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beginning and ending with the bread crumbs, seasoning each layer with the sugar and spice, and spreading the butter over the top. Cover it till the apples are soft, then uncover to brown. The same, made with raspberries or blackberries.

2. Berry Betty.",

If not juicy enough, a little water must be added. A pudding may be made in the same way with cherries or any other well flavored fruit.

1. Plain.

CUSTARD PUDDINGS.

Ingredients: One quart milk, four eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately, four tablespoonfuls sugar, a grating of nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. Bake in a buttered pudding dish till solid, and take from the oven before it curdles. To above ingredients add one half cup of rice cooked soft in part of the milk, or in water.

2. Rice and custard.

Bake one half to three fourths of an hour, till nicely browned. This is the foundation for the many varieties of rice puddings. sins may be added.

3. Tapioca.

4. Sago.

RaiTapioca and sago puddings are made in the same way, except that they must be soaked for two hours

in part of the milk or in water.

Indian and cus

To the ingredients for plain custard pudding add tard pudding. one pint of corn meal and an extra cup of milk, one teaspoonful salt, one teaspoonful ginger, one fourth cup sugar, and one half cup chopped beef suet or two tablespoonfuls tried out fat. Scald the meal first in the milk, and bake the pudding, covered, two hours in slow oven.

BREAD AND CUSTARD PUDDINGS.

1. Bread pud- One quart boiling milk poured on as much bread ding, or Semmel Gerausch. as will absorb it — about one pint if hard — four eggs, one half teaspoonful salt, one half cup sugar. The milk and bread are allowed to get cold and the other ingredients well beaten with it, the eggs being beaten separately, and the whites added last. Bake one hour in a buttered dish. Eat without a

sauce.

Of course a bread pudding can be made with fewer eggs, but then it will hardly do for the main dish of a meal.

2. Bread pud

Dried bread soaked soft in cold water and pressed ding (simple.) dry in a cloth, milk to make it into a soft mush. Add

one beaten egg to a pint of the mixture. to an hour, and eat with sweet sauce.

With raisins.

Bake from half an hour

Raisins or currants or fresh fruit, as cherries, may be added.

After putting in one half the pudding mixture, put With dried apples. a thick layer of stewed dried apples mashed and sweetened, and flavored with orange peel or cinnamon. A convenient variation on the ordinary bread pudter pudding. ding.

Bread and but

Plain.

Spread thin slices of bread with butter, and pour over them a simple custard, viz.: four eggs to one quart of milk, four tablespoonfuls sugar, a pinch of salt. Keep pressed down till the custard is absorbed : Bake slowly till firm and brown. Eat with or without sauce.

With fruit.

too juicy.

Individual bread

The bread slices may be spread with India currants, or with any kind of fresh or dried cooked fruit, not

Cut small round loaves of bread into quarters, or puddings. use biscuits. Soak in a mixture of four eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately, and added to one pint of milk with a little sugar and nutmeg. When they have absorbed all they will without breaking, drain and bake in slow oven to a nice brown, spreading a little butter over once or twice at the last. This dish can be made very pretty by putting currants in the holes around the top and sticking in pieces of blanched almonds.

SUET PUDDINGS.

Ingredients: One half pint beef suet chopped fine, one half pint molasses, one half pint milk, one half pint raisins or currants, or both. (A part of the fruit may be figs and prunes cut in bits.) One teaspoonful salt, one teaspoonful soda mixed with the molasses, one pint bread crumbs (dry), one pint graham flour, Steam three hours or bake two. Eat with a

and two eggs. lemon sauce.

Simple.

Use the above recipe, omitting the eggs and using instead of graham flour and bread crumbs one and three fourths pints white flour.

To reheat puddings.

All the preceding puddings are good reheated. Cut in slices, and warın in the oven, or fry in a little butter in a pan. Sift sugar over and eat with sauce.

PUDDING SAUCE.

One pint water made into a smooth starch with a heaping tablespoonful flour. Cook ten minutes, strain if necessary, sweeten to taste, and pour it on one tablespoonful butter and juice of a lemon or other flavoring. If lemon is not used, add one tablespoonful vinegar. This can be made richer by using more butter and sugar; stir them to a cream with a flavoring, then add the starch.

FRITTERS.

Lard is most generbetter, and even fat

These are various doughs and batters fried in boiling fat, and eaten warm with sugar or a sweet sauce. The hot fat gives a puffy lightness and a delicious, crisp crust. ally used, but cooking oil (see page 224) is prepared as (see same page) is good. The fat must be smoking hot to prevent its soaking into the dough. For the same reason batters so cooked must contain more egg than if they were to be baked.

