The home cook book

Wash in cold water, scrubbing the skins with a vegetable brush, one dozen sour oranges and six lemons. Dry them and cut off the ends, then slice very thin on a vegetable gutter. Pick the seeds from this pulp and put them to soak in two cups of cold water. Put the pulp in a large preserving kettle, cover with one gallon of cold water and let it stand for thirtysix hours. Then strain the seeds, add the water from them to the shredded fruit and set the kettle to boil slowly for two hours. Add ten pounds of sugar and boil for another hour or till it jellies. Pour into tumblers, and when cool cover with melted paraffine. This marmalade, if made when oranges sell for twenty-five cents a dozen, costs about four cents a tumbler. If you desire a more decided tang of acid to this preserve, use four grapefruits instead of six oranges, and make the marmalade after exactly the same rule. AIIXED MARMALADE Crush two pounds and a half each of currants and pitted cherries. Add two pounds of seeded raisins, the yellow peel of four oranges chopped fine, and three pounds of sugar. Cook gently till the fruit is a marmalade, adding a little water if needed. Add the juice of the oranges just before the marmalade is ready to leave the stove. Cook ten minutes after putting in the juice. GINGER-ROOT PEARS In a preserving kettle steep in two cups of water quarter of a pound of green ginger-root, or half a pound of candied ginger-root, after cutting it in small pieces. Add eight pounds of sugar and let boil to a syrup. Cut the inside of four lemons in small pieces and add to the syrup. Cut also and add the lemon rinds — not the white part, but strips of the thin yellow io Vol. 2 skin. Take eight pounds of peeled pears, slice the fruit, and add. Cook very slowly until all is thick like a jelly. SPICED PEARS Take one teaspoon of whole cloves, one tablespoon of allspice and one tablespoon of cinnamon. Crush them slightly, and boil one minute in a quart of vinegar and a pint of sugar mixed. Select a fine variety of pear, halve, taking out the seeds, and boil in water until nearly tender. Finish the cooking in the spiced syrup, cooking them not too soft. Place them in small stone jars and cover well with the syrup. Tie a cover over the jar. SPICED PEACHES Spiced peaches are made the same as spiced pears, except they are not boiled in water. The syrup will cook them sufficiently. PEACH MARMALADE For marmalade, take half a peck of very ripe yellow freestone peaches and half a peck of white freestones. Pare, stone, and weigh them, allowing three-quarters of a pound of sugar to each pound of fruit. Put one pint of water in the bottom of the kettle before the fruit is added. Add the peaches and stand on the stove where it is not too hot, to draw their juice, stirring from the bottom wath a w^ooden spoon. Set an asbestos plate under to keep from scorching. When the juice is well drawn out, boil hard until the mixture pops and sinks. Then add the sugar which has been heated quite hot. Boil until thick and not too stifif, which will be from half to threequarters of an hour. Put in glasses or jars and cover over with brandied paper or paraffine, SPICED BLUE PLUMS