VEGETABLES.

TIME-TABLE FOR VEGETABLES.

PEAS, potatoes, asparagus, corn, summer squash, tomatoes, rice, spinach, half an hour.

Young beets, young turnips, young carrots and parsnips, baked potatoes (sweet and Irish), also string beans, three quarters of an hour.

New onion, new cabbage, winter squash, oyster plant, cauliflower, shelled beans, shelled peas one hour.

Winter carrots, onions, cabbage, turnips, beets and mushrooms, two hours.

Always have your vegetables as fresh as possible. Before putting on to boil pick over carefully and lay them, when peeled, in cold water and let them remain there for half an hour before cooking. Put on to boil in salted water. Be sure that they are thoroughly done and always serve steaming hot.

No vegetable, perhaps, is, as a rule, more carelessly cooked than the potato. This is to be regretted, as it is one of the most valuable of vegetable foods, and no dinner is complete without it. The most economical method is to cook them in their "jackets," as the waste caused by paring is at least fourteen per cent., while when cooked in the skin, it is but five per cent. The salts, moreover, which add flavor to the potato, lie next to the skin, and they are largely lost when peeled. Potatoes should be put on to boil in hot water, allowing half an hour to boil. When done, pour off the water and set them on the back of the stove to dry before serving. Don't forget to salt--about a tablespoonful.

Pare very thin and lay in cold water for half an hour. Have ready a pot of boiling water, salted, of course, drop in the potatoes and keep them at a quick boil until tender. Drain off the water, sprinkle with a little fine salt and put a lump of butter over them. Shake the pot and add a little chopped parsley or chives and serve immediately, as potatoes spoil if kept standing too long.

Select fine, smooth potatoes and boil them about twenty minutes. Drain off the water, remove the skins and pack in a buttered dish. Lay a small piece of butter on each potato, sprinkle with salt and pepper and sprinkle fine bread crumbs over all, with a few tablespoonfuls of cream. Bake until a nice light brown. Serve in the same dish. Garnish with parsley

Old potatoes may be used (in fact it is the only way that old potatoes should be sent to the table). Pare and let them lie in cold water until time to cook. Boil in salt water, drain thoroughly when done and mash them in the pot with a potato masher, working in a large tablespoonful of nice butter and enough milk to make them resemble dough, and be sure not to allow any lumps to form in your dish. Garnish with parsley.

Scrape off all the skins and boil for half an hour in salted water, drain, salt and dry for a few minutes and then pour melted butter over them and sprinkle with parsley.

Pare and quarter, soak in cold water and put on to boil. When almost done drain off the water, add a cupful of milk, a tablespoonful of butter, a little chopped parsley and cook awhile longer. Thicken with a little flour (wet with cold water or milk), stir, and take from the fire. You may use soup stock in place of milk as some prefer it.

Put a tablespoonful of drippings or butter in a porcelain-lined kettle, and when it is hot cut up an onion fine and throw it in the hot fat, and cover closely. Then put in your potatoes, which have been previously pared, washed quartered and well salted. Cover them tight and stew slowly until soft, stirring them occasionally. Then heat in a spider a very little butter or drippings. Brown in this a spoonful of flour and add some soup stock, vinegar and chopped parsley. Pour this over the potatoes, boil up once and serve.

Wash large potatoes (Prince Alberts are best) and bake in a quick oven until soft, which will take about three quarters of an hour (to be eaten with butter and salt). This is the most wholesome way of cooking potatoes, and the only way that invalids should ever eat them.

Take small potatoes, pare and wash them very clean, use one onion to about ten potatoes, add butter or goose-oil (in fact any kind of drippings from roast meat will answer) and put them in a pot or spider. When hot cut up an onion very fine and throw in the boiling fat. Then add the potatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour some water over all (not too much), cover up tight and let them simmer for about three quarters of an hour. These are very nice. If you like them sour, you may add a little vinegar, which is also very nice.

Cut up some raw potatoes quite thin, salt and pepper and throw in boiling fat in a spider. Cover up at first, to soften them. Turn them frequently to prevent burning and then remove the cover to brown slightly.

