DECEMBER.

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Soup À la Langue.

Take fat from your soup-stock. Pour out two quarts into the soup-kettle; heat slowly and skim carefully. Meanwhile, take out the beef’s tongue from the jar; skin, and cut up the best parts of it into small dice. There should be a large cupful of these. Drop into the soup, add a tablespoonful of catsup, and nearly a teaspoonful of French mustard. When the soup begins to boil again, pour it out.

Return the refuse parts of the tongue to the stock-jar.

Roast Haunch of Venison.

Wash well in lukewarm water; then, rub all over with butter. Cover on all sides with a stiff paste of flour and water, and put down to roast, pouring a little water into the baking-pan. Now and then, wet the paste to keep it from cracking. Roast from three to four hours. Half an hour before taking it up, remove the paste, and test with a skewer to see if it is done. Set down again to roast, and baste every five minutes, with claret and melted butter. At the last, dredge with flour, baste with butter, and brown. For gravy, add to the liquid in the dripping-pan a thickening of browned flour, a teaspoonful of currant jelly, a glass of claret, pepper and salt to taste. Boil up, and serve in a boat.

Sweet Potatoes.

Boil in hot water until a fork will enter the largest easily; peel; lay in a dripping-pan, and set in a good oven a few minutes to dry out.

Moulded Potatoes.

Mash boiled potatoes with milk, butter, and salt—not too soft; press hard into a greased mould, and turn out upon a hot dish.

Stewed Celery.

Scrape and cut into equal lengths the best stalks of a bunch of celery. Cook tender in boiling water, a little salt; drain, pepper and salt, and when dished pour on a cupful of drawn butter in which has been stirred the juice of half a lemon.

Barley Custard.

½ cup of pearl barley; 1 quart of milk; 5 eggs; 1 dessertspoonful of corn-starch wet up in a little cold milk; nearly a cupful of sugar; a pinch of salt; vanilla, or other flavoring.

Boil the barley tender in just enough water to cover it, with a pinch of salt. Drain, and put into a custard-kettle with the milk. Heat slowly, and when it fairly boils, pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Return to the fire; stir until thick; turn into a bowl, and, when cold, flavor. On Sunday, pour into custard-cups, with, if you like, a spoonful of whipped cream upon the top of each.

Martha’s Cake.

Please consult “Common Sense in the Household,” Series No. 1, General Receipts, page 314.

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Pour off as much stock as will suffice for the wants of your family to-day. Strain, and heat it. Take off the scum, and add a generous handful of tapioca, soaked two hours in a little cold water. Simmer until clear.

Venison Pasty.

Cut off slices of the least-done part of your roast venison; divide into neat squares, season with pepper and salt. Make a gravy by cooking bits of skin and refuse pieces of meat in a little water; boiling the liquid down one-half; cooling; taking off the top and seasoning well. Cut the best parts of the tongue left from yesterday’s soup very small. Put a layer of venison into a deep dish; sprinkle with butter-bits rolled in flour, and cover with the minced tongue. Upon this drop a few bits of currant jelly. Fill the dish thus; pour on the gravy, and put a thick crust of paste (kept over from Saturday’s pastry-making) above all. Bake to a pale brown; wash over with white of egg, and, when this hardens, with butter, and shut the oven-door to glaze it.

Stewed Tomatoes.

Empty a can of tomatoes into a saucepan. Cook twenty-five minutes; season with sugar, pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of butter rolled in pounded cracker. Simmer ten minutes longer.

Kidney Beans au MaÎtre d’HÔtel.

Soak the beans all night. Boil soft in water, slightly salt. Drain, and put hot into a saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of butter, a little parsley, chopped fine, pepper, salt, and a little minced onion. Shake over the fire until hissing hot, add the juice of half a lemon, and dish.

Potato Cakes.

Make the cold mashed potato left from yesterday into flat, round cakes; flour abundantly; lay in a floured baking-pan and set in a hot oven to brown. Serve upon a hot flat dish.

Apple Jelly.

12 fine pippins; 2 cups of powdered sugar; juice of 2 lemons; grated peel of one; ½ package Coxe’s gelatine soaked in 1 cup of cold water.

Pack the apples, when pared and cored, into a stoneware or glass jar with a cup of cold water; put on the top loosely to allow the escape of the steam; set in a pot of warm water, heat slowly, and boil until the apples are very soft. Have ready in a bowl the soaked gelatine, sugar, lemon-juice and grated peel. Strain and squeeze the hot apples over them; stir until the gelatine is dissolved, strain again through a flannel bag. Wet a mould and pour it in. This can be made on Saturday and kept in a cold place.

Fruit, Nuts, and Raisins.

Put apples, pears, and oranges upon one dish; nuts and raisins together.

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As your stock must be running low, add a quart of boiling water to the contents of the jar, and boil slowly at the back of the stove for an hour and a half. Strain, cool, skim, and add a can of green peas. Cook until these are tender; pulp through a colander into the soup, season with pepper and salt, also a lump of white sugar, stir in a lump of floured butter, and when it has boiled once more, pour upon dice of fried bread placed in the tureen.

Beefsteak.

Flatten and broil upon a greased gridiron over a clear fire. Turn as it drips. It should be done in ten or twelve minutes. Lay upon a hot-water dish; pepper, salt, and butter liberally. Cover with another hot dish, or a heated cover of block-tin.

Graham Savory Pudding.

2 heaping tablespoonfuls of Irish oatmeal, soaked two hours in a little cold water; 2 cups of boiling milk; handful of fine crumbs; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 tablespoonful minced onion; 1 teaspoonful mixed sweet marjoram and parsley; 3 eggs.

Pour the hot milk upon the soaked oatmeal, and stir over the fire for fifteen minutes. Add the bread-crumbs, beat up well; put in the onion, herbs, butter, pepper, and salt, lastly the whipped eggs. When very light, butter a mould, pour in the pudding, set in a pan of boiling water, and this in a moderate oven. Bake one hour, turn out, and send around a boat of drawn butter with it.

Baked Potatoes.

Bake in a steady oven until soft; wipe, and send to table without peeling them.

Creamed Parsnips.

Boil tender, scrape and slice lengthwise. Put over the fire with two tablespoonfuls of butter, pepper, and salt, and a little minced parsley. Shake until the mixture boils. Dish the parsnips, add to the sauce three tablespoonfuls of cream in which has been stirred a quarterspoonful of flour. Boil once, and pour over the parsnips.

Susie’s Bread Pudding.

1 quart of milk; 4 eggs; the whites of three, more for mÉringue; 2 cups fine dry crumbs; 1 tablespoonful melted butter; 1 cup of sugar; juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.

Beat eggs, sugar, and butter light. Soak the crumbs in the milk, and mix well, beating long and hard. When nearly done spread with a mÉringue made of the whipped whites of three eggs and a little powdered sugar. Eat cold.

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5 lbs. shin of beef—meat sliced and bones cracked; 4 turnips; 4 carrots; 3 stalks of celery; 1 large onion stuck with 6 cloves; bunch of herbs; pepper and salt; 6 quarts of water.

Put meat, bones and sliced vegetables on with the water, and cook slowly four hours. At the end of two hours take out a cupful of the meat, and spread out to cool. When the four hours are up, strain the soup, rubbing the vegetables through a colander; cool, skim, and season; add the cooled meat cut into dice, heat to boiling, and serve. Put the meat and bones left in the colander into the stock-jar, with all of the soup not used to-day.

Jugged Rabbits.

Skin, clean with care, and joint the rabbits as for fricassee. Lay thin slices of fat salt pork in the bottom of a stoneware jar; lay upon them pieces of rabbits; strew with minced onion and parsley; put in more pork and more rabbit, etc. Add a cup of your soup or other gravy. When all are in put on the cover of the jar, fitting closely, and set in a pot of warm water. Tie a piece of thick paper over the top of the jar to keep in the steam. Cook steadily two hours—longer should you find, upon opening the jar, that the meat is not tender. When it is done, dish the meat, strain the gravy into a saucepan, and set in cold water to throw up the fat. Take this off; add a little currant jelly, browned flour, wet with water, and a glass of claret. Boil one minute and pour over the meat.

Macaroni with Cheese.

