VEGETARIAN DISHES

Even those who are by no means decided vegetarians may be glad to pass over a dinner occasionally without meat. It is perhaps not too much to say that every housekeeper ought to be able to provide a meal without the aid of meat. We do not mean by this simply the cooking of vegetables or the preparations of puddings, but the presentation of dishes intended to take the place of flesh, such as soups and broths made without meat, vegetable stews, lentil fritters and other healthful and nutritious dishes. A vegetarian menu is not so simple as it sounds. It requires knowledge and discrimination on the housekeeper’s part to serve a solid meal without flesh or fowl.

Now that meat is so dear it is the favorable moment to try a vegetable diet for a time. One mistake to be avoided in this catering is the putting down of too many dishes of a pulpy character—food which is soft is excellent with other things, but alone it is neither satisfying nor very nourishing, at least to a person of strong digestion. All of them should not be white, for instance, and the same rule holds good in other things besides color. A nice dish for this kind of diet is a vegetable curry, in which all the vegetables are treated like meat and turned out crisp; all the vegetables, too, must be fresh and young for this method of serving, so that anything like stringiness is absolutely impossible.

Crisco is entirely vegetable.

Bean Cutlets

2 tablespoonfuls Crisco

1 tablespoonful flour

½ cupful bean liquor

Salt and pepper to taste

2 eggs

¼ lb. dried beans

A few cooked mixed vegetables

Breadcrumbs

Soak beans in water twenty-four hours, then boil for several hours till quite tender, drain them, preserving liquor, chop them very fine; blend Crisco with flour in saucepan over fire, add bean liquor, beans, salt and pepper, and yolks of eggs; turn out on to a dish and set aside till cold. Then cut out with cutlet-cutter or shape with knife; dip in beaten whites of the eggs, then in fine breadcrumbs, repeat a second time, and fry in hot Crisco. Serve on hot platter decorated with a few hot cooked mixed vegetables. Sufficient for eight cutlets.

Devilled Bananas

2 tablespoonfuls Crisco

½ teaspoonful salt

8 bananas

1 teaspoonful chopped pickles

Few grains red pepper, or 1 dessertspoonful chopped chillies

Slice bananas, mix with salt, chopped pickles and red pepper or chopped chillies and put them into hot Crisco. Cook for four minutes and serve. Sufficient for eight bananas.

Cauliflower Snow

2 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco

2 cauliflowers

4 poached eggs

Salt and paprika to taste

Toasted bread

Boil cauliflowers in salted water till tender, then drain and set near fire till quite dry. Remove all green parts and press flower through a potato ricer upon a hot dish, on which they are to be served. In no way crush the mass as it falls from the ricer. Sprinkle over with melted Crisco. Surround dish with poached eggs, each laid upon square of toasted buttered bread. Dust each egg with salt and a little paprika. Serve very hot.

Craigie Toast

3 tablespoonfuls Crisco

4 eggs

4 tomatoes

Salt and pepper to taste

½ cupful milk

Toast

1 teaspoonful chopped gherkin or capers

Skin, seed and chop tomatoes, add eggs well beaten, gherkin, milk, salt and pepper. Melt Crisco, add other ingredients and stir over fire till thoroughly hot. Serve at once on toast. The mixture may also be baked in oven twenty minutes and then garnished with small pieces of toast. Sufficient for four pieces of toast.

Excellent Lemon Mincemeat

½ cupful Crisco

2 large lemons

4 apples

¼ lb. chopped candied lemon peel

1 lb. currants

1¾ cupfuls sugar

1 teaspoonful powdered cinnamon

1 teaspoonful powdered ginger

½ teaspoonful grated nutmeg

½ teaspoonful powdered allspice

¼ teaspoonful powdered cloves

1 teaspoonful salt

½ cupful seeded raisins

½ cupful chopped nut meats

Extract juice from lemons and remove pips. Now put lemons into saucepan, cover with cold water, and boil until lemon feels quite tender. Change water at least twice, drain and pound peel to a paste, add apples, cored, peeled and chopped, lemon peel, Crisco, currants, raisins, salt, spices, lemon juice, nut meats, and sugar. Put into a jar and cover. This mincemeat is excellent for pies and tartlets.

Sufficient for four pies.