Get a spider made for this purpose, and proceed as above; but do not cover and do not take as many potatoes at one time.

Take potatoes left from the day before or some that you have just cooked in their "jackets," pare, slice, add more salt if necessary and add a very little pepper. Heat some butter or fat in a spider, and if you like, add some chopped onion before you put in the potatoes. Fry, turning frequently and carefully so as not to burn or break up the slices. Add more butter if necessary.

Take mashed potatoes and season with nutmeg, pepper and salt. Add one or two eggs, well beaten, and mix together well and make into balls. After having floured your hands well turn the puffs over in cracker or bread crumbs and fry in hot fat. This is a nice way to use up cold mashed potatoes left over from the day before, and make a nice side dish, especially for breakfast.

This is rather a troublesome dish, and requires considerable time and patience to prepare, as they are to represent "new potatoes." Of course this is only done when new ones are not to be had or are too expensive. Well, to begin: First buy a potato cutter at a first-class hardware store, and with it cut the potatoes to the size of a hickory nut, and then fry or steam them. When cooked they look just like new potatoes. They are especially nice to garnish meats. You may also parboil and brown in fat, or boil and add parsley as you would with new potatoes. The remainder of the raw potatoes may be boiled and mashed or fried into ribbons; for there is a good deal of waste in cutting with this little instrument.

Pare and lay in cold water (ice-water is best) for half an hour. Select the largest potatoes, then cut round and round in one continuous curl-like strip (there is also an instrument for this purpose, which costs but a trifle); handle with care and fry a few at a time for fear of entanglement. Arrange nicely on a platter and serve. Use plenty of fat, as they must swim in it. They garnish meats handsomely.

These are commonly called "baked" sweet potatoes. Select those of uniform size; wash, and roast in the oven until done, which you can easily tell by pressing the potatoes. If done they will leave an impression when touched. It usually requires three-quarters of an hour. Serve in their "jackets;" Eat with nice butter.

Put on in cold water, without any salt, and boil until a fork will easily pierce the largest. Drain off the water and dry.

Boil, peel and cut lengthwise into slices a quarter of an inch thick. Fry in sweet drippings or butter (cold boiled potatoes may also be fried in this way). When I roast fowl or meat of any kind, I take either sweet or Irish potatoes, or both, pare, wash, salt them and lay them around the meat and let them roast for about an hour (three quarters of an hour will do). Turn them about once, so as to have them nicely browned. They are best cooked this simple way, and, being in the oven, require less room.

Pare, wash and boil potatoes until soft enough to mash well. Drain off nearly all the water, leaving just a little, add a small handful of salt and return to the stove. It is better to boil the potatoes in salt water and add more salt if necessary after mashing. Sift half a cupful of flour into the potatoes after returning to the fire and keep covered closely for about five minutes. Then remove from the stove and mash them as hard as you can, so as not to have any lumps. They must be of the consistency of dough and smooth as velvet. Now put about two large spoonfuls of goosefat in a spider, chop up some onions very fine and heat them until they become a light brown, take a tablespoon and dip it in the hot fat. and then cut a spoonful of the potato dough with the same spoon and put it in the spider, and so on until you have used it all up. Be careful to dip your spoon in the hot fat every time you cut a puff. Let them brown slightly. If you have ever tried this you will always have this dish at least once a week during the winter, as old potatoes are always palatable prepared in this way.

Select young, evergreen sugar corn, fullgrown. Test by pressing it with your finger nail and if good, the milk will escape readily. Strip off the outer leaves, turn back the inner ones, pick off every thread of silk, and re-cover the ear with the thin husk nearest it. Put into boiling salt water and boil closely covered from twenty to thirty minutes. When done, cut off the stalks close to the cob and rub off the remaining husks with a napkin. Send to the table steaming hot. Eat with butter, salt and pepper.

