Asparagus With Cream

Have the asparagus tied in bundles. Wash, and plunge into boiling water in which there is a teaspoonful of salt for every quart of water. Boil rapidly for fifteen minutes. Take up, and cut off the tender heads. Put them in a clean saucepan with one generous cupful of cream or milk to every quart of asparagus. Simmer ten minutes. Mix one table-spoonful of butter and a generous teaspoonful of flour together. When creamy, stir in with the asparagus. Add salt and pepper to taste, and simmer five minutes longer.

Green Peas A La Francaise

Boil green peas until tender, and drain. For every quart, put in a sauce-pan two table-spoonfuls of butter, one of flour, and half a teaspoonful of sugar. Stir until all are thoroughly mixed. Add the peas, and stir over the fire for five minutes. Add one cupful of white stock or cream, and simmer ten minutes. The canned peas can be prepared in the same manner.

Minced Cabbage

Drain boiled cabbage in the colander. Put it in the chopping tray and chop fine. For each quart of the chopped cabbage, put two table-spoonfuls of butter and one of flour in the frying-pan. As soon as smooth and hot, put in the cabbage, which season well with salt, pepper, and, if you like it, two table-spoonfuls of vinegar. Stir constantly for five or eight minutes. When done, heap on a dish. Make smooth with a knife, and garnish with hard-boiled eggs.

Minced Spinach

Boil the spinach in salt and water until tender. Drain in the colander, and chop fine in the tray. Season well with pepper and salt. For each quart of the chopped spinach, put two table-spoonfuls of butter and one of flour in a frying-pan. When this has cooked smooth, and before it has become browned, add the spinach. Stir for five minutes; then add half a cupful of cream or milk, and stir three minutes longer. Arrange in a mound on a hot dish. Garnish with a wreath of slices of hard-boiled eggs at the base, and finish the top with another wreath. Serve hot. Lettuce can be cooked and served in the same manner. It must be boiled about twenty minutes to be tender.

Fried Egg Plant

Cut the plant in slices about one-third of an inch thick. Pare these, and lay in a flat dish. Cover with boiling water, to which has been added one table-spoonful of salt for every quart of water. Let this stand one hour. Drain, and pepper the slices slightly, and dip in beaten egg and bread crumbs (two eggs and a pint of crumbs for a good-sized plant). Fry in boiling fat for eight or ten minutes. The slices will be soft and moist when done. Or, the slices can be seasoned with pepper, and fried in just enough pork fat to brown them. The egg plant is sometimes stewed, and sometimes baked, but there is no other mode so good as frying.

Boiled Rice

One cupful of rice, one quart of boiling water, one scant table-spoonful of salt. Wash the rice in three waters, and put in the double kettle with the salt and boiling water. Boil rapidly fifteen minutes; then pour off all the water. Cover tightly, return to the fire, and cook twenty minutes longer. The water in the under boiler must boil rapidly all the time. Rice cooked in this manner will have every grain separate.