Bake in thick cakes on griddle on top of stove or in oven.
Bake on griddle on top of stove or set in oven on grate after being dropped on to hot griddle, or bake in shallow gem pans.
Drop batter in small spoonfuls on hot buttered griddle. Brown delicately on both sides and serve at once. Fine cut celery may be added to the batter before baking. Add a few cracker crumbs (not bread crumbs or flour) if corn is very milky. Canned corn does not make good oysters.
Bake on hot buttered griddle on stove or top grate of oven.
Beat eggs and mix with other ingredients, turn into oiled custard cups, set in pan of water in oven and bake until firm in the center. May be served in the cups, or turned out carefully after standing a few minutes. Serve with wafers or as accompaniment to meat dishes.
Simmer onion and celery in butter without browning. Beat eggs and mix all ingredients. Turn into custard cups; bake in pan of water, covered, until egg is set; after standing a few minutes, turn out of cups on to individual dishes. Serve with ripe olives and wafers or as a garnish to meat dish. May turn on to broiled rounds of trumese.
Cook onions in very little water until tender; drain slightly, add celery and other ingredients. Bake in custard cups or individual soufflé dishes until firm in center. Unmold on to platter or chop tray and surround with green peas in cream sauce. Onions may be rubbed through colander after cooking.
Cook celery and mushrooms separate and drain.
Simmer onion in oil and add flour, then boiling water to leave stiff (perhaps about 1 pt.); when smooth remove from fire, add salt, parsley and beaten egg. Use liquid drained from celery and mushrooms with water in the sauce. Put layers of sauce, cooked celery and mushrooms in baking dish with sauce on top. Sprinkle with crumbs or corn meal, heat and brown in oven. A little garlic may be used and sometimes a small quantity of cream with a very little strained tomato in the sauce.
Cook young tender Lima beans and use in place of celery and mushrooms in above.
Use cooked asparagus tips with the heads sticking up out of the cream a little, instead of celery and mushrooms, in Celery and Mushrooms à la Crême.
Cook sliced oyster plant (large slices cut in quarters) not too soft in a small quantity of water. Drain and use in place of trumese in Trumese and Mushrooms à la Crême, of Trumese Dishes, using oyster plant liquor instead of water in the sauce.
Use one of the smaller varieties of macaroni, one that will make the desired size when cooked, in place of trumese in Trumese and Mushrooms à la Crême, of Trumese Dishes.
Accompaniment to roasts, timbales or other meat dishes, or a luncheon or supper dish.
Rub butter and sugar together, add yolks of eggs, beat a little, add corn and salt, mix; add milk, and when smooth chop in the stiffly-beaten whites of the eggs. Bake in slow oven about 1 hour. Cover until near the last.
If corn is very old a little liquid may be required, or if very milky a few cracker crumbs. Bake in pie plates or pudding dish to a nice brown.
Bake one hour in moderate oven.
Canned corn may be used in winter. Add ½ cup of sugar and serve as a dessert sometimes.
Grind scraped oyster plant through medium cutter of food chopper, cook in as small an amount of water as possible until tender, not soft; add salt, drain and add the other ingredients. Put into a baking dish, sprinkle with cracker crumbs or granella and chopped parsley. Turn a little melted butter over and brown in oven.
Peel and grate raw potato. Pour hot milk over and let it boil up. Remove from fire, add salt, butter and beaten eggs; bake in buttered pudding dish in moderate oven 20 m. or until firm in center.
This dish (with the eggs and milk) may serve as the meat dish of a meal.
To each pint of mashed winter squash add 1–1½ tablespn. almond or dairy cream (and if squash is very dry, a little milk), ¾–1 teaspn. salt, 1 teaspn. sugar and 1 beaten egg. Bake in pudding dish in moderate oven about 20 m. May sprinkle with bread crumbs. A little minced onion may be used in the pudding.
Mix all ingredients, beating eggs slightly, turn into baking dish, sprinkle with crumbs and parsley. Bake until firm in the center.
Make a thin cream sauce of cream and the water in which the asparagus was cooked, cover the bottom of a serving dish with sauce, put in a layer of asparagus cooked in short pieces (the tips may have been used for croustades) and sprinkle with cracker crumbs; continue layers, cover top with thin or split crackers, pour sauce over, sprinkle with chopped parsley, bake 15–20 m.
Chop a nice head of cabbage or shave it fine and put it into a baking dish with alternate layers of bread or zwieback crumbs. Turn over it enough rich milk, to which a little salt has been added, to half cover it. Let it boil up once and then set where it will stew slowly until the cabbage is tender, but no longer.
