NELUE GERY

"As in some Irish houses where things are so so One gamin of bacon hangs up for a show; But for eating a rasher of what they take pride in, They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in."

— Goldsmith.

It is said, of all meats bacon is the most extravagant in price and it will probably never be low priced again. It will,. however, always be a gerat addition to the menu so that to know the best ways of using it is a necessity if one is to^ cook well.

The drippings from bacon are the best sort of shortening- for cookies and every-day pastry, therefore every bit of the fat that renders out in cooking should be strained and saved for such uses. This reduces the first cost of the meat very much.

BREAKFAST 19

All left over bacon makes excellent seasoning for meat loaves; and may be nicely browned for garnishing by being dipped into egg batter and then in fine bread crumbs and placed in a hot oven until golden brown.

Sometimes bacon is too salty and requires soaking in hot water after it is cut. After that the salty taste is gone.

If you have always fried your bacon or broiled it over a hot fire, try it broiled in this manner : Use any wire broiler or rack, spread out the slices just touching not covering one another on it, and placed over a dripping pan in a hot oven» Inferior bacon becomes fine tasting when broiled so, and best bacon delicious.

Hominy and Bacon — Ingredients — Three cups cold boiled hominy, % pound thinly sliced bacon, 1 teaspoon salt and pepper, sprigs of parsley. This makes a good breakfast dish. Method — Put the bacon in a hot pan and fry nice and brown, be sure and turn often. Remove the bacon on a hot platter and keep warm. Then put the hominy into the hot pan. Place over a quick fire and slightly brown. Dust with salt and pepper. Pile in center, parsley. A breakfast dish for cool mornings.

Fried Apples — A pleasant tart apple should be used, and those with thin skin. Wash and wipe, then slice without peel- ing. Put 2 spoonfuls of butter in a spider with a few spoon- fuls of hot water, pour in the apples and cover closely; do not stir them. When done, put a little sugar in a dish and pour the apples out over it and sift a little sugar over the top. Fall pippins are fine for this dish.

20 CLUB HOUSE COOK BOOK

Toast is not only an invalid's dish but is a delicious sub- stitute for the oatmeal or other cereal used by most people for breakfast, and is also often used with a cereal instead of other bread for breakfast. It is also very good if broken into bits and eaten with cream.

The usual way of putting a slice of bread on a fork, hold- ing it over a fire until brown on one side, then turning to brown on the other side, covering it with butter, is a sure way to indigestion if taken by a healthy person, and when given to an invalid is simply barbarous.

Toast, to be easily digested, should never be buttered, it covers up the starch and saturates the gluten. Cut a stale loaf of bread into slices and place them in a hot oven until they are a delicate brown all the way through, when they will be found crisp and brittle. When the bread is thoroughly l)rowned through and you have more than you wish to use, after it is cool, pack it away in a tin box and it will stay crisp for two or three days. Either brown or white bread makes a good toast but graham bread is to be preferred.

Cream Toast — A nice cream toast can be quickly prepared by taking a dozen or more of the crisp slices and dipping each into hot milk or hot water, and packing them closely together to moisten them through. Then take enough cream or new milk to completely cover them, boil with a little flour or cornstarch, flavor with salt and pour over toast.

Snow Flake Toast — One quart milk, ^ cup cream, a little salt, 1 tablespoon flour, whites of 2 eggs. Mix a tablespoon of flour with a little of the milk, and add when the rest of the milk is boiling hot. Let it cook until the milk has no raw taste. Have ready the whites of 2 eggs thoroughly beaten, and after the milk and cream are thoroughly cooked stir in the whites of the eggs and allow it to stay over the fire Y^ minute to coagulate the eggs. This quantity is enough for 12 slices of bread well toasted. Dip the slices in hot milk. Take out quickly and pack together for about 3 minutes. Pour the snow flake mixture over them.

BREAKFAST 21

Cream Toast With Poached Eggs — Prepare the toast as above, lay each slice neatly in a saucer before adding the cream dressing, and then finish with a delicately poached egg. Eggs broken into separate sauce dishes or patty pans and steamed until the whites are set, will look better than those slipped off of a saucer.

French Toast — Take pieces of stale bread not toasted, dip in milk and then in the beaten egg. Fry on both sides a nice brown. The more eggs, the better the toast.

One heaping tablespoonful of cofifee to each measuring cup of cold water. Beat up 1 whole egg and add about 1-3 of the egg to about six cups of the cold water. Thereby mak- ing 1 egg do three mornings for a small family. Stir all together and let come to a boil, then allow it to simmer gently for 8 or 10 minutes. This recipe is for those who like strong coffee. HANNAH STREET.

