Between my own collection and the one at my parents, there are plenty of random old cookbooks I can flip through. One I stumbled across today was A Little Cooking, a Little Talking, and a Whole Lot of Fun, a cookbook by Florence Henderson based off a television show she had in the 80’s, sometime after The Brady Bunch had ended. I’m sorry if you follow this blog for posts about old technology and video games.

The book itself is pretty straightforward. It has a variety of recipes from celebrities and before each recipe is a page or two talking about the celebrity and their accomplishments. These photos I took with my phone aren’t the highest quality, but you can see all the recipes and who they’re from.

The one that immediately stood out to me was the Curry Pepper Steak from Jim Varney. Jim was most known for playing Ernest P. Worrell is a series of films that include Ernest Goes to Camp and Ernest Scared Stupid (ok, and Slinky Dog in Toy Story 1 and 2). I haven’t seen any of them in decades so I’m guessing these films don’t hold up but they were popular with kids in the 90’s. So here you have it, Jim Varney’s Curry Pepper Steak, first in photos from the book and then reprinted here so it’s easier to read. I have not actually made it (yet) and cannot vouch for the quality of the final product. You can also watch a video on YouTube of him cooking it

Ingredients

2 tbsp. Wesson Oil
2 lbs. steak, cut into strips
1 onion, cut into strips
1 tsp. corn starch
1 tsp. curry
1 clove garlic
1 green and 1 yellow pepper cut into strips
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups uncooked rice

Directions

1. Cut steak into strips. Cut onions and peppers into strips.
2. Saute meat in oil, add onion strips, then add corn starch and stir, cook until browned over low heat.
3. Add curry, garlic, peppers, water, and cover. Simmer over low heat until boiling.
4. Prepare rice according to directions on package, and serve meat mixture over rice.