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Retro Cookbook of the Week: “Carefree Cooking with Aluminum Foil” by Reynolds Wrap

Carefree Cooking with Aluminum Foil

Carefree Cooking with Aluminum Foil

Here’s a favorite from my cookbook library: Carefree Cooking with Aluminum Foil. Published in 1975, it’s a treasure trove of handy information about, and creative uses for, (you guessed it) aluminum foil. It has a series of recipes with the classic 70s culinary monikers that we’ve grown to love: Tuna Tempties, Peanut and Deviled Ham Twisters and Swiss Bliss.

Check out the hot dog festival sticking out of the raw cauliflower.

Check out the hot dog festival sticking out of the raw cauliflower.

It also has all the fun things that were mandatory for any cookbook published between 1960 and 1980 including lots of recipes involving gelatin, condensed soup or maraschino cherries, as well as some of the goofiest food photography ever.

The best chapter though is titled Aluminum Foil Creations : Inspired ways to fold, mold and make top use of this household helper. It offers pages of instructions on how to origami your foil into a variety of shapes to use as pans, liners, tents, lids and even party decorations. Amazing!

The recipe I chose to make from the book employs one of these inspired ways of folding foil into a pie pan.

Hamburger Pizza.

  1. Mix your ingredients together for the hamburger “crust”. Place a square of Reynolds Wrap on a cookie sheet. Pat out the hamburger mixture into a 10” circle ½ “ thick.
  2. Fold the foil up creating an impromptu aluminum pie pan filled with hamburger crust.
  3. Spread the remaining Condensed Cream of Tomato Soup (which we couldn’t find and substituted Condensed Tomato Bisque).
  4. Top with Mozzarella (and although the recipe doesn’t call for it, there were mushrooms in the picture) and sliced mushrooms.
  5. Bake for 15 min at 450*.

Behold!

Our hamburger pizza.

Our hamburger pizza.

Actually, it was pretty darn good! The kids, Joe and I wolfed that thing down. I think it helped that I used high-quality whole milk mozzarella that was thinly sliced at the deli, and we were hungry. However, the dish was good and held its shape. Basically it was a meat pizza without the pizza crust—an Atkins lover’s dream.

Thanks Reynolds Wrap!

Next recipe I would like to try: Flemish Beer-and-Beef Casserole

Recipe I will not be trying: Frozen Jellied Turkey-Vegetable Salad

Hamburger Pizza  Servings 6: 439 cal, 30 g Fat, 978 mg. Sodium

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