Part 10

Add ½ cup of milk with salt to 2 or 3 beaten eggs. Dip slices of stale bread or moistened zwieback in the mixture and brown delicately on both sides on moderately hot buttered griddle or in quick oven, or in frying pan covered. Serve plain or with any suitable sauce.

Drain slices after dipping in egg mixture; crumb, bake, and serve with honey, maple syrup or jelly for Breaded French Toast.

=German Toast=

Add grated or fine chopped onion to egg mixture and finish the same as French toast.

=Spanish Cakes=

Batter--2 eggs, 2 tablespns. flour, 1 teaspn. of oil, milk for smooth thin batter. Nut milk may be used and oil omitted.

Cut thin slices of bread into any desired shape (round with biscuit cutter), spread each one of half the pieces with jelly, jam or marmalade and press another on to it; dip in the batter, lay on oiled baking pan, stand 15 m. or longer in a cold place. Bake in a quick oven, serve with a bit of the preserve on top and half of a nut pressed into each, or, dusted with powdered sugar.

=Mamie’s Surprise Biscuit=

Inclose small cakes of nicely seasoned mashed potato in pastry crust; bake, serve with milk gravy, drawn butter or cream sauce, or with celery only. This is the original recipe which leads to the following variations:

Mix finely-sliced celery with the potato.

Use the mixture of black walnut and potato stuffing, or mashed lentils or mashed peas for filling.

Serve peas biscuit with tomato or tomato cream sauce.

Serve lentil biscuit with cream, cream of tomato or mushroom sauce.

Lentil biscuit with fresh mushroom or Boundary Castle sauce, with or without celery, might constitute one course at a dinner.

Make a filling of minced trumese, salt, oil, chopped parsley, onion and mushrooms into small cakes or balls, inclose them in universal crust, and when light, steam 25-30 m. Serve with drawn butter, flavored with onion and parsley, or as garnish for a meat dish. Make balls quite small for garnish.

=Yorkshire Pudding=

½ cup flour salt 1⅓ cup milk 2 eggs 1 teaspn. oil

Beat eggs, add milk and pour gradually into flour mixed with salt; add oil, beat well, turn into well oiled, or oiled and crumbed gem pans; bake in moderate (slow at first) oven.

Serve as garnish or accompaniment to ragout, or if baked in flat cakes, with slices of broiled or à la mode meats laid on them, and gravy poured around. The pudding may be baked in a flat pan and cut into any desired shape for serving. Whites and yolks of eggs may be beaten separately. A large onion chopped may be used in the pudding.

=Rice Border=

Pack hot boiled rice into well oiled border mold and let stand in a warm place (over kettle of hot water) for 10 m. Turn on to serving dish carefully.

Or, parboil 1 cup of rice in salted water 5 m.; drain and cook in a double boiler with 2½-3 cups of milk and salt, until the rice is tender and the milk absorbed, then pack into the mold.

1 tablespn. of butter and the yolks of 2 eggs may be added to the rice about 2 m. before it is taken from the double boiler.

=Oyster Plant and Potato Omelet--without eggs=

With nicely seasoned, not too moist, mashed potato, mix slices of cooked oyster plant which have been simmered in cream or butter. Spread in well oiled frying or omelet pan. When delicately browned on the bottom, fold, omelet fashion, turn on to a hot platter, garnish. Serve plain or with cream sauce or with thin drawn butter. Or, grind oyster plant, cook in a small quantity of water, add cream or butter and mix with plain potato. Finely-sliced raw celery or chopped raw onion and parsley may be used in the potato sometimes.

=Baked Potatoes and Milk=

Wash potatoes well, scrubbing with vegetable brush. Cut out any imperfect spots. Bake until just done. Break up, skins and all, into nice rich milk and eat like bread and milk for supper. A favorite dish of some of the early settlers in Michigan.

=Bread and Milk with Sweet Fruits=

Add nice ripe blueberries to bread and milk for supper, also ripe black raspberries or baked sweet apples. They are all delicious.

=★ Apples in Oil=

Simmer finely-sliced onion in oil 5-10 m. without browning; add salt and a little water, then apples which have been washed, quartered, cored and sliced without paring. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Cover and cook until apples are just tender, not broken. Serve for breakfast or supper, or with a meat dish instead of a vegetable, for luncheon or dinner.

The onion may be omitted. Use a little sugar when apples are very sour.