Dominion Tart

For Pastry

6 tablespoonfuls Crisco

¾ cupful flour

¾ cupful potato flour

1 tablespoonful sugar

½ teaspoonful mixed spices

¼ teaspoonful salt

1 teaspoonful lemon juice

Cold water

For Mixture

3 apples

¾ cupful prunes

4 tablespoonfuls sugar

½ lemon

½ cupful water

1 tablespoonful cakecrumbs

For mixture, peel, core and slice apples, and wash prunes in lukewarm water. Put these into a small saucepan with sugar, grated lemon rind and cold water. Stew slowly until apples are soft. Then remove prunes, and take out stones. Cut prunes in small pieces and return them to apples and cool. For pastry, sift flours, sugar, salt, and spices into basin. Add Crisco and cut it into flour with knife until finely divided. Then rub together lightly with finger tips until as fine as breadcrumbs. While rubbing, keep lifting flour well up in basin so that air may mix with it and Crisco is not made too soft. Add lemon juice and sufficient water to make stiff paste. Divide into two equal pieces. Wet a dinner plate with cold water and leave it wet. Roll out one of the pieces rather thinly, and line plate with it. Sprinkle cakecrumbs over it, then spread on mixture. Roll out the other piece of pastry for a cover. Wet round the edge of the pastry; lay other piece of pastry on, and press edges well together. Trim round with knife or scissors, and mark neatly round the edges. Brush over top with a little water or beaten white of egg. Dredge with sugar, and bake in moderate oven forty-five minutes. Serve hot or cold. The tart may be covered with boiled frosting.

Marchette Croquettes

2 tablespoonfuls Crisco

4 tablespoonfuls cooked spinach

3 small cooked potatoes

1 tablespoonful chopped onion

Salt and pepper to taste

2 hard-cooked eggs

1 raw egg

Breadcrumbs

Crisco flake pastry

Rub spinach and potatoes through wire sieve; fry onion in Crisco, add spinach and potatoes, season with salt and pepper, fry a few minutes, then set aside till cold. Roll out pastry, cut out some small rounds, then place spoonful of vegetable mixture on half the number of pastry rounds, place slice of hard-cooked egg on each, brush round edges with beaten egg, press other round on this, dip in egg and breadcrumbs and fry in hot Crisco. Serve hot. Sufficient for six croquettes.

Mixed Vegetable Souffle

1 tablespoonful Crisco

¼ lb. cooked carrots

½ lb. boiled potatoes

¾ lb. boiled turnips

½ lb. stewed onions

1 tablespoonful chopped parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

3 eggs

Chop onions, add vegetables mashed, then mix well, add Crisco, seasonings, and yolks of eggs. Beat up whites of eggs to stiff froth and fold them into mixture, then turn it into Criscoed fireproof dish and bake thirty minutes in moderate oven.

Nut and Macaroni Savory

4 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco

½ lb. chopped Brazil nuts

1 cupful boiled macaroni

1¾ cupfuls breadcrumbs

2 eggs

3 cupfuls milk

2 tablespoonfuls chopped parsley

Salt, pepper, and powdered mace to taste

Brown sauce

Cut macaroni into small pieces and put into bowl, add nuts, breadcrumbs, seasonings, eggs well beaten, and milk; turn into well greased earthenware dish, dot with tiny pieces of Crisco and bake in moderate oven forty-five minutes. Serve hot with brown sauce.

Potato and Nut Croquettes

2 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco

2 cupfuls riced potatoes

1 tablespoonful milk

Salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste

Few drops onion juice

1 egg and 1 yolk of egg

⅓ cupful chopped nut meats

¼ cupful cream

¼ cupful breadcrumbs

Mix potatoes with Crisco, milk, yolk of egg, onion juice and seasonings, and mix well. Put cream and breadcrumbs into small saucepan and stir to thick paste, then cool; now add nuts, salt and pepper to taste and half yolk of egg. Inclose some of nut mixture in potato mixture, making ingredients into neat croquettes. Beat up remainder of egg with tablespoonful of water. Roll croquettes in fine breadcrumbs, brush over with egg, and again roll in crumbs. Fry in hot Crisco to golden brown, then drain. Crisco should be heated until a crumb of bread becomes a golden brown in forty seconds. Serve hot decorated with parsley.

Sufficient for eight croquettes.

