CONVENIENT COMMON DISHES, AND WAYS OF USING REMNANTS.

Baked Pork and Beans.

For a family of six or seven, take a quart of white beans, wash them in several waters, and put them into two or three quarts over night. In the morning (when it will be easier to cull out the bad ones, than before they were soaked), pick them over, and boil them until they begin to crack open; then put them into a brown pan, such as are made for the purpose. Pour upon them enough of the water they were boiled in almost to cover them. Cut the rind of about a pound of salt pork into narrow strips; lay it on the top of the beans, and press it down so that it will lie more than half its thickness in the water. Bake several hours; four or five is not too much. Where a brick oven is used, it is well to let beans remain in it over night. If they are baked in a stove, or range, more water may be necessary, before they are done.

Many persons think it a decided improvement to put in a large spoonful or two of molasses. It is a very good way.

Those who object to the use of pork, can have a very good dish of beans, by substituting two table-spoonfuls of nice beef-drippings, and adding two teaspoonfuls of salt.

To heat over baked beans, put them in a spider with a little water; heat them slowly at first, and cover close. If they are too moist, remove the cover and stir them often.

Salt meat and Vegetables, boiled together.

Put in the beef first, and allow twenty-five minutes or half an hour for every pound. Skim the water when it begins to simmer. An hour and a half before the dinner-hour, put in the pork, well scraped and washed, and again skim off the froth. Wash the vegetables with special care, and allow for boiling turnips, carrots, and cabbage, an hour, or an hour and a quarter; for parsnips three quarters, and for potatoes, half an hour. If the potatoes are not pared, a small piece of the skin should be cut off from each end. When the dinner is served, the pot should be set away in a cool place, and the fat taken from the top the next day, and put aside for soap grease. It will not be good for any other use, as it will have the flavor of the vegetables.

Remnants of Roast Beef.

Take off with a sharp knife all the meat from the bones. If there are a few nice slices, reserve them, if most convenient, to be eaten cold. Chop the rest fine in a tray. Take cold gravy, without the fat, and put into a spider to heat. If you have not this, some of the stock, or water in which meat has been boiled. When it boils up, sprinkle in salt, and put in the minced meat; cover it, and let it stand upon the fire long enough to heat thoroughly, then stir in a small piece of butter. Toast bread and lay in the dish and put the meat over it. The common error in heating over meat, sliced or minced, is the putting it into a cold spider, with too much fat, and cooking it a long time. This makes it oily and tasteless. Almost all meats, when cooked a second time, should be done very quick. The goodness of these dishes depends much upon their being served hot.

Another.

When tomatoes are to be had, cut up several, according to the size of your family, and the quantity of cold meat; put them into a covered saucepan or kettle. When it boils put in the remnants, large and small, of cold roast beef, and also of roast mutton and lamb, if you have them. Add half a spoonful of brown sugar, salt, and a small bit of butter unless you have cold gravy. This, with the fat taken off, is nearly as good. Boil it again, fast, but only long enough to heat the meat thoroughly. Five minutes is enough.

Remnants of Boiled Meat.

Chop fine cold pieces of soup meat, or other boiled meat, salt or fresh; then add cold potatoes, and when these are chopped and mixed with the meat, heat in a spider some cold soup, or water in which meat has been boiled. As it boils up, put in the meat and potatoes, add salt, and cover it close for two or three minutes, then stir in a small piece of butter, let it stand a minute or two longer and then serve in a warm dish.

To heat over Beefsteak.

Cut it up small, or chop it; put it into a spider or saucepan with a little hot water. Season it with salt and a little butter.

All these dishes of remnants are much improved by using, instead of water, some of the stock for which a receipt is given on page 123.

Minced Veal.

Chop fine the pieces left of roast veal. Heat the gravy in a spider, or, if you have none left, melt a piece of butter half the size of an egg in a gill of hot water; stir it till it is melted lest it become oily. When it boils, put in the veal and cover it; stir it two or three times in the course of eight or ten minutes; season it with salt and pepper. Toast two or three slices of bread and lay in the dish. Put the veal upon the toast.

Brawn.

Boil a hock of beef, and any little pieces you may have besides, several hours. When the meat is ready to fall from the bones, take it out into an earthen pan, salt it, and season it with pepper, sage, and sweet marjoram. Put it into a coarse linen cloth or towel, twist it up tight and lay a weight upon it. A good deal of fat will thus be pressed out. When it has lain twenty-four hours take off the cloth. Cut thin slices for breakfast. It is very good, and will keep in a cool place several weeks. The water in which it was boiled will make excellent soup, or stock for gravies.

Head Cheese.

Take the head, feet, ears, and tail of a hog, and boil them until every bone falls out. Then take all the meat, both fat and lean, and put into an earthen pan. Season it with salt, pepper, sage, cloves, and summer savory, or any spice and herbs you may prefer. Put it into a coarse cloth, twist it up, and lay a weight upon it. This is a favorite article of food in some parts of the country, and certainly it is very good. Great care is necessary in cleaning such giblets of pork.

Another economical use for them is to take out all the bones, as for head cheese, and then return the meat to the liquor, boil it up, and stir in Indian meal, just as in making hasty-pudding. Put in considerable salt, and let it boil very moderately another hour and a half. Then take it up in deep dishes, and when it is cold cut it in slices and brown it on a griddle. A convenient breakfast article for laborers, but too hearty for persons of sedentary habits.

Souse.

Take off the horny parts of the feet and toes of a pig, and clean the feet, ears, and tail very thoroughly; then boil them till the large bones slip out easily. Pack the meat into a stone jar, with pepper, salt, and allspice sprinkled between each layer. Mix some good cider vinegar with the liquor in which it was boiled, in the proportion of one third vinegar to two thirds liquor, and fill up the jar.

To boil Rice.

Rice should be carefully picked over, and then washed first in warm water, and rubbed between the hands; then, five or six times in a good deal of cold water. It will not be white unless it is well washed.

To cook rice as a vegetable to be eaten with meat, put a pint into three or four quarts of hot water, with a teaspoonful of salt for each quart. Boil it fast fifteen minutes, then pour off the water, and set it, uncovered upon the stove where it will not burn, to dry. Boiled in this way, the kernels are separate, and it is considered, by those who live in the rice growing countries, the best, if not the only proper way of cooking it.

To boil rice in milk, is a very good way for families that keep cows, as it is thus a nice substitute for a pudding. Put a pint of rice into nearly two quarts of cold milk, an hour before dinner. Add two teaspoonfuls of salt. Boil it very slowly, and stir it often. It will cook on the back part of the range or stove, and not be liable to burn. When the supply of milk is small, boil rice in skimmed milk, or milk and water. It should, when boiled in a way to lose the distinct form of the kernels, be taken up in a mould, or bowl, wet in cold water, a short time before it is served.

Cracked Wheat.

Take one or two quarts, according to the size of the family, put it into cold water and after stirring it well, let it settle, then pour off the water, and add more, in the proportion of three quarts to a quart of wheat. Let it stand over night, and the next day boil it very moderately two or three hours. Add salt, and stir it very often lest it should burn. If it becomes too thick, add more water. The evaporation is more rapid at sometimes than at others. It should be not quite as thick as hasty pudding. Take it up in dishes wet in cold water. To brown it for breakfast, grease a tin or dripping pan, turn the wheat out of the dish upon it, and set it into the stove oven. It will become heated through, and handsomely browned in half an hour or forty minutes, and many people like it thus, better than when it is first boiled. Either way it is very nutritious and healthful.

Hasty Pudding.

Boil in a pot or kettle about six quarts of water, leaving room for the addition of the meal; mix a pint bowl full of Indian meal and cold water with a small spoonful of salt. When the water boils, stir this into it. After thirty or forty minutes, stir in four or five handfuls of dry meal, and let it boil as much longer; then add more dry meal. Taste it to see if it is salt enough. Stir it very often to prevent its burning. Most people make it too thick, and do not cook it half long enough. Boil it, altogether, at least two hours. When taken out, it should be so soft that it will in a few minutes settle down smooth in the dish. If you wish to fry it, put a spoonful of water into each deep pan or dish into which it is to be put, to keep it from sticking.

Hasty Pudding fried.

Cut cold pudding in slices the thickness of your finger, and lay them on the griddle. More fat will be necessary than for buckwheat cakes, but it fries much slower. If the fire is right it will be ready to turn in fifteen minutes, and will be brown. Turn it and let it lie about half as long as on the first side.

This is a very good breakfast for a winter morning. It does very nicely to be laid in the dripping-pan, and set into a stove oven; it will in that case not need turning, and of course will absorb less fat. It will take forty minutes to brown it in the stove.

Pan Pie.

The sour apples that drop from the trees early in the autumn, make an excellent pan pie without being pared. The skin then contains much of the richness of the apple, and is often so thin, that when cooked, it cannot be distinguished from the pulp. There are few articles of diet so healthy and palatable as pan pie, that are prepared with so little trouble and expense.

Where a brick oven is used, the following is a good receipt.