Cut egg plant into slices ½–¾ in. thick. Peel and put into a large quantity of cold water over the fire and bring to the boiling point, boil 5 m. and drain. Repeat the process, add salt to the third water, boil 10 m. and drain. Put into scallop dish in layers with bread or cracker crumbs—just a few, cover with rich milk or thin cream and bake covered until the slices are tender, ½ hr. or longer. Uncover, brown and serve. The egg plant may be cut into large cubes.
Prepare egg plant as in preceding recipe; mix onion, garlic, salt and a part of the crumbs. Sprinkle mixture in bottom of baking dish, and between and on top of layers of egg plant. Turn the tomato over all, cover with crumbs, sprinkle with parsley, dot with butter or pour oil over. Cover and bake 1½–2 hours. Brown on top grate of oven.
Stew sliced onions until tender, drain and put in baking dish with layers of bread crumbs; add salt and a little melted butter to each layer, nearly cover with milk, sprinkle with crumbs and bake until well browned. The butter may be omitted and a little cream added to the milk.
Slice potatoes very thin, put in layers into scallop dish, sprinkling each layer lightly with flour or cracker crumbs and salt until dish is ⅔ full. Nearly cover with milk, sprinkle with crumbs, bake 1 hour or until potatoes are tender. Cover at first and watch that milk does not boil over. A very little chopped onion in the potatoes improves them. When flour is used it is better to mix the milk and flour and pour over the potatoes.
A quicker way is to cook the sliced potatoes in boiling salted water for 10 m., before putting them into the scallop dish.
Cooked sliced potatoes for 10 m. in boiling, salted water, drain, put into baking dish in layers with fine chopped onion, and pour a liberal amount of nut milk (made in the proportion of 4 tablespns. of raw nut butter, with salt, to each qt. of water) over them. When the potatoes are tender and the milk just creamy, sprinkle the top with browned flour No. 1, pour a little oil over, and brown on top grate of oven. Serve at once.
Potatoes cooked in their jackets until nearly done are best for this purpose and it is a good way to use up small and irregular shaped ones. Slice or dice the potatoes, put into dish in layers with thin cream sauce, chopped parsley and onion, have sauce on top, sprinkle with crumbs, bake 20 m. Without the onion they are called Cottage Potatoes.
Prepare and cook the same as scalloped Irish potatoes, without onion.
A squash that is not as good cooked in other ways may be used for this dish. Pare and cut into small pieces, boil or steam until just tender, not soft. Arrange in layers in oiled baking dish with salt, a little sugar and if used, a little butter. Pour over a very little milk or (if no butter is used) thin cream, not more than ½–⅔ of a cup for a good sized dish. Bake covered at first, then brown. Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving. A trifle of ground coriander or anise seed may be used, but the natural flavor of the squash is best.
Mix oyster plant liquor, milk, butter and salt. Put oyster plant into a baking dish with a sprinkling of cracker crumbs between layers, pour part of mixed liquid over. Sprinkle crumbs on top and turn the last cup of liquid over, after beating the egg with it. Bake covered until just bubbling, then remove cover and brown by setting on top grate of oven.
Cook 1⅓ qt. sliced oyster plant in 1⅓ qt. water, adding salt before draining. To the water drained off add ½–1 cup heavy cream. Boil and thicken with flour to the consistency of thin cream; add salt and pour over oyster plant which has been arranged in baking dish with a slight sprinkling of stale bread crumbs between the layers and on top. Be careful not to use too many crumbs. Bake a half hour or until well heated through and nicely browned. Sprinkle with chopped parsley before or after baking.
Rub butter and flour together; add cream hot. Boil, remove from fire, add beaten eggs, salt and oyster pulp. Put into patty cases, other individual dishes or baking dish, buttered. Sprinkle with crumbs and chopped parsley, heat to bubbling and brown, in oven.
Place equal quantities of salted stewed tomatoes and delicately browned croutons in dice as for soup, in layers in baking dish with a little melted butter poured over each layer. Cover with the croutons and sprinkle with melted butter. Bake, covered part of the time, 15–20 m. Crumbs or thin slices of zwieback, or granella may be substituted for dice.
Thin layers of bread or zwieback, or of cracker or bread crumbs, with thick slices (or double layers) of peeled tomatoes, salt and onion juice. Cover with crumbs, turn a little melted butter over, sprinkle with chopped parsley. Bake, covered most of the time.
Put half the celery, onion, tomato, and salt into a baking dish in the order given, and repeat with the remaining half. Cover with small dice or coarse crumbs of bread. Turn a little cream or melted butter over the top, cover and bake 1¼–1½ hr. in moderate oven. The onion may be omitted.