Potato Sausage

½ cupful Crisco

¼ lb. chopped onions

½ lb. cold boiled mashed potatoes

½ lb. breadcrumbs

Salt and pepper to taste

2 beaten eggs

Mix all ingredients thoroughly well together with wooden spoon, then form into sausages; tie each well in cloth, and boil exactly as a roly-poly. If not to be eaten when newly cooked, put aside, and untie when wanted. This sausage is also good if oatmeal is added instead of breadcrumbs, or it may be made half oatmeal and half breadcrumbs.

Sufficient for twelve sausages.

Potatoes Sefton

1 tablespoonful Crisco

3 baked potatoes

Salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste

1 yolk of egg

1 tablespoonful cream

Chopped parsley

Watercress

Split potatoes in halves lengthways. Scoop out centers, rub them through a sieve, add seasonings, melted Crisco, yolk of egg, and cream. Beat well till light, then put mixture into forcing bag with tube, force into potato cases which should be dried. Heat in moderate oven. Sprinkle a little chopped parsley on top and serve decorated with watercress.

Sufficient for three potatoes.

Rice a la Maigre

4 tablespoonfuls Crisco

1 grated shallot

½ cupful boiled rice

4 chopped hard-cooked eggs

1 tablespoonful white sauce

1 raw egg

1 cupful thick tomato sauce

Salt, pepper, and paprika to taste

3 baked tomatoes

1 tablespoonful chopped parsley

Fry shallot in Crisco, then add rice, two of the hard-cooked eggs, white sauce, raw yolk of egg, and seasonings. Stir over fire till very hot, then turn out on to hot dish; pour over tomato sauce, sprinkle with parsley and garnish with remainder of eggs, and baked tomatoes.

Rhubarb Pudding

4 tablespoonfuls Crisco

4 tablespoonfuls sugar

2 eggs

1 lemon

½ cupful flour

1 cupful stewed rhubarb

½ teaspoonful salt

Few breadcrumbs

Crisco a pudding dish and dust it over with breadcrumbs. Put layer of breadcrumbs at bottom, then spread in rhubarb. Beat Crisco and sugar till creamy, beat in yolks of eggs, add grated rind of lemon, sift in flour and salt. Spread this mixture over rhubarb and bake in moderate oven twenty minutes. Beat up whites of eggs to stiff froth, add one tablespoonful of sifted sugar and half teaspoonful lemon juice. Drop in spoonfuls on top of pudding and return to oven to brown lightly.

Spanish Rice

½ cupful Crisco

½ cupful grated cheese

6 tablespoonfuls rice

1 can tomatoes

5 small onions

1 cupful hot water

Salt and red pepper to taste

¼ cupful chopped olives

Wash rice and put it in bowl, add Crisco, seasonings, cheese, hot water, tomatoes, olives, and onions cut in small pieces. Turn into a Criscoed fireproof dish and bake in moderate oven one hour, or until rice is tender.

Timbale Molds

1 teaspoonful melted Crisco

¾ cupful flour

1 egg

½ teaspoonful salt

½ cupful milk

Sift flour and salt into bowl, add egg well beaten, milk and Crisco. Beat five minutes then strain into cup. Have kettle of Crisco on fire and heat until cube of bread will become golden brown in sixty seconds. Heat timbale iron in hot Crisco, let stand two or three minutes, then drain and dip into batter to half inch of top of iron; submerge in Crisco and fry until batter is crisp and lightly browned. Remove from iron and drain on paper. If batter does not cling to iron, then iron is not hot enough. If Crisco sizzles considerably, and batter case spreads out and drops from the iron, mold is too hot. If iron is lowered too far into batter the case will come over top of iron and be difficult to remove. Creamed dishes of all kinds can be served in these cases. Cold custards, cooked vegetables, fruits or ices may be also served in the cases.

Sufficient for forty cases.

Vegetable Pie

¼ cupful melted Crisco

6 potatoes

2 carrots

1 parsnip

½ head celery

1 cupful peas

1 cupful sliced beans

2 onions

4 tomatoes

Pepper and salt to taste

Sufficient white vegetable stock to cover

1 teaspoonful powdered herbs

Peel and slice potatoes and partly boil them. Then prepare parsnip, carrots, celery and onions, and cook them for fifteen minutes. Grease large fireproof dish and place in all vegetables in layers, with herbs, Crisco, salt and pepper to taste. Pour in white stock, cover with layer of sliced potatoes and bake in moderate oven for one and a half hours.

Sufficient for one large savory pie.