Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

All gardens at this time of the year are full of unripe green Tomatoes ; they are generally left hanging on the plants till the frost touches them, and then thrown away. If picked and stewed in a little butter in an earthenware dish, they are excellent. They have not quite the same flavour as the ripe ones, but still they are very good, and some people think them nicer than the red ones when cooked. Carrots are a very neglected vegetable in England, and yet they are good in so many ways. The following is a Belgian receipt : — Cut the red part into thin Julienne strips, 176 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN boil for fifteen minutes, drain, then put them into a stew- pan with a nice piece of butter, a little sugar, and cover with light stock. Stew for about half an hour ; then set over the fire, and boil till they are nicely glazed. Young Carrots are good done in the same way, but only take about half an hour's boiling. Carrots are excellent pur6e'd like mashed Turnips. French Beans and Scarlet Eunners are very much better boiled whole, if not too old, only partly drained, and butter added at the last ; they should be boiled enough to break up when the butter is stirred in. To be served very hot. For a second-course dish cream may be added as well as butter. When French Beans are old and the seed ripe, they cook as well as the real white Haricots. Every year I grow Eed Cabbages, and cook them as recommended in ' DaintyDishes.' I also make large jars of pickled Red Cabbage, most useful in the winter. The following is a German receipt, and also good : — Cut the cabbage as for choucroute. For three or four large cabbage heads take Jib. of butter, put it into an earthenware saucepan on a coal fire. When melted, add the cabbage, salt, pepper, and a little flour and a large cupful of good broth ; cover well, and let it cook for about an hour and a half, turning it from time to time. During the last half -hour add a glass of strong red wine. Some years, and this has been one, the Siberian Crabs ripen in great quantities. They look so lovely on the tree, one hates to pick them ; but the moment they are ripe the missel-thrush clears every one off, with the same rapidity with which he leaves us without a single berry on the Mountain Ash in the summer. So we harden our hearts, and gather them to make into jam, according to the following receipt (the fruit of the Hosa rugosa can be utilised in the same way) : — ) Remove the stalks and well wash the fruit, put this SEPTEMBER 177 into a preserving-pan with just enough water to cover them ; boil until quite tender ; then rub through a brass wire sieve, and for every 1 Ib. of pulp add 1 Ib. of sugar. After bringing to the boil, simmer for three- quarters of an hour and put into jars. It will become firm as it cools. It is, although not so clear, almost as good as Currant jelly. An immense improvement to stewed Apples or Apple tart — if the crust be baked apart, as recommended in ' March ' — is to put in four or five Peach leaves, fresh from the trees, and take them out before serving ; it gives the Apples a most excellent flavour. 178 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN OCTOBER