Put layers of boiled rice and tomato with thin sliced onion, salt and a little butter or oil in baking dish, sprinkle with crumbs and parsley. Bake, covered, in moderate oven, brown on top grate just before serving.
Cover sliced, cooked sweet potatoes in serving dish with cream or thin cream sauce. Sprinkle with crumbs and parsley if desired. Heat gently in oven until a delicate brown.
Let crumbs stand in tomato until well softened, rub through a colander, add cream and salt. Bake in serving dish until delicately browned on top and well heated through. Let stand in warm place 10–20 m. before serving.
½ peck spinach (2 cups cooked). Cook; drain very dry and rub through a fine colander. Add 1 teaspn. oil or melted butter, beat in the yolks of 2 eggs and fold in the whites beaten moderately stiff. Fill well oiled mold about ¾ full. Set in pan of hot water and bake (covered until nearly done) in moderate or slow oven until firm in the center, 45–60 m. Do not bake too rapidly or too long. When done, set the mold out of the water, let it stand a moment to settle, and invert carefully on to a platter or chop tray. Serve at once with quarters or sixths of lemon or with one of the cream sauces, or with Sauce Amèricaine.
Baked tomatoes are very suitable for a garnish or accompaniment.
Individual Daisy Soufflés make pretty garnishes for timbales and molds. Small custard cups, or the imported tin molds, being suitable for them. Oil molds well with cold oil or softened (not melted) butter and leave in a cool place.
Prepare daisies by cutting a small round piece from a slice of hard-boiled yolk of egg and six diamond shaped pieces from the poached white, for each, and arrange like daisies in the bottom of the mold, the oil holding them in place.
Press the spinach mixture into the molds, taking care not to displace the daisies, and bake the same as the large mold, only a shorter time, 30–35 m., or until puffed in the center and firm to the touch. Invert on to rounds of toast and place as desired.
Add grated onion to nicely seasoned mashed potato; put into a long, well buttered tin; brown in hot oven, turn out on to a platter and serve cut in slices for luncheon or supper.
Add stiffly-beaten whites of eggs to other ingredients which have been mixed. Bake in buttered mold in pan of water, until firm in center, about ½ hour. Let stand a moment after removing from oven, unmold on to platter or chop tray, surround with spinach leaves or garnish with other green and serve with sour sauce.
Blend flour with 1 pt. of the milk, heat remainder of milk in oiled frying pan, stir in flour, remove from fire, add other ingredients, bake in well oiled mold. Serve with sauce 16, 23, 28, or 31.
Set molds in pan of hot water, cover, bake.
Prepare vegetables (half or whole quantity) as for Trumese en Casserole, of Trumese Dishes, use a little more liquid, thickened a trifle. Cover and bake until vegetables are nearly or quite tender, 1–1¼ hours. Remove from fire, cool to just warm (if universal crust is to be used), cover with crust, let rise, and bake; or, the crust may be baked or steamed in a pie plate separately and laid over the baked filling. If steamed, it will be dumplings.
A combination of equal quantities potatoes, turnips, parsnips, carrots and onions covered with consommé, or very fresh milk, and baked, may be used for a pie. Sometimes, when no potatoes are used, lay sliced tomatoes on top of the vegetables.
Chopped parsley is suitable for all combinations. Garlic, if liked, is nearly always an improvement.
Cooked instead of uncooked vegetables may be used.
Sliced hard boiled eggs give variety and add to the nutritive value of pies.
When liquid is not thickened, sprinkle a little fine tapioca between layers of vegetables.
Cook oyster plant until nearly tender, add the salt, boil up well and drain.
Heat oil, add flour, then liquid, and when smooth and well cooked, the cream and salt, and a little chopped parsley if convenient.
Crust—Universal crust of ¾–1 cup of liquid, or one cup of rice as for rice and trumese pie, or dish lined and covered or covered only, with pastry crust. Pour part of the sauce into the baking dish, sprinkle the cooked oyster plant in and pour the remainder of the sauce over. Cover with the crust. Let rise until very light (if universal crust). Bake ½–¾ hour.
May make small individual pies.
Sauce without Cream—½ cup of raw nut butter maybe rubbed smooth and boiled up with the oyster broth and the cream omitted. With this, 1 teaspn. of celery salt may be used, or 3 level tablespns. chopped onion and 1 level teaspn. sage. Chopped parsley with either. 7 or 8 tablespns. of cracker dust may be used for thickening the sauce instead of flour.
Cook oyster plant in small quantity of water, add salt when nearly tender, boil up well and drain; thicken liquor slightly, add a little butter and the cooked oyster plant. When cool, put into custard pie pan lined with pastry, cover, bake. Serve hot with celery stewed in tomato if desired.
