This section is from the book "Practical Cooking And Dinner Giving", by Mary F. Henderson. Also available from Amazon: Practical Cooking And Dinner Giving.
Put a pint of the shelled beans into just enough boiling salt-ed water to cover them, and boil them tender; then drain off the water; add a cupful of boiling milk (or, better, cream), a lit-tle piece of butter, pepper, and salt. Let the beans simmer a minute in the milk before serving.
Cut the celery into pieces three or four inches long; boil them tender in salted water; drain them. Make a batter in the proportion of two eggs to a cupful of rich milk; mix flour, or fine bread or cracker crumbs, enough to give it consistence; roll the pieces of celery in it, and fry them to a light-brown in hot lard. Serve very hot. Celery can also be cooked as asparagus, boiled tender, and served with a white sauce.
Cut the plant into slices less than half an inch thick, with-out paring off the skin; then sprinkle pepper and salt between the parts, and cover with a plate; let them remain an hour, then dip each slice separately first into beaten egg, then into fine bread or cracker crumbs. Sauté them to a light-brown in hot lard or butter.
Cabbage is best boiled and served with corned beef; other-wise boil a small piece of pork with it. Always boil with it a piece of a red pepper. A little bunch of small red peppers, cost-ing five cents, will last a long time for cooking cabbage, mak-ing pickles, etc.
Remove the outside damaged leaves, and cut the cabbage into halves (or, if very large, into quarters), so as to better cook the inside stalk; put it into the boiling water, with the corned beef or pork and the small red pepper. It will take the cabbage from half to three quarters of an hour to be well cooked. Drain the cabbage well, serving it with the meat in the centre of the dish.
Shred two small cabbages coarser than for cold slaw; parboil them with a small piece of red pepper added to the boiling wa-ter; then pour off the water, and add three or four table-spoon-fuls of vinegar, a small piece of butter, and a large-sized ladleful of stock from the stock-pot; cover the saucepan closely, and let the cabbage simmer gently for half an hour; season with a little red pepper, if it needs more, and salt.
Add one tea-cupful of water to a quart of cranberries, and put them over the fire. After cooking ten minutes, add two heaping cupfuls of sugar, and cook about ten minutes longer, stirring them often. Pour them into a bowl or mold, and when cold they can be removed as a jelly. The berries will seem very dry before the sugar is added, but if more water is used they will not forrn a jelly.
Cut off the outside tough leaves, and trim the bottom; throw them into boiling salted water, with a few drops of vin-egar. When quite done, drain, and serve with drawn butter, or, what is still better, a sauce Hollandaise.
Sour apples should be selected: Pippins, Northern Spies, etc. First fry some thin slices of pork, then the slices (with-out peeling them) of apples in the same hot fat.
Put one ounce of butter (size of a pigeon's egg) into a stew-pan, and when hot mix in a quarter of an onion (half an ounce), minced, and cook until it assumes a pale-yellow color; put in the washed rice (uncooked), and stir it over the fire until it has a yellow color also; then add a pint of stock. White stock is preferable, as it preserves the light color of the rice, yet any stock may be used. Boil slowly until the rice is tender (about half an hour), when the stock will be mostly absorbed. When about to serve, add one ounce of grated cheese, stirring for a few moments over the fire, without letting it boil; sprinkle a little grated cheese over the top.
This dish can be served alone as an entremet or as a vegeta-ble, with any kind of meat. A brown sauce may or may not be served around it.
Mix carefully (not to break the grains) in a pint of boiled rice (see page 288) a table-spoonful of either minced parsley or shives. Put a piece of butter size of a pigeon's egg into a saucepan, and let it color a light-brown; mix the rice in the butter, and serve as a vegetable.
For the crust, a little extra butter is added to the dough for rolls; it is made round, three inches in diameter, and two inches high, instead of an oval roll shape. When freshly baked, a slice is cut from the top of each one, the crumb is removed, and the shells are buttered and filled with mushrooms, cooked as for garnishing, and mixed with a Bechamel sauce. Finely minced parsley is sprinkled over the tops. They should be served quite hot. Fresh mushrooms are required for this dish.
Sew coarse flannel around a goblet with the stem broken off; put this shapely dôme upon a saucer of water; wet the flannel, and sprinkle over as much flaxseed as will adhere to it. The flannel will absorb the water from the saucer, which should be often replenished. In about two weeks the flannel will be con-cealed in a beautiful verdure, which will vie with any table or-nament.
 
Continue to: