In case you haven’t turned on a television or computer or stepped out of your house for the past couple of weeks, I have a timely public service announcement for you: tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. That’s right… the holiday with all the chocolate and hearts and little naked babies shooting people with arrows. Oh no! Did you forget to do something special for your Significant Other and/or cat?
If that’s the case, I wouldn’t recommend you try this: it’s a blend of chipped beef, peanuts, grated cheese, mayonnaise, chili sauce, and pimentos. But it’s on a cute little heart shaped piece of bread so that makes it romantic somehow.
I can’t comprehend this recipe. First of all, the “peanut butter” in the title is a misnomer. The closest this recipe comes to peanut butter is an unpleasant combination of crushed peanuts and mayonnaise. Second of all, how the hell did anyone even think to combine the ingredients in this recipe? I can understand beef and cheese, but not beef and peanuts, or peanuts and cheese, or any of these things with chili sauce and pimentos. Third of all, I wonder about the heart shaped piece of white bread. Is it supposed to make it these items(I struggle to call this “food”) look sweet and romantic? Because eating this certainly didn’t put me in the mood for romance. My husband refused to touch the Beef-Peanut-Cheese Hearts with a ten-foot pole, so I was stuck eating the whole batch. NOT. ROMANTIC.
In closing, I think I have scientifically proved that making something heart-shaped does not automatically produce magical feelings of love in human beings. I know this discovery will come as a terrible shock to greeting card companies.
Chipped Beef-Peanut Butter-Cheese Hearts
1 4-oz package chipped beef
¼ cup finely ground peanuts
¼ cup finely grated American cheese
2 tablespoons finely ground pimiento
¼ cup chili sauce
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
Thin-sliced white bread
Stuffed green olive slices
Pour 2 cups boiling water over chipped beef; let stand 5 minutes and drain. Put beef through food chopper, using fine blade. Combine beef, peanuts, cheese, pimiento, chili sauce, and mayonnaise. Cut bread with heart-shaped cookie-cutter; spread with mixture. Place olive slice in one corner.
The recipe featured in this post is from the Mary Margaret McBride Encyclopedia of Cooking, published by the Homemakers Research Institute in 1959.
18 replies on “Morbid Curiosity: Chipped Beef-Peanut Butter-Cheese Hearts”
The olives is the deal breaker for me. . .
Peanuts & mayo does not peanut butter make. There is so much wrong with this – thanks for taking one for the team!
This successfully killed my mid-morning hungries. I do believe I can make it until lunch now!
an unpleasant combination of crushed peanuts and mayonnaise
No. No. Noooooo.
So you’re saying I shouldn’t make this for you? And everyone else here?
This is probably the one time I would say no to free appetizers.
“Show your loved ones how much you care… by not serving this to them.”
LOL.
So much truth.
Crushed peanuts and mayo? So gross.
Oh good lord. Why? I almost choked reading the title. You’re so brave to even make that.
You are a brave creature.
You didn’t actually eat this, did you?
She always does. It’s the ultimate taking one for the team.
It’s true, she eats everything. If she were a 12 year old boy, she could make some serious cash in the cafeteria at lunch.
I can get behind beef and peanuts, as in stir fried beef with spicy peanut sauce, but then they threw in cheese, green olives, and the most evil of all foods, pimentos?* This is another reason to be grateful I don’t live in the 50’s.
*My grandmother still makes me eat pimento cheese sandwiches every time I visit. The pimento cheese: bread ratio is usually about 3:1. It’s traumatizing.
Oh, I’m sorry. That’s completely disgusting. But know that you are not alone in having horrible 50s food foisted on you by the grandmother. /internet empathy.
Yeah, beef and peanuts is no problem, beef and cheese and chilli (even olives included here), peanuts and chilli etc. Â Even cheese and peanuts isn’t too bad (I babysat kids aeons ago who really like cheese whiz and peanut butter sandwiches – I tried some on a dare and it was edible). Â But all together like that with pimiento??? On white toast? Blargh…
Although aspic isn’t too bad either (strawberry jello, tomato paste, olives and onions – my mother insists on making it for all holiday meals) so maybe it’s better than the sum of its parts?  Oh that  mid-century north american cuisine… ;p
It’s at times like this that I really bemoan my boyfriend’s vegetarianism.
Oh man. I’m on my lunch break, and this is making me not want to eat my lunch. Ick. Thank you for making it so we don’t have to.
The pimento-stuffed olive makes it extra romantic(?)
You’ve really outdone yourself on this one. Â Woooooow.