Cook and drain celery. Cook mushrooms 10–15 m. in salted water and drain. Arrange cooked celery and mushrooms in baking dish with parsley sprinkled between layers. Pour over the following sauce, cover with rice (as for rice and trumese pie) or pastry crust, bake.
Sauce—5 tablespns. melted butter, 5½–6 tablespns. flour, the liquid drained from the mushrooms and celery with water to make 1 qt., salt. Rub the butter and flour together, pour boiling liquid over, boil up well, add salt.
Simmer, not brown, onion in oil, add flour and water, pour into baking dish with carrots and parsley and cover with any desired crust—universal, pastry, rice, mashed potato, dressing, or mashed dried green peas. With the last, one would have a hearty meat dish.
Use potatoes instead of carrots and more onion in preceding recipe. Celery may be used (without simmering in oil) instead of the onion. ⅓–½ cup of raw nut butter, instead of the oil, rubbed smooth with water and boiled with it would give a meaty flavor with the potatoes and onions. A mashed lentil crust, when desired, adds to the nutritive value of the pie.
Heat oil, add flour, then consommé, and salt if necessary. Saw squash in two in the middle, or a little above the middle as required. Scrape out the seeds and stringy pulp and rub with salt. Let stand while preparing other ingredients; drain before stuffing. Mix crumbs and flavorings, leaving out a little parsley: pour part or all of the sauce over the crumb mixture. (The quantity of the sauce will depend on the quality of the squash. If it is a dry one it will probably take it all, and if it is quite a large one, more of all the stuffing will be required). Fill the squash, sprinkle with crumbs or corn meal, and chopped parsley. Set into covered baker or cover with waxed paper and bake until squash is tender which will be in 2–3 hrs. according to the squash. Give it plenty of time. Serve on chop tray and send plain onion sauce to be served with it.
Coarse chopped nuts may be put into the dressing and the top of the squash garnished after baking with halves of nuts. This makes a beautiful as well as palatable dish.
Make a thick sauce of rich milk and browned flour No. 1. Add to it chopped onion, minced garlic if liked, a few coarse bread crumbs and a large quantity of fine sliced celery. Fill the squash which has been prepared as in the preceding recipe, sprinkle with crumbs, cover with slices of tomato from which the seeds have been removed, or with pieces of canned tomato. Finish with chopped parsley; bake covered until time to brown over the top.
Nuts may be used with this also, and unbrowned flour in the sauce if preferred.
A simple dressing of bread or cracker crumbs and milk with a little cream or butter and chopped onion is nice in squash.
With such summer squashes as are of the right shape to bake, the greater part of the inside may be scraped out, chopped and put in with the dressing.
1 dozen chopped ripe olives may be used instead of truffles, or 3 or 4 soaked dried mushrooms chopped, or all may be omitted.
Boil whole egg plant in unsalted water 20 m. Cut in halves lengthwise, or if only one piece is to be baked cut a little one side of the middle, using the larger piece for stuffing. The quantity of stuffing given is for one piece only. Scrape out the pulp with a spoon, leaving a wall ½–¾ in. thick. Chop pulp and mix with the other ingredients, using only half the oil or butter. Rub a little salt over the inside of the egg plant, press the stuffing in firmly, sprinkle with crumbs and chopped parsley and pour oil over. Bake in quick oven about ½ hour, covered when sufficiently browned.
Cut slices off the sides of nicely baked potatoes (if large they may be cut into halves, or they may be cut in two in the middle crosswise, or a piece may be cut off from one end), scrape out the inside, leaving a thin coating of the potato so that the skin will not be broken. Prepare the same as mashed potato and beat very light, refill the skins, brush with cream or sprinkle with crumbs and chopped parsley, set in shallow tin and brown on top grate in oven. To serve, arrange on a napkin on a platter, with sprays of parsley.
Add 1 or more yolks of eggs to the mashed potato, fill skins and heat as in preceding recipe, then pile the salted, stiffly-beaten whites of eggs on the tops and brown delicately.
Select large firm tomatoes, cut out the stem end, remove the inside with a teaspoon and turn upside down on a drainer for the liquid to drain out.
Stuffed tomatoes may be served as a garnish for meat dishes or on rounds of toast as a separate course, often the second course. When suitable, they may be served on rounds or squares of broiled trumese. Sometimes they are set into a rich cream sauce on a platter, or in ramekins, and sprinkled with chopped truffles. Chopped nuts and parsley may be substituted for truffles. When desired, a half nut meat may be laid on top of each tomato before sending to the table.
Buttered crumbs, the tomato pulp and salt: to this may be added grated onion or onion and sage. Cracker crumbs instead of bread are sometimes used.
