Chapter XVIII: Part 18

Second Week. Wednesday.
——
A Cheap Soup.
Cannelon of Beef. Browned Sweet Potatoes.
Hominy Croquettes. Cauliflower.
——
Claret Jelly and Mrs. M.’s Sponge-Cake.
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A CHEAP SOUP.

1 lb. of lean beef, cut into strips; 2 onions; 2 turnips; ½ cup of rice; 6 tomatoes; 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar; pepper, salt; 2 teaspoonfuls essence of celery; dripping for frying; 3 quarts of water; bunch of herbs.

Put dripping and sugar into a soup-pot; when they heat, add the meat and sliced onions. Stir until nicely browned. Add the water, the turnips, and herbs. Cook one hour; take off the fat; put in tomatoes and rice, and simmer two hours. Season to taste, cook ten minutes, and pour out.

CANNELON OF BEEF.

Chop the remains of yesterday’s beef; mix with quarter of a pound of minced ham; season with pepper, salt grated lemon-peel, and a little onion. Moisten with yesterday’s gravy, with a little flour stirred in, and bind with a beaten egg or two. Make some pie-paste, or such as you would use for dumplings; roll into an oblong sheet; put the beef-mince in the middle, and make the pastry into a long roll, enclosing the meat. Close at the ends with round caps of pastry, the edges pinched well together. Lay in a dripping-pan—the joined side of the roll downward, and bake to a good brown.

BROWNED SWEET POTATOES.

Boil, and peel neatly. Lay in a dripping-pan, and baste often with good dripping, or butter, until glossy and delicately browned.

HOMINY CROQUETTES.

2 cups of boiled, fine-grained hominy; 2 beaten eggs; 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter; salt to taste.

Work the hominy smooth with the butter; beat in the eggs with a wooden spoon; salt, and make into long balls, with floured hands. Flatten at the ends, roll in flour, and fry to a golden brown in lard or dripping. Drain, and pile upon a flat dish.

CAULIFLOWER.

Boil a fine cauliflower in hot salted water. Drain, put into a deep dish, blossom upward, and pour over it a cup of rich drawn butter, with the juice of half a lemon stirred in.

CLARET JELLY.

1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked one hour in a large cup of water; 2 cups of sugar; 2 cups of claret; 1 pint of boiling water; juice of 1 lemon; a pinch of mace.

Put gelatine, lemon, sugar, and mace together, and cover half an hour. Pour on the boiling water; stir until the gelatine is melted, and strain through a flannel bag. Add the wine, and strain through double flannel into a wet mould. Set in ice.

MRS. M.’S SPONGE-CAKE.

See “GENERAL RECEIPTS NO. 1, COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD SERIES,” page 326.

Second Week. Thursday.
——
Egg Soup.
Larded Steak, Broiled. Purée of Potatoes.
Baked Macaroni. Bavarian Salad.
——
Lemon Cream Pie.
——

EGG SOUP.

2 lbs. lean ham; 1 lb. lean veal, cut into dice; 1 carrot; 1 onion; 1 grated turnip; 1 boiled potato, mashed; chopped parsley; 3 quarts of water; 6 or 8 eggs.

Cut up the meat, onion, and carrot, and put on with herbs and water to come to a slow boil. Keep this up for three hours and a half. The water should not lose more than one-third. Strain off the liquor; cool and skim. Put over the fire, with the grated turnip and mashed potato. Season, and simmer half an hour. Pour into the tureen, and lay upon the top of the soup as many poached eggs, trimmed round, as there are persons to be served.

LARDED STEAK, BROILED.

Flatten a large steak, and lard it with thin strips of fat salt pork, bringing all the ends out on one side of the steak. You can do this with a knife and your fingers, by making two holes for each lardoon, and making a loop of it under the steak; but it is better to have a larding-needle. Broil upon a greased gridiron; lay upon a hot dish; put upon it a little warmed butter, seasoned with pepper, salt, and French mustard.

PURÉE OF POTATOES.

Mash boiled potatoes; rub through a colander; add a few spoonfuls of milk, one of butter rolled in flour, and stir over the fire five minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Pour into a deep dish.

BAKED MACARONI.

Break half a pound of macaroni into inch lengths, and cook twenty minutes in boiling salt water. Drain; cover the bottom of a buttered dish with it; strew with grated cheese and butter-bits, pepper and salt lightly, and put in another layer of macaroni. Fill the dish in this way; strew cheese and butter on top; pour in half a cup of milk, and bake, covered, half an hour—then, brown quickly.

BAVARIAN SALAD.

2 _small_ onions; 2 heads of lettuce, pulled to pieces; 1 boiled beet, cold and sliced; 3 tablespoonfuls salad-oil; 2 of vinegar; yolk of 1 raw egg; 1 saltspoonful of salt, and same of made mustard.

Chop the onions exceedingly small, and beat into the whipped egg the salt, mustard, the oil, last of all, the vinegar. Put the lettuce into a dish; cover with the beet-root, and pour on the dressing.

LEMON CREAM PIE.

1 cup of sugar; 1 tablespoonful of butter; 1 egg; 1 lemon, pared carefully, even to the white rind, and the seeds removed; 1 tablespoonful corn-starch, wet in cold water; 1 cup of boiling water.

Stir the corn-starch into the water, and pour over the creamed butter and sugar. When cold, add the minced lemon and grated peel, with the egg. Beat hard and bake in open shells of paste. Eat cold.

Second Week. Friday.
——
Turnip Soup.
Oyster Patés. Rissoles of Sweetbreads.
Chopped Cabbage. Mashed Potatoes Browned.
——
Quince Soufflé.
——

TURNIP SOUP.

12 turnips; 4 tablespoonfuls of butter; 2 tablespoonfuls of flour; 1 quart of milk; 2 quarts of water; 1 onion; chopped parsley; salt and cayenne.

