See if you can identify the cereals that Fred passes by. After the screen shots, I’ll help you identify the discontinued and hard to find cereals you may not recognize or remember.

I’ll bet you identified most of the cereals that have remained big sellers since the mid-80s (like Life, Total, Lucky Charms, Count Chocula, Golden Grahams and Fruit Loops). Here’s 10 of the cereals that may have been less familiar:

Halfsies – Quaker; Introduced in 1979.

Kaboom – General Mills; Introduced in 1960.

Bran Chex – Ralston Purina; Introduced in 1978.

Wheat & Raisin Chex – Ralston Purina; Introduced in 1980.

Buc Wheats – General Mills; Introduced in 1971.

Pac-Man Cereal – General Mills; Introduced in 1983.

Donkey Kong Cereal – Ralston Purina; Introduced in 1982.

Raisins Rice & Rye – Kellogg’s; Introduced in 1980.

Most Cereal – Kellogg’s; Introduced in 1979.

Marshmallow Krispies – Kellogg’s; Introduced in 1982.

Thinking about your favorite cereals from the past? Be sure to check out The Cereal Project on MrBreakfast.com to see nearly 1,500 classic and current cereals.

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Interesting Fact:

Mr. Rogers’ full name was Frederick McFeely Rogers. McFeely was the surname of Mr. Rogers’ maternal grandfather. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood featured a character named Mr. McFeely who was a delivery man. Today, people who engage in over-aggressive touching (particularly of the unpleasant sort) are sometimes called Mr. McFeely. The name can also be used derogatorily to describe people who are needy or otherwise show excessive emotion.

We knew it was a hard-sell entering the big pie contest with an entry called “Fig Jam & Spam Breakfast Pie.”

The use of Spam was not a quirky, retro decision.  I’d made several test pies using bacon, ham and even chorizo as the meat in the filling.  But in every instance, the meat inside was overshadowed by our distinctive spicy, candied bacon crumble topping.

Test Pies: Preparing For The Big Day

We’d gone camping the previous weekend and had campfire sandwiches made from the portable meat, so I happened to have an extra can of Spam on hand.  I gave it a shot in a test pie.  It worked.  It provided a flavor that contrasted but still paired with the bacon topping.  It not only worked, but it provided an umami element… a taste you remembered growing up but had almost locked away forever.

For our official entry in the savory category, we made a flaky herbed crust and lined the bottom with onions caramelized with a gorgeous homemade fig jam.  We mixed our quiche base with a combination of Gruyère and Cheddar cheese, to which we added the Spam and seasonings.  Once almost fully baked, we topped the pie with crumbled bacon that had been rubbed with brown sugar, smoked paprika and crushed cumin seeds.

The Pie Contest Begins

As instructed, we made one pie for the judges and one for mass consumption.

It was a real blast serving the pie to the public.  As people read the name of our entry, we were greeted with either huge smiles or looks of complete dismay.  Fig Jam and Spam.  It was a risk.

I was very surprised that a handful of people asked us what Spam was.  When we told them that it was basically processed ham preserved in a can.  They seemed intrigued.

I had no real expectation of winning, but I found myself suddenly hopeful as people who tried our concoction returned to tell us that our pie was the best they tried.  In many instances, they said it quietly as if to say, “… but don’t tell any one that I like Spam.”

Mr Breakfast At The Pie Contest

Things would be so different if Spam was a product of France or Italy.  Why does a preserved meat like prosciutto bring culinary experts to their drooling knees, while a canned American meat product makes them roll their eyes?

A Prosciutto And Gruyère Quiche would have been an easy win. I threw my apron in the ring with a Spam pie.  What was I thinking?  It’s like I sent a lovable donkey to a purebred horse show.

One tent over, a Savory Korean Short Rib pie gleamed in the sun.

What if the Spam pie won?  It would be a victory for the underdog!  All the hoity-toity pies with their expensive ingredients would bow their crusts as the crowd erupted in Rocky-like cheers!

The judges approached the stage.  Host and Radio Food Phenom Evan Kleiman thanked a group of children for making pies, but said they were all winners and wouldn’t be judged, per say.  Lucky for them.  I was starting to feel confident.  My Spam Pie would have destroyed them.

Mrs Breakfast At The Big Pie Contest

Former musician turned professional vegan enthusiast, Moby announced the winners of the vegan category.  He seemed like a high-brow hippy, too good for Spam.

Then it was our turn… the savory category.  Famed Los Angeles Chef Susan Feniger announced the results.  Third place… a summer tomato pie.  Second place… an onion quiche.

And the winner is…

My spirits were low as we walked to judges room to pick up our pie plate.  We were foiled by a Chicken Curry Pie.  It was probably great.  I didn’t try it because it sounded disgusting.  Oh fate, put down your wretched mirror! I see the parallels.

We lost fair and square… or did we…

As we entered the judges room, I saw pie after pie with only a single forkful taken out.  Yards and yards of pie in exactly the same condition.  And then there was our pie, two-thirds gone.  The judges didn’t vote for my pie, but it was the only one they had made a meal out of.

