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Some Kitchen Kinks (INSTEAD of shelling peas throw)
INSTEAD of shelling peas, throw them, pods and all, into a kettle of boiling water, after washing and discarding all spoiled ones. When they are done the pods will rise to the surface, while the peas will stay at the bottom of the kettle. Peas cooked in this manner have a fine flavor.
To hasten the baking of potatoes, I let them stand a few minutes in hot water, after washing them clean.
If you relish celery in soup and live where it cannot be secured the year round, dry the celery leaves as you get them and put them away in a fruit jar. When preparing soup, tie a few of the leaves in a cloth, and drop it into the kettle. You will find that the soup will have even more of the taste of celery than when using the stalk.
In making peanut butter, I mix the ground peanuts with cream or milk instead of olive oil, if I only desire a small quantity. It is delicious, although it does not keep longer than a few days.
Ham may be kept from getting hard and dry on the outside thus: take some of the fat part of the ham and fry it out. Let it get hard then spread on the cut end of the ham; half an inch thick is not too much.
This excludes air. Hang in a cool place. When I want to slice ham I scrape off this fat, and afterwards put it on again as before.
If your omelets burn because you have no "omelet pan," put a tablespoonful of common salt in the frying skillet. Put it on the stove and heat very hot. Empty salt from the pan, wipe it with a dry cloth. Cook the omelet with a small quantity of butter, and it will not burn easily.
Changing the water two or three times will keep potatoes from turning dark, and if they have been frostbitten this will improve them. Before trying to break a cocoanut put it in the oven to warm. When heated a slight blow will crack it, and the shell will come off easily.
A layer of absorbent cotton in the mouth of fruit cans is an excellent preventive against mold. If mold should form, it will cling to the cotton and leave the fruit clean. A delicious kind of sandwich was served with coffee at a recent club meeting. It took the fancy of each and every one. After tasting, some one asked the hostess of what it was made. She politely replied, "The recipe was sent to me from a friend in an Eastern city, with the strict injunction I should not publish it." Immediately all began guessing. A nod from the hostess informed one girl' she had guessed right. Here is the recipe: One cake of Philadelphia cream cheese, mixed with canned.
Spanish peppers, chopped fine. One large pepper is sufficient for one cake of cheese.
To keep cream sweet heat it to almost boiling point, put it in a glass bottle or earthen vessel, cover, and set aside to cool. Cream thus treated will keep sweet and fresh several days, in SOME KITCHEN KINKS moderate weather, and over the second day in warm weather. When making fudge, stir in half a pound of marshmallows before you turn it into the tin to cool. They melt immediately and make the candy as smooth and creamy as can be.
If you want nicely flavored butter, with the buttermilk well worked out, try putting in a teaspoonful of clear honey to about three pounds of butter. You can not taste the honey but it improves the butter.
When using grated or sliced pineapple for sauce the juice of half a lemon with sugar and water added gives a delicious flavor.
To give frosting a nice flavor add a bit of butter, the size of a hickory nut. It will also prevent the frosting from becoming hard too soon.
To prevent staining your fingers, while paring potatoes keep the potatoes in cold water. Gruels are more tempting to the sick if whipped to a froth with an egg-beater before serving in a pretty cup.
When baking cookies, use a large round pancake griddle to bake them on. First heat it on top of the range, and have it well greased.
If a kitchen window is kept open two inches at the top while frying foods, boiling cabbage or other odorous vegetables, the unpleasant odor will go out of the window instead of spreading through the house.
After boiling salt ham or tongue remove it from the fire and plunge at once in cold water. This instantly loosens the skin, which then pulls off without any trouble. Treat beets the same way.
Try baking bread in a meat roaster with a top. This keeps the bread from browning on the upper side before it is done through-thus browning it evenly all over.
Prune pies are improved by adding one teaspoonful of vinegar to each pie. Prunes are rather flat tasting so the vinegar cuts the sweetness.
Rack to Set Under Hot Kettles.
On making cake when fresh milk, buttermilk, molasses, and sour milk, are lacking, use a cup of apple sauce into which has been stirred a teaspoonful of baking soda. Besides being an excellent substitute, the sauce makes a delicious spice cake, and without eggs, too.
When spreading butter on sandwiches or toast, do not try to soften the butter, but heat a silver knife by placing it in boiling water. The difficulty is overcome at once. When a recipe calls for sugar and flour, instead of moistening the flour with water or milk, stir flour and sugar together in the dry state. Then no lumps will be seen.
If one cannot afford much cream when making ice cream, a small quantity will go farther and be richer if whipped or scalded. In summer, milk sherbet, made with lemons and gelatin, is inexpensive, very delicious, and a refreshing substitute for cream.
Much can be done at night in preparation for breakfast. For instance, if baked potatoes are to be included in the menu, wash them; and sift flour or meal for muffins.
When we bake apples in the usual way, after coring and putting in sugar and water, the juice runs into the MRS. CURTIS'S COOKBOOK dish and is burned or wasted, as it naturally will not stay in the hole. After coring, cut the apple in two, and make the center of the trench in the apple deeper; fill it with sugar, laying the cut half of each one upwards.
To economize stove space when making rice soup I place a cup containing the rice in the soup kettle. It serves the purpose of a double boiler.
It also prevents scorching or the soup boiling over, the latter generally being caused by the addition of rice.
To keep cheese moist, wrap it in a soft cloth wrung out of vinegar, and keep in an earthen jar, with the cover slightly raised.
To clean lettuce is often a nuisance, because of tiny green insects or their eggs in it. Turn on the cold water faucet slightly, put your thumb against it so the stream squirts with force, and hold each leaf, with the broad end in the hand, under the water for a few seconds. Rinse, and it is ready for the table.