Every-day dishes and every-day work

Baked Pears. — Hard pears make an excellent dessert when baked. Pare, halve, remove seeds, and place in a shallow earthen dish, with a cup of water to each two quarts of fruit. If the pears are sour, a little sugar may be added. Bake, closely covered, in a moderate oven until tender. Serve with or without sugar and cream. Tart pears are the best for baking, as the sweet varieties are often tasteless. Baked Quinces. — Pare and remove the cores. Fill the cavities with sugar, put in a shallow earthen dish, and add water to cover the bottom ; bake till soft, basting often with the sirup. If the sirup dries out before the fruit is perfectly tender, add a little more hot water. Baked Apple Sauce. — Pare, core, and quarter apples to fill an earthen crock or deep pudding-dish, taking care to use apples of a uniform degree of hardness, and pieces of the same size. For two quarts of fruit thus prepared, add a cup of water, and if the apples are sour, a cup of sugar. Cover closely, and bake in a moderate oven several hours, or until of a dark red color. Sweet apples and quinces in the proportion of two parts of apple to one of quince, baked in this way, are also good. Cut the apples into quarters, but slice the quinces much thinner, as they are more difficult to cook. Put a layer of quince on the bottom of the dish, alternating with a layer of apple, until the dish is full. Add cold water to half cover the fruit, and stew in the oven, well covered, without stirring, until tender. Pears may be cooked in a similar way, and both apples and pears thus cooked may be canned while hot and kept for a long period. Apples with Raisins. — Pare, core, and quarter a dozen on more medium-sized sour apples. Clean thoroughly one fourth as many raisins as apples, and turn over them a quart of boiling water. Let them steep until well swollen, then add the apples, and cook until tender. Sugar to sweeten may be added if desired, although little will be needed unless the apples are very tart. Dried apples soaked over night may be made much more palatable by stewing with raisins or English currants, in the same way. Apples with Apricots. — Pare, core, and quarter some nice, sour apples. Put them to cook with two halves of dried apricot for each apple. "When tender, make smooth by beating or rubbing through a colander, and sweeten. Dried apples may be used in the place of fresh ones. Cranberries. — Cranberries make an excellent sauce, but the skins are rather hard of digestion, and it is best to exclude them. Stew in the proportion of a quart of berries to a pint of water, simmering gently until the skins have all burst, and the quantity is reduced to a pint. Put through a colander to remove the skins, and when nearly cool, add for the quart of berries two thirds of a cup of sugar. Cranberries with Raisins. — Cook the cranberries as in the preceding recipe, and when rubbed through the colander, add for every pound of cranberries before cooking, one-fourth pound of raisins which have been steeped for lialf an hour in just sufficient boiling water to cover. A little less sugar will be needed to sweeten than when served without the raisins.