IN attempting to make out under the above heading, a list of receipts, I have laid down my pen several times in sheer discouragement. The number and variety of esculents supplied by the American market-gardener would need for a just mention of each, a treatise several times larger than our volume. I have, therefore, selected a few of the vegetables in general use on our tables, and given the simplest and most approved methods of preparing them.

As a preface I transcribe from “Common Sense in the Household” “Rules applicable to the cooking of all Vegetables.”

Have them as fresh as possible.

Pick over, wash well, and cut out all decayed parts.

Lay them when peeled in cold water before cooking.

If you boil them put a little salt in the water.

Cook steadily after you put them on.

Be sure they are thoroughly done.

Drain well.

Serve hot!

Potatoes (boiled).

Pare them thin with a sharp knife. The starch or meal lies, in greatest quantities, nearest to the skin. Lay in clean cold water for one hour, if the potatoes are newly gathered. Old potatoes should be left in the water for several hours. If very old, they will be the better for soaking all night. New potatoes require half an hour for boiling, and the skins are rubbed off with a coarse cloth before they are cooked. Those stored for winter use should be boiled forty-five minutes.

Wipe each dry before dropping them into a kettle of boiling water, in which has been mixed a heaping tablespoonful of salt.

Boil steadily until a fork will go easily into the largest.

Turn off the water by tipping the pot over on its side in the sink, holding the top on with a thick cloth wrapped about your hand, and leaving room at the lowest edge of the cover for the water to escape, but not for a potato to slip through.

Set the pot uncovered on the range; sprinkle a tablespoonful of salt over the potatoes, shaking the pot as you do this, and leave it where they will dry off, but not scorch, for five minutes.

Mashed Potatoes.

Boil as directed in last receipt, and when the potatoes have been dried off, remove the pot to the sink, or table, break and whip them into powder with a four-tined fork, or a split spoon. When fine, add a great spoonful of butter, whipped in thoroughly, salting to taste as you go on.

Have ready a cup of milk almost boiling, and beat in until the potato is soft and smooth.

Heap in a deep dish for the table.

Onions (boiled).

Remove the outer layers until you reach the sleek, silvery, crisp skins. Cook in plenty of boiling, salted water, until tender. Forty minutes should be sufficient, unless the onions are very old and large. Turn off all the water; add a cupful from the tea-kettle with one of warm milk and stew gently ten minutes.

Heat, meanwhile, in a saucepan, half a cupful of milk with a large tablespoonful of butter.

Drain the onions in a hot clean colander, turn them into a heated deep dish, salt and pepper lightly, and pour the boiling milk and butter over them.

Onions cooked thus are not nearly so rank of flavor as when boiled in but one water.

Tomatoes (stewed).

Put ripe tomatoes into a pan, pour boiling water directly from the kettle, upon them, and cover closely for five minutes. The skins will then come off easily.

When all are peeled, cut them up, throwing away the unripe parts and the cores, and put them into a clean saucepan with half a teaspoonful of salt.

Stew twenty minutes before adding a heaping tablespoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of white sugar (for a dozen large tomatoes) and a little pepper. Stew gently fifteen minutes, and serve.

Scalloped Tomatoes.

Scald, skin, and cut each crosswise, into two or three pieces. Just melt a teaspoonful of butter in a pie-plate, or pudding-dish, and put into this a layer of tomatoes. Lay a bit of butter on each slice, sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper, and white sugar, and cover with fine dry cracker, or bread crumbs. Fill the dish with alternate layers of tomato crumbs, having a thick coating of crumbs on the top, and sticking tiny “dabs” of butter all over it.

Bake, covered, half an hour. Take off the tin pan, or whatever you have used to keep in the steam, and brown nicely before sending to table.

Beets.

Wash well, taking care not to scratch the skin, as they will “bleed” while in cooking if this is cut or broken.

Cook in boiling water an hour and a half if young, three, four or five hours as their age increases.

Drain, scrape off the skins, slice quickly with a sharp knife; put into a vegetable dish, and pour over them a half a cupful of vinegar, with two tablespoonfuls of butter, heated to boiling, and a little salt and pepper.

Let them stand three minutes covered in a warm place before serving.

Green Peas.

Shell and leave in very cold water fifteen minutes. Cook in plenty of boiling, salted water. They should be done in half an hour.

Shake gently in a hot colander to get rid of the water; turn into a heated deep dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stir in fast and lightly with a fork, two tablespoonfuls of butter.

Eat while hot.

String Beans.

Do not cook these at all unless you are willing to take the trouble of “stringing” them.

With a small sharp knife cut off the stem and blossom-tips, then trim away the tough fibres from the sides carefully, and cut each bean into inch-lengths.

Lay in cold water for half an hour. Cook one hour in salted boiling water, or until the beans are tender.

Drain, butter and season as you would peas.

String beans half-trimmed and cut into slovenly, unequal lengths are a vulgar-looking, unpopular dish. Prepared as I have directed, they are comely, palatable and wholesome.

Squash.

Pare, quarter, take out the seeds, and lay in cold water for half an hour.

Boil in hot salted water thirty minutes for summer squash; twice as long if the “Hubbard” or other varieties of winter squash are used. Take up piece by piece, and squeeze gently in a clean cloth, put back into the empty dried pot, and mash quickly and smoothly with a wooden spoon.

Stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter for one large squash, or two small ones.

Season with pepper and salt; heat and stir until smoking hot, then dish and serve.

Cauliflower.

Trim off leaves and cut the stalk short.

Lay in ice-cold water for half an hour.

Tie it up in a bit of white netting.

Put into a clean pot, cover deep with salted boiling water.

Boil steadily, not hard, one hour and ten minutes.