Those who object to the use of pork, can have a very good dish of beans, by substituting two table-spoonfuls of nice beef-drippings, and adding two teaspoonfuls of salt.
To heat over baked beans, put them in a spider with a little water; heat them slowly at first, and cover close. If they are too moist, remove the cover and stir them often.
Salt meat and Vegetables, boiled together.
Put in the beef first, and allow twenty-five minutes or half an hour for every pound. Skim the water when it begins to simmer. An hour and a half before the dinner-hour, put in the pork, well scraped and washed, and again skim off the froth. Wash the vegetables with special care, and allow for boiling turnips, carrots, and cabbage, an hour, or an hour and a quarter; for parsnips three quarters, and for potatoes, half an hour. If the potatoes are not pared, a small piece of the skin should be cut off from each end. When the dinner is served, the pot should be set away in a cool place, and the fat taken from the top the next day, and put aside for soap grease. It will not be good for any other use, as it will have the flavor of the vegetables.
Take off with a sharp knife all the meat from the bones. If there are a few nice slices, reserve them, if most convenient, to be eaten cold. Chop the rest fine in a tray. Take cold gravy, without the fat, and put into a spider to heat. If you have not this, some of the stock, or water in which meat has been boiled. When it boils up, sprinkle in salt, and put in the minced meat; cover it, and let it stand upon the fire long enough to heat thoroughly, then stir in a small piece of butter. Toast bread and lay in the dish and put the meat over it. The common error in heating over meat, sliced or minced, is the putting it into a cold spider, with too much fat, and cooking it a long time. This makes it oily and tasteless. Almost all meats, when cooked a second time, should be done very quick. The goodness of these dishes depends much upon their being served hot.
Another.
When tomatoes are to be had, cut up several, according to the size of your family, and the quantity of cold meat; put them into a covered saucepan or kettle. When it boils put in the remnants, large and small, of cold roast beef, and also of roast mutton and lamb, if you have them. Add half a spoonful of brown sugar, salt, and a small bit of butter unless you have cold gravy. This, with the fat taken off, is nearly as good. Boil it again, fast, but only long enough to heat the meat thoroughly. Five minutes is enough.
Remnants of Boiled Meat.