I made a dish this past weekend that used a recipe that has been in my family for many years. It’s a dish I helped my mom with many times as we often took it to potlucks. As I set out to make it, I realized I couldn’t picture mixing it in anything other than my mom’s (and now mine) yellow, Pyrex bowl. The bowl seemed almost as much a part of the recipe as the ingredients themselves!

From what I can tell from a few online sites, these bowls were manufactured in the 1950s. They are still the bowls I use more than any others.

Here’s the original recipe:

My main job as a kid was scooping out the insides of the rolls. As I got older, I filled and wrapped the rolls as well. When I decided to use this recipe for a party I had this past weekend, I wanted to find an easier way to use the filling without all the effort of stuffing and wrapping rolls.

My solution was to pull out my mini-muffin pan and buy some puff pastry. I cut each sheet of pastry into 24 squares, pressed them into the muffin pan, and filled each little puff with a dollop of the filling. Then baked at 400° for 12 minutes or so. Perfection!

The other change I made was to cut way, way down on the oil. I think I used about 1/8 of a cup; just enough to make everything come together. The recipe made enough for 72 little puffs: perfect vegetarian appetizers.