Break half a pound of macaroni into short pieces, and cook tender in hot salted water. When nearly done, stir in a tablespoonful of butter. When tender, drain; stir in two great spoonfuls of grated cheese, salt to taste, and a little cayenne. Stir over the fire until the cheese is melted; put in a spoonful of butter, and dish.

Cauliflower.

Boil the cauliflower in plenty of hot salted water. When done, which should be in about twenty minutes, drain and dish, the flower upward. Pour over it a cup of drawn butter, seasoned with pepper, salt, and the juice of half a lemon.

Beets.

Boil more than an hour, scrape and slice round. Dish, and pour upon them a little butter heated with a like quantity of vinegar, and seasoned with pepper and salt.

Rusk Fritters.

12 stale rusks; 5 eggs; 4 tablespoonfuls of white sugar; 2 glasses of sherry.

Cut all the crust from the rusks and divide each into two or three pieces of equal size. The slices should be an inch thick. Pour the wine over them; let them lie in it five minutes, then drain upon a sieve. Beat eggs and sugar together. Lay the soaked rusks in these for a minute, turning over and over, so as to coat them well. Fry in boiling lard to a golden brown. Drain well and sprinkle with powdered sugar mixed with cinnamon, and serve hot with or without sauce.

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12 stalks of celery; 3 pints of soup-stock; 1 cup of milk; pepper and salt; 1 teaspoonful of sugar; ½ onion; 1 teaspoonful of flour wet up in cold milk.

Scrape and cut up the celery into inch lengths. Cook fifteen minutes in a little hot water; drain and add three pints of stock with the onion; stew gently until the celery is very soft. Pulp through a colander into the soup; season and return to the fire. Boil up; put in the sugar and pour into the tureen. Add a cup of boiling milk thickened with the flour.

Boiled Beef’s Tongue with Sauce Piquante.

Soak the tongue—a corned one—three hours; wash well and cook in plenty of boiling water, fifteen minutes per pound. Trim off the root; skin and dish, pouring over it a cupful of rich drawn butter in which has been stirred a great spoonful of capers, pickled nasturtium-seed, or of green pickle chopped.

Baked Beans.

Soak a quart of navy or kidney-beans all night. In the morning put on to boil in cold water, and cook soft. Half an hour before taking them up, put in a piece of streaked salt pork, three or four inches square. When the beans are soft, drain; put into a bake-dish with the pork half browned in the middle. Score the rind of the parboiled pork; cover the dish, and bake one hour—then brown.

Baked Tomatoes.

Drain off most of the juice from a can of tomatoes (Add to the tongue pot-liquor, by and by; boil together ten minutes, and pour into the stock-jar.) Put the tomatoes into a pudding-dish; season with pepper, salt, sugar, and butter; strew fine crumbs over all; bake, covered, half an hour, and brown quickly.

Chopped Potatoes.

Boil potatoes, and let them get cold. Chop rather coarsely; put into a saucepan, with a couple of spoonfuls of butter, a little pepper and salt, and shake and stir until very hot.

Lemon Puddings.

6 butter crackers, soaked in water, and crushed to a pulp; 3 lemons; half the grated peel; 1 cup of molasses; 1 tablespoonful melted butter; a pinch of salt; good pie-paste.

Pare away all the skin of the lemons, when you have grated off half the yellow peel. Chop the pulp very fine, and remove the seeds. Stir this into the crushed crackers with the butter and salt. Beat in the molasses gradually, then the lemon-peel. Have ready small patÉ-pans lined with paste; fill with the mixture, and cook. Eat cold, but fresh.

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Save your crusts for several days for this soup. Break about half a pound of them into small pieces, and lay in an open oven to dry, while you skim your soup-stock; add an onion, and put over the fire to boil. Cook gently half an hour; strain; return to the kettle, and when it boils again put in the crusts. Cook slowly twenty minutes, stir, and beat the bread to a porridge, add seasoning and a little minced parsley, and boil one minute.

Lobster Croquettes.

1 can of preserved lobster; 2 eggs; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; ½ cup fine crumbs; yolks of two hard-boiled eggs—pounded, then worked into the butter; juice of half a lemon; salt, cayenne pepper, a pinch of mace, and one of lemon-peel; beaten yolks of 2 raw eggs.

Mince the meat; work in the warmed butter and pounded yolks, the seasoning, raw eggs—at last, the crumbs. Make into oblong balls or rolls; roll in flour, and fry in sweet lard. Drain upon clean paper, rolling each croquette lightly upon it, and dish. Pass cream crackers and sliced lemon with these excellent croquettes, and make a separate course of them.

Braised Grouse.

Clean thoroughly, washing out the inside in soda and water, and then rinsing and wiping. Truss, but do not stuff the birds; tie them in shape. Cover the bottom of a saucepan with slices of fat salt pork; lay the grouse upon these; sprinkle minced onion and parsley over them with pepper, salt, and a little sugar. Cover with more pork, and pour in a large cupful of soup-stock, or other broth. If you cannot spare this, put butter and water, although it is not so good. Cover very closely; simmer one hour; turn the birds, and cook—always covered—until tender. Dish the grouse; strain the gravy; thicken with browned flour; boil up, and pour into a boat. Partridges, wild pigeons, and tough chickens may be cooked in this way—also ducks.

Salsify Fritters.

Wash, scrape, and grate the roots, letting them fall from the grater into a batter made of two eggs, half a cup of milk, flour enough for thin batter, and a little salt and pepper. It should be like raw fritters when mixed. Drop, by the spoonful, into the hot fat. As fast as they are fried throw into a hot colander, set over a bowl in the oven. Eat hot.

Sweet Potatoes.

See Sunday of this week.

Indian Meal Pudding.

4 beaten eggs; 1 quart of boiling milk; 2 scant cups white “corn-flour,” or very fine meal; ½ cup of wheat flour; 1 scant cup powdered sugar; 1 tablespoonful butter; a little salt; 1 tablespoonful of cream of tartar, and half as much soda sifted twice through the flour; ½ teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and nutmeg.

Boil the milk; stir in the meal, flour, and salt. Boil fifteen minutes, stirring up well from the bottom. Put into a bowl, and beat hard for three minutes. When cold add beaten eggs and sugar, with the spice. Whip long and thoroughly. Bake in greased cups or muffin-tins, in a steady oven. When done, turn out, and eat with butter and powdered sugar.

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Please refer to Wednesday, Third Week in March, for a long and minute receipt for this soup. Make enough for three days.

Baked Mutton Chops.

3 lbs. of mutton chops; 5 fine potatoes; 1 onion; 1 kidney; 1 pint of oyster-liquor; pepper, salt, and parsley; 1 tablespoonful of butter.

Lay one-third of the chops—rid of all the fat and skin—in a baking-dish; cover with potatoes and onions, sliced very thin; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put on another layer of chops, more potatoes and onions, then the sliced kidney. Cover with potatoes; season; put in the rest of the chops; cover with onion and potatoes. Pour in the oyster-liquor and melted butter, with parsley, pepper, and salt. Cover very closely, and bake in a moderate oven three hours. Turn out upon a heated flat dish.

Macaroni Pudding.

Break half a pound of macaroni into short pieces, and boil twenty minutes in hot, salted water. Drain; add two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, the minced remains of yesterday’s game, or some other cold meat, a little chopped ham, and four beaten eggs. Mix all well, wetting with a little soup-stock—adding, finally, a cup of milk, in which has been stirred a pinch of soda. Pour into a greased mould, and boil one hour. Turn out, and serve with a gravy made of cold gravy left from yesterday, mixed with a little hot stock, strained, thickened, and boiled for one minute.

Winter Squash.

Pare, cut up, and cook soft in boiling water, a little salt. Drain; mash smooth, pressing out all the water; work in butter, pepper, and salt, and mound in a deep dish.

Cold Slaw.

Shred a firm cabbage, and pour over it a dressing made in these proportions: One teaspoonful of sugar, half as much salt, pepper, and made mustard, rubbed smooth in two tablespoonfuls of oil, and then beaten up very gradually with five tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and a teaspoonful Colgate’s essence of celery.

Cracker and Jam Pudding.

3 eggs; ½ cup cracker-crumbs; ½ cup sugar; i tablespoonful of butter; 1 cup of milk; ½ lemon—juice and grated peel; 3 tablespoonfuls of jam.

