Green-Pea Soup.—One quart shelled pease cooked until tender, one quart milk, two tablespoonfuls butter, one teaspoonful sugar, one tablespoonful flour, salt to taste. Press the pease, after they have been boiled and drained, through a colander; put them back on the fire, and stir into them the milk, boiling hot, thickened with the butter and flour and seasoned with the sugar and salt. Boil up once, and serve.
Asparagus with Eggs.—One bunch asparagus, two hard-boiled eggs, one cup white sauce. Boil the asparagus until tender; cut the stalks into inch lengths, rejecting the hard woody portions; chop the hard-boiled eggs coarsely, and stir with the asparagus into the white sauce, which must be boiling hot. Serve at once.
Cherry Dumplings.—Make a biscuit crust of two cups of flour, a tablespoonful of butter rubbed into it, a little salt, a teaspoonful of baking-powder, and milk enough to make a soft dough. Roll out into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick, and cut into squares about three inches across. Stone the cherries; put a spoonful into the centre of each square of paste; sprinkle with sugar, fold the edges across, and pinch them together. Lay them with the pinched edges downward in a pan, and bake to a light brown. Eat with a hard sauce made as directed in the preceding chapter.
2.
Fish Chowder.
Broiled Lamb Chops. Raw Tomatoes.
Young Onions Stewed.
Strawberry Méringue.
Fish Chowder.—Two pounds fresh fish, two good-sized potatoes, one cup milk, a quarter of a pound of salt pork, one onion minced, one tablespoonful chopped parsley, enough boiling water to cover all the ingredients after they are in the pot. Cut up the fish, the pork, and the potatoes (which should have been peeled and parboiled) into pieces less than an inch square. Place in a pot or saucepan first a layer of pork, then one of fish strewn with onions and parsley, then one of potatoes; repeat the layers in this order until all the materials are used. Pour in the water, cover closely, and let it cook slowly a full hour. Split and butter half a dozen Boston crackers; let them soak in the cupful of milk over the fire for five minutes; take them out, and lay them in the tureen, and pour the chowder over them. Pass lemon with it.
This chowder is even better the second day than the first, although there is rarely much left over.
Strawberry Méringue.—Line a pie-dish with puff paste, bake this carefully, and then place in it a thick layer of hulled strawberries; rather small ones are best for this purpose. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar, and heap over them a méringue made of the whites of four eggs whipped stiff with half a cup of powdered sugar. Just before putting it in stir lightly into it a cupful of the berries. Set the pie-plate containing the méringue in the oven long enough to brown delicately, and eat when perfectly cold.
3.
Asparagus Soup.
Boiled Chicken. Green Pease.
Summer Squash.
Raspberry Pudding.
Asparagus Soup.—Boil a bunch of asparagus until it is very tender. When done, cut off the green tips, and put them aside, and rub the stalks in a colander, getting all of them through that you can. Heat four cups of milk in a double boiler, add the strained asparagus to this, and thicken with a tablespoonful of butter rubbed in one of flour. Season to taste with salt and pepper, add the asparagus tops (which should have been kept hot), and serve.
Raspberry Pudding.—Two cups raspberries (red or black), three cups flour, three eggs, two cups milk, one tablespoonful butter, two teaspoonfuls baking-powder, saltspoonful salt. Beat the eggs very light, and mix with the butter, melted, and the milk. Stir into this the flour sifted with the salt and baking-powder, taking care that the batter does not lump. Dredge the berries with flour, add them to the pudding, and boil this in a plain pudding mould, set in a pot of boiling water, for three hours. Take care that the water does not come over the top of the mould. Serve with hard sauce.