LUNCHEON VEGETABLES
Hashed potatoes, browned
Pare, wash and cut eight fine potatoes into small cubes, not more than half an inch square. Put these over the fire with two tablespoonfuls of minced celery and half as much grated onion. Salt to taste, and cook until tender but not broken; drain off the water and turn the potatoes into a buttered dish. Have ready a cupful of hot milk, into which stir a large tablespoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour. Do not cook them together, but add a tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley, and pour over the potatoes. Cover and bake fifteen minutes, then brown upon the upper grating of your oven. Serve in the bake-dish.
The celery and onion impart a most agreeable flavor to the dish.
Potato scallop
Work gradually into your cold mashed potato a cupful of warmed milk (in which has been dissolved a pinch of soda) until you have a smooth mixture; season with pepper and salt, add an egg beaten very light, and bake briskly in a well-greased pudding dish. Serve in the dish before it has time to fall.
Potato chips
Pare, slice very thin with a sharp knife and throw into ice water for an hour. Dry between two towels, and cook until delicately colored in deep, boiling cottolene or the best salad oil, slightly salted. Drain perfectly dry, toss upon hot tissue paper for an instant and serve in a deep dish lined with a napkin, which is drawn over the potatoes.
Potato strips
Prepare in the same way, after cutting into long, thin strips, the length of the potato.
Potatoes on the half-shell
Bake large, smooth potatoes of uniform size until they yield to the pinching fingers. Divide each carefully in half, lengthwise; scrape out the interior, taking care not to break the skin; mash the potato with a little hot milk and melted butter until you can beat it to a cream; salt and pepper, beat in two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese (Parmesan is best) for two cupfuls of potato, and return to the waiting shells. Set in the oven until hot through and slightly browned. Serve in the skins.
They are very good.
Potato puff
Beat a cupful of mashed potato to a soft, creamy mass, with a cupful of warm milk and an even tablespoonful of butter. Have ready two eggs, whipped light, and add to the “cream.” Pepper and salt to your liking; turn into a warmed and buttered pudding dish; set in a quick oven and bake, covered, for half an hour, then brown. Serve at once before it falls.
Potato drop cakes
Pare, wash and grate six good-sized raw potatoes; press out the water, add three well-beaten eggs and a heaping tablespoonful of flour, with salt to taste. Beat well, and drop by the great spoonful in deep, hot cottolene or other fat. Fry to a delicate brown.
Sweet potatoes au gratin
Peel and slice cold, boiled sweet potatoes. Grease a pudding dish, put a layer of potatoes in the bottom of it, sprinkle with salt, pepper, sugar and bits of butter. Put in more potatoes, sprinkle these as you did the others, and when the dish is full pour over the contents a gill of boiling water, in which a tablespoonful of butter has been melted. Strew with fine crumbs, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake, covered, for twenty minutes. Uncover and brown.
Sweet potato puff
Into two cupfuls of boiled and mashed sweet potatoes beat three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, a cupful of milk and four beaten eggs. Salt to taste, beat hard and turn into a greased pudding dish. Bake to a golden brown.
Pea pancakes
Open a can of green peas several hours before you wish to use them, drain in a colander and cover with cold water until you are ready to cook them. Boil tender in water slightly salted, drain, and while hot rub through a colander or vegetable press. Work in a teaspoonful of butter, with pepper and salt to taste. Stir for a minute, and let the paste get cold. Beat two eggs light and add to the cold paste, alternately with a cupful of milk. Sift half a teaspoonful of baking powder twice with four tablespoonfuls of flour, and stir into the mixture.
Drop upon a soapstone griddle as you would griddle cakes. Eat while hot, as a vegetable. Peas left over from yesterday are nice made up in this way.
Buttered rice
This, too, is a nice “made-over entrée.” Boil rice in the usual way, and, after draining well, press while warm into a bowl or mold. Next day turn it out carefully upon a pie plate and set in a quick oven. When it is hot all through draw to the door of the oven and butter abundantly. Shut the oven door and brown lightly. Butter again and sift a thick coating of grated cheese (Parmesan, if you have it) over all. Leave in the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese, and heap irregularly with a meringue of the whites of two eggs beaten up with a pinch of celery salt. Brown very lightly, slip a spatula under the mold and transfer carefully to a hot platter.
It is a pretty yet a simple side dish, good and easily made.
Tomatoes farcies
Carefully peel large, firm tomatoes, and scoop out the centers. In the hollow thus left in each tomato put a layer of minced ham. Set the tomatoes in a bake-pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put a bit of butter upon the top of each and cook for ten minutes. Then drop upon the mince in each tomato a raw egg; dust with salt and pepper and cook until the eggs are “set.”