=Onion Apples=

Simmer sliced onions in oil, with salt, in baking pan. Place apples, pared and cored, on top of the onions; sprinkle with sugar and put ¼ teaspn. in each cavity. Cover, bake; uncover and brown. Serve for luncheon, or as garnish for meat dish.

TRUE MEATS

“And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for _meat_.” Gen. 1:29.

“The food which God gave Adam in his sinless state is the best for man’s use as he seeks to regain that sinless state.

“The intelligence displayed by many dumb animals approaches so closely to human intelligence that it is a mystery.

“The animals see and hear and love and fear and suffer.

“They manifest sympathy and tenderness toward their companions in suffering.

“They form attachments for man which are not broken without great suffering to them.

“Think of the cruelty to animals that meat eating involves and its effect on those who inflict and those who behold it. How it destroys the tenderness with which we should regard these creatures of God!”

The high price of flesh foods, the knowledge of the waste matter in the blood of even healthy animals which remains in their flesh after death, and the well authenticated reports of the increasing prevalence of most loathsome diseases among them, causes a growing desire among thinking people to take their food at _first hand_, before it has become a part of the body of some lower animal.

So, the great food question of the day is--“_What shall we use in the place of meat?_”

Nuts, legumes (peas, beans, lentils and peanuts) and eggs contain as do flesh meats, an excess of the proteid or muscle-building elements (nuts and legumes a much larger proportion than flesh), so we may combine these with fruits, vegetables and some of the cereals (rice, for instance) and have a perfect proportion of food elements.

It must be borne in mind, however, that _proteid foods must be used sparingly_, since an _excess_ of these foods causes _some of the most serious diseases_.

The _bulk_ of our foods should be made up of fruits and vegetables and some of the less hearty cereals and breads.

NUTS

As nuts occupy the highest round of the true meat ladder, we give a variety of recipes for their use, following with legumes and eggs in their order.

With nuts, as with other foods, the simplest way to use them is the best. There are greater objections to foods than that they are difficult of digestion, and in the case of nuts, that objection is overcome by thorough mastication; in fact, they are an aid to the cultivation of that important function in eating.

For those who are not able to chew their food, nuts may be ground into butter.

Another aid to the digestion of nuts is the use with them of an abundance of acid fruits. Fruits and nuts seem to be each the complement of the other, the nuts as well, preventing the unpleasant effects felt by some in the free use of fruits.

“No investigations have been found on record which demonstrate any actual improvement in the digestibility of nuts due to salt.”--_M. E. Jaffa, M. S., Professor of Nutrition, University of California._

Be sure that nuts are fresh. Rancid nuts are no better than rancid butter. Shelled nuts do not keep as well as those in the shell.

=Almonds= stand at the head of the nut family. It is better to buy them in the shell as shelled almonds are apt to have bitter ones among them. Almonds should not be partaken of largely with the brown covering on, but are better to be blanched.

_To Blanch Almonds_--Throw them into perfectly boiling water, let them come to the boiling point again, drain, pour cold water over them and slip the skins off with the thumb and finger. Drop the meats on to a dry towel, and when they are all done, roll them in the towel for a moment, then spread them on plates or trays to dry. They must be dried slowly as they color easily, and the sweet almond flavor is gone when a delicate color only, is developed. For butter they must be very dry, really brittle.

=Brazil Nuts=--castanas--cream nuts, do not require blanching, as their covering does not seem to be objectionable. They are rich in oil and are most valuable nuts. Slice and dry them for grinding.

=Filberts=--hazelnuts--cobnuts--Barcelonas, also may be eaten without blanching, though they may be heated in the oven (without browning) or put into boiling water and much of the brown covering removed. They are at their best unground, as they do not give an especially agreeable flavor to cooked foods. They may be made into butter.

Brazil nuts and filberts often agree with those who cannot use English walnuts and peanuts.

=English Walnuts=--The covering of the English walnut is irritating and would better be removed when practicable. This is done by the hot water method, using a knife instead of the thumb and finger. The unblanched nuts may however, be used in moderation by nearly every one.

Butternuts and black walnuts blanch more easily than the English walnut.

When whole halves of such nuts as hickory nuts, pecans or English walnuts are required, throw the nuts into boiling water for two or three minutes, or steam them for three or four minutes, or wrap them in woolen cloths wrung out of boiling water. Crack, and remove meats at once. Do not leave nuts in water long enough to soak the meats.