Coffee for many or few is seldom better than when this rule is followed : Four well rounded tablespoonfuls of finely ground coffee to 1 quart of water, allowing 1 egg to every gallon of coffee to be made. Stir egg and coffee well together and add cold all the water to be used, and put over the fire to boil. Stir frequently until the boiling point is reached. When the whole has boiled a few minutes, place it where it will no longer boil, but keep very hot.

This completes the breakfast and now we will have a few words to say about luncheon before going to dinner.

22 CLUB HOUSE COOK BOOK

Luncheon is not necessarily a meal, merely to use up left overs. The thrifty housewife will so arrange and gauge her meals never to have many left overs but I have a few rules here which will be a help to any housewife to follow :

1. When serving cold meat always have a soup.

2. When having a stew or hash or a meat prepared from left overs omit the soup.

3. When having boiled or fried fish omit the soup.

4. Have one hot vegetable either made of left overs or something you have not had for dinner.

5. Have a salad with cheese as the last course and no "dessert.

6. Always have a salad with fish.

7. When you have no salad you can have a light dessert, t)ut no ice-cream.

8. If fond of hot breads or biscuits luncheon is the time for them, then omitting the vegetable, using hot bread and preserves instead.

The foods for luncheon will be found in other parts of the book.

LUNCHEON 23

PARTY LUNCHEON

The following menu for luncheon is from a very old cook book and puts all the rules given to shame, for it says five or six courses make a dainty and toothsome repast. In winter have oysters on the half shell with a piece of cut, not sliced, lemon. Then serve a clear soup, or puree of tomatoes, asparagus or peas. For the third course, lamb chops, broiled or breaded with French peas ; with this mashed or browned potatoes. A salad should come next either of lettuce or to- matoes with mayonnaise or French dressing. Thin crackers with a good cheese should be passed with the salad. If you wish to order an ice from a confectioner do so ; if not some sweets, such as preserved ginger ; strawberries and cake should come next, followed by small cups of strong coffee with cream and sugar passed. Sweet breads could be used instead of chops.

24 CIvUB HOUSE COOK BOOK

" All human history attests That happiness for man — the hungry sinner Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner."

" Their various cares in one great point The business of their lives, that is — to dine combine."

Dinner is our next consideration, but it would be a waste of time to take it up as we did breakfast, for there is such an endless variety of dishes for dinner, both of meats and vege- tables; and of deserts there is no end. We are indebted to Congressman Dewalt for all that is said about meats, com- position and cooking, and economical use of meat in the home. It would be well for every housekeeper to have copies of Farmer's Bulletins Numbers 34 and 391 in their cook books.

There are many ways of serving a dinner. The most popular menu for a home, every day dinner, is soup, preferably a light one ; then one meat with usually two vegetables except in summer when two are served besides the potatoes which should always be in a dinner menu. We will give the recipes in the order in which they would be served at a dinner, be- ginning with soup.

" The onion is a homely plant, and rank as most that grows — And yet it beats to mix with soup the lily or the rose."

There are more than five hundred different kinds of soup, but they can be divided into a few distinct classes — such as broths, clear soups, thick soups and purees.

Broths — The unclarified liquor in which chicken, veal, beef, or mutton is cooked forms this class.

DINNER 25

Clear Soup — A good clear soup is made of double stock, that is good beef broth, strengthened with veal, to improve its flavor.

Thick Soups — Stock of any kind, white, brown or vege- tables, is used in these soups, but soups of this kind are usually garnished as well as thickened.

Purees — These soups differ from other thick soups be- cause they are thickened by the ingredients of which they are made, such as bisque of lobster, puree of peas, beans and lentils. But in all cases the substances composing the soup are rubbed through a sieve and served in the soup.

Flavoring for Soup — The ones most commonly used and easily obtained are turnips, carrots, onions, celery, parsley, thyme, bay leaf and potatoes.

Seasonings for Soup — In addition to salt and pepper which are the ordinary seasonings, but which must be added with caution, are nutmeg, allspice, mace, sugar and cinnamon, but often an overdose of these ruins a good soup.

A few general directions for stock will be found useful :

1. Beef makes the best brown stock, therefore stock for good consomme or clear soup should be made of beef or veal, and part of a fowl which gives it a better flavor.

2. White stock is made from veal bones and remains of poultry and calves' feet. The liquor in which calves' feet or poultry has been boiled makes a good white stock.

