A Little Cook-Book for a Little Girl

Margaret's father said he could not possibly manage without potatoes for breakfast, so sometimes Margaret let Bridget cook the cereal and meat, while she made something nice out of the cold potatoes she found in the cupboard. Creamed Potatoes Cut cold boiled potatoes into pieces as large as the end of your finger; put them into a pan on the back of the stove with enough milk to cover them, and let them stand till they have drunk up all the milk ; perhaps they will slowly cook a little as they do this, but that will do no harm. In another saucepan or in the frying-pan put a tablespoonful of butter, and when it bubbles put in a tablespoonful of flour, and stir till they melt together; then put in two cups of hot milk, and stir till it is all smooth. Put in one teaspoonful of salt, and last the potatoes, but stir them only once while they cook, for fear of breaking them. Add one teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and put them in a hot covered dish. You can make another sort of potatoes when you have finished creaming them in this way, by putting a layer of them in a deep buttered baking-dish, with a layer of white sauce over the top, and bread-crumbs and bits of butter for a crust. Brown well in a hot oven. When you do this, remember to make the sauce with three cups of milk and two tablespoonfuls of flour and two of butter, and then you will have enough for everything. Hashed Browned Potatoes Chop four cold potatoes fine, and add one teaspoonful of salt and a very little pepper. Put a tablespoonful of butter in the fryingpan, and turn it so it runs all over; when it bubbles put in the potatoes, and smooth them evenly over the pan. Cook till they are brown and crusty on the bottom; then put in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and fold over like an omelette. Saratoga Potatoes Wash and pare four potatoes, and rub them on the potato-slicer till they are in thin pieces ; put them in ice-water for fifteen minutes. Heat two cups of lard very hot, till when you drop in a bit of bread it browns at once. Wipe the potatoes dry and drop in a handful. Have a skimmer ready, and as soon as they brown take them out and lay on brown paper in the oven, and put in another handful. Potato Cakes Take two cups of mashed potato, and mix well with the beaten yolk of one egg, and make into small flat cakes : dip each into flour. Heat two tablespoon fuls of nice dripping, and when it is hot lay in the cakes and brown, turning each with the cake-turner as it gets crusty on the bottom. Fried Sweet Potatoes Take six cold boiled sweet potatoes, slice them and lay in hot dripping in the frying-pan till brown. These are especially nice with veal cutlet. Toast Toast is very difficult for grown people to make, because they have made it wrong all their lives, but it is easy for little girls to learn to make, because they can make it right from the first. Cut bread that is at least two days old into slices a quarter of an inch thick. If you are going to make only a slice or two, take the toast-