Simple cooking of wholesome food for the farm home

Scald milk. Beat yolks slightly, add sugar, beat thoroughly. Dilute with a little of the milk, and add to the remainder of milk. Cook over hot water until the mixture will thinly coat a spoon. Stir while cooking; add vanilla. Cool. The whites of three eggs may be beaten stiff and folded in just before taking from fire, if desired. Baked Custard. — One quart milk, three to five eggs, two-thirds cup sugar, one-fourth teaspoon salt, one teaspoon vanilla, grating of nutmeg. Beat eggs until yolks and whites are well mixed, add sugar, salt, nutmeg and milk. Strain into buttered baking dish or in individual cups. Set dishes in pan of boiling water while baking. When done a silver knife stuck into the custard will come clean. Dried Fruits. — Canned fruits and dried fruits, such as prunes, apricots, peaches, apples, should be used in winter freely. The dried fruit should be washed, picked over, always soaked over night in water, and cooked until tender in the same water, sugar being added just before taking the fruit up. If the fruit is cooked long in the sugar it becomes tough. If the fruit is not soaked before cooking, it will not be so plump and tender. Wholesome Substitutes for Unwholesome Pies. 1. Rice and Fruit. — Line a bowl with left-over rice that has been slightly sweetened. Cover rice with apple sauce or other fruit sauce or stewed fruit. Serve with cream, plain or whipped, or boiled custard. Blackberry Fool. — Trim crust from some good bread, slice, spread thinly with butter. Put a layer of bread in a bowl, cover with blackberries which have been stewed in enough water to cover until ready to fall to pieces and sweetened to taste. Add another layer of bread, cover with berries as before, using all the juice. Let stand for an hour before serving. Serve with cream. Other fruits may be used in the same way. Cookies. — One-half cup butter, one cup sugar, one egg, one-fourth cup milk, two teaspoons baking powder, three cups flour, or enough to make dough easily rolled out, one-half teaspoon vanilla, nutmeg. Sift flour and other dry ingredients together. Cream butter and sugar thoroughly. Add yolk slightly beaten, then a little milk, and vanilla, and a part of the flour. Add milk and flour alternately till both are used. Fold in the egg white beaten stiff. When dough is stiff enough to roll, turn out on a floured board, and with a floured rolling-pin roll one-fourth inch thick. Sprinkle with nutmeg; cut with biscuit cutter and place in shallow pans. Bake fifteen minutes in hot oven. Indian Pudding. — Five cups scalded milk, one-half cup Indian meal, one-half cup molasses, one teaspoon salt, one teaspoon ginger. Pour milk slowly on meal, cook in double boiler twenty minutes, add molasses, salt, and ginger; pour into buttered pudding 26 Bulletin of the University of Texas dish and bake two hours in slow oven; serve with cream. (If baked too rapidly it will whey.) Ginger may be omitted, if objected to. Poor Man's Pudding. — Four cups milk, one-half cup rice, one-half cup molasses, one-half teaspoon salt, one-half teaspoon cinnamon, one tablespoon butter. Wash rice, mix ingredients, and pour into buttered pudding dish; bake three hours in very slow oven, stirring three times during first hour of baking to prevent rice from settling.