Tomato caps and saucers
Cut the tops from large, ripe tomatoes, and scoop out the insides with a small spoon. Keep these insides for the sauce, to be used later. Make a mince of cold roast beef or mutton, moisten it with a rich gravy, season to taste and half fill the hollowed tomatoes with this mixture. Set in a covered roasting-pan and bake for twenty minutes in a steady oven. Meanwhile, strain the tomato pulp, heat it and make of it a sauce thickened with two teaspoonfuls, each, of flour and butter, rubbed to a paste. Season to taste. Toast rounds of crustless bread, lay these on a platter and pour the tomato sauce over and around them. Keep hot until the tomatoes are ready. When these have cooked for twenty minutes remove the cover of the roaster and drop into each half-filled tomato a raw egg. Replace the cover and bake just long enough to “set” the eggs. Upon each round of toast lay a stuffed tomato, sprinkle with pepper and salt and send to the table.
Scallop of tomatoes and eggs
Into a pint of stewed tomatoes stir a generous cupful of fine bread crumbs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a half teaspoonful of sugar, pepper and salt to taste. Mix thoroughly and turn into a greased pudding dish. Upon the top of this scallop break as many eggs as will lie upon it side by side. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and bits of butter and bake until the eggs are set.
Rice and cheese pudding
Boil a cup of rice until each grain is tender and stands alone. Now beat in gradually five whipped eggs and a cup of milk, in which have been stirred two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. Stir over the fire for a minute and pour the mixture into a greased pudding dish. Bake in a good oven for half an hour.
Pilau of green peppers
Cut green peppers lengthwise, removing the seeds with care, lest they make the green shells too hot. Fill the halves with boiled rice, into which has been stirred a tablespoonful of melted butter for a cupful of the boiled rice, and two tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese, with salt to taste. Mound the rice smoothly and high, and after the pilau has cooked ten minutes in a covered pan brown lightly. Serve hot.
Scallop of sweet peppers and ham
Cut each pepper lengthwise into quarters and remove the seeds carefully, lay in iced water for fifteen minutes, then drain. Cut each quarter in half. Butter a pudding dish and put in the bottom of it a layer of minced ham, on top of this a layer of cut peppers; sprinkle thickly with fine crumbs and moisten all thoroughly with seasoned stock. Now put in more ham, another layer of peppers and crumbs, liberally dotted with bits of butter and sprinkled with salt. Bake, covered, in a good oven for half an hour, then uncover and cook ten minutes longer.
Buttered rice with peppers
Cook an even cupful of rice fast in two quarts of salted boiling water for twenty minutes, or until tender, but not broken. Drain in a colander, and set in an open oven to dry off for five minutes. Have ready one large, or two small green sweet peppers, seeded carefully and chopped fine. Put a heaping tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan; when it hisses add the minced peppers; toss and stir over the fire until smoking hot all through. Put the rice into a dish and pour the contents of the frying-pan all over it, loosening the mass with a fork to allow the sauce to penetrate it.
Boston baked beans
Soak one quart of beans over night in warm—not hot—water. In the morning cook them until the skin curls on a bean when you blow upon it. Pack them in an earthen pot. Score the skin of a pound of streaked salt pork, and almost bury it in the beans. Pour over this one dessertspoonful of molasses, mixed with as much vinegar, a good pinch of pepper and a teaspoonful of mixed mustard. Cover closely and bake six hours in a good oven.
Baked beans and tomatoes
Soak and boil as directed in the last recipe. Then put the beans into a deep pudding dish; bury a piece of pork (parboiled) in the center and pour over them a large cupful of stewed and strained tomatoes seasoned with pepper, sugar, onion juice and a good lump of butter, but not thickened. Cover closely and cook for three hours, if the dish be large.
Fried cucumbers
Peel and slice cucumbers and lay in a dressing of equal parts of oil and vinegar for ten minutes. Drain and dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker crumbs and fry in deep cottolene or other fat. Drain and serve hot.
Mushrooms on toast
Peel and broil fresh mushrooms, spread them with butter, dust with salt and pepper, and serve them on rounds of toast. Or you may cut the mushrooms in quarters, put them in a double boiler with a tablespoonful of butter and cook until tender. They may then be seasoned to taste and poured, sauce and all, on rounds or triangles of crustless toast.
Baked mushrooms
Peel and stem large mushrooms. Line a deep bake-dish with thin slices of toast, each of which has been dipped for an instant in seasoned beef stock. Fill the dish with layers of mushrooms, sprinkling each layer with salt, paprika, and bits of butter. When the dish is full, pour over all a gill of stock, and bake, covered, for twenty minutes. Uncover and cook for five minutes before sending to the table.
Dried mushrooms and eggs
Wash the dried mushrooms, boil until tender and drain the water off. Put into a pan to fry in butter for about ten minutes, sprinkle a very little caraway seed on them, and salt to taste. Break a few eggs over them.
Sauté green tomatoes
Select firm, smooth tomatoes that are fully grown, but which have not begun to redden. Wash, and without paring, cut into disks a quarter of an inch thick. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and sugar, dust with flour and sauté in hot butter. Drain and garnish with thin slices of fried bacon.