Custard: Three cups milk; three eggs; one-half cup sugar; one-half teaspoonful vanilla; pinch of salt. Beat eggs, add sugar and salt; then add scalded milk and vanilla; mix well. Pour into cups, place them in a pan of hot water in oven and bake twenty to twenty-five minutes. Serve cold.
Custard may also be cooked in double boiler or baked in a large pan.
This is not a cereal dish, but the next one is.
Rice custard: To well cooked rice add a few raisins and a small amount of sugar. The raisins can be cooked with the rice or separately. Place the rice and raisins in a baking dish, pour over an equal amount of raw custard and bake as directed for custard. Bake in either individual cups or pan. When done the layer of custard is on top and the rice and raisins on the bottom.
Macaroni and cheese: Three-fourths cup macaroni broken in pieces; two quarts boiling water; one-half table-spoonful salt. Cook macaroni in salted water twenty minutes, or longer if necessary to make it tender; drain. Put layer of macaroni in buttered baking dish; sprinkle with cheese, and repeat, making the last or top layer of cheese. Pour in milk to almost cover. Put into oven and bake until the top layer of cheese is brown.
Corn bread: Two cups corn meal; one-half cup wheat flour; one tablespoonful sugar; one-half teaspoonful salt; two teaspoonfuls baking powder; two eggs; one and three-fourths cups milk. Sift corn meal, flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together four or five times; add eggs and milk; stir well, pour into a hot buttered pan; smooth the top with a little melted butter to crisp the crust. Bake a good brown in hot oven.
Another recipe for corn bread is: To one cup of wheat flour, add two cups of corn flour; two eggs; one heaping teaspoonful butter or cottolene; one heaping teaspoonful baking powder; one pinch soda, a scant fourth teaspoonful; one-half teaspoonful salt. Prepare and make into batter with milk and bake as directed in first recipe.
Corn mush: Cook corn meal in plain water until it is done. It may be cooked over the fire, in a fireless cooker or in a double boiler. Serve with rich milk; add a little salt if desired.
Oatmeal: Put into a double boiler and let it cook until it is very tender. It can also be cooked in a fireless cooker over night. It requires several hours cooking before it is fit to eat. All foods of this nature should be thoroughly cooked, and they may all be made into porridge, which is better.
The objection to all mushy foods is that they are hardly ever properly masticated. The result is that they ferment in the alimentary tract, especially when they are eaten with sugar, as they generally are. It is best to take the mushy foods with milk and a little salt or with butter. Eaten in this way there is not such tendency to overeat as when sugar is used. Children especially eat more of these foods than is good for them if they are allowed to take them with sweets. Porridge is more diluted than the mushes and hence the danger of overeating is not so great.