Pour boiling water over ripe tomatoes and skin them. Then cut them up and put them into an earthern or porcelain-lined stew-pan, and let them cook slowly a few minutes. Season with salt, pepper and a lump of fresh butter and a heaping tablespoonful of brown sugar. Do not allow them to cook but a few minutes longer, or their flavor will be spoiled. If the sauce is too thin thicken with a scant teaspoonful of corn starch, wet with a little cold water, before adding. Eat cold or hot.

Strip off the young leaves and boil in salt water. Then peel the heads thickly, cut into round, thin slices, and lay in cold water for an hour. Put on to boil a breast of mutton or lamb, which has been previously well salted, and spice with a little ground ginger. When the mutton has boiled half an hour add the sliced kohlraben and boil covered. In the meantime, drain all the water from the leaves, which you have boiled separately, and chop them, but not too fine, and add them also to the mutton. When done thicken with flour, season with pepper and more salt if needed. You may omit the leaves if you are not fond of them.

Pick off the leaves and cut the stalk close to the bottom of the flower, being careful not to break the bunch. Lay it in cold salt water for half an hour and examine carefully for fear of worms lurking among the flowers. Tie the cauliflower in a napkin or some coarse net and put it in hot water to boil, adding salt, of course. Boil about fifteen minutes steady; then lift the cauliflower up carefully, lay in a hot vegetable dish and cover until the following sauce has been prepared: Heat a cupful of cream; beat the yelks of two eggs light, wet a teaspoonful of corn starch with a little cold milk, and add a little grated nutmeg. Add all of this to the heated cream, boil up once, pour over the cauliflower and serve immediately. It darkens with standing. You may omit the eggs if you prefer, and use half a cupful of the water the cauliflower was boiled in, and add a lump of butter.

Boil a head of cabbage as directed below. When it is cold, chop up quite fine and beat up a couple of eggs, a tablespoonful of butter and half a cup of sweet cream. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. Stir up well, mix thoroughly with the cabbage and bake in a buttered dish. Eat hot.

Reject the outer green leaves, cut the cabbage in quarters and lay for an hour in cold water. Then put it on to boil in hot water for fifteen minutes. Pour off this water and fill up again with boiling water; add salt and boil until tender. Always boil cabbage in two waters. Three quarters of an hour will be all the time required to cook a good-sized head of cabbage when young. Drain well, heat some nice drippings or butter in a spider, throw in a tablespoonful of flour, stir slowly, add some soup stock gravy from roast beef, or cream; season with white pepper and salt and pour over the cabbage. You may boil some potatoes with the cabbage. Cut them into dice shape.

I can't help but stop to laugh at a "young housekeeper," a very dear friend of mine, who once bought a quart of spinach for a company dinner of six. You may imagine her surprise and chagrin when the spinach was served in a saucer, for the maid-of-all-work could not serve it in a vegetable dish; as there was no spinach to be seen, for the eggs completely covered it. I have written this for your benefit, "Housekeeper." Spinach is very deceptive as regards quantity--it shrinks dreadfully after being boiled. A peck of spinach for a family of five or six is not too much. Pick it over carefully, break off all the stems, using the leaves only and wash in several waters, shaking it well in last washing. Set to boil in boiling water, adding salt, of course. Boil about fifteen minutes, drain thoroughly through a sieve and chop extremely fine. Indeed, I consider this as important as the seasoning. You must chop the spinach so fine that it will resemble a smooth batter. Now heat some drippings or butter in a saucepan, rub a teaspoonful of flour in it, add salt and pepper and a little nutmeg to taste, grate in a small onion and add some soup stock to the whole, or some meat gravy left over from roast beef, or any other meat gravy that you may be fortunate enough to have on hand. Put the spinach in the sauce, and just before serving beat up two or more eggs and stir through the spinach. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs or use only the hard-boiled whites for the decoration, and rub the yelks to a powder and mix through the spinach.

Heat with milk and add a piece of nice butter, pepper and salt. Serve hot, in individual dishes.