=Pinenuts= come all ready blanched. When they require washing, pour boiling water over them first, then cold water. Drain, dry in towels, then on plates in warm oven.

=Peanuts=--ground nuts, because of their large proportion of oil, and similarity in other respects to nuts are classed with them, though they are truly legumes.

The Spanish peanut contains more oil than the Virginia, but the flavor of the Virginia is finer and its large size makes it easier to prepare. The “Jumbos” are the cheapest.

To blanch Spanish peanuts the usual way, heat for some time, without browning, in a slow oven, stirring often. When cool rub between the hands or in a bag to remove the skins. The best way to blow the hulls away after they are removed is to turn the nuts from one pan to another in the wind.

Spanish peanuts can be obtained all ready blanched from the nut food factories.

The Virginias, not being so rich in oil must always be blanched the same as almonds. Be sure to let them boil well before draining. I prefer to blanch the Spanish ones that way, too, the results are so much more satisfactory.

When peanuts are partly dried, break them apart and remove the germ, which is disagreeable and unwholesome: then finish drying.

A FEW SUGGESTIVE COMBINATIONS

For Using Nuts in the Simplest Ways

Brazil nuts, filberts or blanched almonds with:--

Fresh apples, pears or peaches;

Dried, steamed or stewed figs, raisins, dates, prunes, apple sauce, baked apples or baked quinces;

Celery, lettuce, cabbage, tender inside leaves of spinach, grated raw carrot or turnip;

Breakfast cereals, parched or popped corn, well browned granella, crackers, gems, zwieback, Boston brown and other breads;

Stewed green peas, string beans, asparagus, corn, greens, potatoes, squash, cauliflower, all vegetables;

Pies, cakes and different desserts when used.

=Nut Butter=

A good nut butter mill is an excellent thing to have, but butter can be made with the food cutters found nowadays in almost every home. If the machine has a nut butter attachment, so much the better; otherwise the nuts will need to be ground repeatedly until the desired fineness is reached.

_For almond butter_, blanch and dry the almonds according to directions, adjust the nut butter cutter, not too tight, put two or three nuts into the mill at a time, and grind. When the almonds are thoroughly dried they will work nicely if the mill is not fed too fast.

Brazil nuts and filberts need to be very dry for butter.

Pine nuts are usually dry enough as they come to us.

All nuts grind better when first dried.

_Raw peanut butter_ is a valuable adjunct to cookery. To make, grind blanched dried nuts; pack in tins or jars and keep in a dry place.

_For steamed butter_, put raw butter without water into a double boiler or close covered tins and steam 3-5 hours. Use without further cooking in recipes calling for raw nut butter.

Or, grind dried boiled nuts the same as raw nuts. For immediate use, boiled nuts may be ground without drying.

When _roasted nut butter_ is used, it should be in small quantities only, for flavoring soups, sauces or desserts.

My experience is that the best way to roast nuts for butter is to heat them, after they are blanched and dried, in a slow oven, stirring often, until of a cream or delicate straw color. By this method they are more evenly colored all through. Do not salt the butter, as salt spoils it for use with sweet dried fruits as a confection, and many prefer it without salt on their bread.

The objection to roasted nuts is the same as for browning any oil. Raising the oil of the nuts to a temperature high enough to brown it, decomposes it and develops a poisonous acid.

Hardly too much can be said of the evil effects of the free use of roasted nut butter.

“There are many persons who find that roasted peanuts eaten in any quantity are indigestible in the sense of bringing on pain and distress.... Sometimes this distress seems to be due to eating peanuts which are roasted until they are very brown.”

--_Mary Hinman Abel, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 121, U.S. Department of Agriculture._

=Nut Meal=

Nut meal is made the same as nut butter except that the nuts are ground fewer times through the finest cutter of the mill, or once only through the nut butter cutter loosely adjusted. Either cooked or raw peanuts may be used, but a cooked peanut meal is very desirable. The nuts may be cooked, dried and ground, or cooked without water, after grinding, the same as steamed nut butter.

When one has no mill, meal of many kinds of nuts may be made in the following manner:

Pound a few at a time in a small strong muslin bag; sift them through a wire strainer and return the coarse pieces to the bag again with the next portion. Be sure that not the smallest particle of shell is left with the meats.

A dear friend of mine used to keep jars of different nut meals prepared in this way on hand long before any manufactured ones were on the market.

One writer says: “The children enjoy cracking the nuts and picking out the meats, and it is a short task to prepare a cupful.”