3. Stock meat should be lean and fresh as possible. Never wash meat unless you must, as it robs it of its flavor.

4. The usual allowance of water is 1 quart to each pound of meat.

5. The meat should stand in the water for a few minutes and be gradually heated until it reaches boiling point, then when the scum has been removed, it should be kept at sim- mering point.

26 CLUB HOUSE COOK BOOK

6. The vegetables should be either whole or in large pieces and be added after the stock has boiled.

7. Vegetables should be used sparingly, for too much seasoning often spoils and ruins a good soup.

8. To 4 quarts of water 1 carrot, 1 onion, y^ turnip and 1 stalk of celery, a teaspoon of salt, and some cooks say never use ground pepper, as it makes any soup cloudy, but to the above use 12 pepper corns.

9. The stock should simmer very slowly for 5 or 6 hours, then strained and the meat and sediment removed.

10. When cold all fat should be taken of? the top.

11. All unused stock should be boiled up every day in hot weather, and in cooler weather every two or three days.

Stock No. 2

Get a beef shank and cheap piece of lamb ; cook all day in salted water ; strain, and skim ofif all fat, and this makes a foundation for many fine soups.

Bouillon, consomme, or tomato soups are the favorite to begin a dinner, also a plain cream or milk soup seasoned highly with either celery, asparagus, potato, or corn. Each flavoring makes the soup.

The heavier soups such as vegetable, calf's head or clam chowder are best for luncheon.

French Bouillon — Take 5 or 6 pounds of the fleshy part of the shin of beef (the neck of beef is sometimes used), pour on the meat 3 quarts of cold water. When it has been brought to a boil, skim well and throw in IJ^ ounces of salt, a half dozen pepper corns, ^ dozen cloves and 2 blades of mace. Put in 2 small carrots, 1 turnip, 1 onion, and the heart of the root of celery or 2 stalks. The vegetables should be kept whole. A little caramel can be used to darken the soup. When it has simmered gently for 4 or 5 hours, take out the vegetables and meat and strain through a fine sieve. When perfectly cold, clear off every particle of fat. Heat again when using.

DINNER 27

Consomme — Place a saucepan with 2 quarts of boiling water over the fire, add part of a carrot, 1 finely cut onion, 2 stalks of celery, tie together J^ handful of barley, 1 bay leaf, 3 cloves, 6 whole peppers, add it also to the same pan, cover and boil 1 hour, then strain ; add 1 quart of soup stock ; season with salt and pepper (cayenne). If liked, add 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce.

Cream of Vegetable Soup — This soup is easily and quick- ly made if you will take the trouble to save small quantities of left overs in the vegetable line from several dinners ; tomatoes, peas, corn, a little rice or macaroni, an onion or two, parsley and celery. Put all together with enough water to boil. If you have no cold boiled potatoes, cut up a few raw ones and boil soft first. When everything is together add 1 quart of milk, bring to a boil, stir in a little flour mixed smooth with milk. A little Worcester sauce or kitchen boquet will im- prove it. YORK.

Clam Soup — One quart of clams, strain, boil liquor and skim. Put in as much water and milk as liquor. Run clams through grinder, season with pepper and salt, a pinch of curry and celery salt to taste, also a large piece of butter. Then throw in the clams. Take a tablespoon of flour, piece of butter the size of a walnut, mix with milk or water, and 3 hard boiled eggs chopped fine. Boil about 20 minutes.

MRS. SUSAN HUBER.

Puree of Split Peas — An excellent green soup. Soak 1 cup of green split peas over night. In the morning pour off any water that has not been absorbed and add to the peas 4 times their quantity of cold water. That is — if the soaked peas measure 2 cups, then you must add 8 cups of water. Add also ^ onion sliced to each quart of water. Stand over a slow fire and let simmer gently until the peas are soft. Rub through a sieve, season with salt and pepper and a little kitchen boquet and return to the fire. If the soup has sim- mered slowly, no thickening will be required. If obliged to hurry use 1 teaspoon flour and butter rubbed smooth to each quart of soup. Serve with slices of hard boiled eggs.

CLUB HOUSE COOK BOOK

Cherry Soup — For this most invigorating hot weather soup sweet or sour cherries may be used ; preferably sour ; 1 quart stoned cherries, 1 quart water, sugar to taste. Boil until cherries are transparent; thicken by adding 1 heaping table- spoonful of corn starch moistened with cold water. Boil until clear and serve piping hot to get best tonic effects. Not to be despised ice cold. This quantity will serve 8 persons.