Pare, slice, and put the turnips on with the onion in the water. Cook soft, pulp through a colander, and return, with the water, to the fire. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, and cook ten minutes, stirring all the time in one direction. Add the milk, stirring it in gradually; take from the fire. Simmer the turnip _purée_ five minutes after adding seasoning and chopped parsley; pour in the thickened milk, boil up once, and serve.

OYSTER PATÉS.

1 quart of oysters, minced fine with a sharp knife; 1 cup of rich drawn butter, based upon milk; cayenne and pepper to taste.

Stir the minced oysters into the drawn butter and cook five minutes in a farina-kettle. Have ready some shapes of pastry, baked in _paté_-pans, then slipped out. Fill these with the mixture; set in the oven two minutes to heat, and send to table.

RISSOLES OF SWEETBREADS.

Boil and blanch three fine sweetbreads. Mince, and add one-third the quantity of fine crumbs. Season with pepper and salt, a little nutmeg, and two beaten eggs. Work and beat smooth; roll into long balls; flour these well. Have ready a little gravy in a saucepan, well-seasoned; add as much drawn butter. When it boils, put in the rissoles, a few at a time, and cook ten minutes. Drain off the gravy; transfer the sweetbreads carefully to a hot dish; pour the gravy upon a beaten egg; heat to thickening, and pour over the rissoles.

CHOPPED CABBAGE.

Boil a firm cabbage in two waters—having taken off the outer leaves and quartered it. Chop very fine; put into a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter and the same of vinegar, with pepper and salt. Stir in the cabbage, and when very hot, dish.

MASHED POTATOES—BROWNED.

Mash in the usual way; heap roughly upon a greased pie-plate; set in a quick oven, and when delicately browned, slip to another dish.

QUINCE SOUFFLÉ.

Pare, slice, and stew the fruit soft. Sweeten well, and rub through a colander. Put into a glass dish. Make a custard of 1 pint of milk, 3 yolks, and half a cup of sugar. When cold, pour, two inches deep, upon the quince. Whip the whites of the eggs light with sugar and lemon-juice, and heap upon the custard.

Second Week. Saturday.
——
Mock Turtle Soup.
Hot Pot. Cauliflower à la Crême.
Mashed Parsnips. Lima Beans.
——
Cocoanut Pudding.
——

MOCK TURTLE SOUP.

Please consult receipt for Wednesday, Third Week in March. There should be enough for two days at least.

HOT POT.

2 lbs. of lean veal; calf’s brains from your boiled head; 1 pint of oysters; pepper—cayenne is best; a _little_ minced onion; salt; a tablespoonful of butter; ¼ lb. of oyster crackers, buttered and split; minced parsley and lemon-peel.

Cut the veal into squares, and parboil for twenty minutes. Put a layer in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish; season well; sprinkle on a little onion, and put a layer of split crackers next. The brains should be beaten up with a raw egg, and seasoned. Drop in small spoonfuls upon the crackers; next, put a few oysters, strewed with pepper, salt and butter-bits; more veal, and so on to the top, which should be crackers. Fill the dish with the water in which the veal was boiled, seasoned, and an equal quantity of oyster liquor. Cover closely, and bake in a moderate oven an hour and a half. Serve in the dish. It should not be uncovered for browning.

CAULIFLOWER À LA CRÊME.

Boil a fine cauliflower in plenty of hot salted water, having tied it up in a bit of mosquito-net. When done, put into a deep dish, blossom upward, and pour over it a cupful of drawn butter in which has been beaten, and then cooked, a raw egg.

MASHED PARSNIPS.

Scrape, slice lengthwise, and put on to boil in hot salted water. They will take more than an hour to cook. When tender, drain and press in a colander. Mash smooth; put into a clean saucepan with a little butter, pepper and salt. Stir until very hot, then dish.

LIMA BEANS.

See Thursday of First Week in October.

COCOANUT PUDDING.

1 heaping cup _fine_ crumbs; ½ cup of butter; 1 cup powdered sugar; 1 grated cocoanut; 2 cups milk; tablespoonful corn-starch wet with cold water; 5 eggs, nutmeg and rose-water to taste.

Soak the crumbs in the milk, and add to the creamed butter and sugar, and the beaten yolks. Beat well; put in the corn-starch; the whisked white; at last the grated cocoanut. Beat one minute; pour into a buttered pudding dish, and bake in a moderate oven forty-five minutes. Eat cold, with sugar sifted on top.

Third Week. Sunday.
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Yesterday’s Soup.
Roast Leg of Lamb. Potato Croquettes.
Sweet Potatoes. Fried Egg-plant.
Currant Jelly.
——
Rice Snow.
White Mountain Cake.
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YESTERDAY’S SOUP.

Your mock-turtle soup will be even better the second day than on the first. Take off the fat; dip out enough of the stock for your family, and bring slowly to a boil. You can make a little variety in it by serving the force-meat balls the first day; the meat dice the second, or _vice versa_.

ROAST LEG OF LAMB.

Lay in the dripping-pan; pour a cup of boiling water over it, and roast steadily, twelve minutes to the pound, basting very often. Ten minutes before taking it up, dredge with flour, and baste well with butter to make a brown froth. Lay on a dish, and keep hot. Pour the gravy into a basin set in very cold water. This will send the grease to the top. Remove it all; pour the brown gravy into a saucepan; thicken with browned flour; season, boil once, and serve in a boat. Pass currant-jelly with lamb.

POTATO CROQUETTES.

2 cups mashed potatoes, free from lumps; 2 beaten eggs; 1 tablespoonful melted butter; salt and pepper to taste; a little flour.

Mix all well together; heat, and stir over the fire until smoking hot. Let it get cold, and make into small rolls flattened at the ends. Roll in flour and fry to a good brown. Drain off upon paper and eat hot.

SWEET POTATOES.

Boil until a fork will go easily into the largest. Skin, and lay in a bake-pan in the oven a few minutes to dry—then serve.

FRIED EGG-PLANT.

See Wednesday, First Week in October.

RICE SNOW.

