Heat and season the soup left out for to-day; add a handful of macaroni, broken short, and cooked twenty minutes in hot, salted water. Simmer five minutes.
Réchauffée of Beef.
Trim your cold roast neatly. Make incisions at short distances apart, and thrust strips of fat salt pork quite through it. Set in a round, deep baking-pan. Sprinkle with minced onion, and pour over it a pint of gravy—the remains of that which accompanied the roast, mixed with some from the stock-pot. Season the gravy well with pepper, salt, minced herbs, and a suspicion of French mustard. It should be cold, and the oven slow, for the first hour—never fast. Cover very tightly; open the dish at the end of one hour, and turn the meat, but pay it no further attention until two hours have passed. Then dish it; strain the gravy; thicken as much as you want for your meat with browned flour; boil up, and pour over the beef. The rest can be set by for other uses. If the beef has been cooked slowly and steadily, it will be tender and most savory.
Potatoes au Gratin.
Boil and mash the potatoes; press firmly in a greased bowl; turn out upon a shallow pie-plate, also greased; wash all over with raw egg; sift fine crumbs upon it, and brown in a quick oven. Slip to a hot, flat dish.
Kidney Beans—Fricasseed.
Soak all night. Next day, put on in cold water, at the back of the range, and cook tender. When you turn your beef, after an hour’s cooking, dip out half a cupful of the gravy. Cool and skim it; add a little minced parsley and onion, and, when your beans are soft, pour off nearly all the water, and add this gravy. There should be just enough to keep them from getting dry. Simmer ten minutes, and dish without draining.
Grapes, Boiled Chestnuts, Apples.
Arrange the grapes in a fruit-dish, ornamented with leaves. Put on the chestnuts in warm (not hot) water, slightly salted. Bring to a boil, and cook fast fifteen minutes. Drain in a colander; stir a spoonful of butter into the chestnuts, tossing in the colander until dry. Serve in a deep dish, lined with a napkin.