If you will call these fruit shortcakes "pies," and be content therewith, you will save much labor, much expensive material, and set before your family a more healthful dish. No further recipes for pies will be given; a few that are generally classed as such, coming more naturally under the head of puddings.

1. Brown Betty.

FRUIT PUDDINGS WITH BREAD.

Ingredients.

One pint bread crumbs or dry bread moistened, 1 quart chopped sour apples, pint sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 4 tablespoons butter or suet.

Arrange bread and apples in layers in a pudding dish, beginning and ending with the bread crumbs, seasoning each layer with the sugar and spice and spreading the butter over the top.

till the apples are soft, then uncover to brown.

Cover it

If

A

The same, made with raspberries or blackberries. 2. Berry Betty. not juicy enough, a little water must be added. pudding may be made in the same way with cherries or any other well flavored fruit.

CUSTARD PUDDINGS.

1. Plain.

Ingredients. One quart milk, 4 eggs, beaten yolks and whites separately, 4 tablespoons sugar, a grating of nutmeg Bake in a buttered pudding dish till solid,

and a pinch of salt.

and take from the oven before it curdles.

2. Rice and custard.

To above ingredients add cup of rice cooked soft in part of the milk, or in water.

hour, till nicely browned.

Baketo of an

This is the foundation for the many varieties of rice puddings. Raisins may be added.

3. Tapioca.

4. Sago.

Indian and cus

Tapioca and sago puddings are made in the same way, except they must be soaked for two hours in part of the milk or in water.

To the ingredients for plain custard pudding add 1 tard pudding pint of corn meal and an extra cup of milk, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon ginger, cup sugar, cup chopped beef suet or 2 tablespoonfuls tried out fat. Scald the meal first in the milk and bake the pudding, covered, two hours in slow oven.

1. Bread pud

BREAD AND CUSTARD PUDDINGS.

One quart boiling milk poured on as much bread— ding or "Sem- as will absorb it, about 1 pint if hard-4 eggs, tea

mel Geraüsch."

spoon salt, 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 dry ding (simple). in a cloth, milk to make it into a soft mush. Add 1

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

With raisins.

With dried apples.

Bake from half an hour to

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

After putting in the pudding mixture, put a thick layer of stewed dried apples mashed and sweetened, and flavored with orange peel or cinnamon.

Bread and but

A convenient variation on the ordinary bread pudter pudding. ding.

Plain.

Spread thin slices of bread with butter, and pour over them a simple custard, viz: 4 eggs to 1 quart of milk, 4 tablespoons 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.

juicy.

Individual bread puddings.

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

Cut small round loaves of bread into quarters, or use biscuits. Soak in a mixture of 4 eggs, whites and yolks, beaten separately, and added to 1 pint of milk with a little sugar and nutmeg. When they have absorbed all they will without breaking, drain and bake in a 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.

pint

(A part

Ingredients. One-half pint beef suet, chopped fine, molasses, pint milk, pint raisins or currants, or both. of the fruit may be figs and prunes cut in bits.) One teaspoon salt, one teaspoon soda mixed with the molasses, 1 pint bread crumbs (dry), 1 pint graham flour and 2 eggs. Steam 3 hours or bake 2.

Eat with lemon sauce.

Simple.

white flour.

To reheat puddings. in a pan.

Use the above recipe, omitting the eggs and using instead of graham flour and bread crumbs 1 pint

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

PUDDING SAUCE.

One pint water made into a smooth starch with a heaping tablespoon flour. Cook 10 minutes, strain if necessary, sweeten to taste and pour it on 1 tablespoon butter and juice of a lemon or other flavoring. If lemon is not used add 1 tablespoon vinegar.

This can be made richer by using more butter and sugar; stir them to a cream with the flavoring, then add the starch.

FRITTERS.

These are various doughs and batters fried in boiling fat, and eaten warm with sugar or sweet sauce. The hot fat gives a puffy lightness and a delicious crisp crust.

Lard is most generally used, but cooking oil (see page 193) is better, and even beef fat 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 flour, (may be graham) 1⁄2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon oil, butter, or lard, 1 egg and

pint sour milk with teaspoon soda, or same of sweet milk with teaspoon soda and 1 teaspoon 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.

If liked very

These are more crisp and delicate. 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, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon salt, pint milk, 1 teaspoon 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 flour, 4 eggs, 1 tablespoon oil or butter, 1 teaspoon salt, about a pint of water, or enough to make the batter a little thicker than for pancakes. Proceed as before.

Additions.

liked.

Fruit fritters.

One tablespoon of lemon juice may be added to any of the above recipes, or a little nutmeg or cinnamon if

Take sour apples, peel, cut out the core neatly and slice round in slices in. 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, pine apples 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 1 beaten egg and some flavoring, as cinnamon, lemon, etc. Dip in fritter batter and fry.

16

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 seiving can be recommended except for very hardy stomachs. pages 202 and 243.

Potato.

See

The

This vegetable must also be treated with care. 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 minutes, 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 vegetables.

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 vegetabies.

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, 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 fruits.

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

stewed prunes.