1 quart of milk; 5 tablespoonfuls of rice flour; the whites of 4 eggs; 1 great spoonful of butter; 1 cup of powdered sugar; a pinch of cinnamon, and same of nutmeg; vanilla, or other extract; a little salt.

Scald the milk, and stir in the flour wet up to a thin paste with cold milk. Cook until it begins to thicken; add sugar and spice; simmer five minutes, stirring all the while; pour out, and beat in the butter. Let it get cold; flavor, and whip, a spoonful at a time, into the whisked whites. Set to form in a wet mould. Prepare on Saturday. Turn out on Sunday, and eat with sweet cream. If more convenient, you can substitute corn-starch for the rice flour.

WHITE MOUNTAIN CAKE.

See “GENERAL RECEIPTS NO. 1, COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD SERIES,” page 319.

Third Week. Monday.
——
Sago Soup.
Lamb Pudding. Stewed Corn.
Potatoes au Naturel. Cabbage Salad.
——
Grapes, Pears, and Bananas.
Tea à la Russe, Crackers and Cheese.
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SAGO SOUP.

Cut all the meat from your cold leg of lamb; crack the bone to splinters; put on, with gristly bits of meat, skin, etc., in three quarts of water, with an onion, and boil slowly, at the back of the range, down to one quart. Strain, cool, and skim. Add to what has been saved from the mock-turtle stock made on Saturday. Heat, and stir in half a cup of pearl sago, previously soaked three hours in a very little water. Season, and simmer half an hour.

LAMB PUDDING.

The cold meat from yesterday’s joint; bread-crumbs; 1 tablespoonful of butter; 2 eggs; a little gravy; pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.

Chop the cold lamb fine, season, and wet up with a little good gravy. Mix in one-fourth as much crumbs as you have meat; beat in the melted butter, the eggs, and pour into a buttered mould. Set in a pan of hot water, and cook, covered, in a good oven for one hour. Turn out, and pour a little gravy over it.

STEWED CORN.

Green corn, even in city markets, is both indifferent and dear at this season. We do better, therefore, to fall back upon the invaluable canned vegetables that have made American housewives almost independent of changing seasons. Open a can of corn one hour before it is to be cooked. When ready for it turn into a farina-kettle; pour on just enough hot water to cover it, and cook half an hour. Then, add a little milk, a good lump of butter cut up in flour, pepper and salt to taste, and cook fifteen minutes longer.

POTATOES AU NATUREL.

Put over the fire in cold water; bring to a boil, and, fifteen minutes thereafter, pour in a cup of cold water to arrest the boil suddenly. After the beginning of the second bubble, cook quite fast until a fork will enter the largest potato without forcing. Turn off the water, set the uncovered pot upon the fire for a minute; strip off the skins quickly, and serve.

CABBAGE SALAD.

Shred a white cabbage fine; and pour over it a dressing such as you made on Thursday, Second Week in October, but without the chopped onion.

GRAPES, PEARS, AND BANANAS.

Heap the grapes in one salver or basket, with a spray of some climbing or clinging vine thrown around it. Group pears and bananas together, and garnish with autumn leaves.

TEA À LA RUSSE.

Slice a fresh lemon; take off all the skin; lay the slices, with powdered sugar strewed over them, in a plate, pour out the tea, hot and strong, with plenty of sugar, and pass the lemon with it. _Serve without cream._ I shall never forget a surprise that was startling as well as a disappointment, that came to me one day, when, sinking under the depression of an incipient headache, brought on by miles of picture galleries, I called for a cup of hot tea in a foreign restaurant, and was served with what I instantly pronounced to be “poison!” “_Molto buono_,” protested the waiter, opening the tea-urn to show me a whole lemon, skin and all, swimming upon the steaming decoction of leaves. The combination of rind and the cream with which I had “trimmed” my share of the too-fragrant beverage, was indescribable. Still, I—rather—like tea _à la Russe_ without lemon-peel and cream.

Third Week. Tuesday.
——
Soup and Bouilli.
Stewed Potatoes. Mixed Pickles.
——
Alice’s Pudding.
——

SOUP AND BOUILLI.

6 lbs. brisket of beef, all in one neat cut, with as little bone as possible; 3 carrots; 1 small head of cauliflower cut into clusters; 4 turnips; 6 _small_ onions; bunch of sweet herbs; 2 blades of mace; 1 tablespoonful of butter cut up in flour; dice of fried bread; pepper, salt, and French mustard.

Cover the meat well with water; bring to a very slow boil, and continue this for four hours, skimming often and filling up with boiling water as that in the pot sinks. At the end of that time, put in the vegetables, cut into neat squares. Season, and simmer about forty-five minutes, or until the carrots are tender. Take up the meat; rub over with butter and cover upon a heated dish. Strain the soup from the vegetables without breaking them, and set the colander in which they are left over boiling water until after the soup is served. Strain this again through a soup-sieve, and pour upon plenty of fried bread in the tureen. If you like a thicker soup, return it after the second straining, to the fire with a handful of tapioca, or of German sago, ready-soaked, and simmer until clear. When the soup is out of the way, arrange the vegetables in little heaps around the beef, all of a kind together. Put a cupful of the soup over the fire, stir in the floured butter, mustard, pepper, and salt, to your liking; boil up and pour over the beef.

STEWED POTATOES.

See Wednesday, First Week in October.

ALICE’S PUDDING.

1 quart of milk; 5 eggs; 1 cup dry crumbs; ½ cup strawberry, or other sweet jam; ½ cup of sugar.

Butter a pudding-dish; strew crumbs on the bottom; pour in the jam; cover this with the rest of the crumbs, wet with milk. Heat the quart of milk to scalding; take from the fire and pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Then, whip in the frothed whites. Heat this three minutes, and put upon the layer of crumbs in the dish, spoonful by spoonful, letting each soak in well before adding more. Bake in a steady oven until “set,” and slightly colored. Eat cold with cream.

