frick, everybody? What the frick?
• Several recipes for various types of macaroni salads.
• 6 recipes for fruit cakes.
• At least 1/3 of the cookbook was desserts and sweets (cookies, bars, bars, and more bars). (Not counting the fact that their "salads" should be considered desserts as well.)

So, yes, right there is the reason I decided to forgo my cheeky little recipe idea.