Food and health

baked with the cores taken out, and with sugar and a tiny bit of butter and cinnamon in each hole. That suggested something else to put in the hole, — a little jelly or a few seeded raisins. When the apples are imperfect, cut them in two, crosswise, for baking. Cut out the core, and in its place put the tiny bit of butter and sugar and the spice, a raisin that has been soaked, or a canned cherry. This. is a very pretty way to serve baked apples. Marjorie Allen reported that her father was fond of baked pears, cooked very slowly in the oven. Miss James said that it is best always to use as little water as possible, and to learn to like the cooked fruit with only a small amount of extra sugar. Cranberry sauce or jelly. Cranberries are delicious stewed with a little sugar ; but, if you want a mold of jelly for the Thanksgiving dinner, stew them with a little water, put through a strainer, and heat the pulp. Add as much sugar as you have pulp, cook until the sugar is dissolved, and put in a mold to cool. A few cranberries combine well with other fruit. Try cranberries and raisins in a pudding, and use a little extra sugar. Barberries. This is an old-fashioned fruit that few people use ; and yet its tart flavor is quite unlike any other. If the bushes grow wild on your farm, do not let the animals destroy them, but transplant them to the garden. The berries can be used in several ways. They make a delicious jelly, and cooked with molasses and put away in jars they afford a refreshing drink stirred into cold water in the summer. Miss White of Pleasant Valley suggests that barberries and sweet apples make an excellent jam. How can dried fruit be made palatable ? The girls in the cooking class were quite sure that they could not like dried fruit, prunes being the poorest of all. We all " change our minds/' which means our opinions, sometimes ; and so did they. Stewed figs are good ; and so are dates, cooked and spread on bread. Try dried prunes, peaches, apples, apricots, plums, and berries in this way : Directions for dried fruit, 1. Wash the fruit. 2. Soak it for several hours — perhaps overnight — to replace the water which was dried out. 3. Cook it very slowly in a stew pan or in a slow oven, for several hours. 4. Use as little water as possible and only a little sugar. 5. If the fruit has a "flat" taste, add a little lemon juice, or a little cream of tartar, which is an acid, too. 6. Sprinkle chopped nuts on the stewed fruit for variety and to increase the food value. Using canned fruit. If you buy fruit or vegetables in cans, look to see if the top is flat, for if it bulges, the fruit is spoiled. When you use either fruit canned at home or bought from the grocery, let it air in a dish in a clean, cool place. This will give it a better taste ; and it improves it even more to reheat it and let it cool again. Fruit for dessert. Fresh fruit and cooked fruit make the best of desserts at the end of a hearty meal, and are quite enough for supper. If you want something more, there are many dishes easy to make with fruit. Apple scallop, or Brown Betty. What and how much. Bread crumbs and a little butter Tart cooking apples, enough to fill a dish Sugar Cinnamon A little water How to make. Make a layer of crumbs in a baking dish, and on the crumbs put little **dabs" of butter. Pare and slice the apples and place a layer on the crumbs. Sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, and a little \yater. Add a layer of bread crumbs and another of apples. Flavor and cover the top with crumbs. Bake in a moderate oven until the apples are cooked and the crumbs are brown. Any fruit, such as peaches or blueberries, may be used instead of apples. Serve hot with hard or foamy sauce, or cold with cream and sugar. Instead of crumbs the bread may be used in slices, buttered.