Third Week. Wednesday.
——
Poor Roger’s Soup.
Beefsteak and Onions. Canned Succotash.
Potatoes à la Parisienne. Spinach.
——
Baked Apple Dumpling.
——

POOR ROGER’S SOUP.

The bones of yesterday’s roast boiled down in 3 pints of water to 1 pint; 1 pint of stock left from yesterday’s soup; 6 parboiled potatoes sliced thin; ¼ cabbage sliced small; 1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; 1 sliced and fried onion; 1 quart of hot water.

Parboil the cabbage; then put it on, with the potatoes and fried onion, in the hot water; cook until the cabbage is tender, and the potatoes broken to pieces. Take the fat from the top of your stock; add the latter to the cabbage-soup; season to taste; stir in the floured butter; cook five minutes, and pour out.

BEEFSTEAK AND ONIONS.

Flatten the steak with the broad side of a hatchet; broil over clear coals; lay upon a chafing-dish, and pour over it a little melted butter in which has been stewed a quarter of an onion sliced. Strain out the onion; pepper and salt the butter; squeeze in the juice of half a lemon. After it is poured over the steak, put a hot cover over it, and let it stand five minutes before serving. Steak thus treated has a delicious flavor.

CANNED SUCCOTASH.

Put on in enough boiling water to cover it. Salt slightly; stew half an hour; turn off most of the water, and put in as much cold milk. Heat to boiling; stir in a good lump of butter rolled in flour; pepper and salt; simmer ten minutes, and pour out.

POTATOES À LA PARISIENNE.

Pare, and cut into small balls with your potato-gouge. (The scraps should be boiled and mashed.) Boil in hot salted water, until tender; drain, and drop into a saucepan containing a cupful of drawn butter seasoned with pepper and parsley. Stew three minutes.

SPINACH.

Pick off the leaves, and boil in plenty of hot salted water. Drain; chop upon a board, or in a tray; put into a saucepan, with a tablespoonful of butter, a little sugar, pepper and salt, nutmeg, and a few spoonfuls of milk or cream. Stir, and heat until bubbling hot; pour out upon small squares of fried bread.

BAKED APPLE DUMPLINGS.

1 quart of prepared flour; 2 tablespoonfuls of lard, and 1 of butter; 1 saltspoonful of salt; 2 cups of milk.

Mix into a paste, rubbing shortening and salt into the flour, then wetting with the milk. Roll out less than half an inch thick; cut into squares; lay a pared and cored apple in the centre of each; bring the corners together, and join neatly. Lay in a buttered baking-pan, the joined edges down, and bake to a nice brown. Glaze with white of egg just before you take them up. Sift powdered sugar over them, and eat with hot, sweet sauce.

Third Week. Thursday.
——
Dieppe Soup.
Stewed Chickens. Boiled Beans.
Browned Potatoes. Stewed Tomatoes.
——
Tapioca Pudding.
——

DIEPPE SOUP.

2 lbs. of beef, cut from the shin, and sliced; 2 sliced onions; 2 carrots; 1 teaspoonful of sugar; dripping for frying; 3 stalks of celery; 5 quarts of water; ½ cup of farina, soaked two hours in a little milk. Pepper and salt.

Flour, and fry the beef with the onion, sugar, pepper, and salt, to a good brown in the dripping. Put into a soup-pot, with five quarts of water, the carrots, and celery, and cook slowly four hours, _at least_. Strain, cool, and skim; season; add the farina, and simmer half an hour longer, stirring faithfully.

STEWED CHICKENS.

Truss and stuff the fowls as for roasting. Cover the bottom of the pot with thin slices of salt pork or corned ham; strew a little onion, a bunch of sweet herbs, chopped, three blades of mace, a pinch of lemon-peel, a little salt and pepper, upon this. Put in the chickens; cover with weak broth—water will do, but is not so good—cover closely and stew tender. The time will depend upon the size and age of the chickens. When done, take up and keep hot. Strain and skim the gravy; thicken with browned flour, and pour over the fowls.

BOILED BEANS.

If you use dried beans, soak over night. Put on in cold water, and cook slowly until soft. Drain, pepper, salt, and butter; then dish hot.

BROWNED POTATOES.

Work cold mashed potatoes soft with milk and butter; season with pepper and salt. Make into round, flat cakes; flour well, and bake brown in a quick oven.

STEWED TOMATOES.

Pare, slice, and stew twenty minutes. Season with pepper, salt, sugar, a lump of butter rolled in flour; put in a tablespoonful of fine bread-crumbs, and simmer ten minutes longer.

TAPIOCA PUDDING.

1 cup tapioca, soaked six hours in a little cold water; 1 quart of milk; 1 large cup of sugar; 5 eggs; grated peel of ½ lemon; a little salt.

Scald the milk, and pour upon the yolks and sugar; beat the soaked tapioca into this custard; salt; whip in the frothed whites. Pour into a buttered mould; put on the top, and set in a pan of boiling water, and this into a moderate oven. Cook three-quarters of an hour, or until firm. Turn out carefully, and eat with sauce.

Third Week. Friday.
——
Clam Soup.
Boiled Cod. Purée of Eggs.
Mashed Potatoes. Cauliflower au Gratin.
——
Coffee Méringue Custard.
——

CLAM SOUP.

50 clams; 1 quart of milk; 1 pint of water; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 12 whole peppers; a few bits of cayenne-pods; 6 blades of mace; salt to taste; 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch.

Cut the hard parts from the clams, and set by the soft portions. Put the hard bits into the soup-pot, with the clam-liquor, the water, and spices. Boil half an hour; strain, salt, and return to the fire, with the soft parts. When the soup begins to simmer, stir in the butter and corn-starch. Stew five minutes, and pour into the tureen. Stir in the boiling milk, and serve. Send oyster-crackers and sliced lemon around with it.

BOILED COD.

Sew up the fish in a clean bit of mosquito-net, and cook in boiling salted water, fifteen minutes to the pound. Unwrap, and pour over it a few spoonfuls of sauce, putting the rest into a boat.

SAUCE.

