For the comfort of the family

When it becomes necessary to serve cold meat for breakfast, candied sweet potatoes is the most satisfactory dish to have with it. Slice six boiled and peeled sweet potatoes in rounds into buttered baking-dish. Sprinkle each layer with brown sugar, using one cupful altogether. Pour over it one-half cup of melted butter in which has been added two tablespoons of boiling water. Cook in hot oven, basting often with butter in dish, till it becomes like sirup. Of course we have eggs occasionally, so I rack my brain for a variety of ways to serve them, sometimes making a distinct hit with my experiments — ^at others, well, the failures will not be recorded here. Dropped eggs served on toast over which has first been poured tomato sauce, the whole garnished with curls of bacon and sprays of parsley, always proves appetizing. Sometimes on rounds of toast are placed paper-thin slices of broiled ham — ^the cooked ham which one may buy at the market is the best for this — ^this in turn is crowned with dropped eggs. Just before serving Hollandaise sauce in plenty is poured around the toast; of course garnished with parsley. A dish without some green embellishment is as out of place at the breakfast table as a man without a collar. Creamed celery around toast upon which eggs are served is also a delicious combination. Then there are omelettes of all sizes, flavors and nationalities, and there is golden toast made by heating the diced whites of hardboiled eggs in cream sauce, poinding this mixture over toast, and adding the crowning glow by grating the yolks of the eggs over the whole. Cereals are put on to cook the night before in the fireless cooker, and very stimulating it is for the cook, when she comes down in the morning, to be able to help herself to a nice little dish of deliciously cooked cereal, liberally bedewed with the thickest of the cream, before commencing the day's work. After breakfast any cereal left over is turned into a small size baking-powder tin. When occasion arises to use the left over, the tin is set in boiling water AND NOW TO BREAKFAST 1 68 and when the cereal appears upon the table in little round, hot slices it is most appetizing. These same slices delicately browned in butter and served hot with maple sirup are decidedly toothsome. We rarely have muffins for breakfast, for when I do make them the request is sure to come that they be sliced and served cold and lightly buttered for luncheon or supper, and they are more tasteful that way. Toast is the breakfast bread most enjoyed in our household; perhaps because there is always jam, marmalade or honey served with it. When I arise early and feel unusually venturesome and daring I make pop-overs for breakfast in this way: Beat two eggs light; add two cups of milk and beat constantly while adding two cups of pastry flour and one-half teaspoon of salt which have been sifted together. Butter the cups of an iron gem pan and into each cup put one teaspoon of melted butter, then pour the mixture into them. Bake in a moderate oven thirty-five minutes. This recipe makes a dozen muffins. If they are a success there will be none too many; if they are not, you will have just twelve more than you need. There are no degrees of excellence in pop-overs ; they are good or they are impossible. We enjoy bran muffins when cold and sliced more than any others. Mix and sift one cup of flour, one teaspoon of soda and one teaspoon of salt. Add two cups of bran, one and onequarter cups of milk, and one-half cup of molasses. Beat thoroughly and bake in buttered gem tins, having placed strips of date on each muffin top before placing in oven.