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Half-A-Can Recipes

ONE of the difficulties of using canned goods in cooking for one or two is that only part of a can can be eaten at one time, and we do not always know just what to do with the rest. Because I found this trying, I began to play tricks on my canned goods and reduced some of my old-time standard recipes to fit my smaller pans. In this way I learned a variety of ways for using each can, so that there is neither waste nor a needless repetition of dishes. With the necessarily small refrigerator of a kitchenette, it is likewise impossible to keep a lot of left-overs, so by using these recipes I avoid them.

In opening a can of any vegetable, and Half-a-Can Recipes sometimes of fruit that is not to be served again for a week or so, I pour it out at once, always at once, one half to be used and the other half put into a saucepan to be heated up to the boiling point and poured into a sterilized half-pint jar. After sealing and cooling, these can be set into the refrigerator. It takes but a few minutes to do this, but it saves a monotonous repetition of the same food.

Canned goods used most frequently in this way are corn, peas, tomatoes, asparagus, string beans, lima beans, baked beans, beets, and salmon. All but the beets are used for cream soups. I have one basic recipe which can be adapted to any vegetable in making a cream soup to serve two or three persons.

Basic Recipe for Eight Cream Soups 1 tablespoonful butter 1 tablespoonful flour 2 cupfuls milk teaspoonful salt to 1 cupful vegetable pulp Melt the butter, add the flour and salt, and remove from the flame while stirring in the milk. Cook up the vegetable and mash through a strainer, or merely dice up very fine and heat for a hurry-up soup.

Cook up the milk and flour, and when it has boiled for three minutes pour in the hot vegetable pulp - except in tomato soup.

Remove from the fire at once, give it a few turns with the Dover egg beater, and serve.

Seven Creamed Dishes The only difference between the cream soups and creamed dishes is that for the one tablespoonful each of butter and flour, one cupful instead of two cupfuls of milk is used, and the vegetables are added whole or in pieces rather than mashed. Corn, peas, asparagus, string beans, lima beans, beets, and salmon are all delicious when served in this way. They may be served on hot toast, in little toasted bread cases Half-a-Can Recipes made by cutting out boxes of stale bread and buttering and toasting them in the oven, or in pattie cases. Baking-powder biscuit dough can be used for pattie cases by rolling out to a quarter of an inch in thickness and cutting two rounds, cutting a smaller round out of one of these. The ring so made is placed on top of the first round, moistened with a bit of milk to unite them in the baking. With a sharp-pointed knife cut out the soft center part and fill with the creamed dish made.