A cupful of the liquor in which your fish is cooking, strained and skimmed. Put into a saucepan; heat, and stir in a great spoonful of butter rolled in a teaspoonful of flour. When this boils, add the pounded yolks of two boiled eggs, and a tablespoonful of minced cucumber pickle. Boil once, and serve. Garnish the fish with rings of whites of eggs, and pickles, sliced.

PURÉE OF EGGS.

8 hard-boiled eggs; 3 raw eggs; 1 cup of gravy saved from yesterday’s chickens; 1 tablespoonful of butter; chopped parsley; pepper, salt, and nutmeg; some fine crumbs; fried bread.

Pound the boiled yolks, and work in butter, parsley, seasoning, and the raw eggs. Beat stiff, and rub through a colander. Mince the whites until they are like coarse snow, and stir over the fire in the hot gravy five minutes, with a tablespoonful of crumbs. Make a mound of the yolks in the middle of a stone-china dish; form a ring of the whites around them, with an outer wall of triangles of fried bread. Sift fine crumbs over all, and brown nicely upon the upper grating of the oven.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as usual, and send in with the fish-course.

CAULIFLOWER AU GRATIN.

Boil, tied up in a net, in plenty of hot salted water, forty minutes, if large. Put into a buttered bake-dish, blossom upward; cover with drawn butter; sift fine crumbs over it, and set in the oven ten minutes to color the crumbs.

COFFEE CUSTARD MÉRINGUE.

6 eggs—whites and yolks separated; 1 quart of milk; 1 cup of sugar; 1 cup of strong made coffee.

Whip the whites to a stiff froth with a little powdered sugar. Heat the milk—with a pinch of soda in it; lay the _méringue_ upon it in great spoonfuls, turning when the lower side is poached. Lift with a skimmer, as each spoonful is done, and lay upon a sieve to cool and drain. When all are out of the milk, pour it upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Return to the farina-kettle, and stir until it begins to thicken. Take from the fire, and stir in the hot coffee. When all are cold put the _méringues_ into a glass bowl, and pour the custard over them. The _méringues_ will at once rise to the surface, coated with the custard.

Third Week. Saturday.
——
Excellent Stock Soup. Veal Collops with Tomato Sauce.
Rice Croquettes à la Princesse.
Boiled Potatoes. Squash.
——
Lausanne Pudding.
——

EXCELLENT STOCK SOUP.

1 knuckle of veal, all the bones well cracked, and all the meat, except what is taken off your collops; 4 pig’s feet, cleaned and cracked; 3 lbs. of beef marrow-bones; bunch of herbs; 3 onions; 3 carrots, sliced; 6 blades of mace; 4 stalks of celery; 9 quarts of water; pepper and salt; ½ cup of rice.

Put the meat, bones, and feet on in the water overnight, cooking two hours before the fire goes down, and leaving on the range in the pot (which must be scrupulously clean) all night, salting it a little. In the morning, add the herbs and vegetables, and simmer gently six hours. Take from the fire, and strain, picking out the meat and bones, and rubbing the vegetables through the colander. Put meat and bones into the stock-pot; salt and pepper highly, and pour on them all the soup, except two quarts. There should be at least six quarts of strong broth, the extra waste in boiling having been made up by adding hot water from time to time. Season the stock well, and put away in a cold place. Cool and skim to-day’s soup, season, and put over the fire with the rice. Simmer until the rice is tender.

VEAL COLLOPS WITH TOMATO SAUCE.

Cut three pounds of meat from your veal knuckle, and this into pieces two inches long and one wide. Flatten with the side of a hatchet; flour well, and fry in dripping, with half of a sliced onion. Put a cup of your soup-stock into a saucepan, season well, and lay in the collops. Have ready a cup of tomato sauce, rubbed smooth through a colander, and seasoned. When the collops have stewed ten minutes in the broth, add a tablespoonful of the sauce, and the same quantity, at intervals of five minutes, until all is used up. Be careful to follow these directions implicitly. When the sauce is all in, put in a tablespoonful of butter rolled thickly in browned flour. Simmer five minutes, and serve in a deep dish.

RICE CROQUETTES À LA PRINCESSE.

2 cups boiled rice; 2 eggs; ½ cup of milk; pepper and salt; a boiled sweetbread, minced fine, or boiled fowl-giblets, or any cold meat minced, and worked to a paste with the pounded yolks of two boiled eggs, and well seasoned with butter, salt, cayenne and a pinch of lemon; lard for frying.

Mix beaten eggs and milk with salt into the hot rice, and stir in a saucepan until stiff. Let it get cold; make into thin round cakes; enclose a spoonful of the meat-paste in the centre of each, and roll the rice-ball round. Dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry carefully in plenty of hot lard. Drain and serve hot.

BOILED POTATOES.

See Monday of this week.

SQUASH.

Pare, slice and cook soft in boiling water. Drain, mash, and press in a hot colander; season with pepper, salt, and butter, and smooth in a mound within a deep dish.

LAUSANNE PUDDING.

1 pint of milk; 3 eggs; 2 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch; ½ cup of sugar; 1 teaspoonful of vanilla or other essence; sweet jam or jelly.

Heat the milk, and stir in the corn-starch wet up with cold milk. Stir until thick. Take from the fire, and beat in sugar and egg, with flavoring. Melt a tablespoonful of butter in a square, shallow baking-pan; pour in the pudding and bake half an hour. Take it up; spread, while hot, with the sweetmeats; roll up closely, lay upon a dish, and sift sugar over it. Cut in slices an inch and a half wide.

Fourth Week. Sunday.
——
White Broth.
Roast Beef. Yorkshire Pudding.
Browned Sweet Potatoes.
Fried Parsnips. Made Mustard.
——
Potato Pudding.
Grated Cheese.
——

WHITE BROTH.