Cooked nuts and some raw ones may be rubbed through the colander for meal.

Nut meals are used for shortening pie crust, crackers and sticks; and all except peanut, are delightful sprinkled over stewed fruits or breakfast foods.

=Nut Butter for Bread=

Nut butters (except raw peanut) may be used on bread as they are ground; but are usually stirred up with water to an agreeable butter-like consistency, and salt added.

Strained tomato may be used instead of water for a change. This is especially nice for sandwiches. With peanut butter made from boiled or steamed nuts it has a flavor similar to cheese.

Nut butter is more attractive for the table when pressed through a pastry tube in roses on to individual dishes. Use a cloth (not rubber) pastry bag.

While pure nut butter, if kept in a dry place, will keep almost indefinitely, it will sour as quickly as milk after water is added to it.

=Nut Cream and Milk=

Add water to nut butter until of the desired consistency, for cream; then still more, for milk.

Almond milk makes a delightful drink and can be used by many who cannot take dairy milk. It may be heated and a trifle of salt added.

=Cocoanut Milk=

If you have not a cocoanut scraper, grate fresh cocoanut, one with milk in it, or grind it four or five times through the finest cutter of a mill. Pour over it an equal bulk or twice its bulk, of boiling water, according to the richness of the milk desired or the quality of the cocoanut. Stir and mix well and strain through cheese cloth or a wire strainer. Add a second quantity of hot water and strain again, wringing or pressing very dry. Throw the fibre away.

Use cocoanut milk or cream for vegetable or pudding sauces or in almost any way that dairy milk and cream are used. Stir before using. To break the nut in halves, take it in the left hand and strike it with a hammer in a straight line around the center. It may be sawed in two if the cups are desired for use.

=Cocoanut Butter=

Place milk on ice for a few hours when the butter will rise to the top and can be skimmed off.

=Ground or Grated Cocoanut=

Is delightful on breakfast cereals, or eaten with bread in place of butter. The brown covering of the meat should first be taken off.

=Shredded Cocoanut=

Put any left-overs of prepared cocoanut on a plate and set in the sun or near the stove to dry. Keep in glass jars in a dry place. This unsweetened cocoanut can be used for shortening and in many places where sweet is not desirable.

=Milk and Rich Cream of Raw Peanuts=

May be prepared the same as cocoanut milk, except that cold or lukewarm water is used instead of hot.

To raw nut meal (not butter) add one half more of water than you have of meal. Mix and beat well, strain through a thin cloth, squeeze as dry as possible. Let milk stand in a cool place and a very rich cream will rise which may be used for shortening pie crust, crackers and sticks, or in place of dairy cream in other ways. The skimmed milk will be suitable for soups, stews or gravies. It may be cooked before using if more convenient. The pulp also may be used in soups. It should be thoroughly cooked.

=Nut Relish=

Different nut butters and meals may be combined in varying proportions. For instance, 2 parts Brazil nuts, 1 part each pine nuts and almonds; or 1 part each Brazil nuts, almonds, pecans, and pine nuts. Dry nuts well and grind all together or combine after grinding. Press into tumblers or small tins and stand in cool place. Unmold to serve. The relish may be used in combinations suggested for whole nuts, and it is a great improvement over cheese, with apple pie.

=Toasted Almonds=

When blanched almonds are thoroughly dried, put them into a slow oven and let them come gradually to a delicate cream color, not brown. These may be served in place of salted almonds.

Sweetmeats of fruits and nuts will be found among confections.

COOKED NUT DISHES

=Nut Croquettes=

1 cup chopped nuts (not too fine), hickory, pecan, pine or butternuts, or a mixture of two with some almonds if desired; 2 cups boiled rice or hominy, 1½ tablespn. oil or melted butter, salt, sage. Mix, shape into rolls about 1 in. in diameter and 2½ in. in length. Egg and crumb; bake in quick oven until just heated through and delicately browned, 8 to 10 m. Serve plain or with any desired sauce or vegetable.

=Nut Croquettes No. 2=

1 cup chopped nuts, 1 cup cooked rice, any desired seasoning or none, salt; mix.

_Sauce_--

2 tablespns. oil ½ cup flour 1-1¼ cup milk 1 egg or yolk only or no egg salt

Heat but do not brown the oil, add half the flour, then the milk, and when smooth, the salt and the remainder of the flour, and combine with mixed nuts and rice. Cool, shape, egg, crumb, bake. Crumb also before dipping in egg the same as Trumese croquettes, if necessary. Bake only until beginning to crack. Serve at once.

