Serving Vegetables

These should be cooked with care that their flavor may be preserved.

Baked Potatoes, or those boiled in the skin should have a large folded napkin laid in the dish, the corners turned over them, to keep them from becoming soggy. A smaller fringed napkin should line the dish containing Saratoga potatoes for the same purpose.

Stewed Celery

Scrape and wash the celery. Cut in inch lengths and cook twenty minutes in boiling salted water. Drain, pour in a cup of milk, let boil and add 1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, pepper and salt, and stew gently a few minutes; or, tie in bunches like asparagus, boil, season and serve on buttered toast.

Stewed Onions

In peeling onions be careful not to cut the top and bottom too closely or the onion will not keep whole. Boil in salted water with a little milk until tender. Drain and put in a white sauce to simmer for ten minutes; or, a cup of milk or cream boiling hot. Season with butter, pepper and salt. Turn over the onions and serve, or serve whole with butter, pepper and salt.

Fried Onions

Peel and slice. Fry in butter or meat gravy. Season with pepper and salt, and serve hot.

Summer Squash

This vegetable should always be steamed, as the object is to get it dry as possible to admit of using cream in the seasoning. Cut in pieces it will cook in one-half hour. Mash, season and place for a few minutes on the back of the stove. Serve.

Winter Or Hubbard Squash

This squash is better baked than steamed or boiled. To steam, pare the squash, take out the seeds and cut in strips. Put in the steamer and cook until soft. Place in a deep dish and mash, adding for each quart of squash 1 tablespoonful of butter, 1 teaspoonful of salt, and ½ teaspoonful of pepper. If baked, it can be prepared in the same manner, or may be served in the shell. It may also be baked in the pan with roast beef, basting with the gravy.

Spinach

Put in a covered saucepan with a little water. Boil twenty minutes and drain. Chop. Return to the fire and season with butter, pepper and salt. Cover with slices of hard-boiled eggs and serve hot.

Greens

Young beets are perhaps the most delicious greens. Scrape the roots and boil with the leaves. Mustard, turnip tops, dandelions, cowslips, red-root, cabbage sprouts, pigweed, etc., etc., are all suitable for this purpose. Prepare carefully; put into boiling salted water. Drain and press; season with pepper and butter; serve with sliced hard-boiled egg and plain, spiced, or horseradish vinegar. Greens may be boiled with ham or salt pork.

Plain boiled greens are nice fried a few minutes with salt, pepper and butter.

Artichokes

Wash and let lie two or three hours in cold water; put in boiling salted water and boil steadily two or three hours; add water when necessary; when tender, drain and serve with melted butter.

Baked Rice

1 small cupful of rice. 1 quart of milk. 1 teaspoonful of salt.

1 tablespoonful of butter, to be used in buttering the pudding-dish.

Wash the rice in two waters and put into the dish; add the milk and salt and bake in a slow oven two hours. It must swell and be a firm mass. If it browns too fast cover till nearly done and serve very hot. 2 large spoonfuls of grated cheese are some times added. Serve as a vegetable.

Rice, Southern Manner

Prepare the rice for cooking, allow 1 quart of water to 1 cupful of rice; salt a little and when boiling put in the rice. Boil twenty minutes, drain closely, set the kettle back over the bed of coals and steam fifteen minutes with the lid off. When done every kernel will be found perfect and tender.

Rice is very nice cooked in this manner instead of steaming. Add a cupful of milk and let cook an hour or more.

Macaroni, Baked

Break the macaroni into inch lengths stew two minutes, or until tender. Drain, put in a pudding-dish, cover with milk; season with butter, pepper and salt and bake one-half hour. A couple of tablespoonfuls of grated cheese may be added.

Macaroni With Cheese

1 pint of Italian macaroni broken in inch pieces; drop in 1 quart of boiling water, to which an even teaspoonful of salt has been added. Boil twenty minutes and drain; pour over it enough milk to cover and cook until tender. Butter a pudding-dish, cover the bottom with grated cheese; add layers of macaroni, then of cheese until sufficient; cover the last layer of cheese with bread-crumbs. Bake in a quick oven fifteen minutes. If the top is not brown heat a shovel red hot and brown.

Boiled Dinner

The corned beef should be put over early in the day. Put in cold water, allowing room for the numerous vegetables., If salt pork is used it will not need to boil so long. Cut a medium-sized cabbage in quarters. White beets are nice to use for boiled dinner. Do not break the skin in washing. Put the beets in by 9 o'clock, that they may be tender; and if the carrots are large they must be added with the beets. Later, add parsnips and cabbage, peeled turnips cut in pieces, and peeled potatoes about one-half hour before the dinner is to be served. Boil a red pepper pod with the whole. Peel the beets; dish up the vegtables and meat in separate dishes for convenience in carving. Serve with spiced or horse-radish vinegar.