Crumbs, chopped nuts or trumese or nutmese, garlic, onion and salt. Or, ripe olives and celery salt with chopped parsley in place of onion and garlic.
Boiled rice, onion, browned flour, melted butter, tomato pulp. Salt tomatoes well inside and sprinkle with chopped parsley after stuffing.
Soaked dried mushrooms chopped, butter, crumbs, tomato pulp, onion, salt.
Fresh mushrooms chopped, crumbs, cream or butter, salt.
Macaroni or spaghetti, tomato pulp, onion, butter, crumbs on top.
Left-overs of macaroni may be chopped slightly for filling, with small rings as top finish.
Always fill tomatoes to the top and finish with crumbs or something suitable.
Bake 10–30 m. (according to the filling, and the ripeness of the tomatoes) on oiled pans without water.
Mix equal parts chopped nuts, currants and fine cut citron with two parts raisins cut fine and a little sugar. Fill hollowed and drained tomatoes. Bake, serve plain or with cream or whipped cream. Raisins and cocoanut with sugar, may be used, or either one alone.
Mixture of onion, garlic, salt, sage, a trifle of thyme and the chopped pulp of tomato in bottom of hollowed out tomatoes; then each tomato partly filled with dice of nutmese, covered with some of the mixture, and the top finished with a slice of ripe tomato or pieces of canned tomato. Bake covered 1½ hour or until tomatoes are tender. Serve on crisped large crackers with Tomato Cream sauce or Chili sauce sprinkled with chopped parsley. Use large tomatoes turned a little white.
Set whole peeled tomatoes in pudding dish, sprinkle generously with salt, cover with buttered crumbs and bake: or, omit crumbs and when tender, pour over them a thin cream sauce; sprinkle with parsley and leave in oven 10–15 m.
Cut tomatoes that are not too ripe into thick slices (halves if thin), sprinkle with salt, chopped onion and garlic if liked, and pour a little melted butter over. Bake. After laying slices of tomato on to rounds of toast, add butter and flour to liquid in pan, then a little cream; boil up and pour around tomatoes on toast.
Oil and nut milk or cream may be used instead of butter and dairy cream.
Dip thick slices of not too ripe tomatoes in Mayonnaise or Improved Mayonnaise dressing, then in fine sifted bread or cracker crumbs. Brown in wire broiler or lay in agate pan and bake in hot oven.
Cover layers of split hot short cake crust of universal dough with Cream of Tomato sauce and serve. Or, prepare unstrained tomatoes the same as for sauce and serve over the crust.
Simmer sliced onion in oil (without browning), add salt, boiling water and rice. Cook until rice is about half done, then add tomato hot, and finish cooking slowly without stirring. If convenient, set into the oven after the tomato is added. When the larger quantity of tomato is used, the smaller quantity only of water will be required.
1½ cup sliced celery may be substituted for the onion.
Spanish rice calls for 2–3 cloves of garlic in addition to Pilau with six cups of water and one only of tomato.
Substitute 1¼–1½ cup of macaroni for the rice in pilau. Hominy also may be used in place of rice.
Cut potatoes in quarters lengthwise, then across the center, and cut parsnips into about the same size; cook separately or together and drain; add both to cream sauce, heat, and serve on toast, or put small slices of toast (zwieback) in the stew. This is a delightful dish though simple.
In the summer cook shelled Lima or other beans until tender. Add corn which has been cut from the cob, boil 10–15 m., pour in a little heavy cream, heat but do not boil; add more salt if necessary. Succotash is one of the dishes which calls for cream. Just a few spoonfuls is all that is required for a large quantity of succotash, but that little perfects it.
Corn and beans may be cooked separately, combined and seasoned. All sorts of corn and all sorts of beans may be combined with great satisfaction, but the richest and most delightful of all is nice dried corn (the yellow sweet corn is best) and dry common white beans. Raw nut butter cooked to a cream is good with the dry bean succotash.
A very near relative (which some prefer) to succotash is the combination of dried and hulled corn; 2 parts dried and 1 part hulled corn, finished with cream the same as succotash.
My first experience with a vegetable hash was at a hotel in one of the new towns in North Dakota where the landlady herself did the cooking. The hash was made from the different vegetables left from a boiled dinner chopped and heated, and was one of the happy gastronomic surprises.
Just such a surprise is in store for the vegetarian who utilizes the remains of the trumese boiled dinner.
One rule with few exceptions to be followed in hashes, is not to chop the ingredients too fine; they should be distinguishable one from another.
Always finish hashes in the oven when possible, either in frying pan or baking dish.
