Cucumbers are valued for their fresh, cool crispness, and are generally eaten raw. They are served with salt, pepper, vinegar and oil, or with salad dressing, alone or combined with other vegetables.

How To Prepare Cucumbers

Wash, pare, and cut thick slices from ends. Taste the cucumber to be sure it is not bitter. Keep very cold and slice thin just before using. The cucumber will be more crisp if soaked in salt water. Serve as the salad accompanying meat or fish, and with potatoes or other starchy vegetables.

Eggplant

Eggplant has an agreeable flavor and adds to the variety of the diet, though its food value is not high. It should be served with meat and potatoes or with one of the more nutritious vegetables, such as beans.

Scalloped Eggplant

1 eggplant 1/2 small onion 1/2 teaspoon salt Pepper

1 cup bread crumbs 3 tablespoons butter or other fat

Cut the eggplant in halves and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Drain carefully, remove the pulp from the shell and chop the pulp fine. Chop the onion and fry it in 2 tablespoons of the fat. Add onion and seasonings to the eggplant. Put into a well-greased dish and cover with buttered crumbs. Bake in a hot oven from 15 to 20 minutes until well browned on top.

Boiled Eggplant

Prepare as for scalloped eggplant, heat well after combining with the seasoning, omit the buttered crumbs and serve without baking.

Fried Eggplant

Cut the eggplant in slices about 1/4 inch thick, and pare. Sprinkle the slices with salt and pile them one upon the other, then put a plate with a weight on top of the slices. Let them stand an hour, then remove weight and plate. Add 1 table-spoonful of water, half a tablespoonful salt, and one-fourth a teaspoonful pepper to an egg. Beat well. Dip the slices of eggplant into the egg, then into dried bread crumbs. Fry till brown. Drain on absorbent paper.