Pare potatoes, put on to boil as usual, with salt. When done throw off almost all the water, leaving just a little. Then set back on the fire and sift on them about half a cupful of flour; cover them up and let them steam for about five minutes. Now take them off and mash them with a potato-beetle as hard as you can, until they are a perfectly smooth dough; taste, and be sure you have them well salted. Now brown some onion, cut up very fine, in goose fat (enough of it), dip a tablespoon in the heated fat and cut out puffs with it from your potato dough, lay each puff in the spider with the heated fat and onion until all is used up. Serve hot. You may use butter in place of fat if you so prefer.

Work into two cups of mashed potatoes a tablespoonful of melted butter--work until smooth and soft; then add two eggs beaten to a froth, and beat all together with a wooden spoon. Season with salt and nutmeg, and roll into balls, with floured hands. Roll each in beaten egg and cracker crumbs; fry in hot butter or fat. As soon as fried, drain perfectly dry.

Heat the asparagus and pour over it the following sauce: Take a cupful of the sauce off the asparagus, providing it is not bitter (if it is, do not use it), or a cupful of soup stock or water; add a tablespoonful of flour, three tablespoonfuls of sweet cream, grated nutmeg, a lump of butter and pour over the asparagus. Then remove from the fire, or it will curdle. For a large family you may double the quantity.

Salt, pepper; add a lump of butter the size of an egg and add a tablespoonful of sugar. Thicken with a teaspoonful of corn starch wet with a tablespoonful of cold water, stir into the tomatoes and boil up once.

Pare, cut lengthwise, salt and put them around roast meats or poultry of any kind. Roast about three-quarters of an hour, or until brown.

Cut fine on slaw-cutter; salt, mix well and cut up a sour apple with it. Now take a porcelain-lined kettle; heat in it about a tablespoonful of goose oil or drippings; cut up an onion very fine, throw it in the cabbage and stew slowly, covered up. Add a little hot water after it has boiled about five minutes. When tender put in a little vinegar, a few cloves, some brown sugar and a little cinnamon; taste, if necessary add more sugar.

Clean them nicely, but do not pare them. Leave on a short piece of the stalk so as to keep them a nice red. Put on to boil, well covered with water. Young beets will cook tender in an hour; old ones require several hour's boiling. When done, skin quickly while hot, and slice them into a bowl. Put on salt, pepper and a tablespoonful of brown sugar, some carawy seed, and pour vinegar over all. Another way to prepare beets is to grate them and mix with equal parts of grated horseradish. Very nice.

Pare and grate over a hot stove or where there is a draught of air (do this to prevent shedding too many tears). Use white wine vinegar and add a tablespoonful of sugar. Keep air-tight.

Cut off the tops and bottoms and "string" carefully; break the beans in pieces about an inch long and lay them in cold water, with a little salt, for ten or fifteen minutes. Heat some drippings or butter in a stew-pan, in which you have cut up part of an onion and some parsley; cover this and stew about ten minutes. In the meantime, drain the beans, put into the stew-pan and stew until tender, adding a little soup stock now and then. Sift in a spoonful of flour and season with salt and pepper; add meat gravy or soup stock--this will improve them. You may pare about half a dozen potatoes, cut into dice shape, and add to the beans. If you prefer, you may add cream or milk instead of soup stock.

Pare the carrots and cut them into finger lengths, in thin strips. Put a breast of lamb or mutton on to boil, having previously salted it well. When boiling, throw in the carrots and cover closely. Prepare the cabbage as usual and lay in with the mutton and carrots; boil two hours at least; when all has boiled tender, skim off some of the fat and put it into a spider. Add to this a spoonful of flour, a spoonful of brown sugar and half a teaspoonful of cinnamon. Keep adding gravy from the mutton until well mixed, and pour all over the mutton and vegetables. Serve together on a platter. Very fine; even better warmed over. In salting the mutton add a little ground ginger. You will find it improves the flavor of the stew very much.

Cut off both ends of the beans, string them carefully and break into pieces about an inch in length and boil in salt water. When tender drain off this brine and add fresh water (boiling from the kettle). Add a piece of butter, three or four large potatoes cut into squares, also four large tomatoes, cut up and season with salt and pepper. Now melt a tablespoonful of butter in a spider, stir into it a spoonful of flour, thin with soup stock, meat gravy or milk, and add this to the beans.

