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Some Kitchen Kinks: Lettuce

Lettuce. If lettuce has grown until rather too old for salad, it may be cooked, and makes a fairly palatable dish.

Boiled Lettuce. - Wash four or five heads of lettuce, carefully removing thick, bitter stalks and retaining all sound leaves. Cook in plenty of boiling salted water for ten or fifteen minutes, then blanch in cold water for a minute or two. Drain, chop lightly, and heat in a stewpan with some butter, salt and pepper to taste.

If preferred, the chopped lettuce may be heated with a pint of white sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg. After simmering for a few minutes in the sauce, draw to a cooler part of the range and stir in the well-beaten yolks of two eggs. See, also, "Peas with lettuce."

Swiss Chards. This vegetable is a variety of beet in which the leaf stalk and midrib have been developed instead of the root. It is cultivated like spinach, and the green, tender leaves are prepared exactly like this vegetable. The midribs of the fullgrown leaves may be cooked like celery.

Beet Greens.-Beets are usually thickly sowed, and as the young beet plants begin to grow they must be The young plants thinned out. pulled from the bed make delicious greens, particularly if the root has attained some little size. Unfortunately, of late years the leaves are attacked by insects; therefore, they must be examined leaf by leaf, and all which are infested rejected. Do not separate the roots from the leaves. Wash thoroughly in many waters. Put into a stewpan and cover generously with boiling water.

Add a teaspoonful of salt for every two quarts of greens. Boil rapidly until tender. This will be about thirty minutes. Drain off the water, chop rather coarse, season with butter and salt.

The vegetable may be boiled with pork as directed for "Cabbage and pork."

Asparagus. This delicious spring vegetable should be treated very simply, yet carefully. Cut off the woody part, scrape the lower part of the stalks. Wash well and tie in bunches. Put into a deep stewpan, with the cut end resting on the bottom of the stewpan. Pour in boiling water to come up to the tender heads, but not to cover them. Add a teaspoonful of salt for each Place where the quart of water. water will boil. Cook until tender, having the cover partially off the stewpan. This will be from fifteen to thirty minutes, depending upon the freshness and tenderness of the vegetable. Have some slices of well toasted bread on a platter. Butter them slightly. Arrange the cooked asparagus on the toast, season with butter and a little salt and serve at once. Save the water in which the asparagus was boiled to use in making vegetable soup. Another method of cooking asparagus is to cut all the tender part into short pieces. Add boiling water enough to just cover the vegetable and place where the water will boil.

Cook until tender (about fifteen minutes), season with salt and butter, and serve in the greater part of the juice.

If preferred, a cream dressing may be served with asparagus.

Globe Artichoke. -The large flower bud of the Cynara scolymus is known as the globe or French artichoke.

The flower buds must be used before they open. The edible portion consists of the thickened portion at the base of the scales and the receptacle to which the leaf-like scales are attached. In cookery books the receptacles are always spoken of as the bottoms. The parts of the flower in the center of the bud are called the "choke" and must always be removed.

When the artichoke is very young and tender the edible parts may be eaten raw as a salad. When it becomes hard, as it does very quickly, it must be cooked. When boiled it may be eaten as a salad or with a sauce. The scales are pulled with the fingers from the cooked head, the base of each leaf dipped in the sauce and then eaten. The bottoms (receptacles), which many consider the most delicate part of the artichoke, may be cut up and served as a salad, or they may be stewed and served with a sauce. To prepare the artichoke remove all the hard outer leaves.

Cut off the stem close to the leaves.

Cut off the top of the bud. Drop the artichokes into boiling water and cook until tender, which will take from thirty to fifty minutes, then take up and remove the choke. Serve a dish of French salad dressing with the artichokes, which may be eaten either hot or cold. Melted butter also makes a delicious sauce for the artichokes if they are eaten hot.

Spring Greens. After months of a very limited supply of herbaceous vegetables, which is the usual condition in the northern regions of the United States, there is a craving for "greens." In almost all localities many of the common weeds are tender and well-flavored when very young. If one has a garden, it can be so managed that there shall be an abundance of fresh roots and greens until the time when the regular garden products are ready. There are a number of plants that may be left in the garden over winter for early spring use.

Jerusalem artichokes, parsnips, salsify, leeks, and potato onions will give roots or buds as soon as the frost will permit digging. For greens there are such plants as curled green kale, and cabbage. The roots of these plants should be well earthed up, and when the real hard freezing weather comes the plants must be covered with hay or straw.

Spinach and kale, or German winter greens, may be sown in September. When the hard freezing weather comes protect them with leaves, straw, etc. Sorrel, if properly protected, will make a rapid growth as soon as anything begins to grow. It makes delicious greens by itself, or it may be cooked with other greens. It also makes a refreshing salad. The young shoots of the milkweed are almost as delicious as asparagus, when cooked according to the second method for cooking asparagus. In fact, the milkweed and asparagus may be cut up and cooked together.

The white goosefoot (Chenopodium album), better known by the common names "pigweed" and "lamb's quarters," grows in almost all cultivated land. When very young it makes good greens, and should be cooked like spinach. The dandelion, when gathered before the flower bud has attained any size, makes tender greens, and is greatly liked by many people because of its pleasant, bitter flavor. The cultivated dandelion is larger leaved, more tender, and of a milder flavor, and is also a fine salad if blanched like celery. A small bed of this vegetable will give a generous return in the spring, for the small amount of care it requires.

The marsh marigold, commonly called "cowslip," is found in many regions in marshy places. In the early spring this plant makes good greens. Cook the same as spinach.

Purslane is a weed common in most gardens and is very palatable as a pot herb. It is also cooked like spinach.

In the Southern States the young shoots of the pokeberry or poke tops APPENDIX are favorite greens, and are cooked like asparagus, while turnip sprouts, cabbage sprouts, and collards are favorite greens of garden origin. In some regions of Europe young hop sprouts are much prized, being cooked like asparagus. Though eaten to some extent, they do not seem to be known to many housewives in this country.