Forms.

The fritter may be rolled out and cut in shapes, or dropped in spoonfuls, or run through a funnel, being of course mixed of different consistency for each method. When nicely browned, take out with a wire spoon and lay on brown paper, which will absorb the fat, then sprinkle with sugar and send to table.

Soda raised fritters.

Ingredients: One pint of flour (one half may be graham), one half teaspoonful salt, one teaspoonful oil, butter, or lard, one egg, and one half pint of sour milk with one half teaspoonful of soda, or same of sweet milk with one half teaspoonful soda and one teaspoonful cream of tartar. Beat the egg, white and yolk separately, adding the white last of all. Drop from a spoon into boiling lard, or omit nearly half the flour and pour through a funnel. This batter may be also raised with yeast. Egg raised

fritters.

These are more crisp and delicate. If liked very light, soda or cream of tartar or baking powder may be added to these also. These batters are thinner than the preceding; they must be well beaten if no soda is used.

1. Ingredients: One scant pint of flour, two eggs, one teaspoonful salt, one half pint milk, one teaspoonful oil or butter. Beat the yolks well, then again well with the flour and milk, add the stiffly beaten whites last. Fry in spoonfuls.

2. Ingredients: One heaping pint of flour, four eggs, one tablespoonful oil or butter, one teaspoonful salt, about a pint of water, or enough to make the batter a little thicker than for pancakes. Proceed as before.

Additions.

One tablespoonful of lemon juice may be added to any of the above recipes, or a little nutmeg or cinna

mon if liked.

Fruit fritters.

Take sour apples, peel, cut out the core neatly, and slice round in slices one fourth of an inch thick. Soak these a few hours in sweetened wine, lemon juice, or other flavoring. Dip in either of the above batters and fry. (They are also very good without being soaked in the flavoring.) Peaches, pineapples, and bananas may be used in the same way.

Trim the crust from sliced bread, cut in nice shapes Bread fritters. and soak soft, but not till they break, in a cup of milk to which has been added one beaten egg and some flavoring, as cinnamon, lemon, etc. Dip in fritter batter and fry.

COOKING OF VEGETABLES.

The legumes. As we have seen, the food value of the dried bean, pea, and lentil is great, but as usually cooked a large per cent of it is lost to us. In the process of cooking, the cellulose part must be broken up, softened, and as much as possible entirely removed. These vegetables, if they cannot be obtained ground, must be soaked in cold water some time before cooking, cooked till very soft, and then mashed and sieved. No form of cooking that does not include sieving can be recommended except for very hardy stomachs. See pages 252 and 277.

Potato.

This vegetable must also be treated with care. The starch grains of which it is so largely composed swell in the process of cooking, and burst the cellulose walls confining them, but when this stage is reached the potato is too often

spoiled by being allowed to absorb steam and become sodden. As soon as tender, boiled potatoes should be drained, dried out a few moments, then sprinkled with salt, and the kettle covered close with a towel, until they are served. They should then be put into a napkin and sent to the table.

Other vegeta. bles.

Other garden vegetables are cooked more or less alike,- put into boiling water and kept at a rapid boil until tender, and no longer, the length of time varying for any given vegetable according to the freshness, size, and degree of maturity. When done, or nearly so, they should be seasoned and served as soon as possible.

Mixed vegetables.

A welcome variety in the serving of vegetables can be found in skillful mixture of two or more kinds. A few of these mixtures are green corn and shelled beans, or succotash, or green corn and tomatoes, green corn with stewed potatoes, potatoes and turnips mashed together, green peas with a quarter as many carrots cut very small, potatoes with same proportion of carrots and seasoned with fried sliced onions poured

over.

Vegetables and There are also mixtures of vegetables and fruits that are very successful, as lentils or beans with a

fruits.

border of stewed prunes.

SOUPS WITHOUT MEAT.

In general: These soups should be largely used by the economical housewife; they are cheap and nutritious, and if carefully made and seasoned, excellent in taste. A large number of recipes are given, from which can be selected what is suited to materials on hand, to amount of time, and quantity of fire.

These will be arranged under vegetable soups, flour and bread soups, and cold soups.

VEGETABLE SOUPS.

If any meat bones are on hand or trimmings of meat not otherwise needed, simmer them from one to two hours in water and use the broth thus obtained instead of water in making any of

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