Remove the fat from your jelly-stock. Take out enough for to-day’s use; also, two of the pig’s feet. Cut the best part of the meat from these into as neat squares as you can contrive, and lay aside. Heat the stock, with the addition of a cup of boiling water, and put, meantime, two tablespoonfuls of butter into a clean saucepan. When it heats, stir in two tablespoonfuls of flour. Stir fast, and, to keep it from browning, put in, now and then, a few spoonfuls of soup. Cook five minutes; add gradually to the soup; put in the pieces of meat, with more seasoning, if required; boil once, pour into the tureen, and add a cup of boiling milk.

ROAST BEEF.

Lay in a dripping-pan, pour a cupful of boiling water over it, and cook, basting often, _about_ ten minutes per pound. If there is much fat on it, cover these parts with a paste of flour and water, until the meat is nearly done. Ten minutes before taking it up, dredge with flour, then baste once with butter. If you like made gravy with beef, pour off the fat from the top; thicken with browned flour, season and boil once.

YORKSHIRE PUDDING.

10 tablespoonfuls prepared flour; 1 cup of cold water; 2 cups of milk; 3 eggs; salt.

Rub the flour smooth in the water and milk; salt, beat in the yolks, and, just before putting into the oven, whip in the beaten whites. Put two tablespoonfuls from the fat “top” of your beef gravy into a square baking-pan; pour in the batter, and put into the other oven until “set.” Baste then, every few minutes, with the hot dripping until it is of a rich brown. Cut in squares, and lay about the meat. Some much prefer this Yorkshire Pudding to that cooked with the meat.

BROWNED SWEET POTATOES.

Boil with their skins on about twenty minutes. Peel carefully. Pour off nearly all the fat from the top of the beef-dripping. Lay the potatoes in the pan around the meat, and baste when you baste the beef. Drain well in a colander.

FRIED PARSNIPS.

Boil tender in hot, salted water; scrape, slice lengthwise when they are nearly cold; flour all over, and fry in salted lard or dripping. Drain well.

POTATO PUDDING.

1 lb. mashed potato, rubbed through a colander; ½ lb. butter, creamed with the sugar; 6 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately; 1 lemon, squeezed into the hot potato; 1 teaspoonful of nutmeg, and the same of mace; 2 cups white sugar.

Beat the yolks into the creamed butter and sugar; add the potato. Beat very hard, and whip in the whisked whites, with the spice. Bake in open shells of paste on Saturday. Send grated cheese around with it.

Fourth Week. Monday.
——
Macaroni Soup.
Réchauffée of Beef. Potatoes au Gratin.
Kidney Beans, Fricasseed. Grated Horseradish.
——
Grapes, Boiled Chestnuts, Apples.
——

MACARONI SOUP.

Heat the contents of your stock-pot to boiling, after adding a pint of hot water. Cook a few minutes; strain off as much broth as you want for to-day, and return the rest to the jar when you have scalded it well. Put in more pepper and salt, and put by for future soups.

Heat and season the soup left out for to-day; add a handful of macaroni, broken short, and cooked twenty minutes in hot, salted water. Simmer five minutes.

RÉCHAUFFÉE OF BEEF.

Trim your cold roast neatly. Make incisions at short distances apart, and thrust strips of fat salt pork quite through it. Set in a round, deep baking-pan. Sprinkle with minced onion, and pour over it a pint of gravy—the remains of that which accompanied the roast, mixed with some from the stock-pot. Season the gravy well with pepper, salt, minced herbs, and a suspicion of French mustard. It should be cold, and the oven slow, for the first hour—never fast. Cover _very_ tightly; open the dish at the end of one hour, and turn the meat, but pay it no further attention until two hours have passed. Then dish it; strain the gravy; thicken as much as you want for your meat with browned flour; boil up, and pour over the beef. The rest can be set by for other uses. If the beef has been cooked slowly and steadily, it will be tender and most savory.

POTATOES AU GRATIN.

Boil and mash the potatoes; press firmly in a greased bowl; turn out upon a shallow pie-plate, also greased; wash all over with raw egg; sift fine crumbs upon it, and brown in a quick oven. Slip to a hot, flat dish.

KIDNEY BEANS—FRICASSEED.

Soak all night. Next day, put on in cold water, at the back of the range, and cook tender. When you turn your beef, after an hour’s cooking, dip out half a cupful of the gravy. Cool and skim it; add a little minced parsley and onion, and, when your beans are soft, pour off nearly all the water, and add this gravy. There should be just enough to keep them from getting dry. Simmer ten minutes, and dish without draining.

GRAPES, BOILED CHESTNUTS, APPLES.

Arrange the grapes in a fruit-dish, ornamented with leaves. Put on the chestnuts in warm (not hot) water, slightly salted. Bring to a boil, and cook fast fifteen minutes. Drain in a colander; stir a spoonful of butter into the chestnuts, tossing in the colander until dry. Serve in a deep dish, lined with a napkin.

Polish the apples, and lay a fruit-knife at each place.

Fourth Week. Tuesday.
——
Beef-olives Soup.
Mutton Stew, with Dumplings. Baked Potatoes.
Stewed Tomatoes. Beets Sautés.
——
Omelette Méringue.
——

BEEF-OLIVES SOUP.

Chop a few slices of the twice-served cold beef very fine; mix with one-third as much cold mashed potato, wet with gravy; season well; bind with a beaten egg, and stir in a greased saucepan until quite stiff. Let it get cold; make into small olive-shaped balls; flour, and lay aside. Strain off the liquid from your stock-pot; bring to a boil, adding hot water or seasoning, as the case may require; boil, and skim for five minutes, and drop in the beef-olives carefully. Simmer one minute—fast boiling would break them—and pour out. If you have any pickled olives in the house, add a dozen to the soup when you put in the beef-balls.

MUTTON STEW, WITH DUMPLINGS.

3 lbs. of lean mutton, cut into short strips; ½ lb. of salt pork, chopped; ½ onion, minced; chopped parsley and thyme; 1 cup of milk; 1 tablespoonful of flour wet up with the milk; pepper and salt.

