Good seafood cocktail sauce comes already prepared in a bottle. The trouble is that you don’t often use it and when you want some, you’re usually out. A common enough occurrence in any kitchen but when the nearest store of any kind is a half-hour drive away on a twisty mountain road, it is most inconvenient to go for a bottle of cocktail sauce. Aunt Margie had lots of substitution recipes for prepared products for just such emergencies. One of my favorites was the seafood cocktail sauce that I liked better than the real thing.

• 1 cup tomato catsup
• 2 tablespoon horseradish
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon powdered onion

• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon celery salt
• Dash pepper
• Dash of Tabasco sauce

1. In blender, add a ingredients and blend until smooth. Make at least 1 hour before needed and store, covered, in refrigerator.

(Aunt Margie liked to make her cocktail sauce by using chili sauce half-and-half with catsup. If she didn’t have the cocktail sauce on hand, she usually had the chili sauce. Since I usually don’t have either, I usually use catsup alone, which I lways seem to have, with good results.)