Baked Peach Pudding.—Two cups flour, one cup milk, one egg, one teaspoonful baking-powder, one tablespoonful butter, saltspoonful salt, eight medium-sized peaches, peeled and stoned. Beat the egg with the milk, stir in the butter, melted, and the flour sifted with the salt and baking-powder. Place the peaches in the bottom of a pudding dish, sprinkle them well with sugar, pour the batter over them, bake the pudding in a quick oven, and eat it before it has time to fall. Serve either hard or liquid sauce with it.
FAMILY DINNERS FOR AUTUMN
1.
Cauliflower Soup.
Roast Beef.
Baked Tomatoes and Corn. Boiled Sweet Potatoes.
Fried Egg-Plant.
Cocoanut Custards.
Cauliflower Soup.—Cut a medium-sized cauliflower into small clusters, chop all except two bunches, and put all on the fire in four cups of boiling water with a minced onion and a couple of sprigs of parsley; cook until tender. Remove the unchopped bunches, and lay them aside, while you rub the chopped and boiled portion through a colander; return what comes through the sieve to the stove. Have ready in a double boiler a pint of scalding milk; thicken this with a tablespoonful of butter rubbed smooth with an equal quantity of flour, and then mix with the strained cauliflower. Season to taste, drop in the reserved clusters cut into small bits, and serve the soup immediately.
Baked Tomatoes and Corn.—Cut a slice from the top of each of several large firm tomatoes; scoop out about two thirds of the pulp, taking care not to break the sides; fill the cavities thus left with green corn, boiled, cut from the cob, and chopped fine with a little butter, pepper, and salt; arrange the tomatoes thus stuffed in a baking-dish, put a few bits of butter here and there between them, and bake half an hour. If you have a half-cupful of good gravy, pour this over them instead of putting the butter between them.
Fried Egg-Plant.—Peel and cut the egg-plant into slices less than half an inch thick an hour before it is to be cooked; lay the slices in salted iced water, with a plate over them to keep them from floating. Just before dinner wipe each slice dry, lay it in beaten egg, and then roll it in salted and peppered cracker-crumbs. Have ready lard or really good dripping in a frying-pan, and fry the slices brown.
Cocoanut Custards.—Three eggs, three cups milk, half-cup sugar, half a cocoanut grated, one teaspoonful vanilla. Heat the milk to boiling; pour it upon the beaten eggs and sugar; return to the fire, and cook the custard until it thickens. When it reaches the right consistency take it from the stove, and when it has partially cooled stir in the vanilla and cocoanut. Fill small cups with this, set them in a pan of boiling water in the oven, and bake until set.