Heat milk and crumbs together until scalding. Turn out to cool, while you rub butter and sugar to a cream—adding the lemon. Stir in the beaten yolks, the soaked cracker and milk—at last, the whites. Butter a bake-dish; put the jam at the bottom; fill up with the mixture, and bake, covered, half an hour; then brown. Eat cold, with sifted sugar on top. Or, if you like, you can put a mÉringue over it before taking from the oven.

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Remove every particle of fat from the top of your stock. Take out what is needed for to-day, and heat to boiling—slowly.

Roast Turkey, Garnished with Sausages.

Wash out the turkey carefully. Stuff as usual, adding a little cooked sausage to the dressing. (Salt the giblets, and keep for to-morrow.) Lay the turkey in the dripping-pan, pour a great cupful of boiling water over it, and roast about ten minutes per pound—slowly for the first hour. Baste faithfully and often, dredging with flour, and basting with butter at the last. Dish the turkey, laying boiled sausages around it. Pour the fat from the gravy; thicken with browned flour; salt, and pepper. Boil once, and serve in a boat.

Mashed Turnips.

Pare, quarter, and cook tender in boiling water, a little salt. Mash and press in a heated colander; work in butter, pepper, and salt; heap smoothly in a deep dish, and put “dabs” of pepper on top.

Canned Corn Pudding.

Drain, and chop the corn fine, add a tablespoonful of melted butter, four beaten eggs; a large cup of milk, with an even teaspoonful of corn-starch stirred in it, with salt and pepper to taste. Bake, covered, in a greased pudding-dish one hour; then brown quickly.

Sweet Potatoes.

See Sunday of First Week in December.

Cranberry Sauce.

Cook a quart of cranberries with a very little water, slowly, in a porcelain or tinned saucepan. Stir often, and when they are broken all to pieces, and thick as marmalade, take off, sweeten liberally, and rub through a colander. Wet a mould, and put them in to form.

Orange Snow and Snowdrift Cake.

4 large sweet oranges, juice of all, and grated peel of one; juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon; 1 package of gelatine soaked in 1 cup of cold water; whites of 4 eggs, whipped stiff; 1 large cup of powdered sugar; 2 cups of boiling water.

Mix the juice and peel of the fruit with the soaked gelatine, add the sugar, stir well, and leave them for one hour. Pour on boiling water, and stir until clear. Strain, and press through a coarse cloth. When cold, and beginning to congeal, whip a spoonful at a time into the frothed whites. Put into a wet mould. Do this of course on Saturday.


For Snowdrift Cake, please refer to Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea, page 340.

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Cut each giblet into three pieces, and put on to boil in stock made of the remnant of your mock turtle soup, diluted with water and strained. Simmer all together one hour.

Chop the gizzard fine, pound the liver. Make what is called technically a roux, by putting two tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan, and when it bubbles, stirring in a teaspoonful of browned flour, and continuing to stir until they are well mixed and smooth. Add, spoonful by spoonful, half a cup of boiling soup, then the pounded liver; the gizzard, juice of half a lemon, and half a glass of brown sherry. Stir all this into the soup, and boil up once. Have in the tureen the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs, each quartered with a keen knife, and pour the soup upon them.

Minced Turkey and Eggs.

Cut all the meat from the skeleton of the turkey. Put the bones, sinews, skin, and stuffing into a pot with three quarts of cold water. Set at the back of the range and let it simmer down to two quarts. Season, and set away in your stock-pot.

Divide the meat intended for to-day into inch long pieces, tearing rather than cutting it. Heat the skimmed gravy; add as much drawn butter; two beaten eggs; pepper and salt; put in the minced turkey; set back over the fire, and stir until very hot. Cover the bottom of a pudding-dish with fine crumbs; pour in the mixture; strew crumbs on top, and bake to a light brown in a quick oven. Serve in the bake-dish.

Baked Tomatoes.

Please see Thursday of last week—the First Week in December. Add the surplus juice to your turkey-bone “stock.”

Stewed Potatoes.

Pare and cut into small squares. Lay in cold water half an hour; cook tender in hot water, a little salt. When done—or nearly—pour this off, add a cup of cold milk, and when this begins to simmer, a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, pepper, salt, and a little minced parsley. Boil gently one minute, and pour into a deep dish.

Celery.

Wash, scrape, and cut off the green leaves. Arrange the best stalks in a celery-glass. Put two or three green pieces into to-morrow’s soup-stock while boiling; and if you have time cut up the rest into short bits, and put in a jar or wide-mouthed bottle of vinegar to keep for salad-dressing.

A Plain Rice Pudding.

1 large cup of rice; 2 quarts of milk; 8 tablespoonfuls of sugar; 1 teaspoonful of salt; 1 great spoonful of butter, melted; nutmeg and cinnamon to taste.

Soak the rice two hours in a pint of the milk. Add, then, the rest of the milk and the other ingredients. Bake, covered, two hours; brown, and eat cold.

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Take the fat from the top of your turkey soup-stock; strain, rubbing the dressing through the colander. Simmer one hour, with half a sliced onion and four tablespoonfuls of soaked rice in it, or until the rice is soft. Be careful that it does not scorch. Strain through the soup-sieve into the tureen, add pepper and salt, if needed—finally a cup of hot milk in which has been stirred and cooked for one minute two beaten eggs.

Stewed Fillet of Veal.

Lard the fillet on top with strips of fat salt pork; lay a few slices of corned ham in the bottom of a saucepan; on these the veal; cover with sliced ham; season with pepper, salt, and a pinch of mace; pour in a cup of yesterday’s soup, weakened with water. Cover closely and stew two hours, turning the meat at the end of the first hour; take up and keep the meat hot over boiling water; add some browned flour and a tablespoonful of soaked gelatine to the gravy when you have strained it, boil fast and hard until it is thick, and of a glassy brown. Pour on the veal, set in the oven, the larded side upward, and shut the door for a few minutes to “glaze” it. Garnish with light and dark green celery-tops. Lay the ham about it.

Spinach.

Boil in plenty of hot salted water, for twenty-five minutes. Drain, chop very fine, put back in the saucepan with a teaspoonful of sugar, a little pepper, salt, and mace, and a few spoonfuls of milk or cream. Beat and toss until it is like a thick green custard, and pour out upon slices of fried bread.

Boiled Beans.

Soak all night. In the morning, put on in cold water, and cook gently until soft. Drain, pepper and salt, and pour over them, when dished, a little good drawn butter.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual—without browning.

Queen’s Toast.

Cut thick slices of stale baker’s bread into rounds with a cake-cutter and fry to a nice brown in hot lard. Dip each slice into boiling water to remove the grease; sprinkle with a mixture of powdered sugar and cinnamon, and pile one upon the other. Serve a sauce made of powdered sugar, dissolved in the strained juice of a lemon and thinned with a glass of wine. Put a very little upon each round. Butter sauces are too rich for queen’s toast.

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4 lbs. of coarse lean beef; 3 lbs. of bones; 2 sliced onions; 2 turnips; 2 carrots; bunch of sweet herbs; 3 stalks of celery; pepper and salt; 1 tablespoonful corn-starch, wet up in cold water; 5 quarts of water.

Cut the beef in small strips and fry to a good brown, in plenty of dripping. Take out the meat and lightly fry the bones. Remove these and put with the meat into the soup-pot. Now fry in the same fat the sliced onions; add these, when brown, to the meat and bones, and pour on them the five quarts of water. Cook slowly one hour; take off the scum, and put in the sliced carrots, turnips, the celery and herbs. Boil gently four hours. Strain; pick out the meat and bones, and put, well-seasoned, into the stock-jar. Pulp the vegetables into the soup; season; pour all but two quarts into the stock-jar, and set aside. Cool that left out for to-day, skim and re-heat; add the corn-starch, boil up and serve.

Cannelon of Veal, Oysters, and Sweetbreads.

Chop the remains of your stewed fillet; boil, blanch, and cool two sweetbreads, and mince very fine. Chop, also, twelve oysters. Mix all these together with a cup of fine bread-crumbs; add plenty of seasoning and two beaten eggs. Work to a paste; flour your hands and make into a roll seven or eight inches long, and three or four inches in diameter. Envelope this in a crust of good pie-paste, closing the open ends with rounds of paste. Lay in a floured baking-pan, the joined edges downward, and bake in a steady oven. Just before taking it up glaze with butter.