Decimated Spam And Fig Jam Breakfast Pie

Actions speak louder than words.  By devouring my pie, they proclaimed my pie to be the king of all pies!  That was good enough for me!  (However, I still retain the option to file a legal appeal based on this astounding new evidence.)

This article is a companion piece to the following recipe on MrBreakfast.com:

Fig Jam & Spam Breakfast Pie

The pie contest described here took place on September 7, 2013.  It was the 5th Annual Good Food Pie Contest sponsored by KCRW.  It took place at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

A can of soup has been a secret ingredient for home cooks since cans of soup were invented.  I suspect that it’s a secret of a few sly professionals as well.  Just a couple of Tablespoons of a cream of soup concentrate can dramatically change the flavor of scrambles, omelets and frittatas… almost always for the better.

This recipe was part of a vintage 1958 magazine ad for Campbell’s Soups called “Souper Special Budget Beaters.” (To see the full ad, click here.)  Above, you can see the dish as it appeared in the classic ad.  Below, you can see my revamped recreation.

I adjusted the recipe to make 2 servings.  My ingredients were 3 eggs, 2 Tablespoon butter, about 1/3 can cream of mushroom soup, a small handful of cheese and some parsley.  Not part of the original recipe, I also added 3 sliced button mushroom and some finely chopped chives.

The trick to working with soup is stirring it by itself first.  They make mention of that in the original recipe.  If you don’t stir it until smooth, you get lumps of soup in the egg mixture.  Those lumps will cook down in the frying pan, but why mess with it.  A quick initial stir of the soup just helps everything distribute more evenly.

My Super Souper Mushroom Scramble:

Saute the mushrooms for about 6 minutes in 1 Tablespoon of butter over medium heat until they became very tender and fragrant.  As they cook, beat the eggs with the soup.  Stir cooked mushrooms into the egg mixture.

Pour the egg mixture into the same pan.  Sprinkle with chives.  Stir and scramble until the egg is fully set.  Turn off heat.  Sprinkle with cheese and cover until melted.  Garnish with parsley and additional chives.

That’s all there is to it.  For all my fancy sautéed modifications, the star of this recipe is still the humble can of mushroom soup.  It was nice to get a more complex buttery mushroom flavor, but if you don’t want to mess around, just stir some soup in your eggs. The (mush) rumors are true.  It’s soup-erbly eggs-cellent!

I hope you have a souper day!

This article is a companion piece to the following recipe on MrBreakfast.com:

Souper Scramble

For over 150 other great scrambled egg recipes, visit the Scrambles Collection on MrBreakfast.com.

Check out other vintage breakfast recipes:

The Retro Breakfast Recipe Collection at MrBreakfast.com

I discovered this recipe in a 1976 advertisement from the Egg Farmers of Ontario.  The ad promoted the recipe as The 42 Cent Lunch, but it struck me that eggs on toast might be better suited for breakfast.  It’s an interesting take on the classic Egg in the Hole.  Instead of cooking an egg within a slice of toast, the egg rests on top of the toast.  The yolk is supported by a pillow of beaten egg white that’s baked until golden brown.

This morning I “got cracking” and tried making this vintage recipe.

Above, you can see that the dish turned out pretty much like the picture in the ad.  The yolk wasn’t quite as vibrant, but other than that, it was awesome. It was easy to make, tasty and a really fun way to do eggs and toast in a unique way.

Here’s how to make it…

The ingredients are just eggs, bread, butter and salt.  For the original recipe as printed in the ad, click here.

Toast your bread.  While the bread is in the toaster, separate your egg whites from the yolks.  Beat the egg whites until stiff.  It only takes a minute with an electric beater.

Butter your toast.  Dollop pillows of egg white on each slice of toast.  Make an indentation in the middle of the whites.  Carefully, place a yolk in each of the holes.  Dot the top of the eggs with butter.  Bake at 350 degrees for 17 minutes. (The original recipe says 15 minutes, but I found that it needed 2 minutes more.)

Remove the Baked Birdies from the oven and serve with hash browns or fruit.

You can eat this with a fork or with your hands.  The yolk will still be just a bit runny, but not enough to get messy.  If you want the yolk cooked through completely, switch your oven to broil for the last 2 minutes of cooking.

No mater what you call it, Baked Birdies in a Nest (aka Egg in a Basket; aka Egg in the Hole; aka Toad in a Hole; aka Baked Popeye) is a fun way to serve an ordinary breakfast in a fun, new way.  Even though, ironically, this new way is 37 years old.

This post is a companion piece to the following article on MrBreakfast.com:

Baked Egg Nests

Related Recipe:

Egg In The Hole

I love finding fun retro recipes.  I’m always scouring through kitschy vintage cookbooks, classic recipe cards and magazines from the 60’s and 70’s.  There’s a certain lost naivety to many of those recipes.  It used to be just about the food.  Increased knowledge of nutrition would soon destroy the innocence of a generation who thought margarine was a health food.

