Sweet Pickles

Every storeroom should have an assortment of sweet pickles. They are boons to the housewife; not only because they are such acceptable appetizers for lunchbasket, luncheon, and tea tables, but also because they may be transformed into many delightful emergency dishes suitable for an entree or a dessert.

A pickled peach or pear, or a bunch of pickled cherries in a pastry shell, dressed with a little spiced liquor, makes a most toothsome morsel. Plain cake and sweet pickled fruit combine so agreeably that they seem made for each other. Several varieties of pickled fruit may be served together as a spiced fruit salad. These are but three of the many dishes which may be concocted by using the sweet pickle as a basis. Others will suggest themselves.

Syrup For Sweet Pickles

Any fruit or vegetable that can be preserved may be made into sweet pickle. A very good proportion for the syrup is three pints of "coffee C" sugar to one quart of good cider vinegar. The spices commonly used for this variety of pickle are cloves and cinnamon, and the proportion two teaspoons of the former and four tablespoons of the latter to each gallon of fruit.

The appended receipts if followed to the letter can not fail to give satisfactory results.

Sweet Apple Pickles

Sweet apples may be prepared in the way directed for "Sweet Pear Pickles," and are especially nice.

Sweet Beet Pickles

Cook the beets till tender; slip off the skins and cut into slices; place in glass jars, fill up with spiced syrup, boiling hot, and seal.

Sweet Cantaloupe Pickles

Select melons that are not quite ripe; open, scrape out the pulp, peel, slice, and lay in a weak brine overnight. Next morning boil in a weak alum water till transparent; lift out, drain, wipe dry, then drop into boiling spiced syrup and cook twenty minutes.

Sweet Peach Pickles

Take four quarts of peaches of a gentle acid flavor and tender fiber. Peel, but do not stone. In a porcelain kettle boil a quart of cider vinegar with four pounds of sugar, a tablespoon of mace, a tablespoon of cloves, and a tablespoon of cinnamon broken small. Tie the spices in a bag of thin muslin, or if you prefer, tie the other spices and stick the cloves through the meat of the peaches. When the cider boils, drop in the peaches, and when they all boil up, skim and boil six minutes. Gently take the peaches from the syrup, lay them in the bottom of a crock. Boil the syrup fifteen minutes longer, pour over the peaches, cool and cover tight, and keep in a cool place.

Sweet Pear Pickles

Pare and halve the fruit; then drop it into boiling syrup, and cook until tender enough to pierce with a silver fork. Transfer to a stone jar, sprinkle with spices, cover with boiling syrup, let stand overnight; next morning finish as directed for "Sweet Peach Pickles."

Sweet Damson Plum Pickles

Scald together the vinegar and sugar; skim, add spices, boil up once, then turn over fruit. Draw off and scald the vinegar twice more at intervals of three days, the last time boiling the fruit twenty minutes.

Sweet Prune Pickles

Soak a day in cold water after washing thoroughly two pounds of prunes. Then steam them till they are soft and tender. In an earthen kettle make a syrup of a pound of sugar, half a pint of vinegar, half an ounce of cinnamon and cloves, and a couple of pinches of ginger if your taste directs, but the ginger may be omitted. When the syrup boils, add the primes and boil together fifteen minutes.

Sweet Strawberry Pickles

Place the berries in layers in a jar with spices between. Pour over them the boiling syrup. Let stand twentyfour hours closely covered; then draw off the syrup, boil and pour over the fruit again. Let stand as before, then turn the whole into a preserving kettle and cook slowly, without stirring, for thirty minutes. Pickle other small fruits in the same manner.

Sweet Watermelon Pickles

Select a fine ripe melon; pare off the outer green rind and red core. Cut into inch squares, and place in a preserving kettle with two teaspoons of salt for each gallon of rinds. Nearly cover with water and boil until tender. Drain in a colander; then proceed as directed for "Sweet Peach Pickles."

HomeMade Cat sups

The various cat sups are highly appreciated by the good cook, who not only employs them for the purpose of imparting an agreeable flavor to meats and other solid foods at table, but also as a piquant seasoning for soups, gravies, meat sauces, hashes, stews, and similar dishes.

To buy these condiments ready prepared and of a desirable quality one must needs pay a fancy price; but when manufactured at home, their cost is insignificant.

Use only perfect fruit for cat sups; cook in a porcelain kettle; bottle in glass or stone.

To prevent mold, do not fill the bottles quite to the top with catchup, but fill up with hot vinegar.

Cucumber Catchup

Peel and chop three dozen cucumbers and half as many onions very fine. Add one teacup of mustardseed, a quarter of a teacup of black pepper, and one ounce each of cloves and allspice. Mix well and cover with vinegar.

Currant Catchup

Cook together until thick six quarts of currantjuice and five pounds of sugar. Then add one quart of vinegar, three tablespoons of cinnamon, two of allspice, one each of cloves, nutmeg and salt, and half an ounce of cayenne. Boil twenty minutes, bottle and seal.

Gooseberry Catchup

Scald, mash and put through a colander nine pounds of ripe fruit. Add five pounds of sugar, three tablespoons of cinnamon, and half a tablespoon each of cloves and allspice. Boil twenty minutes, add one quart of cold vinegar, bottle, and seal without delay.