7 Happiness Beef and Rice

From Peg Bracken's Compleat I Hate to Cook Book (1986, but the original books came out in the 60s)

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup uncooked rice
minced beef
stuffed olives, sliced
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp pepper
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups tomato juice
1 1/2 cups boiling water
Grated cheese

Crumble the mince into a big bowl. Add everything but the cheese and mix. Pour into a loaf tin and bake for an hour at 350F. Reduce heat and bake another hour. Half an hour before serving, sprinkle on the grated cheese.

Peg has seven reasons for cooking this dish:

1. It is meat and starch combined.
2. Neither has to be cooked first.
3. Everything goes together at once.
4. Very young people and very old people like it and the others don't mind it much.
5. The amount of meat depends on what's there.
6. Odds and ends of veg can go into it.
7. Thought it looks like dogfood when it goes into the oven it doesn't when it comes out.

(You could put some sliced tomatoes on the top, too.)

Hannah Glasse's Mince Pies

To make mince-pies the best way.
Original Recipe From Hannah Glasse
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, 1740


Take three pounds of suet shred very fine, and chopped as small as possible; two pounds of raisins stoned, and chopped as fine as possible; two pounds of currants nicely picked, washed, rubbed, and dried at the fire; half a hundred of fine pipins, pared, cored and chopped small; half a pound of sugar pounded fine; a quarter an ounce, of mace, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, two large nutmegs, all beat fine; put all together into a great pan, and mix it well together with half a pint of brandy, and half a pint of sack [wine]; put it down close in a stone pot, and it will keep good for four months.

When you make your pies, take a little dish, something bigger than a soup plate, lay a very thin crust all over it, lay a thin layer of meat, and then a thin layer of citron cut very thin, then a layer of mince meat, and a layer of orange-peel cut thin, over that a little meat, squeeze half the juice of a fine Seville orange or lemon, lay on your crust and bake it nicely.*

These pies eat finely cold. If you make them in little patties, mix your meat and sweetmeats accordingly. If you chuse meat in your pies, parboil a neat’s tongue, peel it, and chop the meat as fine as possible, and mix with the rest; or two pounds of the inside of a sirloin of beef boiled. But you must double the quantity of fruit when you use meat.

*Mince-pies must be baked in tin patties, because taking them out, and puff-paste is best for them.