In The Kitchen

The Importance of the Kitchen In the Home

August 15, 2012

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It takes but little to make a home. It requires little to beautify it, but that little lacking, home can exist only in aspiration and in imagination.

That food is to the body the kitchen should be to the home. Indeed, as Brillat-Savarin has said, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are;” so one may say, Show me the kitchen, and I can form a good idea of the home. As the comfort and happiness of home do not depend upon vast room and costly furniture, and there is often far more peace and pleasure in a cottage than a palace, so the kitchen need not be a vast apartment in which many cooks are preparing many dishes, such as the wealthy Roman houses of two thousand years ago were famous for. But as every human life depends for its support upon food, so every human home must have a kitchen in which that food is prepared. The person who neglects food soon gets sick, and the home in which the kitchen is neglected is not a healthy or a happy home.

Let the kitchen be a central attraction of your home by its cleanliness and the excellence of your cooking. Nature intended man to enjoy his food as well as to keep himself alive by it. The simplest fare daintily spread before one is far more appetizing than a feast of all sorts of mixtures just as a plain suit of clothes, perfectly neat and tidy looks better than costly raiment bespattered with dirt.

The Hearthstone

Filed Under: In The Kitchen

Vintage Breakfast Cakes Featuring Cottolene

December 5, 2011

Here are some old fashioned recipes using a brand named shortening called Cottolene. These recipes have not been tested but I think I might try the buckwheat cakes at the end.

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In preparing fritters beat egg whites separately and add just using. If intended for fruit, add a teaspoon of sugar, and if for or fish, a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar. A thin batter is preferable to a thick one. In frying doughnuts, fritters, etc. use plenty of Cottolene. Let it heat gradually, and be sure that it is hot enough before you begin to cook. When the frying is done, the Cottolene remaining can be carefully strained to use again. Never mix the in which doughnuts, vegetables or fish have been fried. Keep a separate vessel for each.

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ONE EGG MUFFINS OR QUICK SALLY LUNN

Miss Willis One

One half tablespoons melted Cottolene; one tablespoon sugar; one and one half to one and three quarters cup of milk; one egg; three cups sifted flour; three teaspoons baking powder; one scant teaspoon salt. Use more or less milk according to quality of flour. Sift baking powder and flour together; add butter, sugar, egg, and milk.

POPOVERS

Mrs Armstrong

Beat two large or three eggs; well mix carefully two cups of flour, half teaspoon of salt two cups of milk with eggs. Pour into hot greased irons and bake in rather hot oven half an hour or more, according to size. Serve promptly.

GRIDDLE CAKES

Mrs Lincoln

One cup of sifted flour,( one third of this cup may be entire wheat, or fine corn meal, or rye meal). Before mixing, sift on the flour one-half level teaspoon each of salt and soda, and one level teaspoon of baking powder. Mix and add one beaten egg and one tablespoon of melted Cottolene; if the milk is one-third cream omit the Cottolene. Beat well and cook on a griddle, greased slightly with Cottolene. Flours and meals vary, and if the first cake is not right, add more flour, or moisture, as needed.

BUCKWHEAT CAKES

Mrs Lincoln

At night mix one cup graham flour two cups buckwheat, one level teaspoon salt, and moisten with warm water to make thick batter. Add two tablespoons molasses and one half cake compressed yeast softened in a little water. Cover and let it rise. In the morning stir the batter down and thin it if needed with warm water, and if there be any sour odor add one fourth level teaspoon soda dissolved in a little water. When all is ready for breakfast fry the cakes as wanted on a griddle greased slightly with Cottolene. In all frying on a griddle use only fat enough to give a slight film of grease, any more than this makes extra work for you by burning on and filling the room with smoke. (I’m going to try these minus the Cottolene).

Filed Under: In The Kitchen Tagged With: vintage breakfast

A Vintage Thanksgiving Dinner

November 14, 2011

No one can cook the Thanksgiving dinner so well as mother does. But no one cooks any dinner so well as she and as a result most of the dinners of the year are prepared by her loving hands. Let us give her a surprise this year the girls will go to mother and tell her that if she is willing they will cook the Thanksgiving dinner. Mother will enjoy the holiday and the girls will find this a happy Thanksgiving Day Thanksgiving Feast.

Naturally the first thing we are to decide is what we are to cook. Thanksgiving dinners are very much the same all over the United States so there won t be much difficulty in that. We will select a typical menu and one so simple that any girl can prepare the dinner and anyone can eat of it without the Thanksgiving nightmare that usually follows the more elaborate menu.

THE MENU

Corn Soup Crackers

II.

Roast Turkey

Stuffing Cranberry Sauce

Mashed Potatoes Parsnip Fritters

III.