Cold baked potatoes or those boiled in jackets are preferable for hash, but steamed or plain boiled ones will do if not too soft. Rice may be substituted for potato. Do not be skeptical in regard to these dishes; try them.
Heat chopped onion in oil or butter, add 2 parts chopped potatoes and ½–1 part coarse zwieback crumbs or granella, with salt. Pour a little nut milk or dairy cream, and water over. Cover and heat well, then brown in oven uncovered. A little sage may be used sometimes, or both onion and sage may be omitted.
1 or 2 parts cold boiled or steamed cabbage and 2 parts potato, with cream, or butter and water makes a very meaty flavored combination. Do not brown this hash. Heat slowly, covered.
Use parsnips or carrots in place of cabbage for other varieties. Cream is used to advantage in these dishes. The recipes given are merely suggestive of the many combinations possible.
Nicely poached eggs, one for each serving, may be laid on to any of the hashes spread on a platter.
Equal quantities mashed or whole stewed lentils and rice or chopped potato, with sage and onion, cream, or butter and water, salt.
We learn from Dr. Vaughn of the Michigan University, and other eminent authorities, that yeast bread browned on the two cut surfaces only, is as unwholesome as when fresh baked, the slice being soggy and indigestible on the inside. So, for all dishes where the ordinary toast is usually used, we recommend the following:
Cut slices of light yeast bread into any desired shape or size. (Square slices cut diagonally across are convenient and attractive). Lay in a flat pan or wire dish drainer and put into a warm oven. Dry well, then increase the heat of the oven gradually and bake to a cream color all through. This process partially digests the starch and renders the bread crisp, tender, and nutty in flavor. Keep zwieback in a paper sack hanging near the fire and it will not loose its crispness. Eaten dry with porridge and other soft foods it furnishes material for mastication. It is also a suitable and delightful accompaniment to fruits and nuts, and may be used when toast points are called for as a garnish. A recipe for special zwieback bread will be found among the yeast recipes. Salt rising bread makes especially tender zwieback.
When moist toast is desired, dip the crust part of the slice into the liquid first, then drop the whole slice in, taking it out quickly with a skimmer so that it will not be mushy, and lay it in a covered dish to steam for a few minutes.
Always salt the water for dipping.
When cream or milk are the liquids for dipping, do not have them quite boiling as boiling milk toughens the toast. Do not moisten toast when the dressing is thin enough to soften it.
Prepared toast and dressing may be sent to the table separate and served on individual dishes.
With many, acid or sub-acid fruit dressings served over moistened toast cause acidity in the stomach.
Never use milk for moistening toast for fruit dressings, always water or cream.
When delicate fruits are to be used, strain off the juice, bring it to the boiling point and thicken it a very little with cornstarch. When perfectly boiling add the fruit, heat carefully and dip over toast.
Many little left-overs of foods may be made into dainty and satisfying dishes by being served on toast.
The blueberry is one of the most suitable fruits for toasts. The slightly sweetened stewed fruit may be thickened without straining, as the berries do not break easily. Serve with Brazil nuts or dried blanched almonds, or with chopped or ground nuts.
Use sweet California prunes stewed without sugar, whole stoned with juice, or in marmalade. Serve with halves of English walnuts on or around slices when required.
Moisten white or graham zwieback according to directions and put in layers in a tureen with the following dressing. Cover and let stand in a warm place 10–15 m. before serving.
Dressing—To a pint of milk take about 1⅓ tablespn. graham (not white) flour, or for skimmed milk, 1½ tablespn. flour, add salt and cook in a double boiler 15 m. to ½ hour.
Lay slices of zwieback in a deep dish with salt and bits of butter. (Butter is not a necessity if the milk is rich). Pour hot milk over and send to the table at once.
Use hot thin cream without butter or salt in above recipe.
Heat butter, stir in flour, add milk hot, and when smooth a trifle of salt. Dip slices of zwieback in sauce, lay in deep dish and pour remaining sauce over. Set in a warm place for a few minutes before serving.
Thicken cream of corn soup a little more if necessary, or, add corn to thin cream sauce, and serve on toast. Left-overs of all sorts of cream soups may be utilized for toast: celery, asparagus, string bean, oyster plant and spinach, also succotash and other stewed or creamed vegetables.
Use any lentil gravy or thickened lentil soup, cream of peas or peas and tomato soup thickened, red kidney beans purée or thickened soup, on moistened slices of zwieback.
Add meat to hot sauce and pour all over beaten salted eggs; cook as scrambled eggs. Serve immediately on moistened slices of zwieback, with baked tomatoes when convenient.
The following toasts are of a different nature (though slices of zwieback may be used instead of bread), but they are good emergency dishes.