Cut from the cob enough green corn to fill a pint measure; then take two-thirds of a pint of Lima beans and let them stew in just enough water or milk to cover them. When tender season with butter, pepper and salt; if too thin, thicken with a teaspoonful of flour.

Shell and put into cold water and let them remain in it for half an hour before boiling. Drain and put into boiling water and cook until tender. Pour off the water, add a little cream and butter, and season with pepper and salt. Let them simmer in this dressing for a few minutes before serving. You may boil a few tomatoes with the beans if you like; very nice for a change. Dried Lima beans should be soaked over night and allowed two hours to cook.

Select large, smooth tomatoes; wash, wipe and cut in halves. Place them in a baking tin, skin side down. Season with salt and pepper, and place in a hot oven. When done take up carefully, place in the dish you intend to serve them in, putting flakes of butter over each one.

Cut large, sound tomatoes in halves and flour the insides thickly. Season with a little salt and pepper. Allow the butter to get very hot before putting in the tomatoes. When brown on one side, turn and when done serve with hot cream or thicken some milk and pour over the tomatoes hot.

Scald the tomatoes and pare off all the skin. Line an earthen baking dish, well-buttered, with a layer of cracker crumbs and small bits of butter. Then put in a layer of tomatoes with a very little brown sugar sprinkled over them; then another layer of cracker crumbs, seasoned with butter, pepper and salt, and then another layer of tomatoes, until your dish is filled; let the last layer be cracker crumbs; put flakes of butter here and there over this. Bake half an hour. One or two tablespoonfuls of rich cream poured over the top layer is an improvement.

Use the imported canned peas for "extra occasions." Heat, add a tablespoonful of sugar, some minced parsley and a teaspoonful of flour wet with cold water to thicken. A piece of fresh butter improves them. You may prepare them in sweet cream, which is also very nice. Use about half a cupful with a teaspoonful of flour.

If you use canned string beans, heat some fat in a spider and put in a spoonful of flour; brown slightly; add a handful of brown sugar, a pinch of salt, some cinnamon and vinegar to taste; then add the beans and let them simmer on the back of the stove, but do not let them burn.

The juice of pickled peaches or pears is delicious in preparing sweet and sour beans.

Must be soaked over night, then boiled in salted water until tender; drain and prepare same as sour beans, or with salt and pepper, and thicken by heating some butter or drippings in a spider. Stir in a spoonful of flour and some soup stock. Pour this over the beans and boil for a few minutes.

Pare and throw into hot salted water and boil. After boiling half an hour change the water, renewing the water three times, using boiling water each time. Fifteen minutes before time to serve, heat in a saucepan a little sweet cream (half a teacupful), adding a spoonful of butter, and stir all the time until the butter is melted. Season with salt and pepper. Drain the onions out of the water and boil them up once in this hot cream.

Scrape the roots thoroughly and drop each into cold water as soon as cleaned. Cut in pieces an inch long; put into a stew-pan with enough hot salted water to just cover them, and stew until tender. Then pour off most all the water, add about a pint of milk and boil ten minutes longer. Add a piece of butter, pepper and salt and thicken with flour.

Scrape the roots and drop each into cold water as soon as it is cleaned, and leave them in the water about fifteen minutes. Boil whole until tender. Drain when cold and mash with a potato beetle, picking out all the fibres. Mix with a little milk, about a tablespoonful of butter, salt, pepper and two eggs; beat the eggs light before adding. Make into round cakes, dip in hot flour and fry in hot butter a light brown.

Cut the egg plant into very thick slices; pare carefully and lay them in salt water for half an hour; then wipe each piece dry and dip in beaten egg and cracker crumbs; fry in hot butter until nice brown.

Scald the tomatoes cut into quarters and put on to boil with a lump of butter about the size of a walnut, Add a punch of salt, pepper and two tablespoonfuls of sugar. Boil until soft--then strain and thicken with a teaspoonful of corn starch. Serve either hot or cold. This is a nice accompaniment to any kind of meat chops.