Today’s featured recipe is from 1971… a time when G.I. stood for a manly soldier and not a way to measure blood sugar (the Glycemic Index was yet be defined).   This is a complete breakfast that you make in a muffin tin. It consists of oven-fresh corn bread and cups of corned beef hash cradling baked eggs.

You can see the original recipe card above.  Below, you can see what it actually looked like when I made it this morning.

I can report that the recipe worked as promised and tasted exactly like you might expect.  It’s not fancy, but it is convenient, filling and fairly delicious.

Here’s how to make it…

For the quick and easy, printable version of this recipe, click here.

The ingredients are just a can of corned beef hash, six eggs and a package of corn bread muffin mix.  You also need to prepare the muffin batter according to box which required an extra egg and 1/3 cup milk.  The only alteration I made to the recipe was to mix one more (beaten) egg in with the corned beef hash.  I wanted to make sure my hash cups held together as I removed them from the tin.

Grease the inside of each muffin cup with butter or cooking spray. Fill six of the cups with corn bread batter – filling each cup no more than 3/4 full.  Spoon 2 heaping Tablespoons of corned beef hash into each of the remaining six cups.  Use your fingers or the back of a spoon to make deep indentations for the eggs.  Crack the eggs into the holes you created.

Regarding the eggs: I found it important to use large or medium eggs.  Extra-large eggs overflowed out of the cups.  Large eggs were just right.

Bake everything at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.  My meal in a muffin tin took 17 minutes to be done to my liking.  That resulted in eggs with fully cooked whites, but with just a little bit of runniness left in the yolks.

If I had a do-over, I would bake the corned beef hash by itself for 5 minutes before adding the muffin batter and eggs.  The hash was thoroughly warmed through, but I was hoping I’d get a little more color to indicate doneness.

And there you have it… it’s retro, it’s fun, it’s delicious and it works.  It’s a meal in a muffin tin!

This post is a companion piece to the following recipe on MrBreakfast.com:

Meal In A Muffin Pan

For more retro recipes, visit the Retro Breakfast Recipes page on Mr Breakfast.com.

Also check out my earlier post called Retro Classic: Waffle Maker French Toast.

I found this recipe and posted it about a year ago, but it’s taken me until now to make it myself.  I can’t believe I wasted a whole year to try this!  This recipe is amazing!  It’s truly the greatest use for white bread since sandwiches.  It’s as easy as it looks and it’s absolutely delicious.

I found the recipe in a 1955 magazine advertisement for Log Cabin syrup.  They called the recipe “Bread-N-Butter Waffles,” but I was thinking “Waffle Maker French Toast” is probably more descriptive.  The ad describes it as “Wonderful, crispy waffles the folks will love for breakfast – the kids will want for lunch – and you’ll use often for hurry-up suppers.”  I can vouch for that description.  They are wonderfully crispy, I loved them for breakfast,  and I’ll use this recipe often from here on in!

For the short, sweet and printable version of the recipe, click here now.

To make this recipe:

First, you make a customary egg and milk mixture to dip your bread slices into.  The recipe calls for 2 eggs beaten with 1 cup milk, a teaspoon of sugar and pinch of salt.  The milk to egg ratio is a little higher than I’m used to, but it worked fine.

Second, you butter each slice of bread on both sides. I was worried that this might create a wall preventing the custard from getting through the bread.  Not so.  Incidentally, the recipe calls for white bread.  I decided to use classic Wonder Bread since I was going full-on retro.

As you would with any French toast, you dredge your bread through the egg and milk mixture until it’s thoroughly soaked.

Once my waffle maker was fully heated up and I had the green light, I placed four slices of soaked bread onto the grates.  My machine fit four slices comfortably.  I shut the lid and cooked the slices undisturbed for about 3 minutes – medium on my waffle maker.

I did get just a little bit of butter dripping out of the sides of the machine – a clue to spread a little less butter on the bread for my next go-around.

That’s it!  My waffle maker beeped. They were done and they were awesome…  golden brown, perfectly done.  Considering the waffle maker usually has to cook liquid batter, I was surprised the “waffles” weren’t overcooked using the same heat setting.

Whatever you want to call them… bread waffles…. waffle French toast… they were delicious.  The sugar in the custard, and I suspect, the sugar that was already in the bread, caramelized around the edges to create some of the crispest French toast I’ve ever had.  The flavor paired with a pat of butter and pure maple syrup was fantastic.  There’s no need to add vanilla or other flavoring to the custard.  They got this recipe perfectly right back in 1955.

I urge you try this one.  It’s pretty impressive.

This article is based on the following recipe at MrBreakfast.com:

Bread-N-Butter Waffles

For more Retro Breakfast Recipes, check out my list titled appropriately, Retro Breakfast Recipes.  It has over 30 old school breakfast recipes discovered in old magazines and recipe cards.