Add ½ cup of milk with salt to 2 or 3 beaten eggs. Dip slices of stale bread or moistened zwieback in the mixture and brown delicately on both sides on moderately hot buttered griddle or in quick oven, or in frying pan covered. Serve plain or with any suitable sauce.
Drain slices after dipping in egg mixture; crumb, bake, and serve with honey, maple syrup or jelly for Breaded French Toast.
Add grated or fine chopped onion to egg mixture and finish the same as French toast.
Batter—2 eggs, 2 tablespns. flour, 1 teaspn. of oil, milk for smooth thin batter. Nut milk may be used and oil omitted.
Cut thin slices of bread into any desired shape (round with biscuit cutter), spread each one of half the pieces with jelly, jam or marmalade and press another on to it; dip in the batter, lay on oiled baking pan, stand 15 m. or longer in a cold place. Bake in a quick oven, serve with a bit of the preserve on top and half of a nut pressed into each, or, dusted with powdered sugar.
Inclose small cakes of nicely seasoned mashed potato in pastry crust; bake, serve with milk gravy, drawn butter or cream sauce, or with celery only. This is the original recipe which leads to the following variations:
Mix finely-sliced celery with the potato.
Use the mixture of black walnut and potato stuffing, or mashed lentils or mashed peas for filling.
Serve peas biscuit with tomato or tomato cream sauce.
Serve lentil biscuit with cream, cream of tomato or mushroom sauce.
Lentil biscuit with fresh mushroom or Boundary Castle sauce, with or without celery, might constitute one course at a dinner.
Make a filling of minced trumese, salt, oil, chopped parsley, onion and mushrooms into small cakes or balls, inclose them in universal crust, and when light, steam 25–30 m. Serve with drawn butter, flavored with onion and parsley, or as garnish for a meat dish. Make balls quite small for garnish.
Beat eggs, add milk and pour gradually into flour mixed with salt; add oil, beat well, turn into well oiled, or oiled and crumbed gem pans; bake in moderate (slow at first) oven.
Serve as garnish or accompaniment to ragout, or if baked in flat cakes, with slices of broiled or à la mode meats laid on them, and gravy poured around. The pudding may be baked in a flat pan and cut into any desired shape for serving. Whites and yolks of eggs may be beaten separately. A large onion chopped may be used in the pudding.
Pack hot boiled rice into well oiled border mold and let stand in a warm place (over kettle of hot water) for 10 m. Turn on to serving dish carefully.
Or, parboil 1 cup of rice in salted water 5 m.; drain and cook in a double boiler with 2½–3 cups of milk and salt, until the rice is tender and the milk absorbed, then pack into the mold.
1 tablespn. of butter and the yolks of 2 eggs may be added to the rice about 2 m. before it is taken from the double boiler.
With nicely seasoned, not too moist, mashed potato, mix slices of cooked oyster plant which have been simmered in cream or butter. Spread in well oiled frying or omelet pan. When delicately browned on the bottom, fold, omelet fashion, turn on to a hot platter, garnish. Serve plain or with cream sauce or with thin drawn butter. Or, grind oyster plant, cook in a small quantity of water, add cream or butter and mix with plain potato. Finely-sliced raw celery or chopped raw onion and parsley may be used in the potato sometimes.
Wash potatoes well, scrubbing with vegetable brush. Cut out any imperfect spots. Bake until just done. Break up, skins and all, into nice rich milk and eat like bread and milk for supper. A favorite dish of some of the early settlers in Michigan.
Add nice ripe blueberries to bread and milk for supper, also ripe black raspberries or baked sweet apples. They are all delicious.
Simmer finely-sliced onion in oil 5–10 m. without browning; add salt and a little water, then apples which have been washed, quartered, cored and sliced without paring. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Cover and cook until apples are just tender, not broken. Serve for breakfast or supper, or with a meat dish instead of a vegetable, for luncheon or dinner.
The onion may be omitted. Use a little sugar when apples are very sour.
Simmer sliced onions in oil, with salt, in baking pan. Place apples, pared and cored, on top of the onions; sprinkle with sugar and put ¼ teaspn. in each cavity. Cover, bake; uncover and brown. Serve for luncheon, or as garnish for meat dish.
“And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” Gen. 1:29.
“The food which God gave Adam in his sinless state is the best for man’s use as he seeks to regain that sinless state.
“The intelligence displayed by many dumb animals approaches so closely to human intelligence that it is a mystery.
“The animals see and hear and love and fear and suffer.
“They manifest sympathy and tenderness toward their companions in suffering.
“They form attachments for man which are not broken without great suffering to them.