Potatoes SautÉs.

Boil and slice while hot. Put into a frying-pan with a large spoonful of butter, pepper, salt, and powdered parsley. Stir constantly until very hot, and dish. They must not be at all brown or even dry. Serve very hot.

Succotash.

Empty a can of succotash into a saucepan; cover with boiling water, a little salt, and cook half an hour. Turn off the water; pour in a cup of milk, and when this boils, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; season with pepper and salt; boil once, and dish.

Cranberry Sauce.

If you have none ready made, prepare according to receipt given for Sunday of this week. It is well to make a good supply at a time, since it keeps well in cold weather.

Impromptu Plum Pudding.

2 cups of made mince-meat—“Atmore’s” is very good; 1½ cups prepared flour; 6 beaten eggs.

Whip the yolks and stir (with additional sugar, if needed,) into the mince-meat. Beat hard for two or three minutes. Put in whisked whites and the flour alternately. Butter a large mould; put in the mixture, leaving room for the swelling of the pudding, and boil, without the intermission of a moment, for five hours. Turn out upon a hot dish; pour brandy over it, and light just as it goes into the dining-room. Eat with rich sauce.

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Skim the fat from your soup-stock, and put it, meat bones and all, over the fire with a can of tomatoes. Simmer one hour and strain, rubbing the tomatoes through the colander. Season to taste; return to the fire, and when it boils, put in a lump of sugar, and a tablespoonful of butter cut up in half as much flour. Boil up once.

Glazed Ham.

Put into cold water about ten o’clock on Wednesday night, and let it soak until the fire is made next morning. Put on then in plenty of cold water, and cook eighteen or twenty minutes per pound. Set out of doors when done, in a large, shallow pan, and cover with the pot-liquor. You should have made, meanwhile, the “glaze,” by boiling down a cup of yesterday’s soup, with an equal quantity of strained pot-liquor, until the result was a thick brown broth. Add a tablespoonful of soaked gelatine, and set the mixture in boiling water. When the ham is nearly, or quite cold, skim carefully; wash all over with the glaze, and set in the oven to harden. If not quite thick enough, apply a second coat when the first is dry. Twist frilled paper about the shank.

Potato Puff.

Whip hot boiled potatoes light and soft with milk, butter, and salt. Beat in two whisked eggs, and heap irregularly within a buttered bake-dish. Brown quickly, and serve in the dish in which it was baked.

Chopped Cabbage with Sauce.

Quarter a cabbage, and boil tender in hot salted water. Chop when you have drained it; season with pepper and salt. Drain again, pressing out the water; put into a hot dish and pour over it a cup of drawn butter, having for a base some of the strained ham-liquor, into which have been stirred a tablespoonful of celery vinegar and a little made mustard. Send up hot.

Celery Salad.

Scrape and cut into short pieces. Put into a salad-bowl, and pour over it a dressing such as was made for cold-slaw on Saturday, First Week in December.

Corn-Starch Cup-Cake.

5 eggs; 1 cup of butter; 2 cups of sugar; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup of corn-starch; 2 cups of prepared flour; vanilla flavoring.

Cream butter and sugar; beat in the yolks, the milk, the corn-starch and flour mixed together, alternately with the whites—lastly, the vanilla. Bake in small loaves, and eat while fresh. Pass hot chocolate with them.

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2 quarts of oysters; 1 quart of milk; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 teacupful hot water; pepper, salt and a blade of mace.

Strain all the liquor from the oysters; add the water, and heat. When near the boil, add the seasoning, then, the oysters. Cook about five minutes from the time they begin to simmer, until they “ruffle.” Stir in the butter, cook one minute and pour into the tureen. Stir in the boiling milk, and send to table.

Boiled Chickens.

Clean and truss the chickens, but do not stuff them. Sew up each in a piece of mosquito-netting, and boil in plenty of hot salted water. Allow about twelve minutes to the pound. Undo the netting; wipe the chickens, and rub all over with butter. Send up in a boat a cup of melted butter in which have been stirred the pounded yolks of two hard boiled eggs, and some powdered or minced parsley. Pour a few spoonfuls over the chickens.

Browned Potatoes.

Boil with their skins on. Throw off the water; take each potato in a clean towel, and hold it while you strip off the skin. Lay them, when peeled, in a greased baking-pan, and set this in a hot oven. Roast, with good dripping, until they are well colored.

Baked Sweet Potatoes.

Wash, and bake soft in a moderate oven. Serve in their “jackets.”

Scalloped Squash.

Pare, slice, and mash. Stir in, while it is hot, a good spoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste, and two beaten eggs. Pour into a buttered dish; strew fine crumbs on the top, and bake, covered, half an hour—then brown slightly.

Baked Custards.

1 quart of milk; 4 beaten eggs; 5 tablespoonfuls of sugar, beaten with the eggs; nutmeg, and 2 teaspoonfuls of flavoring extract.

Scald the milk; pour upon the other ingredients; stir together well; flavor, and pour into stone-china cups. Set these in a pan of hot water; grate nutmeg upon each, and bake until firm. Eat cold from the cups.

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Take the top from your chicken pot-liquor; add the cracked bones of the chickens, from which you cut the meat for “breakfast, luncheon, or tea;” boil gently one hour. Strain, and season to taste; add a cup of soaked sago, and simmer until it is soft and clear.

Beefsteak Pudding.

3 lbs. of rump steak; 3 eggs; 2 cups of milk; 5 tablespoonfuls of prepared flour; pepper and salt; melted butter; parsley; French mustard.

Cut the steaks into pieces rather more than an inch wide and long. Beat with a rolling-pin; pepper and salt, and dip each in a mixture of melted butter and minced parsley, with a little French mustard. Lay in the bottom of a greased bake-dish; pour over them a batter made of the eggs, flour, and milk, bake an hour and a quarter. Serve in the bake-dish.

Boiled Onions.

Cook and boil in salted water fifteen minutes; throw this off, and cover with milk and water. Cook tender; drain; pepper and salt, and pour in a cupful of drawn butter. Simmer five minutes, and turn out.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare in the usual manner, taking care not to get them too stiff.

Fried Hominy.

Boil hominy—the fine-grained—the day before you want to use it. When perfectly cold and stiff, remove the skin from the top, and cut the hominy into neat squares. Flour and salt these, and fry to a nice brown in hot lard or dripping. Drain well, and eat hot.

Sweet Potato Pie.

Parboil; skin; cool, and slice crosswise firm sweet potatoes. Line a pie-dish with a good crust; put in a layer of sliced potatoes; sprinkle abundantly with sugar; scatter in four or five whole cloves, and cover with more slices. Fill the dish thus: put in a liberal tablespoonful of melted butter; pour in a little water and a teaspoonful of lemon-juice; cover with puff-paste, and bake. Eat cold. This is a Virginia dish, and very nice.

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2 ox-tails; 1 onion; 2 turnips; 2 carrots; bunch of sweet herbs; 6 whole cloves; 2 tablespoonfuls of catsup; 1 glass of wine; pepper and salt; ½ lb. of lean ham; butter; water.

Joint the tails, and slice the vegetables and ham. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into the soup kettle, with the tails, ham, vegetables, herbs, and a pint of water. Cover closely, and simmer half an hour after they begin to smoke. Add, then, six quarts of water, if the tails are of a fair size, and simmer four hours, or until the vegetables are boiled to pieces and the tails very tender. Do this on Saturday; season the soup, and turn all into the stock-jar. On Sunday take off the fat, and strain the soup, pulping the vegetables, and taking out the pieces of tail. Put these into the stock-jar, with all the soup you do not need for to-day; also the bits of ham. Heat the portion left out for to-day; stir in a good spoonful of browned flour wet in water, the catsup and wine, and boil up fairly before serving.

Ducks À la Mode.

Joint the ducks; pepper, salt, and flour them. Fry to a light brown in a little butter. Put into a saucepan with a cup of your soup-stock—strained off before pulping the vegetables—a tablespoonful of minced onion, pepper and salt to taste. Cover, and stew tender; say about forty minutes from the commencement of the boil. Keep hot over boiling water while you strain the gravy; add a glass of wine, and thicken with browned flour. Boil until thick, and pour over the ducks.

