SOME EXCELLENT CHEAP DISHES.
Stewed Beef.
Take a shank or hock of beef, with all the meat belonging to it, and put it into a pot full of water early in the morning and throw in a tablespoonful of salt. Let it simmer very slowly, till the beef is soft, and cleaves from the bone, and the water is reduced to about two quarts. Then peel some potatoes, and cut them in quarters, and throw in with two teaspoonfuls of black pepper, two of sweet marjoram, and two of thyme, or summer savory. Add some celery flavor or sauce, and more salt if it requires it. Stew until the potatoes are cooked enough, but not till they are mashed. Then take dry bread, and throw in, breaking it into small pieces, and when soaked, take up the whole and serve it, and everybody will say it is about the best dish they ever tasted.
Those who love onions slice in three or four with the potatoes. Rice can be put in instead of bread.
Tomato Beef.
Stew a shank or hock of beef as above, except you put in nine or ten peeled tomatoes instead of potatoes and sweet herbs, and also leave out the bread. Some would add a little chopped onion. This is excellent and a very healthful mode of preparing beef, especially if it is tough.
A good Way to use Cold Rice.
Heat the rice in milk, add a well-beaten egg or two, a little salt, butter, and sugar, let it boil up once, and then grate on nutmeg.
To prepare Good Toast.
Toast the bread very quick, dip each slice in boiling water as soon as you have toasted it, and then lay thin bits of butter over. Cover and keep hot as you proceed. A tin bonnet is very useful for this. Make milk toast in the same way, keeping the milk at nearly boiling heat. It is better to spread the butter thin on to the toast after it is dipped in hot milk, than to melt it in it.
A Good Pudding.
Line a buttered dish with slices of wheat bread, first dipped in milk. Fill the dish with sliced apple, and add sugar and spice. Cover with slices of bread soaked in milk, cover close with a plate, and bake three hours.
Loaf Pudding.
When bread is too stale, put a loaf in a pudding-bag and boil it in salted water an hour and a half, and eat it with hard pudding sauce.
A Plain Lemon Pudding.
Nine spoonfuls of grated apple, one grated lemon, (peel and pulp,) half a cup of butter, and three eggs. Mix and bake, with or without a crust, about an hour. Cream improves it.
An Excellent Indian Pudding without Eggs.
Take seven heaping spoonfuls of Indian meal, half a teaspoonful of salt, two spoonfuls of butter or sweet lard, a teacup of molasses, and two teaspoonfuls of ginger or cinnamon, to the taste. Pour into these a quart of milk while boiling hot. Mix well, and put it in a buttered dish. Just as you set it in the oven stir in a teacup of cold water, which will produce the same effect as eggs. Bake three quarters of an hour, in a dish that will not spread it out thin.
Pork and Potato Balls.
Take one-third chopped salt pork or ham, either raw or cooked, and two-thirds of cold cooked potatoes chopped fine. Mix them up with egg, a little salt and pepper, and then make into balls and fry, or merely cook in a skillet.
Chop cold potatoes fine, and then add some pork fat and a little pepper, salt, and water, and warm slowly, and it is very good.
Oyster Pie.
Make a crust by working flour into mashed boiled potatoes with a little salt. Line a deep dish with it, invert a small teacup in the middle to hold the juice in and to hold up the upper crust. Put in the oysters with a little pepper and butter, and dredge in some flour. Cover with crust, make a large slit on the top, and bake an hour.
Green Corn Patties (like Oysters).
Twelve ears of sweet corn grated. (Yellow corn will do, but not so well.)
One teaspoonful of salt and one of pepper.
One egg beaten into two tablespoonfuls of flour.
Mix, make into small cakes, and fry brown in butter or sweet lard.
Ohio Wedding Cake (Mrs. K.).
Two pounds of flour.
One pound of butter.
One pound of sugar—brown is best.
Two pounds of currants or one of raisins.
Ten eggs.
Two teacups of molasses.
One gill of wine, and one of brandy.
One gill of cream, spice and citron to the taste.
Mix the butter and sugar, add the molasses, then the beaten yolks of eggs, then the flour, then the spice, wine, and cream, then the whites of the eggs in a stiff froth. Put in the fruit in the manner previously directed, and the citron with it at the same time. This is a very fine cake.
Best Way of making Corn Cakes of all Sorts.
There is often a sharp and strong taste to corn meal, which is remedied by wetting it up the day before it is used. The best kind of corn cakes are made by wetting up a large quantity of Indian meal with milk, and letting it stand for several days. Take a quantity of it, and first make it as thin as you want, either for griddle cakes, or drop cakes, or thicker cakes. Add salt and a spoonful of melted butter or lard for every quart, also sugar to your taste. A little always improves all corn cakes. Then dissolve soda or salaratus, a teaspoonful for each quart. If it is very sour it will want more, and tasting is the surest guide. Just as you are ready to bake, stir in enough salaratus to sweeten it, and stir quickly and only long enough to mix it well, and then bake immediately in buttered tins.
Domestics often use too much salaratus, which is bad for the stomach, and the housekeeper should ascertain by trial the right quantity, and then direct to have it carefully measured every time. Corn cakes, made as above, just thick enough to form into round cakes half an inch thick and baked on a griddle, are excellent.
Molasses Candy.
As all children are fond of this article, the following directions may be acceptable. Boil the molasses (maple is the best) till it will, if dropped in cold water, become crisp. Then, for each quart, put into it an even teaspoonful of salaratus dissolved in a little warm water, and stir it till well mixed. This makes it tender and crisp. Take a part and cool it in a buttered pan, to work white and draw into sticks. Into the remainder stir roasted corn, either pounded or whole, or peanuts or almonds, or walnuts or hazelnuts.
Whole Popped corn made into cakes with candy is excellent. Roasted corn pounded and mixed with half the quantity of maple sugar is good, and some eat it thus in milk.
To make Simple Cerate.
Melt together equal quantities of white wax and spermaceti, and then add an equal quantity of sweet oil, or a little more.
Never use rancid oil.
Best Remedy for Burns.
Pound and sift wood soot, and mix it with sweet lard, and apply it, spread on linen rags. It will ease a burn quicker than anything. If the skin is off, the great thing is to keep it covered close from the air. If the burns are large and bad, give salts or cream tartar as a cathartic.
Ginger Tea.
Pour half a pint of boiling water on to a teaspoonful of ginger; add sugar and milk to the taste.
Indian Bannock.
Take one pint of Indian meal, and stir into it a pint of sour milk, half a teaspoonful of salt, a spoonful of molasses, and a spoonful of melted butter. Beat two eggs and add, and then stir in a pint of wheat flour. Then thin it with milk to the consistency of drop cakes, and when ready to bake, stir in a heaping teaspoonful of salaratus dissolved in hot water. Pour into square buttered tins an inch thick, and bake fifteen minutes.
Egg and Bread.
Put bread crumbs into a sauce pan, with cream, salt, and pepper, and a little grated nutmeg. When the bread has absorbed the cream, break in eight eggs and fry it like an omelet, or bake it in buttered tins, or muffin rings.
Floating Island.
Beat the whites of eggs till very stiff, then put in one tablespoonful of some acid jelly for each white, and beat it a good while. Boil rich sweetened milk, and put it in a glass dish, and when cold, put the jelly and eggs on the top.
A New Mode of cooking Cucumbers.
Pare them, cut them in quarters lengthwise, dip them in corn meal or wheat flour, pepper and salt them, and then fry them brown, and they are very fine.