Buckeye cookery

; Tomato Fics. Le Scald and skin pear-shaped (or any small-sized) tomatoes, and ies eight pounds of them add three pounds brown sugar; cook without water until the sugar penetrates and they have a clear appearance, | take out, spread on dishes, and dry in thesun, sprinkling on a little _ syrup while drying; pack in jars or boxes, in layers with powdered — a sugar between. ‘Thus put up they will keep for any length of time, and aré nearly equal to figs. Peaches may be preserved in the here same way.—WMrs. John Samuels, Covington, Ky. | . . DRIED CURRANTS. One pint sugar to a pint of stemmed ripe currants; put them together in a porcelain kettle, a layer of currants.at the bottoms when the sugar is dissolved, let them boil one or two minutes, skim _ from the syrup, and spread on plates to dry in a partly cooled oven, Boil the syrup until thickened, pour it over the currants, and dry , it with them. Pack in jars ‘and cover closely. Blackberries may _ be dried in the same manner. An economical way of making syrup is to boil liquid, skimming well, after currants are taken out, unti! © it becomes jelly, and then put away in jelly glasses. | PLC RE os. in making pickles use none but the best cider vinegar, and hoi} in a porcelain kettle—never in metal. A lump of alum size of a small nutmeg, to a gallon of cucumbers, dissolved and added to the vinegar when scalding the pickles the first time, renders them crisp and tender, but too much is injurious. Keep in a dry, cool cellar, in glass or stoneware; look at them frequently and remove all soft ones; if white specks appear in the vinegar, drain off and scald, adding a liberal handful of sugar to each gallon, and pour again over the pickles; bits of horse-radish and a few cloves assist in pre-_ serving the life of the vinegar. If put away in large stone jars, invert a saucer over the top of the pickles, so.as to keep them well under the vinegar. The nicest way to put up pickles is bottling, sealing while hot, and keeping in a cool, dark place. Many think that mustard-seed improves pickles, especially chopped, bottled, and mangoes, but use it, as well as horse-radish and cloves, sparingly. Never put up pickles in any thing that has held any kind of grease, and never let them freeze. Use an oaken tub or cask for pickles in brine, keep them well under, and have more salt than will dissolve, so that there will always be plenty at the bottom of the cask. The brine for pickles should be strong enough to bear an egg; make it in the proportion of a heaping pint of coarse salt to a gallon of water. Use coarse salt, and test pickles by tasting before putting on vinegar (they should be of a pleasant saltness) ; if not salt enough, add salt to brine and allow them to stand until they have acquired the proper flavor; if too salt, cover ‘with weak vinegar, and let stand for two or three days, drain, add- ing strong vinegar, either hot. or cold according to recipes, and finish as directed. In the case of kegs of cucumbers kept in brine for a long time, to be used when needed, it is better to err in using too much salt, as this may be corrected by adding the weak vinegar, but if not sufficiently salted the pickles will be insipid. In scalding (254) | | - PICKLES, © 255