Canned Green Peas.

Drain, cover with boiling water, and cook tender. Pour off the water; dish, and stir in a little hot butter, mixed with pepper, salt, and a dust of powdered sugar. Toss and mix well, and serve hot.

Mashed Turnips.

See Sunday, Second Week in December.

Scalloped Cauliflower.

Boil twenty minutes—tied up in netting—in hot salted water. Cut into small clusters, rejecting the main stalk altogether. Set these closely together in a buttered bake-dish; pour drawn butter over them, and sift fine crumbs thickly upon the top. Bake in a good oven until browned.

Sponge-Cake SoufflÉ Pudding.

12 square (penny) stale sponge-cakes; 5 eggs; 1 cup of milk; 2 glasses of sherry; ½ cup of sugar.

Lay the cakes in a buttered pudding-dish; pour the wine over them, and cover for half an hour. Heat the milk; pour upon the beaten yolks and half the sugar. Stir over the fire until quite thick. Pour, gradually, upon the cakes, letting it soak in well before adding more. Put into the oven, and, when very hot, cover with the whites, whisked stiff with the rest of the sugar, and shut the oven-door until the mÉringue is colored. Make on Saturday, and eat cold on Sunday.

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Strain off the soup from the meat in your stock-jar; heat slowly to a boil; put in a cupful of the best parts of the meat, cut neatly from the joints, and divided into square bits. Boil one minute, and pour out.

Boiled Corned Beef.

Put a piece of brisket, weighing six or eight pounds, in plenty of cold water. Set at the back of the range out of everybody’s way, and cook slowly, allowing eighteen minutes per pound. Take up; wipe carefully; rub all over with butter, and dish. Serve horseradish sauce with it. Pour the pot-liquor into the stock-jar.

Roast Potatoes.

Select those of uniform size, and roast in a moderate oven until soft. Wipe, and wrap in a napkin, spread upon a flat dish.

Scalloped Cabbage.

When your beef has begun to boil fairly, put in a firm white cabbage, from which you have stripped the outer leaves. Cook in the boiling pot-liquor until tender. Take out, quarter, and let it cool rapidly. When quite cold, chop; stir in pepper and salt, and put into a greased bake-dish. Pour over it half a cupful of soup-stock; sift crumbs thickly on the top, and bake, covered, half an hour, or until very hot throughout; then brown.

Horseradish Sauce.

Stir two tablespoonfuls of grated horseradish and a tablespoonful of vinegar into a cup of drawn butter until it is like white cream. If the horseradish be put up in vinegar, omit the tablespoonful of that condiment.

Farina Pudding.

1 quart new milk; 4 tablespoonfuls of farina; 4 eggs; 5 tablespoonfuls of sugar; nutmeg.

Soak the farina two hours in a little water. Scald the milk; stir in the farina, and cook ten minutes, using the spoon constantly. Pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Beat all together well. Put in nutmeg to taste, and pour into a buttered pudding-dish. Bake half an hour, or until firm and well colored. Eat warm—not hot.

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Soak a quart of split peas overnight. Next day, put on in the pot-liquor from your corned beef—having removed the fat from the latter. Add an onion, sliced, and three stalks of celery, with a few sprigs of parsley, cut fine. Boil gently—adding boiling water should the liquid sink too much—three hours. Rub through a colander; return to the fire; pepper, and stir in a cup of milk, in which has been cooked for one minute a tablespoonful of butter, cut up in a teaspoonful of flour. Pour out at once upon dice of fried bread laid in the tureen.

Larded Mutton Chops.

Cut off the skin and fat. Lard the chops thickly with strips of fat pork. Season them with a mixture of pepper, salt, and mace. Put into a saucepan; cover with a little of yesterday’s soup, if you have no other gravy, and a spoonful of tomato catsup. If you have a spoonful or two of green peas left from Sunday, put them in, and a little minced onion. Cover, and cook slowly half an hour. Turn the chops, and cook twenty minutes longer. Take out, and keep warm. Strain the gravy; thicken with browned flour and a tablespoonful of chopped cucumber pickle; boil two minutes. Put in the chops, and simmer three minutes. Arrange the chops upon a hot dish, and cover with the gravy.

Tomato Sauce.

Stew a can of tomatoes twenty minutes. Pulp through a colander, and put back into the saucepan, with pepper, salt, sugar, and a great spoonful of butter rolled in flour. Simmer twenty minutes more, or until the sauce is of the consistency of boiled custard.

Lima Beans.

Soak the dried beans all night. Next day, cook soft, putting them on in cold water, and boiling slowly. Drain; season with pepper, salt, and butter, and dish.

Macaroni À la CrÊme.

Cook—having broken it into short pieces—half a pound of macaroni ten minutes in boiling water. Pour this off, and add a cupful of milk, with a little salt. Stew tender in this. In another saucepan heat a cup of milk, thicken with a teaspoonful of flour, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and, at last, a beaten egg. Drain the macaroni; dish; stir through it two heaping tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, with a little cayenne. Pour on the sauce, and serve.

Apple and Tapioca Pudding.

1 teacupful tapioca; 6 pippins, pared and cored; 1 quart of water; 1 teaspoonful of salt; a little grated lemon-peel; sugar; cloves.

Cover the tapioca with three cups of tepid water, and set in a warm place for five hours, stirring once in a while. Pack the apples in a pudding-dish, with a pinch of lemon-peel in each. Add a cup of warm water; cover closely, and cook in a moderate oven, turning as they cook at the bottom. When soft, drain off the water, fill the centre of each apple with sugar, put a clove in each, and pour over them the tapioca. Cover, and bake one hour. Eat warm, with hard sauce.

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1 large rabbit; 2 lbs. of beef-bones; 2 slices lean corned ham; 1 large onion; bunch of sweet herbs; 2 tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce; 3 quarts of water; raw egg; crumbs.

Put the rabbit, jointed, the cracked bones, sliced ham and onion, and chopped herbs on in the water. Fit a tight cover upon the pot; set a weight on top, and stew four hours. The meat should be in rags. Strain, rubbing the vegetables through the colander. Season, cool, and take off the fat. Put over the fire, add some tomato sauce left from yesterday, boil up, and pour out. Chop a little of the soup-meat fine while the soup is cooling; season; work in some fine crumbs and a beaten egg. Make into balls, flour well, and fry in dripping. Put these into the tureen before the soup goes in.

Venison Steaks.

Trim off the hard skin, and flatten each steak with the side of a hatchet. Butter the gridiron well, and have the fire clear and hot. Turn often, not to lose a drop of the juice. Cook three or four minutes longer than you would beefsteaks. The Vertical Broiler is admirably adapted for broiling venison. Have ready, in a hot chafing-dish, a tablespoonful of butter for each pound of venison, a pinch of salt, a little pepper, a tablespoonful of currant jelly for each pound, and a glass of wine for every four pounds. This should be warmed by the hot water beneath the dish, by the time the venison is laid in it. Turn the steaks twice in it; cover; put fresh boiling water below, or light the lamp, and let it stand five minutes before serving.

Oyster Salad.

1 quart of oysters—cut, not chopped, to pieces; 1 bunch of celery, also cut small; 2 tablespoonfuls best salad oil; 1 teaspoonful of powdered sugar; ½ teaspoonful of salt, and the same of pepper and of made mustard; yolks of 2 raw eggs; 4 tablespoonfuls cider vinegar.

Beat the yolks light, with sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard. Whip in, gradually, the oil until the mixture is thick; add the vinegar—beating still—a little at a time. Put the oysters, drained and cut up, with the celery, into a salad-dish; pour over them the dressing; stir in well; garnish with a fringe of delicate celery-tops, and serve as soon as possible.

Stewed Celery.

Scrape, and cut the stalks into rather short pieces. Cook tender in boiling salted water; drain this off, and add a cupful of drawn butter, well seasoned. Simmer in this five minutes, and pour into a deep dish.

Potatoes À la Lyonnaise.

12 parboiled and cold potatoes; 1 chopped onion; chopped parsley, pepper, and salt; butter, or dripping, for frying.

