Checkout with Food Editor Laurin Stamm

From The Kitchen of the Cypress House, Jan. 23, 1980:

Today’s recipe we should refer to as “The Chicken That Almost Wasn’t.”

Dorothy Horn told me about a good chicken recipe she had used and sent me a copy more than a year ago.

It actually is a recipe of Mrs. Ruby Bonelli as it appeared in “Southern Living” several years ago. Every week, it seems, I was going to try the recipe, but something always happened to deter me.

But last weekend we got it all together, and thank goodness! Because it was really good.

Chicken Beer Bake

3 whole chicken breasts, split

4 or 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Salad oil

2 (10 1/2-ounce) cans cream of chicken soup, undiluted

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds, divided

1/2 cup beer

1 (3 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained, or 1/3 cup cooked sliced mushrooms.

Remove the skin from chicken, wash chicken, and dry well with absorbent towels. Combine flour, salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour mixture, and brown in heated oil.

Place chicken in a shallow pan. Combine soup, soy sauce, 2 tablespoons almonds, beer and mushrooms; pour over chicken. Bake, uncovered at 350 degrees for 1 hour, basting occasionally. Sprinkle with remaining almonds.

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From the Kitchen of the Cypress House, April 9, 1980:

When I get in a big hurry—and it seems lately that’s where I stay—there’s a stand-by recipe that gets the job done and it’s delicious as well.

Clara Parks Pinkston gave me a recipe for oven-barbecue sauce years ago when I walked in her kitchen and the aroma was so tantalizing that I had to know what was cooking.

She uses the sauce over beef patties or leftover meat or wieners.

Oven Barbecued Wieners

1 package wieners

1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire

1/4 cup vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar (more if you like)

1/2 cup catsup

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup chopped onions

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

Spread wieners in shallow casserole. Combine rest of ingredients and pour over wieners. Cook 40 to 50 minutes at 350°.

Same directions go for hamburger patties or leftover beef or lamb or pork.