Put on the mutton in enough cold water to cover it, and cook very slowly one hour. Then add the pork, onion, pepper, and herbs, and stew an hour longer. Make out a little paste, in the proportion used for the apple dumplings on Wednesday, Third Week in October; cut into strips, and drop into the stew. Cook ten minutes; take out meat and dumplings with a skimmer; lay upon a dish; add milk and flour to the gravy; stir until thickened, and pour over the contents of the dish.

BAKED POTATOES.

Wash well; lay in a good oven, and bake until soft. Wrap in a napkin, and dish.

STEWED TOMATOES.

Open the can an hour before cooking, and pour out. Put into a saucepan with a little minced onion, and stew twenty minutes. Season with sugar, pepper, salt, and a good piece of butter rolled in flour, and cook ten minutes more.

BEETS SAUTÉS.

Wash, cut off the tops, and boil more than an hour. Scrape, cut into round slices, and put into a saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of butter, one of vinegar, and pepper and salt to taste. Heat, toss, and stir ten minutes.

OMELETTE MÉRINGUE.

8 eggs; juice of a lemon, and half the grated peel; 4 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar; a little sweet jam or jelly; a pinch of salt; butter.

Beat eight yolks and four whites light; add salt, lemon-juice, and a tablespoonful of powdered sugar. Put a tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan, and when it heats, run it all over the bottom. Pour in the omelette, shaking and loosening from the sides with a spatula. So soon as it is done at the edges sufficiently to be folded, lay a great spoonful of jam or jelly upon it; fold over, and turn out upon a stone-china dish. The _méringue_, made of the remaining whites and sugar, should be ready—beaten with the lemon-peel. Heap upon the omelette, and set upon the upper grating of the oven to “set” and brown.

Fourth Week. Wednesday.
——
Barley Cream Soup.
Boiled Ham. Chopped Cabbage.
Corn Pudding. Beet-root Salad.
——
Drunken Dominie.
——

BARLEY CREAM SOUP.

3 lbs. lean veal; 1 onion; ½ lb. pearl barley; 4 quarts of water; salt, pepper, and a cup of milk.

Cut the veal and onion very small; put on with the barley. Boil slowly until reduced to two quarts. Strain, rubbing the barley through a sieve. Season with pepper and salt; simmer three minutes. It should be white and thick as cream, when you have added the cup of boiling milk, after which it must not boil.

BOILED HAM.

Soak a ham four or five hours. Scrub it well, and put on to boil in plenty of cold water. Cook eighteen or twenty minutes to the pound. When done, leave in the water one hour in the open air, or where it will cool rapidly. Take off the skin carefully; rub all over with flour; sift fine crumbs over the top and sides, and set ten minutes in a quick oven. Wind frilled paper about the shank, and where the paper joins the body of the ham, twine a wreath of parsley.

CHOPPED CABBAGE.

Cut off stalks and green leaves, and quarter a cabbage. Boil fifteen minutes in hot salted water; pour this off, and cover the cabbage with pot-liquor, taken from the ham-kettle, and the fat skimmed off. Cook tender; drain, pressing hard; chop, and again drain; season with pepper, salt, and a little vinegar, and dish very hot.

CORN PUDDING.

Drain a can of corn. Chop the grains fine with a chopping-knife. Add a cup of milk, three eggs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, pepper and salt to taste. Beat all together, and bake, covered, forty-five minutes, in a good oven; then brown.

BEET-ROOT SALAD.

Chop the cold beets left from yesterday into rather coarse dice. Mix with an equal quantity of cold chopped potatoes, and pour over them such a dressing as was used for Bavarian Salad, Thursday, Second Week in October.

DRUNKEN DOMINIE.

1 long or square stale sponge-cake; ¼ lb. of citron; 1 glass of brandy; 1 cup of sherry wine; 1 pint of milk; 3 eggs; ½ cup of sugar.

Cut the citron into strips, and stick in regular rows in the top of the cake. Six hours before you will want to use it, pour over it, a little at a time, the liquor. It should absorb it all, and hold it with Dutch perseverance. Heat the milk; pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Stir and cook until it thickens. When cold, pour around the cake, as it lies upon a long dish, and cover the dominie and his bed with a _méringue_ of the whites, beaten up with a little sugar. The citron spikes should be just visible through the snowy blanket.

Fourth Week. Thursday.
——
A Western Soup.
Roast Chickens and Cresses. Polenta.
Stewed Salsify. Mashed Potatoes.
——
Apricot Trifle.
——

A WESTERN SOUP.

1 sheep’s head, cleaned, with the skin on; 4 cleaned pig’s feet; 2 onions; 2 carrots; 2 turnips; bunch of sweet herbs; 6 quarts of water; 12 whole peppers; salt to taste.

Put the head and feet into the soup-pot, and pour over them the water. When they have boiled slowly two hours, and been often skimmed, put in the sliced vegetables and herbs, and cook three hours longer, replenishing with boiling water as the liquid sinks. There should be five quarts of soup. Strain; lay aside the sheep’s tongue to cool, with the meat from one of the feet. Season the rest of the meat and bones; put into the stock-pot; pour over it all the soup not needed for to-day, also the skimmed pot-liquor from your ham, if it was corned—not smoked. Season, and set in a cold place. Cool and skim the soup meant for to-day; season, and put in the sliced tongue and dice of pig’s feet. Boil one minute.

ROAST CHICKENS AND CRESSES.

Roast as directed on Thursday, First Week in October, and lay a thick border of fresh water-cresses around them on the dish, with a bunch under—or over—each wing.

POLENTA.

1 pint of boiling water; 1 cup of coarse yellow meal, or enough for thick mush; a little salt.

Put the water over the fire; add the salted meal, and stir constantly until it has cooked twenty minutes, and bubbles up in the middle. Turn upon a flat dish, and, when cold and stiff, cut into squares; dip these into flour, and fry to a yellow-brown. Drain off the fat. This is a favorite dish with the Italian peasantry, who generally, however, eat it without frying.

STEWED SALSIFY.