Slice, or chop the potatoes. Heat the dripping in a frying-pan. Put in the onion, and fry one minute; then cook the potatoes, adding the parsley and seasoning. Shake and stir constantly lest the potatoes should stick to the pan, or brown. They should be done in five minutes. Drain off the fat by shaking to and fro in a hot colander—then dish.

Cottage Pudding.

1 cup of sugar; 1 tablespoonfuls of butter, creamed with the sugar; 2 eggs; 1 cup of milk; 3 cups of prepared flour; 1 teaspoonful—scant—of salt.

Rub butter and sugar together; beat up with the yolks; add the milk, the whipped whites—lastly, the flour. Bake in a buttered cake-mould. Turn out, when done, upon a hot plate. In serving, cut in slices, and eat with liquid sauce.

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4 lbs. knuckle of veal; 1 lb. lean ham; 2 carrots; 1 onion; 4 stalks of celery; bunch of herbs; 1 great spoonful of butter; 6 quarts of water; 4 tablespoonfuls of vermicelli, broken small, and boiled ten minutes in hot salted water.

Cut up the veal and ham into small pieces; slice the vegetables; put into a soup-pot in which you have melted a great spoonful of butter. Set where it will heat slowly; cover closely, and leave it for one hour, stirring now and then. Pour in, then, the cold water, and cook gently four hours. Drain off the liquid, pick out meat and bones, and put into the stock-jar; pour on all the soup not wanted for to-day’s use, season, and set away. Pulp the vegetables into to-day’s soup; season; cool, and remove the fat. Put over the fire, and boil and skim five minutes. Add the vermicelli—simmer one minute, and pour out.

Veal Cutlets À la Milanaise.

Make your butcher cut the cutlets very thin—about half the thickness of those usually sold. Flatten with the side of a hatchet; dip in beaten yolk of egg, then in cracker-dust, mixed with pepper and salt. Fry to a fine brown in hot dripping. Drain off the fat; lay upon a hot dish, and put upon the middle of each slice (they should not be more than four inches long by three wide) a spoonful of the following sauce: Make a half-cup of drawn butter; stir in the stiffened white of an egg, with a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, and the juice of half a lemon. Beat light with your egg-whisk; heat very hot, and pour out.

Stewed Beans.

Soak white beans all night. Put them on in the morning in cold water, and cook soft. Drain, and pour over them some nice gravy—soup-stock, if you have no other; add a little finely-minced onion, and simmer ten minutes. Turn out without draining.

Hominy Pudding.

1 cupful of cold boiled hominy (the small-grained); 2 cups of milk; 1 heaping teaspoonful of butter-warmed; 1 teaspoonful of sugar; 3 eggs; a little salt.

Mix all together in a smooth batter, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish. Eat hot.

Hot Slaw.

Boil the cabbage in two waters. Drain, when tender; chop quickly, press out all the water, and put into a deep dish. Heat in a saucepan half a cup of vinegar, one tablespoonful of butter, one tablespoonful of sugar, pepper and salt at discretion. When scalding, add a half teaspoonful of flour wet with water. Boil one minute, and pour upon the cabbage. If you have celery vinegar at hand, use for this dressing.

Pumpkin Pie.

See Friday, Fourth Week in November.

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Take the fat from the top of your stock. Drain off the soup, and add a can of corn, chopped fine, and the same of tomatoes, rubbed through a colander. Cook all slowly one hour; add what seasoning is required, and pour out.

Baked Halibut.

Get a cut of halibut weighing five or six pounds, and lay for two hours in salt and water. Wipe dry, and score the outer skin. Set in the baking-pan; pour a cupful of boiling water, in which has been mixed a tablespoonful of butter, over it, and bake one hour, basting often with butter-and-water. When a fork will penetrate it easily, it is done. Lay upon a hot dish; add a little boiling water to the gravy, stir in a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, the juice of half a lemon, and a little browned flour, wet up with cold water. Serve in a boat when you have boiled it one minute.

Stewed Pigeons.

Clean the pigeons, tie them in shape, and cook precisely as you did the grouse on Friday, First Week in December.

Mashed Potatoes.

Serve with the halibut.

Fried Salsify.

Scrape, and boil until tender. Drain and cool. Mash to a paste, picking out the fibres. Add a very little milk, a spoonful of butter and a beaten egg and a half for each cupful of mashed salsify. Make into flat, round cakes; roll in flour, and fry brown.

Dorchester Cracker Plum-Pudding.

2 quarts of milk; 6 Boston crackers, split and buttered; 8 eggs, beaten very light; 2 cups of sugar; nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon to taste; 1 lb. of raisins, seeded and cut in two; 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Heat the milk almost to boiling, and pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar, with the seasoning. Do not boil it again. Butter a pudding-dish; put a layer of buttered crackers in the bottom, buttered side up, and moisten with a few spoonfuls of custard. Cover thickly with raisins, and these with crackers, buttered side downward. Moisten with hot custard, and repeat the order given, until crackers and fruit are all in the dish. Pour in custard until only the surface of the upper layer is visible, but not enough to float them. Cover, and leave all night in a cold place. Add the rest of the custard in the morning, at intervals of five or six minutes between the cupfuls. Bake, covered, two hours in a moderate oven; then brown. Eat hot, with sauce.

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1 sheep’s head, carefully cleaned, with the skin on; 4 pig’s feet, also cleaned nicely; 2 onions; 2 turnips; 2 carrots; bunch of sweet herbs; 1 can of tomatoes; ½ cup of soup-barley, soaked two hours in a little water; 7 quarts of water; pepper, salt, mace, and sugar.

Crack the bones of the head and feet; wash very well; put the sliced vegetables and the herbs into a pot with the water, and cook gently five hours. At the end of three hours add the tomatoes. Should the liquid boil down to less than five quarts by the time you are ready to add the tomatoes, replenish from the tea-kettle. When the five hours are up, strain off the soup. Put bones and meat into the stock-jar, and add all the clear soup you do not want to-day. Season, and set aside. Now pulp the vegetables into the soup left out for Saturday’s dinner, season, cool, and skim off the fat. Return to the fire with the barley, and simmer half an hour.

Bacon and Eggs.

Cut one pound of streaked bacon into thin long slices; put into a frying-pan and cook slowly, turning often, until quite crisp. Pour off and strain the fat, and pour two tablespoonfuls of it into a stone-china or block-tin dish. Add two larger spoonfuls of good gravy left from yesterday’s pigeons, with as much cream, in which have been mixed half a teaspoonful of flour and a pinch of soda. Set this in a dripping-pan, with boiling water in the bottom, but not enough to overflow the dish, and stir upon the top of the range until quite hot. Then break upon it seven or eight, or more eggs, and put into a quick oven to “set.” When firm, send to table with the bacon laid about them.

Cheese Fondu.

1 cup dry and fine bread-crumbs; 2 scant cups of milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in; ½ lb. dry cheese, grated; 3 beaten eggs; 1 small tablespoonful of melted butter; pepper and salt.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in eggs, butter, seasoning—finally the cheese. Butter a pudding-dish; pour in the mixture, strew crumbs on the top, and bake in a rather quick oven to a light brown. Serve at once, as it soon falls.

Canned String-Beans.

Cut into short lengths; cover with hot, salted water, and cook forty minutes. Drain; dish, and stir in pepper, salt, and butter.

Mashed Turnips.

See Sunday, Second Week in December.

Lemon Tartlets.

5 eggs; 5 tablespoonfuls of sugar; 1 quart of milk; ? cup of prepared flour; 1 lemon, a large one—juice and grated peel; a pinch of salt.

Heat the milk; stir in the flour wet with a little cold milk, and heat again, stirring all the while. Pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar; cook for one minute. Take from the fire, and beat in the lemon-juice and grated rind. Have ready, baked and hot, some shells of puff-paste lining “patty-pans.” Fill with the mixture and cover each with a mÉringue made of the whipped whites and a little powdered sugar. Put into the oven to set, and lightly color the mÉringue. Eat fresh, but not hot.

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Remove the fat from your soup-jelly. Pour off as much as you need for to-day, without disturbing the sediment. Heat, simmer and skim until the scum ceases to rise; put in half a cup of German sago which has been soaking one hour in a little water. Cook gently until clear.

Roast Beef.

