Fruit recipes

To three-fourths cup of rice allow one cup of raisins. Have washed and dried the rice and place it in rapidly boiling water (two quarts, salted) for fifteen minutes, when it should be quite tender and flaky. Remove and drain in colander and steam over boiling water. Have the raisins washed and simmered till tender in just a little water. When the rice is done mix raisins and juice with it and serve. RAISIN RICE PUDDING Allow one tablespoon of rice to a quart of milk, salted. Boil together half an hour, then place in baking-dish with one cup of washed raisins and bake an hour, stirring frequently (a little sugar may be added if liked). The last half hour the crust should be allowed to form before stirring in; the last time let brown lightly and remove from oven. ENGLISH PLUM CAKE One pound of flour; four ounces each of drippings or butter, Sultana raisins and currants; six ounces sugar; two ounces candied peel of orange or lemon; two eggs; two teaspoons baking-powder; grated rind one lemon and a scant half pint of milk. Take an extra ounce of sugar (use for this the lump or cube sugar) and burn it brown in a saucepan, then pour in on it the milk; stir till it is coloured well; strain and cool it. Rub the drippings into the flour, add sugar and theeggs well beaten, the Sultanas and candied peel, and milk. Bake nearly two hours. ENGLISH PLUM PUDDING One pound each of bread-crumbs, flour, suet, currants, and raisins; one-half pound each of almonds, candied citron, and sugar; one short pint West Indian molasses (New Orleans); one orange grated; eight eggs; one nutmeg grated; one teaspoon each of salt, cloves, ginger, and allspice. Prepare raisins and currants, then dredge with flour and mix with the chopped citron and blanched almonds. Mix the suet with the flour, crumbs, sugar, salt, spices, and orange peel, adding next the eggs, milk, and fruit. Scald and dredge a large, strong pudding-cloth and lay on it the pudding; tie well and daub the stringhole with dough. The pudding must be placed in boiling water and boil eight hours, but it may be boiled six or seven hours some days before needed and finished the day it is served. CURRANT LOAF To a quart of flour add a quarter pound of butter, and a half cup of sugar, rubbing in well. Scald a pint of milk and cool, adding a half pint of cold water. Dissolve in this a small yeast cake or tablet and add to the flour (making a very soft, thin dough), letting rise until light, which will be under three hours. Add two or three beaten eggs and a cup and a half to two cups of currants, floured, stirring and setting to rise again in a greased cake-pan. In two hours bake in temperate oven for about an hour. CHAPTER XI THE OLIVE (Olea Europea) O STATE that the olive has from an unremembered limit of time been the symbol of wisdom, peace, chastity, and victory, is to concentrate volumes of panegyrics. And there are truly ages of experience eloquently suggested in the very repression of intensity of colouring possessed by the silent, dignified, mystic-looking graygreen trees which live on indefinitely through centuries. Typifying the fat of those lands ‘flowing with milk and honey’’ which across the seas stretch back into impenetrable dimness, and its fruit literally giving it forth, its leaves resemble rather the muscular tissues of ancient Greek youths whose graceful bodies were not permitted to accumulate unnecessary or soft flesh, for these slim, somewhat willow-like leaves are apparently almost devoid of sap, firm to the point of stiffness in texture.