Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

Break the eggs, and beat well all the yolks and one of the whites. Add the milk and all but three tablespoonfuls of the sugar. Put the flour and salt into another bowl, and pour upon them four table-spoonfuls of the egg-and-milk mixture. Beat until very smooth, and gradually add the rest of the egg-and-milk mixture. Turn into a double-boiler, — first being careful to see that the water in the lower kettle is boiling. Stir the mixture until it becomes a smooth thick cream, — say for about a quarter of an hour. Add the vanilla extract, and rub the mixture through a strainer into a puddingdish. Now beat the three reserved whites of eggs to a stiff froth, and gradually beat into them the three remaining table-spoonfuls of sugar. Spread this mixture rather roughly over the pudding. Place in a moderate oven, and cook for twenty minutes with the door open. The pudding should be served cold. Strawberry Meringue. This pudding will require the whites of seven eggs, seven table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar, half a teaspoonful of salt, and half a cupful of strawberry preserve. Beat the eggs to a stiff froth, and then with a spoon gradually beat the powdered sugar and the salt into the froth. Butter a two-quart pudding-dish, and drop spoonfuls of the meringue upon the bottom of the dish. Now drop in the preserve by half-spoonfuls. Continue putting in these alternate layers until the full quantity of both materials has been used. Bake in a moderate oven for twenty-five minutes. Serve very cold with whipped cream. * Pineapple Cream Pudding. For six or eight persons use one pineapple of medium size, one pint of milk, three eggs, three-fourths of a cupful of sugar, two table-spoonfuls of flour, one-fourth of a teaspoonful of salt, and half a teaspoonful of vanilla extract. Put the milk in the double-boiler, and on the fire. Beat together, until light and smooth, the sugar, flour, salt, and eggs. Stir this mixture into the boiling milk, and cook for fifteen minutes, stirring frequently; then take from the fire, and turn the mixture into a bowl. Beat the vanilla extract into the mixture, and set the bowl away in a cool place. Pare the pineapple, and grate it into a deep dish. When the cream becomes cool, stir the pineapple into it; then place the pudding in the refrigerator for an hour or more, to chill it thoroughly. Turn into a glass dish, and serve. * Banana Cream Pudding. Pare and slice three ripe bananas, and stir them into a cream made the same as for pineapple cream pudding. * Peach Cream Pudding. Make this the same as the pineapple pudding, only substitute a quart of pared and sliced ripe peaches for the grated pineapple. * Bird's-nest Pudding. This calls for half a dozen apples of medium size, a quart of milk, half a nutmeg, five eggs, one cupful and a quarter of sugar, half a teaspoonful of salt, and a pint and a half of boiling water.