Southern Fruit Cake
1 cupful sugar 1 cupful Crisco 1 cupful mola.s.ses 1/2 cupful sour cream 3 cupfuls flour 1 teaspoonful salt 1/2 teaspoonful baking soda 3 eggs 1 teaspoonful powdered cinnamon 1 cupful seeded raisins 1/2 cupful currants 1/4 teaspoonful grated nutmeg 1/2 teaspoonful powdered cloves 1/2 teaspoonful powdered allspice
Cream Crisco and sugar thoroughly together, then add mola.s.ses, cream, flour, soda, eggs well beaten, salt, spices, and fruit. Mix well and turn into Criscoed and papered cake tin and bake in slow oven one and a half hours.
Sufficient for one large cake.
The Wholesome Parkin
1 cupful flour 1/2 cupful melted Crisco 2 cupfuls fine oatmeal 3/4 cupful mola.s.ses 3 tablespoonfuls sugar 1/4 teaspoonful salt 1 egg 1 teaspoonful powdered ginger 1/4 teaspoonful powdered allspice 1/2 teaspoonful powdered cinnamon 1/2 teaspoonful baking soda
Melt Crisco and mix with mola.s.ses, then add sugar, egg well beaten, salt, soda, spices, flour, and oatmeal. Mix and pour into small square Criscoed tin and bake in moderate oven thirty-five minutes. This little cake is excellent when a week old.
Sufficient for one small cake.
Whole Wheat Gingerbread
4 tablespoonfuls sugar 1/2 cupful Crisco 2 eggs 1 teaspoonful baking soda 1/4 cupful milk 2 cupfuls flour 2 cupfuls whole wheat flour 1/2 cupful seeded raisins 1/2 teaspoonful salt 1-1/2 cupfuls mola.s.ses 1/2 cupful chopped nut meats 1 teaspoonful powdered ginger 1/2 teaspoonful powdered mace 1 teaspoonful powdered cinnamon 3 tablespoonfuls chopped candied lemon peel
Mix flours, then add peel, raisins, nuts, spices, and salt. Melt Crisco, mola.s.ses, and sugar, then cool, and add them with eggs well beaten, with soda mixed with milk. Mix well and turn into Criscoed and floured cake tin. Bake in moderate oven one hour.
Sufficient for one large cake of gingerbread.
VEGETARIAN DISHES
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Even those who are by no means decided vegetarians may be glad to pa.s.s over a dinner occasionally without meat. It is perhaps not too much to say that every housekeeper ought to be able to provide a meal without the aid of meat. We do not mean by this simply the cooking of vegetables or the preparations of puddings, but the presentation of dishes intended to take the place of flesh, such as soups and broths made without meat, vegetable stews, lentil fritters and other healthful and nutritious dishes. A vegetarian menu is not so simple as it sounds. It requires knowledge and discrimination on the housekeeper"s part to serve a solid meal without flesh or fowl.
Now that meat is so dear it is the favorable moment to try a vegetable diet for a time. One mistake to be avoided in this catering is the putting down of too many dishes of a pulpy character--food which is soft is excellent with other things, but alone it is neither satisfying nor very nourishing, at least to a person of strong digestion. All of them should not be white, for instance, and the same rule holds good in other things besides color. A nice dish for this kind of diet is a vegetable curry, in which all the vegetables are treated like meat and turned out crisp; all the vegetables, too, must be fresh and young for this method of serving, so that anything like stringiness is absolutely impossible.
Crisco is entirely vegetable.
Bean Cutlets
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1 tablespoonful flour 1/2 cupful bean liquor Salt and pepper to taste 2 eggs 1/4 lb. dried beans A few cooked mixed vegetables Breadcrumbs
Soak beans in water twenty-four hours, then boil for several hours till quite tender, drain them, preserving liquor, chop them very fine; blend Crisco with flour in saucepan over fire, add bean liquor, beans, salt and pepper, and yolks of eggs; turn out on to a dish and set aside till cold. Then cut out with cutlet-cutter or shape with knife; dip in beaten whites of the eggs, then in fine breadcrumbs, repeat a second time, and fry in hot Crisco. Serve on hot platter decorated with a few hot cooked mixed vegetables. Sufficient for eight cutlets.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Devilled Bananas
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1/2 teaspoonful salt 8 bananas 1 teaspoonful chopped pickles Few grains red pepper, or 1 dessertspoonful chopped chillies
Slice bananas, mix with salt, chopped pickles and red pepper or chopped chillies and put them into hot Crisco. Cook for four minutes and serve. Sufficient for eight bananas.
