NOVEMBER.
Baked Soup.
3 lbs. of beef; 2 lbs. of veal; ½ lb. of lean ham; 1 onion; 2 carrots; 2 tablespoonfuls of farina; 1 can of corn, drained and chopped; 2 stalks of celery; pepper and salt; 6 quarts of water.
Cut the meat into long strips, the vegetables into dice, and pack, in alternate layers, in a broad, low jar, that will go into the oven. Strew the layers with farina and corn, fill up with the water; cover the jar closely, putting a paste of flour and water over the top or about the edges, to exclude the air and keep in the steam. Do this on Saturday night. At bed-time, set in the oven in a pan of cold water, that it may heat gradually as the range warms in the morning. Let it bake until dinner-time. Pour into a bowl, take out the meat, season, and put it into the stock-pot. Pour over it as much as you can spare of the soup, season, and set by for to-morrow. Add pepper and salt to that left for to-day, and serve.
Fillet of Veal.
Take out the bone of the joint (you can add it on Saturday to your baked soup); make a deep incision between the meat and the “flap,” which your butcher will skewer around the fillet. Fill this and the hole left by taking out the bone with a force-meat of crumbs, chopped salt pork, chopped thyme and parsley, grated lemon-peel, pepper, salt, and the juice of a lemon. Bind the fillet into shape with tapes; cover the top with a paste of flour and water, and bake twelve minutes to the pound, putting a cup of boiling water into the pan. When done, pull off the paste; dredge with flour, and baste well with butter. The meat should have been very freely basted while cooking. Dish the meat when browned; season, and thicken the gravy; boil up, and pour into a boat.
Cannelon of Potatoes.
Mash the potatoes thoroughly; beat light with butter, milk, and two raw eggs. Heat in a greased frying pan, stirring constantly, until stiff enough to handle. Make into a long roll; brush over with beaten eggs, and sift crumbs over it. Lay in a buttered baking-pan, and brown nicely in a quick oven. Dish, and pour over it a cup of good drawn butter.
French Beans à la Crême.
Open a can of string-beans; clip them into short pieces, and cook twenty minutes in hot salted water. Drain. Have ready, in a saucepan, two tablespoonfuls of cream, and as much butter, heated together; pour upon a beaten egg; return to the saucepan; season with pepper and salt; stir in a tablespoonful of hot vinegar; take from the fire; dish the beans, and pour the sauce over them.
Tomato Sauce.
Stew the contents of a can of tomatoes twenty minutes. Strain and pulp through a colander. Add butter, rolled in flour; a little sugar; salt and pepper; cook ten minutes and pour out.
Neapolitainoes.
Make enough puff-paste for a pie; roll out into a sheet half an inch thick, and cut into strips three inches long and half as wide. Bake in a quick oven. When cold, spread half of them with sweet jam or jelly, and stick the others over them in pairs—the jelly being, of course, in the middle. Ice with a frosting made of the whites of two eggs, whipped stiff with half a pound of sugar.
Make these on Saturday. Pass with them strong, hot coffee, with a great spoonful of whipped cream on the surface of each cupful.