=Savory Nut Croquettes=

1 cup stale, quite dry, bread crumbs, ½ cup (scant) milk or consommé, ¼-½ level teaspn. powdered leaf sage or winter savory, ½ cup black walnut or butternut meats, salt. Mix, shape, egg, crumb, bake.

1 cup chopped mixed nuts may be used and celery salt or no flavoring. Hickory nut meats alone, require no flavoring.

=Nut and Sweet Potato Cutlets=

1 cup chopped nut meats 2 cups chopped boiled sweet potato 1 tablespn. butter 1 egg salt

Mix while warm. Pack in brick-shaped tin until cold. Unmold, slice, egg, crumb or flour. Brown in quick oven or on oiled griddle. Serve plain or with sauce 16 or 17.

=★ Baked Pine Nuts=

After picking out the pieces of shell, pour boiling water over 2 lbs. of pine nuts in a fine colander. Rinse in cold water and put into the bean pot, with 2 large onions sliced fine, 1-1⅓ cup strained tomato and 2-2½ teaspns. salt. Heat quite rapidly at first; boil gently for a half hour, then simmer slowly in the oven 10-12 hours or longer. Leave just juicy for serving.

=Black Walnut and Potato Mound=

Mix 1 qt. nicely seasoned, well beaten mashed potato, ½-1 cup chopped black walnut meats and 2 or 3 tablespns. grated onion. Pile in rocky mound on baking pan or plate. Sprinkle with crumbs or not. Bake in quick oven until delicately browned. Garnish and serve with sauce 6 or 16.

=Nut and Rice Roast or Timbale=

1-2 cups chopped nuts, one kind or mixed (no English walnuts unless blanched), 2 cups boiled or steamed rice, 1½-3 tablespns. oil or melted butter, salt.

Mix ingredients and put into well oiled timbale mold or individual molds or brick shaped tin. Bake covered, in pan of water ¾-1½ hr. according to size of mold. Uncover large mold a short time at the last. Let stand a few minutes after removing from oven, unmold, and serve with creamed celery or peas or with sauce 16 (cocoanut cream if convenient) or 34.

Loaf may be flavored, and served with any suitable sauce.

=Loaf of Nuts=

2 tablespns. raw nut butter ⅓ cup whole peanuts cooked almost tender ½ cup each chopped or ground pecans, almonds and filberts (or butternuts, hazelnuts, and hickory nuts) 2 cups stale bread crumbs pressed firmly into the cup salt ¾-1 cup water or 1 of milk

The quantity of liquid will depend upon the crumbs and other conditions. Put into oiled mold or can, cover, steam 3 hours. Or, have peanuts cooked tender, form into oval loaf, bake on tin in oven, basting occasionally with butter and water or salted water only. Serve with sauce 9, 10, 57, 59, or 69. Loaf may be served cold in slices, or dipped in egg, and crumbed, and baked as cutlets.

Other nuts may be substituted for peanuts.

One-half cup black walnuts and 1½ cup cooked peanuts, chopped, make a good combination. A delicate flavoring of sage, savory or onion is not out of place with these.

=To Boil Peanuts=

Put blanched, shelled peanuts into boiling water and boil continuously, for from 3-5 hrs., or until tender. (When the altitude is not great it takes Virginias 4 or 5 hours and Spanish about 3 to cook tender).

Drain, saving the liquid for soup stock, and use when boiled peanuts are called for.

=Nut Soup Stock=

Use the liquid, well diluted, poured off from boiled peanuts, for soups. Large quantities may be boiled down to a jelly and kept for a long time in a dry place. If paraffine is poured over the jelly, it will keep still better. Use 1 tablespn. only of this jelly for each quart of soup.

=Peanuts with Green Peas=

Boil 1 cup blanched peanuts 1-2 hrs., drain off the water and save for soup. Put fresh water on to the peanuts, add salt and finish cooking. Just before serving add 1 pt. of drained, canned peas. Heat well. Add more salt if necessary, and serve. Or, 1 pt. of fresh green peas may be cooked with the nuts at the last. Small new potatoes would be a suitable addition also.

=★ Peanuts Baked like Beans=

1 lb. (¾ qt.) blanched peanuts ¼ cup strained tomato ½-1 tablespn. browned flour 1¼-1½ teaspn. salt