Cauliflower Snow
2 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco 2 cauliflowers 4 poached eggs Salt and paprika to taste Toasted bread
Boil cauliflowers in salted water till tender, then drain and set near fire till quite dry. Remove all green parts and press flower through a potato ricer upon a hot dish, on which they are to be served. In no way crush the ma.s.s as it falls from the ricer. Sprinkle over with melted Crisco. Surround dish with poached eggs, each laid upon square of toasted b.u.t.tered bread. Dust each egg with salt and a little paprika. Serve very hot.
Craigie Toast
3 tablespoonfuls Crisco 4 eggs 4 tomatoes Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 cupful milk Toast 1 teaspoonful chopped gherkin or capers
Skin, seed and chop tomatoes, add eggs well beaten, gherkin, milk, salt and pepper. Melt Crisco, add other ingredients and stir over fire till thoroughly hot. Serve at once on toast. The mixture may also be baked in oven twenty minutes and then garnished with small pieces of toast. Sufficient for four pieces of toast.
Excellent Lemon Mincemeat
1/2 cupful Crisco 2 large lemons 4 apples 1/4 lb. chopped candied lemon peel 1 lb. currants 1-3/4 cupfuls sugar 1 teaspoonful powdered cinnamon 1 teaspoonful powdered ginger 1/2 teaspoonful grated nutmeg 1/2 teaspoonful powdered allspice 1/4 teaspoonful powdered cloves 1 teaspoonful salt 1/2 cupful seeded raisins 1/2 cupful chopped nut meats
Extract juice from lemons and remove pips. Now put lemons into saucepan, cover with cold water, and boil until lemon feels quite tender. Change water at least twice, drain and pound peel to a paste, add apples, cored, peeled and chopped, lemon peel, Crisco, currants, raisins, salt, spices, lemon juice, nut meats, and sugar. Put into a jar and cover. This mincemeat is excellent for pies and tartlets.
Sufficient for four pies.
German Tart
For Pastry
6 tablespoonfuls Crisco 3/4 cupful flour 3/4 cupful potato flour 1 tablespoonful sugar 1/2 teaspoonful mixed spices 1/4 teaspoonful salt 1 teaspoonful lemon juice Cold water
For Mixture
3 apples 3/4 cupful prunes 4 tablespoonfuls sugar 1/2 lemon 1/2 cupful water 1 tablespoonful cakecrumbs
For mixture, peel, core and slice apples, and wash prunes in lukewarm water. Put these into a small saucepan with sugar, grated lemon rind and cold water. Stew slowly until apples are soft. Then remove prunes, and take out stones. Cut prunes in small pieces and return them to apples and cool. For pastry, sift flours, sugar, salt, and spices into basin. Add Crisco and cut it into flour with knife until finely divided. Then rub together lightly with finger tips until as fine as breadcrumbs. While rubbing, keep lifting flour well up in basin so that air may mix with it and Crisco is not made too soft. Add lemon juice and sufficient water to make stiff paste. Divide into two equal pieces. Wet a dinner plate with cold water and leave it wet. Roll out one of the pieces rather thinly, and line plate with it. Sprinkle cakecrumbs over it, then spread on mixture. Roll out the other piece of pastry for a cover. Wet round the edge of the pastry, lay other piece of pastry on, and press edges well together. Trim round with knife or scissors, and mark neatly round the edges. Brush over top with a little water or beaten white of egg. Dredge with sugar, and bake in moderate oven forty-five minutes. Serve hot or cold. The tart may be covered with boiled frosting.