Second Week. Monday.
Vegetable Consommé.
Cut into thin, short strips, 1 carrot, 1 turnip, and 1 onion; peel and slice 6 fine tomatoes; corn cut from 2 cobs; ½ cup boiled rice; 3 pints of soup-stock; 1 pint of boiling water; seasoning at discretion.
Boil the vegetables tender in a little hot salted water. Drain, butter, and keep them hot. The tomatoes and corn should be stewed in another vessel, twenty-five minutes, and seasoned. Add to your soup-stock a pint of boiling water, and simmer half an hour, then strain. Return to the fire with the cooked vegetables and the boiled rice. Stew gently ten minutes and turn out.
Stewed Lamb à la Jardinière.
Lay a breast of lamb, or two scrags, in a broad pot, meat downward. Scatter over this a sliced turnip, a sliced onion, and two sliced tomatoes, with a little pepper and salt. Add less than a cupful of broth from your soup; cover, and cook slowly one hour. Turn the meat then, and cook one hour longer, very slowly. When tender, but not ragged, dish, and keep hot. Strain the gravy; thicken with browned flour; season; boil up, and pour over the meat.
French Beans Sautés.
Cut off the fibres from both sides of the (string) beans, and clip into short pieces. Boil tender in hot salted water; drain dry, and put into a saucepan in which you have melted a great spoonful of butter, seasoned with pepper, a little French mustard, and a tablespoonful of vinegar. Toss and stir until the beans are very hot, and glazed with the butter. Serve in a deep dish.
Mashed Potatoes au Gratin.
Mash in the customary manner, and heap upon a greased pie-dish. Strew thickly with dry crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of the oven. Slip carefully to a hot, flat dish.