Cooking Old 9th Ward Recipes: Part 1

When I saw that the cookbooks of the 9th Ward over the years were posted on the blog, I thought that it would be fun to try out some of the recipes submitted by our ward members and share my progress!

The recipe that I made tonight was from the 1967-1968 9th Ward Kitchen Carnival Cookbook. I thought that the cover for this cookbook was really fun. So I decided to judge a book by its cover, and make a recipe from this cookbook first.

There were a lot of really fun looking recipes in this cookbook to choose from. However, a lot of the recipes listed ingredients, but they didn’t have directions that were thorough enough for me to understand. A few didn’t even really include directions! This ended up helping me narrow down what to make, since I wanted a recipe that was easy to understand and follow.  

The 9th Ward relief society had grouped the cookbook into different sections, and I was really excited to see that there was a whole section on casseroles. Casseroles were a household staple for me growing up, so I was excited to see what kind of casseroles they were making in the 1960’s, and if any of them were familiar to me. None were the exact same as the casseroles my mother would make growing up, but there were a few that were similar, which was fun!

Lots of the casseroles sounded interesting and fun to make, but in the end I decided to make the “Tuna Pot Pie '' dish submitted by Sister LeAnne West. I chose this recipe because it sounded unique, the instructions were easy to follow, and I already had most of the ingredients at home.

I decided to half this recipe since I was only making it for me and my husband. This recipe was great, because it was very straightforward and simple. Basically  all that I had to do was get my ingredients ready, and mix them together to bake. 

The first thing that I did was make the rice, so that I would have it all cooked and ready to add when the time came.

Once that was ready, I diced the onion, and chopped the parsley so that everything would be ready to add into the recipe mix. 

We didn’t have poultry seasoning at home, so we used my husband’s go-to turkey seasoning instead! 

Now that I had all the ingredients prepared, I combined everything together:

After it was all mixed thoroughly together, I spread it into a casserole dish to bake.

Once the casserole had baked for 20 minutes, I took it out and added the refrigerator biscuits on top. I used the Kroger brand of ready to bake biscuits, and they worked perfectly. 

From here the recipe said to bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the biscuits were golden brown. I ended up needing to bake them for about 15 minutes to get them the right color. Then I took the pot pie out of the oven, and it was ready to go!

This recipe was pretty tasty! If I had to make it again, I would add more vegetables like corn, carrots, or peas and some other sort of seasoning to give it even more flavor. We ended up using some hot sauce as an additional topping, since my husband and I like things to be spicy, and it added to the flavor. 

Also, as many probably guessed, since it was a tuna fish pot pie, it definitely had a strong smell. I love tuna fish, so I didn’t super mind, but our house definitely smelled pretty strongly of it for a little while after I’d made this dish! So I thought it would be good to give a warning. 

Overall, I would give this recipe a 6.5 out of 10. It was pretty tasty, and it was very easy and quick to make, which was awesome. Who would have guessed that there was a Tuna Pot Pie casserole? I had a lot of fun making this recipe from 1967. I’m excited to try another one!