Take a potters ware pan, that will hold a gallon, and fill it with apples, quartered and cored; in winter pare the apples; roll out a piece of light bread dough, and lay upon the top; butter the edge of the pan to prevent the dough from sticking to it; cut an opening in the crust to allow the steam to escape, and put it into the oven. After about two hours draw it out and remove the crust, sweeten it with good molasses, or, if you choose, coarse sugar. Some persons use both. Put in a few sticks of cinnamon or some allspice, and a piece of butter as large as a nut. Stir it up thoroughly from the bottom. Your taste must guide you as to the quantity of sugar or molasses. Break up the bread crust and put into the apple. If it is very moist, return the pan uncovered to the oven; but if dry enough, cover it with an old plate; let it stand four or five hours.

There are various ways of making this dish. Some persons prefer to put in the molasses at first, and others use only sugar. It is very easy to improve it by rolling a little butter into the dough, exactly as in pie-crust; and if this is done once only, it makes the crust much more tender. Some persons put any crusts or pieces of bread they happen to have, into the apple, and if the crust that was baked with it is thin, it is a very good way.

Another.

To make a pan pie to bake in a stove oven, or range, cover the bottom of a deep dish with a layer of stewed apple; spread over it brown sugar enough to make it sweet, scatter in a little powdered cinnamon, and add two or three bits of butter the size of a filbert; then lay in pieces of plain pie crust or biscuit, baked rather brown, or crusts of light bread; spread a thick layer of apple over the pieces, scatter more cinnamon, and pour over the whole molasses enough to sweeten the upper layer of apple, then bake it in a moderate heat an hour and a half, or two hours. It is the best way to make it while the stewed apple is hot.

Crumb Cakes.

Keep a bowl or pitcher with sour milk in it, and from time to time throw in the crumbs of bread which break off when it is sliced, and also the dry pieces left of the table. When you next want griddle-cakes, take this mixture and break up all the pieces with your hand, add an egg, salt, and saleratus, and a few spoonfuls of flour. If the proportion of bread is too great, the cakes will not be good. Experience must teach, as no exact rule can be given.

Milk Toast.

Put a quart of milk, except two or three spoonfuls, to boil; rub smooth a small table-spoonful of flour in the reserved milk; when that in the saucepan begins to boil, stir in a piece of butter, rather larger than an egg, cut up in little bits. Stir steadily until it is all melted; then stir in the flour, and add a teaspoonful of salt. When it boils up again, set it where it will keep hot, without boiling, while the bread is toasted. Bread is not good when it is dried in the process of toasting; it should be browned quickly, and dipped while it is hot.

If you have cream, boil it without adding any butter; when boiled, put in a little salt, and a very little flour rubbed smooth in a spoonful of milk; dip the slices of toasted bread, and let them remain half a minute; then lay them into a hot dish with a cover, and pour over the remainder of the boiled cream.

Bruiss.

Take crusts of brown bread, and if they are dry and hard, lay them over night in a little water. In the morning add milk and boil them slowly. Take care they do not burn. Sprinkle in salt, and just before you take them up, add a little butter. If there is too much milk, take off the lid the latter part of the time. Take up the pieces as whole as you can.

Crusts of white bread make a good breakfast dish, in the same way, except that they do not need soaking over night.

Uses for pieces of Bread.

In some families there is always an accumulation of pieces of bread, and a good deal of ingenuity is necessary to prevent waste. If bread is good, and proper care is taken, such a thing as a plate of dry pieces is needless. Some families never have them. But for the benefit of those who, from any cause, cannot always prevent it, the following modes for making good use of pieces are suggested. A bread pudding is easily made, by boiling the pieces in milk. You can make as rich a pudding as you choose, by adding sugar, eggs, suet, spice, and raisins; or as plain a one, putting no sugar, two eggs, and a few sliced apples to a quart of milk, and boil or bake it. Make crumb cakes of some of the pieces. Boil a dish of others in milk for breakfast. If you are cooking meat that requires or admits of a stuffing, soften crusts with a very little boiling water, add butter, herbs, and a beaten egg. In summer, when bread becomes mouldy from long keeping, lay the pieces which cannot be used immediately, upon a tin and dry them in the oven; they are as good pounded for puddings and crumb cakes as before drying, and as nice to dress a ham as cracker crumbs. Nice pieces of bread are good in pan pie, and also in stewed tomato.

It is a good way to have a small board upon which to slice bread; and brush the crumbs from it into a box, or dish kept for the purpose. Such things may seem of little consequence, but the beneficial influence of economical habits is not limited to the actual value of the amount saved.

Care of Fat and Drippings.