Scrape; clean, without cutting the roots; drop into cold water as you clean them. Put on in boiling water, a little salt; when tender, take out a cupful of the water, thicken with two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled thickly in flour; boil up and pepper. Dish the salsify, pour the sauce over it, and cover over hot water five minutes, to let it soak in.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as usual.

APRICOT TRIFLE.

1 can of California apricots; 1 quart of milk; 4 eggs; 1 cup of sugar; ½ package of Cooper’s gelatine; 2 tablespoonfuls—even ones—of corn-starch, wet up with milk.

Sweeten the apricots with half the sugar, and set aside in a bowl. Heat the milk; stir in the corn-starch; pour over the beaten eggs and sugar. Cook until it begins to thicken, and pour hot upon the gelatine, which should have been soaked in a little cold water, and then dissolved in a very little hot milk. Beat all up well, and let them get cold. Wet a mould; put in a cupful of the custard; cover with apricots, drained from the syrup; wait fifteen minutes, and pour on more cream; in a few minutes, more apricots, and so on until all are used up. Set in ice to form, and, when firm, turn out, and pour the apricot-syrup over the trifle. If the apricots are large, you would do well to cut them up.

Fourth Week. Friday.
——
Peas Porridge.
Fried Pickerel. Chicken Croquettes.
Purée of Potatoes. Baked Squash.
——
Apple Fritters.
——

PEAS PORRIDGE.

Soak a quart of split peas overnight. Next morning put them on to boil in enough cold water to cover them well. When this has fairly begun to boil, pour it off, and add stock from your store in the stock-jar. Cook slowly, taking care it does not burn, until the peas are very soft. Rub through a colander and serve. Save a pint as a foundation for to-morrow’s soup—more than a pint, if you can. Never forget that soup makes soup.

FRIED PICKEREL.

Clean and wash the fish. Wipe carefully inside and out. Dredge with flour all over the outside, and fry to a nice brown—_never_ to a crisp—in lard or dripping. Drain off the fat; lay upon a hot dish—the head of one fish to the tail of the other—and garnish with curled parsley and quartered lemon.

CHICKEN CROQUETTES.

Chop the meat from your roast chickens, and mix with one-third as much mashed potato. Season; moisten well with a gravy made by boiling down the bones and stuffing in water, then straining and seasoning it. Beat into the mixture one or two whipped eggs; heat and stir over the fire until quite stiff. Turn out and cool; then roll into croquettes, dip in egg and pounded cracker, and fry to a golden brown.

PURÉE OF POTATOES.

Mash the potatoes with butter and milk, working them smooth and soft. Season, put over the fire and stir until almost stiff. Mound upon a flat dish, and strain over them a little of yesterday’s gravy, skimmed and heated.

BAKED SQUASH.

Pare, quarter, boil, and mash the squash. Season with pepper, salt, butter, and whip in two beaten eggs. When you have a light cream, turn into a buttered pudding-dish, and bake in a quick oven.

APPLE FRITTERS.

About 10 fine apples, pared, cored, and sliced half an inch thick; juice of 1 lemon; sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg; 3 cups of prepared flour; nearly 4 cups of milk; 5 eggs; a little salt.

Spread the slices of apple upon a dish, and sprinkle with lemon-juice and sugar. Beat the yolks light; add milk, then the whisked whites and salted flour by turns. Dip the slices of apple into the batter, turning over and over until thoroughly coated, and fry in hot lard, a few at a time. Drain upon a hot sieve, and sift powdered sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg upon them. Eat with wine sauce.

Fourth Week. Saturday.
——
Tomato and Pea Soup.
Calf’s Liver and Bacon. Parsnip Fritters.
Spinach. Sweet Potatoes.
——
Bread-and-Raisin Pudding.
——

TOMATO AND PEA SOUP.

Empty a can of tomatoes. Put them over the fire with three pints of stock and stew one hour. Strain, rubbing the pulp through the colander; add what was left yesterday of the pea porridge; season to taste, simmer fifteen minutes, and pour upon dice of fried bread into the tureen.

CALF’S LIVER AND BACON.

Wash a fresh liver well, and, when quite ready to cook it, cut into long, narrow slices. Dip each in flour highly seasoned with pepper and salt. Melt a tablespoonful of good dripping in a saucepan; lay in the liver, the slices fitting neatly to one another; strew with sliced onion, and cover entirely with very thin slices of fat salt pork, or bacon. Fit a close top on the saucepan; cook _very_ slowly, never allowing it to bubble, for one hour. The liver should be steamed, not stewed, much less fried. When very tender, take it out and lay upon a dish. Add a tablespoonful of tomato sauce to the gravy, thicken with browned flour wet with water; boil once, and pour over the liver.

PARSNIP FRITTERS.

Scrape, and boil in hot salted water until tender. Mash them very smooth, picking out all the fibres. Add to four large parsnips one beaten egg, a teaspoonful of prepared flour, with pepper and salt, and a teaspoonful of milk. Make into cakes; flour, and fry in dripping. Drain well.

SPINACH.

See Wednesday, Third Week in October.

SWEET POTATOES.

See Sunday, Third Week in October.

BREAD-AND-RAISIN PUDDING.

1 quart of milk; loaf of stale baker’s bread, the crust all pared off, and cut into slices half an inch thick; butter to spread the bread; 4 eggs; ½ cup of sugar; ½ lb. of raisins, seeded and cut into thirds.

Make a raw custard of eggs, sugar, and milk. Fit slices of buttered bread into the bottom of a buttered bake-dish. Pour on custard, and strew with raisins. Lay in more buttered slices, and so on, until the dish is full. The last layer should be well-soaked bread. Cover closely; set in a baking-pan of hot water, and bake an hour and a quarter. Turn out; pour hot, sweet sauce over it, and send more around with it.

NOVEMBER.

First Week. Sunday.
——
Baked Soup.
Fillet of Veal. Cannelon of Potatoes.
French Beans à la Crême. Tomato Sauce.
——
Neapolitainoes.
Coffee and Whipped Cream.
——

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.