Dressed Celery

Wafers Cheese

Steamed Fruit Pudding

Hard Sauce

Corn Soup:

6 ears sweet corn or enough to make 1 pt pulp

1 pt milk or cream

1 T salt 1/2 tsp white pepper

1 T sugar

1 T flour

1 Tb butter

Take a very sharp knife and shave the outside bit of skin from each row of corn on the cob, with the back of the knife scrape out the pulp leaving the hull on the cob. Break the cobs and put them to boil with enough cold water to cover boil thirty minutes strain. There should be about 1 pt of water after straining. Put this corn water on to boil again and when boiling add the corn pulp. Cook fifteen minutes add salt pepper sugar and the boiling milk. In a separate saucepan melt butter add flour stir to smooth paste and pour on to this the corn pulp and milk from other kettle. Boil five minutes. Corn that is too old for the table is better for this soup and in case it is made in winter canned corn pulp will serve just as well.

Roast Turkey

To Prepare for Stuffing:

After foul has been cleaned thoroughly of feathers and pin feathers singe by holding over a roll of lighted paper to remove all the hairs. With & sharp knife cut the skin at the back of the neck never in front. If foul is to be stuffed remove head and neck close to the body leaving a long piece of skin that is whole in front and cut up the back. Remove windpipe and crop do not tear the skin. Remove the legs by cutting about two inches below leg joint and then break the bone. At this point with a little care all the thick tendons of the leg may be pulled out from this point one at a time. If once cut across they must remain in and that joint is undesirable when cooked because of the tough tendons. Next dress the foul by removing the entrails from an incision made near the vent. This must be done carefully that the gall bladder which lies just under the liver be not broken. Every thing that can be taken out must be removed. Care must be taken to remove the oil bag just at the tip of the back bone.

Next wash the fowl carefully and quickly inside and outside never allow water to stand on it as some of the juice and flavor is lost thereby wipe thoroughly with a dry clean towel.

To Stuff:

Place in a bowl and put stuffing in at the neck fill out the breast until even. Bring the skin loosely over and drawing the ends of neck skin together sew it over on the back. Then fold the wings over on to the back. Fill the body with the stuffing but do not crowd or pound it in it must be piled lightly as it always swells a little while cooking and if too full the stuffing will be soggy. Sew the opening with coarse thread.

To Truss:

Draw thighs up closely to body cross legs over tail and tie firmly with twine. Put a long

skewer through thighs another one through the wings holding them close to the body. Bring string from tail tie close to thigh on skewer at right side thence to wing cross the back to the other wing then to opposite thigh and tie firmly round the tail. If you have no skewers the string must be passed round the body at parts mentioned but care must be taken in removing it that the skin is not broken. Fowls are trussed to prevent limbs from spreading from body during cooking

Stuffing for Turkey:

To 1 c soft bread or cracker crumbs add

1-3 c melted butter.

Season with sage thyme salt and pepper.

2 Tb minced onion

1 Tb finely chopped suet,

1/2 egg beaten.

Oysters or chopped celery make a pleasing variety. The onions may be omitted if preferred. Mix the ingredients in order given and lightly stuff the turkey. This stuffing is not soggy nor indigestible and if once tried will prove a delicious and satisfactory accompaniment to the turkey.

To Roast Turkey:

After turkey has been dressed stuffed and trussed put it on a rack in a baking pan rub well with butter dredge with salt pepper and flour. Put in hot oven and when flour is lightly browned reduce the heat add a pint of water to keep from burning. Baste often with butter until nicely browned then with the fat in the pan after every basting dredge with salt and flour. Allow three hours in a moderate oven for an eight pound turkey cook till legs will separate from the body. Remove strings and serve with a garnish of parsley or celery leaves.

Cranberry Sauce:

Put three pints of washed cranberries in a granite stew pan on top put three cups granulated sugar and 3 cup water. After they begin to boil cook them ten minutes closely covered do not stir them. They will jelly when cool and the skins will be soft and tender.

Parsnip Fritters:

Wash and scrub thoroughly but do not peel till after boiling. Place in boiling water and boil till tender. Plunge into cold water and skins will slip off easily. Mash them well season to taste with butter salt and pepper. Flour the hands and shape the mashed parsnips into small flat oval cakes roll them in flour and fry in butter until brown.

Dressed Celery:

Prepare the dressing first as follows

1 c vinegar, not too strong.

3 T sugar,

1/2 each of salt and mustard,

1/2 tsp pepper,

1 c butter,

1 T flour,

1 egg well beaten.

Boil the vinegar sugar salt mustard and pepper together. Rub the butter to a cream add the flour pour the boiling vinegar over this .Cook five minutes. Then pour it over the beaten egg and cook over hot water until thick like custard. Care must be taken not to cook too long after egg is in else it will curdle. Should this happen place the sauce pan in cold water immediately and beat with an egg beater till smooth. Cut the celery after being washed and scraped into very thin slices. Mix with the dressing and serve with a garnish of crisp celery leaves.