Lay in a dripping-pan and pour a cup of boiling water over it. Roast about ten minutes per pound, basting frequently and copiously. When done, dish; pour the strained gravy into a bowl and set in ice-water to throw up the fat. Remove this, return the gravy to the fire, pepper, salt, and thicken with browned flour. Boil once, and serve in a boat.

Potato Balls.

Mash potatoes very light with butter, milk and salt, and beat in two raw eggs. Put into a buttered saucepan, and stir until hot and stiff. Turn out and let the paste get cold. Then make into balls; roll each in flour; half an hour before taking up the roast beef, pour off nearly all the gravy, and lay the balls about the meat in the dripping-pan. Baste them whenever you baste the meat, and cook to a fine brown. Drain off the grease, and serve as a garnish to the beef, when dished.

Fried Sweet Potatoes.

Boil, peel, and let them get cold. Then slice lengthwise; pepper, salt, flour, and fry quickly in good dripping. Drain well and serve hot.

Apple Sauce.

See Wednesday, Second Week in November.

Celery.

See Monday Second Week in December.

Ribbon Blanc-Mange.

1 quart of milk; 1 package Cooper’s gelatine; ¾ cup of sugar; 1 great spoonful of grated chocolate, wet in a very little cold milk; beaten yolk of one egg; 1 great spoonful of cranberry juice; vanilla extract.

Soak the gelatine one hour in a cup of the milk. Heat the rest to scalding; add sugar and soaked gelatine, and stir eight minutes over the fire. Strain through a muslin bag into four bowls, putting equal portions in all. Color one brown by stirring in the wet chocolate; another yellow, by beating in the yolk; a third, pink with cranberry juice, or currant jelly. Leave the fourth white. Return each portion, excepting this last, to the fire in its turn, and stir until very hot. When all are cold and beginning to congeal, wet a mould, and pour in, first, half of the white; next, half of the pink; thirdly, half of the yellow; fourthly, half of the brown. Upon this brown empty the rest of the white, and let the pink, yellow, and brown follow in course. Let each of the eight courses get firm enough to bear the next before adding more. Do all this on Saturday. On Sunday, turn out and pass with light cake, followed by coffee. The vanilla extract is intended for the chocolate only.

This is a beautiful dish, easy and safe.

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Put the contents of your stock-pot over the fire; add as much boiling water as is needed to make soup for to-day. First, however, take out the sheep’s tongue, and lay it aside. Simmer the soup for one hour; strain and season; return to the fire, and when it is hot, add a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; next, the sheep’s tongue, skinned and cut into dice. Boil up; pour into the tureen, and stir in a cup of hot milk in which two beaten eggs have been cooked one minute.

Larded Beef.

Thrust lardoons of fat salt pork quite through your cold roast, when you have trimmed off the ragged parts. Put into a deep pan; strew with chopped herbs, and minced onion, pepper, salt, and four or five whole cloves; also, a tablespoonful of chopped green pickle. Half cover with broth made from yesterday’s skimmed gravy, and a little soup-stock. Cover the pan closely, set in a moderate oven, and cook one hour—more, if the piece be large. Turn, when the time is half gone. Dish the meat, strain, and thicken the gravy. Give it one boil; pour a little upon the meat, the rest into a boat.

Mashed Potatoes.

Mash, or whip up light with milk, butter and salt, and heap roughly upon a hot dish.

Baked Tomatoes.

See Thursday of First Week in December. Save the surplus juice.

Apples, Oranges, and Nuts.

Supply clean plates, fruit-knives, and nut-crackers with this course.

Tea and Crackers.

Pass, without further change of plates.

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3 lbs. of beef, cut into small squares; ½ lb. lean ham, chopped; 1 lb. of veal, cut small; 2 onions; 2 carrots; 2 tablespoonfuls German sago; can of green peas; pepper and salt; 6 quarts of water.

Put the chopped ham in the bottom of a broad jar that will go into your oven; cover with sliced vegetables, some of the peas and sago, and this with beef or veal. Pack vegetables and meat in alternate layers, seasoning each with pepper and salt. Pour in six quarts of water, if the jar will hold so much; fit on a close cover; spread a paste of flour and water around the edge to keep in the steam; set in a dripping-pan of hot water, and leave in a moderate oven six hours, replenishing the water in the pan, now and then. Dip out as much soup—just as it comes—as you want for to-day, at the end of this time; let it cool sufficiently to enable you to take off the fat; heat in a saucepan just to the boiling point, and pour into the tureen. Add a quart of boiling water and a little salt to the contents of the jar; cover, while hot, and set away in a cold place, as stock—and excellent stock it will be.

Mock Pigeons.

2 large cutlets of veal, cut rather thin, and beaten flat; ½ lb. of fat salt pork; yolks of two hard-boiled eggs; 1 cup of bread-crumbs; pepper, salt, and 1 tablespoonful of chopped onion pickle; a little sugar; powdered or minced parsley; a little oyster-liquor.

Lay the cutlets upon a dish, and spread the upper side with a force-meat made of the ingredients above enumerated; roll each up closely; bind in shape with soft string, and lay in a dripping-pan. Pour over them two cupfuls of boiling water, in which have been mixed two tablespoonfuls of butter, and the surplus tomato-juice saved from yesterday’s can of tomatoes. Cover with another pan of the same size—inverted—and set in a steady oven. Bake a little over an hour—half an hour more, should the “pigeons” be large. Take them up when tender, and brown, clip, and withdraw the strings, and keep hot while you strain, season, and thicken the gravy. Boil one minute, and pour into a boat.

Spinach.

See Tuesday, Second Week in December.

Potato Puffs.

See Thursday, Second Week in December.

Stewed Corn.

Empty a can of corn into a saucepan; cover with boiling salted water, and stew half an hour. Drain off the water, and cover the corn with a cupful of drawn butter, well seasoned. Simmer, stirring often, fifteen minutes, and pour out.

Arrowroot Pudding—Hot.

3 even tablespoonfuls arrowroot; 1 quart fresh milk; 1 tablespoonful of butter; 4 tablespoonfuls of sugar; 4 eggs, beaten light; nutmeg and vanilla flavoring.

Scald the milk; wet the arrowroot with cold water, and stir into the hot milk, until the latter is well thickened. Cream the butter and sugar; beat up very light with the eggs, and stir into the thickened milk. Flavor; pour into a buttered mould; set in a pot of boiling water—not deep enough to float it—and boil steadily for one hour. Set in cold water one minute, and turn out upon a hot dish. Eat with brandy or wine sauce. It is very nice.

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Boil, blanch, cool, and chop very fine two sweetbreads; mix with them one-third their bulk of fine crumbs, previously soaked, and rubbed smooth with a little cream. Beat up the yolk of a raw egg, and work all with pepper and salt to a paste. Make into small balls with floured hands, and set by for half an hour in a cold place. Strain off two quarts of soup from your stock-jar, when you have skimmed it. Heat and boil slowly five minutes, skimming it well. Drop in the balls very carefully—not to break them; simmer ten minutes very gently, to avoid the same catastrophe, and pour into the tureen.

Chicken and Ham Pie.

1 chicken; 1 lb. of lean veal; ½ lb. corned ham; yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs; 1 cup of gravy or stock; ½ can of mushrooms; pepper and salt; good paste for cover.

Joint the chicken; cut the veal and ham into dice, slice the mushrooms and yolks; place in alternate layers, seasoned with pepper and salt, in a large pudding-dish; pour in the gravy, and cover with a thick crust of good pastry. Ornament the edges, and make a slit in the middle. Bake in a steady oven, and when almost done, wash over with beaten egg.

Rice Croquettes.

2 cups of cold boiled rice; 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter; 3 beaten eggs; a little flour; 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar; a large pinch of grated lemon-peel, and salt to taste; raw egg and pounded cracker.

Beat eggs and sugar together, and work the butter into the rice. Stir all together; season; make into croquettes; roll in egg and cracker-crumbs, and fry, a few at a time, in sweet lard. Drain, by rolling them on soft white paper, and eat hot.

Stewed Salsify.

Scrape, dropping into cold water as you do it; cook tender in boiling salted water; drain this off; pour on a cupful of drawn butter, and stew five minutes. Serve in a hot, deep dish.

Creamed Potatoes.

