Foods and home making

Leaf and stem vegetables, especially those eaten raw, should be fresh and crisp when sent to the table. If they are fresh and crisp when they come from market, they should be kept fresh until used. If they are wilted, they must be freshened before serving. The best way to keep lettuce, parsley, celery, or radishes fresh or to freshen them when wilted is to put the vegetable in cold water. Then drain away the water and place the vegetable in a tightly covered jar or in a covered aluminum container. Put the container in the refrigerator until ready for use. If the vegetable is wilted when placed in the jar, it will usually become fresh. Those vegetables which we store away in the fall and use in winter, such as potatoes, carrots, beets, and turnips, should be kept in a cool, dry place. Fresh Vegetables 279 How are vegetables cleaned? Root vegetables sometimes have bits of soil clinging to them. They often have a rough surface. To clean them well with the least effort, use a brush. Scrub potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips, and parsnips. Often celery is easily cleaned with a brush. Spinach usually has sand clinging to it. Care must be taken to remove the sand. To do this a brush will not help. House- keepers find that washing it in warm water is more effective than washing it in cold water. Use two large pans containing warm water. Remove the roots from the spinach. Tear the leaves apart. Put the vegetable in one pan. Wash the leaves, then lift them into the second pan. Wash again. Pour the sandy water from the first pan. Rinse and again fill with warm water. Lift the spinach from the second pan into the first one. Repeat, until no sand remains on the spinach. Since the spinach is wilted when it is cooked, the slight wilting produced by the warm water will do no harm. Because onions have a strong odor, it is well to wash them under running water or keep the hands under water so as to rinse away any onion juice which may touch the fingers. To wash cabbage, cut the head into quarters. Place them in cold water. If wilted, the cabbage should remain in the cold water until freshened. How thick should vegetable parings be? Most vegetables have thin skins. It is wasteful to pare such vegetables thick. Fall or winter potatoes should be pared as thin as possible. New potatoes and carrots have such a thin skin that they should be scraped. If unpared vegetables are cooked, it is easy to peel them, removing only the skin and none of the edible portion. Remov- ing the skins from vegetables after cooking has the advantage also of saving more of the nutrients than when the vegetable is pared before cooking. Turnips and rutabagas have a very thick tough skin. Con- 28o Luncheon or Supper trary to the rule of paring vegetables, these vegetables should be pared thick so as to remove the thick woody skin. How are scalloped vegetables prepared? In chapter xx we learned some main dishes for luncheon or supper. In addition to those dishes, vegetables may be used as main luncheon or supper dishes. A scalloped vegetable makes a good main dish for luncheon or supper. A scalloped dish is always baked in the oven and often covered with buttered bread crumbs.