In a large family, where much meat is consumed, the care of the fat and drippings is an important item; and every housekeeper should know what is done with them.[15] If she has a young cook, she probably will not be acquainted with the various ways of preventing them from being wasted; if one who is experienced, she may not always care to take the trouble. When meat is of a superior quality, there is usually some fat which should be trimmed off before it is cooked, and more will then roast out, than can be properly used for gravy; therefore, about three quarters of an hour before the meat is done, pour off all the drippings from the roaster, into a dish, and set them away to cool.[16] Save all the nice pieces of fat, and put those that are not so into the soap-grease. In warm weather, the good pieces should be clarified once in three or four days; in winter, once a week. If you have boiled lamb, or boiled beef which has been slightly salted, take the fat which cools on the top of the liquor, and add to that poured off from the roaster; scrape off any specks which may be on the under side of it. To clarify, cut small all the pieces saved, and put them into a small kettle; cover it, and put it on the stove or range where it will not burn. It should be tried slowly; stir it occasionally. When it looks clear, the cakes of drippings, the pieces from the top of the pot, &c., should be added. As soon as it again becomes clear, pour it through a little sieve, or colander with very small holes.

Fat thus clarified will save butter. It makes very good plain gingerbread and common pie-crust, or if preferred, can be used in each of these with half butter; it is as good as lard, to fry doughnuts or biscuit, and much more healthful; and though not equal for frying fish, to salt pork, does very well for this purpose. It is well to keep a small stone jar for such fat. A brown earthen one soon becomes saturated with it, and smells disagreeably.

The fat of mutton should not be put with other kinds, as it is very hard and tallow-like, and the taste is not agreeable. It however does very well to use on the griddle, or to grease pans for bread.

The fat which is not nice enough for any of these uses, should (unless it is more convenient to dispose of it to the soap boiler) be tried for the purpose of making soap. It should be kept in a dry place where it will not mould, and be covered so that flies will not visit it. Two receipts are given for making soap with very little trouble.

To make Soap with Potash.

Allow sixteen pounds each of grease and potash for a barrel of soap. The grease should be such as has been well taken care of, viz., tried before it became wormy or mouldy. The potash should be about the color of pumice-stone. That which is red, makes dark soap, unfit for washing clothes. Cut up the grease into pieces of two or three ounces, put it into a tight barrel with the potash; then pour in two pailfuls of rain or spring water. The soap will be soonest made by heating the water, but it is just as sure to be good if made with cold water. Add a pailful of soft water every day, until the barrel is half full, and stir it well each day. A long stick with a cross piece at the lower end, is convenient for the purpose. When the barrel is half full, add no more water for a week or ten days, but continue to stir it daily. After that, add a pailful a day, until the barrel is full. It is the best way to keep soap three or four months before beginning to use it. It spends more economically, and is less sharp to the hands. When half of it has been used, put two pails of soft water to the rest, and stir it up well, from the bottom. The lower half of a barrel of home-made soap is always the strongest. Soft soap, made with clean grease and good potash is of a light nankeen color, and is better for washing flannels and white clothes than any other.

It is good economy to make soap, and it is so little work to make it with potash, and the result is so sure, that no one need to be deterred from it by the fear of trouble or ill-success.

To make Soap with Ashes.

The following method of making soap with ashes has been tried and proved good.

Provide a leach cask, that is, one that is large at the top, and small at the bottom. If this is not readily obtained, procure a hogshead that will not leak, have the head taken out at one end, and set it, propped forward a little, upon logs placed right and left, and high enough from the ground to set a pail under the front side. There should be a hole in the bottom, close to the front, with a tight plug in it. Lay in two or three bricks around the plug hole, and across them some bits of board, so as to reserve a space, and keep the ashes from packing close against the plug hole,—also several bricks here and there over the bottom with straw or brush laid on them. Then have the ashes put in and pressed down, till the hogshead is very full. Scoop a hollow in the centre in which to pour the water, and then fill it with cold soft water, until it will absorb no more. The next day, see if the water has settled away, if so, add more. When it is full, cover it up. After three weeks, draw off the ley, and put it into the soap barrel. Then pour into it twenty pounds of grease, of all kinds, tried and rough, ham skins, and scraps, boiling hot. Stir it very thoroughly, and every day. Have the hogshead filled again, and after three or four weeks draw off the ley, which will, this time, be comparatively weak; fill up the soap barrel, and continue to stir it daily for a week or two. The first ley being very strong will completely eat up even the coarsest of the grease, and after three or four months you will have a barrel of excellent soap, fit for use.

In order to have strong ley the ashes should be of good wood. Walnut and maple ashes are best for the purpose. If you wish to make the soap immediately, the water for filling the leach should be nearly boiling, and it can be drawn off the next day.

Leached ashes are useful to spread upon grass.