Boil, and, while hot, slice the potatoes. Make a sauce by heating a cup of milk, stirring into it a great spoonful of butter, a scant teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet in cold water, a little chopped parsley, and boiling until thickened. Beat in the frothed white of an egg, and pour upon the potatoes, which should first have been put into a deep dish and sprinkled with pepper and salt.

Cup Puddings.

3 eggs; the weight of the eggs in flour, prepared; half their weight in sugar; one-quarter of their weight in butter; 2 tablespoonfuls of milk; a little nutmeg.

Rub butter and sugar together; add the beaten yolks, the milk; at last, the whisked whites and flour, alternately. Bake in small buttered tins, or cups. Eat warm, without or with sauce, according to your preference.

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Empty your stock-jar into the soup-pot, adding as much boiling water as you may need, with additional seasoning, and any bones you may chance to have. Simmer one hour, or more; strain, return to the fire, and boil and skim for five minutes, before dropping in a generous handful of noodles—dried, or fresh. Simmer twenty minutes. For receipt for noodles, please consult Wednesday, First Week in August.

Roast Pig.

See that your butcher has done his part well in cleaning the month-old pig. Rinse out with soda and water, then with fair water, wiping the pig dry, inside and out. Prepare a dressing of a cupful of crumbs, half a chopped onion, two teaspoonfuls powdered sage, three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, a saltspoonful of salt, and as much pepper, half a grated nutmeg, and the yolks of two beaten eggs. Moisten with half a cup of soup-stock, and stuff the little fellow into his original size and shape. Sew him up, and place in a kneeling posture in a dripping-pan, skewering or tying his legs in the proper position. Dredge with flour. Pour a little hot salted water in the dripping-pan. Baste with butter and water three times as the pig warms; afterward, with gravy from the dripping-pan. When he begins to smoke all over, rub every ten minutes with a rag dipped in melted butter. This will keep the skin from cracking. Roast in a moderate, steady oven two hours.

Put the innocent—still kneeling—upon a large hot dish; surround with parsley and blanched celery-tops. Put a wreath of green about his neck, and a sprig of celery in his mouth.

Skim and strain the gravy; thicken with browned flour; boil up, add a glass of wine and the juice of a lemon, and serve in a boat.

In carving, cut off the head first; then split down the back; take off hams and shoulders, and separate the ribs.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare and serve as usual.

Stewed Celery.

See Wednesday, Third Week in December.

Mince Pie.

2 lbs. lean fresh beef, boiled, and, when cold, chopped fine; 1 lb. beef suet, powdered; 5 lbs. of apples, pared, cored, and chopped; 2 lbs. of raisins, seeded and chopped; 1 lb. sultana raisins, washed, and picked over; 2 lbs. of currants, washed, and carefully picked over; ¾ lb. of citron, cut up fine; 2 tablespoonfuls of cinnamon; 1 powdered nutmeg; 2 tablespoonfuls of mace; 1 tablespoonful of cloves, and the same, each, of allspice and fine salt; 2½ lbs. of brown sugar; 1 quart brown sherry; 1 pint best brandy.

Mix all these thoroughly, putting in the liquor last. Make it, at least, twenty-four hours before it is needed. Keep in a stone jar, with a tight cover, and a piece of bladder tied over the top. When ready to bake your pies, line greased pie-dishes with good paste, put in the mince-meat, and lay strips of pastry, notched with a jagging-iron in a lattice pattern, over the top.

This mince-meat will keep all winter—if not used up.

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1 can of preserved lobster; 2 anchovies; 1 onion; 1 quart of milk; bunch of sweet herbs; grated rind of half a lemon; pinch of soda, stirred in the milk; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour; 1 quart of water; pepper and salt; 2 raw eggs.

Put sliced onion, anchovies, chopped herbs, lemon-peel and the can-liquor on in the water, and boil down to a pint. Strain, put in the chopped lobster meat, with pepper and salt. Heat to a boil; stir in the floured butter; simmer fifteen minutes and pour into the tureen. Add the milk—boiling hot—in which have been cooked for two minutes two beaten eggs. Send around sliced lemon and crackers with this soup.

RagoÛt of Roast Pig.

Slices of cold roast pig; the rest of the can of mushrooms opened on Wednesday; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 3 beaten eggs; 1 cupful of gravy or stock; juice and grated peel of half a lemon; chopped parsley, cayenne, salt and mace to taste.

Put gravy and mushrooms into a saucepan; heat to boiling, put in the butter rolled in flour; cut the slices of pig of nearly equal size; rub over with pepper, salt, mace, and lemon-peel; put them into the gravy and make very hot, but do not boil. Stir in the beaten eggs and lemon-juice; simmer three minutes and pour into a dish lined with crustless slices of fried bread.

PurÉe of Canned Peas.

Boil the peas soft in hot salt water; drain, and pulp through a colander into a saucepan. Add a great spoonful of butter rolled in flour; three tablespoonfuls of milk or cream, a little sugar, pepper and salt. Simmer five minutes—stirring constantly—and pour out.

Sweet Potatoes.

See Sunday, First Week in December.

Cabbage Salad.

See “Cold Slaw,” Saturday, First Week in December.

Rice Pudding MÉringue.

1 quart of fresh milk; 1 cup of raw rice; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 cup of sugar; 4 eggs; grated peel of ½ lemon; a little mace and cinnamon.

Soak the rice in the milk three hours, then heat in a farina-kettle, and simmer tender. Cream butter and sugar, add the beaten yolks and one beaten white, and when the rice has cooled a little, beat all together with the seasoning. Bake about forty minutes in a buttered pudding-dish. When firmly set, cover with a mÉringue made of three whisked whites beaten up with a little sugar and lemon-juice.

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4 lbs. of lean, coarse beef, cut into strips; 2 slices of lean ham, also stripped; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 2 turnips; 1 carrot; 2 onions; 2 stalks of celery; pepper and salt to taste; 1 tablespoonful of gelatine, soaked two hours in a little cold water; 5 quarts of water; sweet herbs.

Put the butter into the soup-kettle; when it heats, add the meat, cover close, and set where it will heat without scorching. In half an hour set directly over the fire and stir until the meat is coated with a brown glaze. Put in a pint of lukewarm water, and when this has boiled down to one-half, add four quarts and a half of cold water; skim off the top and boil slowly four hours. Cook, in a separate saucepan, the sliced carrot, turnips, herbs, celery and the onions; these last already sliced and fried in dripping. Cover with a quart of water, and boil down to a pint. Strain off the clear liquor, and add to the soup. Set aside the vegetables without pulping them. Now, strain off as much of the soup as is needed for to-day, and let it cool. Put the rest, well seasoned with salt and pepper, into the stock-jar with the boiled vegetables, and keep for another day.

Take all the fat from your cooled soup, strain through muslin back into the scalded soup-kettle, season, boil up and skim; add the soaked gelatine, and stir until clear.

Larded Rabbits.

2 rabbits; ½ lb. fat salt pork; 1 cup of soup-stock—diluted with hot water; bunch of herbs; ½ onion; a glass of wine; pepper and salt, butter and flour.

Divide each rabbit into quarters; lard the upper sides of these with strips of pork. Fry until lightly browned. Put into a saucepan and nearly cover with broth; strew with onion, parsley, pepper and salt, and simmer forty-five minutes, or until tender. Dish, and keep the rabbits hot; strain the gravy, add a good lump of butter rolled in browned flour, and a glass of wine; boil fairly and pour over the rabbits.

Scalloped Cauliflower.

See Sunday, Third Week in December.

Fried Parsnips.

Boil tender; scrape; slice lengthwise, season with pepper and salt, dredge with flour, and fry to a golden brown with lard or dripping. Drain and serve hot.

Mashed Turnips.

See Sunday, Second Week in December.

Cabinet Pudding.

½ lb. of prepared flour; ¼ lb. of butter; 5 eggs; 1½ lbs. of sugar; ½ lb. of raisins, seeded and cut into thirds; ¼ lb. currants, washed and dried; ½ cup of milk; ½ lemon—juice and grated peel.

Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks, the milk, then the flour and whipped whites, by turns. Last of all, stir in the fruit, well dredged. Turn into a well-buttered mould and boil steadily nearly three hours. Be careful that the water does not bubble over the top of the mould. When done, dip in cold water for one minute; turn out, and eat with hot, sweet sauce.

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