“Think of the cruelty to animals that meat eating involves and its effect on those who inflict and those who behold it. How it destroys the tenderness with which we should regard these creatures of God!”
The high price of flesh foods, the knowledge of the waste matter in the blood of even healthy animals which remains in their flesh after death, and the well authenticated reports of the increasing prevalence of most loathsome diseases among them, causes a growing desire among thinking people to take their food at first hand, before it has become a part of the body of some lower animal.
So, the great food question of the day is—“What shall we use in the place of meat?”
Nuts, legumes (peas, beans, lentils and peanuts) and eggs contain as do flesh meats, an excess of the proteid or muscle-building elements (nuts and legumes a much larger proportion than flesh), so we may combine these with fruits, vegetables and some of the cereals (rice, for instance) and have a perfect proportion of food elements.
It must be borne in mind, however, that proteid foods must be used sparingly, since an excess of these foods causes some of the most serious diseases.
The bulk of our foods should be made up of fruits and vegetables and some of the less hearty cereals and breads.
As nuts occupy the highest round of the true meat ladder, we give a variety of recipes for their use, following with legumes and eggs in their order.
With nuts, as with other foods, the simplest way to use them is the best. There are greater objections to foods than that they are difficult of digestion, and in the case of nuts, that objection is overcome by thorough mastication; in fact, they are an aid to the cultivation of that important function in eating.
For those who are not able to chew their food, nuts may be ground into butter.
Another aid to the digestion of nuts is the use with them of an abundance of acid fruits. Fruits and nuts seem to be each the complement of the other, the nuts as well, preventing the unpleasant effects felt by some in the free use of fruits.
“No investigations have been found on record which demonstrate any actual improvement in the digestibility of nuts due to salt.”—M. E. Jaffa, M. S., Professor of Nutrition, University of California.
Be sure that nuts are fresh. Rancid nuts are no better than rancid butter. Shelled nuts do not keep as well as those in the shell.
Almonds stand at the head of the nut family. It is better to buy them in the shell as shelled almonds are apt to have bitter ones among them. Almonds should not be partaken of largely with the brown covering on, but are better to be blanched.
To Blanch Almonds—Throw them into perfectly boiling water, let them come to the boiling point again, drain, pour cold water over them and slip the skins off with the thumb and finger. Drop the meats on to a dry towel, and when they are all done, roll them in the towel for a moment, then spread them on plates or trays to dry. They must be dried slowly as they color easily, and the sweet almond flavor is gone when a delicate color only, is developed. For butter they must be very dry, really brittle.
Brazil Nuts—castanas—cream nuts, do not require blanching, as their covering does not seem to be objectionable. They are rich in oil and are most valuable nuts. Slice and dry them for grinding.
Filberts—hazelnuts—cobnuts—Barcelonas, also may be eaten without blanching, though they may be heated in the oven (without browning) or put into boiling water and much of the brown covering removed. They are at their best unground, as they do not give an especially agreeable flavor to cooked foods. They may be made into butter.
Brazil nuts and filberts often agree with those who cannot use English walnuts and peanuts.
English Walnuts—The covering of the English walnut is irritating and would better be removed when practicable. This is done by the hot water method, using a knife instead of the thumb and finger. The unblanched nuts may however, be used in moderation by nearly every one.
Butternuts and black walnuts blanch more easily than the English walnut.
When whole halves of such nuts as hickory nuts, pecans or English walnuts are required, throw the nuts into boiling water for two or three minutes, or steam them for three or four minutes, or wrap them in woolen cloths wrung out of boiling water. Crack, and remove meats at once. Do not leave nuts in water long enough to soak the meats.
Pinenuts come all ready blanched. When they require washing, pour boiling water over them first, then cold water. Drain, dry in towels, then on plates in warm oven.
Peanuts—ground nuts, because of their large proportion of oil, and similarity in other respects to nuts are classed with them, though they are truly legumes.
The Spanish peanut contains more oil than the Virginia, but the flavor of the Virginia is finer and its large size makes it easier to prepare. The “Jumbos” are the cheapest.
To blanch Spanish peanuts the usual way, heat for some time, without browning, in a slow oven, stirring often. When cool rub between the hands or in a bag to remove the skins. The best way to blow the hulls away after they are removed is to turn the nuts from one pan to another in the wind.
Spanish peanuts can be obtained all ready blanched from the nut food factories.
The Virginias, not being so rich in oil must always be blanched the same as almonds. Be sure to let them boil well before draining. I prefer to blanch the Spanish ones that way, too, the results are so much more satisfactory.
When peanuts are partly dried, break them apart and remove the germ, which is disagreeable and unwholesome: then finish drying.