Steamed Fruit Pudding

1 pt flour

2 T baking powder

1 T salt

1 cup milk

2 Tb melted butter

2 eggs

1/2 c sugar

1 pt cut fruit or

1 c stoned and cut raisins

Sift the salt and baking powder with the flour add the milk and melted butter. Beat the yolks till creamy and thick add sugar slowly thoroughly beat this mixture into the dough. Add the whites of the eggs beaten stiff. After cleaning the fruit roll it in flour and add lastly to the dough. Butter a tin pudding mold and pour in the mixture leaving room enough for it to swell in cooking. If you have no special mold use a small tin bucket with a tight fitting lid. Place flat iron on lid. Then put bucket in a pot and pour in boiling water until it comes within one inch of the rim of the bucket keep the water at this height. Steam from two to two and one half hours. Serve with hard sauce.

Hard Sauce

1/4 c butter

1/2 c powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon lemon or vanilla or a little nutmeg.

Rub butter to a cream add sugar slowly then the flavoring. Serve with hot pudding

~The young woman’s journal, Volume 9

Filed Under: In The Kitchen Tagged With: Holidays, Thanksgiving

Beacons of a Sensible Diet circa 1915

October 31, 2011

To keep you warm and give you energy for work, eat energy or fuel foods, potatoes, bread, cereals, corn bread, syrup, and other sugars.

To keep your muscles and organs in repair eat a limited and fixed amount of repair foods, meat, eggs, cheese, nuts, flesh foods, peas, beans and lentils.

Do not increase the repair foods with increase in work or exposure to cold; increase the fuel foods for further energy.

Eat fruit every day. Canned fruits are good. Cooked fruit is often better than fresh fruit.

Eat green vegetables whenever you can get them. Thoroughly wash all raw foods.

Have plenty of bulky vegetables of low food value, like carrots, parsnips, spinach, turnip, squash and cabbage to stimulate the bowels and give flavor to the diet and prevent over-nourishment.

Eat slowly and taste your food well, and it will slide down at the proper time.

Do not let any one bring a grouch or a cross feeling to the dinner table; it will upset all the food values.

~A Second Course in Homemaking, 1915

Filed Under: In The Kitchen Tagged With: diet

Nuts in the Household

October 10, 2011

And no I don’t mean people.

In the housekeeping days of our grandmothers, the idea of nuts as one of human
nature’s daily foods would have been received with alarm , but we are no longer cautioned to eat nuts with salt and discretion , a little of the former but a great deal of the latter “for the stomach’s sake.”

‘Whether the rise of vegetarianism or scientific dietary knowledge is accountable for the
general popularity of nuts in cookery, nut culture as a food product as well as a staple
industry, and nuts in the household, are now factors in modern commercial and home life….

… “He who plants a tree plants hope,” and in regard to pecan-culture, one who knows
says: “The industry is comparatively new, particularly as a commercial enterprise, but
is spreading rapidly. When intelligently handled the indus try is one of the most remunerative agricultural resources, is safe and sure, and an orchard when once well started will continue to return annually its cost, for no one knows how long-probably for two hundred years. Besides, the pecan is a choice nut, valuable for food , is a standard luxury, and no one can doubt the pleasure the young, or old, children have in gathering the ripe nuts in November, when the weather in the South is simply delightful.

Peanuts in their growth are the antithesis to pecans, walnuts, butternuts, chestnuts,
hickorynuts, etc., for they mature under ground. They’re often called the groundnut
or earth-nut.

Nut Recipes

Nut Pastry

Many lovers of pastry have to forego its delights on account of the dyspepsia that
lurks in its wake; others taboo pastry on vegetarian principles. Experiment has shown that excellent pastry for all kinds of pies, tarts and turn-overs, can be made with ground
nuts for shortening instead of lard or other fat. English walnuts, pecans and hickorynuts
give the best results, and they should be mashed in a mortar and then put through a
sieve. Allow one cupful of nuts to one pint of flour, half a teaspoonful of salt, and enough
cold water to moisten for rolling; proceed as with ordinary pie crust.

Puree of Chestnuts

Place fifty chestnuts in a saucepan with a quart of milk , stew until they a re reduced to
a pulp. Drain and press the nuts through a colander. Stir into the pulp two tablespoonfuls of butter, season with salt and pepper. Reheat the milk in which the nuts were cooked, add to it the pulp, one pint of cream and one scant tablespoonful of com starch, dissolved in cold milk; as soon as it comes to a boil remove from the fire. Serve with toasted crackers.

~The Ladies World, 1915

Filed Under: In The Kitchen Tagged With: Ladie's World, vintage nuts, vintage recipes