A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband With Bettina's Best Recipes (49 page)

Mix the cottage cheese, salt, paprika, nut meats, dates and pimento thoroughly. Add two tablespoons of salad dressing. Arrange the pears on the lettuce leaves and place one tablespoon of the mixture on each portion. Place
a tablespoon of salad dressing on the top. Serve very cold.

Cheese Wafers

6 salted wafers
½ T-butter
2 T-yellow cream cheese
½ T-pimento, cut fine
¹
/
₈
t-salt
¹
/
₈
t-paprika

Cream the butter, add the cheese, pimento, salt and paprika and mix into a paste. Spread carefully on top of the wafers. Place in a moderate oven until a delicate brown. Serve with the salad.

MAY.

Scrub and polish,—sweep and clean,——
Fling your windows wide!
See, the trees are clad in green!
Coax the spring inside!
Home, be shining fair to-day
For the guest whose name is May!

"G
OODNESS gracious, Ruth!" said Bettina. "Surely it can't be half-past five already!"

"Yes, it is, Bettina. Exactly that!" said Ruth, glancing at her tiny wrist watch. "But Bob won't be home till six, will he?"

"No, but I want to have dinner ready when he arrives. You see, as I told you before, I simply shouldn't have gone to Mary's this afternoon. My curtains are down and my rugs are up, and my house isn't an attractive place for a man to come home to, to say the least. And then to come straight from a party and give Bob a pick-up lunch instead of a full meal, will be——"

"The last straw? What had you planned for lunch?"

"Well, I have some soup all made, ready to reheat. Then I think I'll have banana salad, tea, and hot baking-powder biscuits."

"Delicious!" said Ruth, with a Teddy-fied grin. "I believe I'll invite myself to stay!"

"Good! You can make the salad while I'm mixing the biscuits. I also have some chocolate cookies, and I'll open a jar of canned peaches——"

"And I'll be so bright and scintillating that old Bobbie won't even miss the curtains and the rugs!"

That night Bettina served:

Bettina Soup Oyster Crackers
Banana Salad
Hot Biscuits
Canned Peaches Chocolate Cookies
Tea

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Bettina Soup
(Three portions)

3 C-meat stock (left over)
½ C-cooked rice
½ C-tomato pulp
1 T-sliced onion
½ t-salt
¼ t-paprika
3 celery leaves

Add the rice, tomato pulp, onion, salt, paprika and celery leaves to the meat stock. Cook for twenty minutes over a slow fire. Strain and serve in hot soup dishes or bouillon cups.

Banana Salad
(Three portions)

2 bananas
½ C-shelled peanuts, broken in halves
½ C-celery, cut small
1 T-lemon juice
½ t-salt
¼ t-paprika
½ C-salad dressing
3 lettuce leaves

Cut the bananas in one-fourth inch cubes. Add the lemon juice, mixing thoroughly. Add the peanuts, celery, salt and paprika. Add the salad dressing, mixing lightly with a silver fork. Pile on the lettuce leaves which have been washed and arranged on a serving dish. Serve immediately.

Baking Powder Biscuits
(Eight biscuits)

1½ C-flour
3 t-baking powder
¼ t-salt
1½ T-lard
½ C-milk

Mix and sift well the flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in the lard with a knife until the consistency of cornmeal. Add the milk slowly, stirring with a knife until the dough is soft enough to be handled without sticking to the fingers. Place on a floured board, pat into shape, with the hands, to a thickness of two-thirds of an inch. Cut with a biscuit cutter. Place the biscuits side by side in a tin pan. Bake in a moderate oven fifteen minutes. Serve on a folded napkin.

"I
MUST hurry home to get dinner," said Mrs. Dixon. "See, Bettina, I've been to the market! Isn't this a fine big cantaloupe? I have two more just like it. Frank is very fond of them, but——" she added ruefully, "I like them cold, of course, and after I've fixed them and had them in the refrigerator a while, everything in it—milk, butter and eggs—has the cantaloupe taste!"

"I'll tell you how you can prevent that, Charlotte. Of course they must be very cold when served, but I never prepare them till just before the meal. I put them in the ice box whole, in a paper sack, taking care that the mouth of the sack is closed. They become very cold that way, and at the same time can't affect the other food."

"I'm so glad you told me that, Bettina. I've learned a great many things from you, haven't I? Oh, yes, another thing puzzles me. I like chipped ice served in and with the cantaloupe, and I don't own any tool for preparing the ice. I do fix it somehow, of course, but I've wondered how other people manage."

"Well, there are regular ice shavers, you know; but I haven't one, either. I keep a salt sack that I use for that purpose whenever I need just a little chipped ice. It isn't hard to break off a piece small enough to go in a salt sack; in fact, you usually have one in your ice box already. I put it in the sack and break it fine with the flat side of a small hatchet."

"Well, I've learned something more, and I'll use the knowledge tomorrow evening. I must be going now. How lovely those asters are on your dinner table! They seem to prophesy an especially good meal! Do tell me what you are going to have! I never can think of a variety—simple meat dishes are my bugbear."

"We have veal chops for tonight—just plain veal chops and boiled new potatoes and carrots with Bechamel sauce."

"Gracious me! Here comes Bob. I must hurry along or Frank will be home before I am."

Bettina's dinner that evening was made up of:

Veal Chops New Potatoes
Carrots Bechamel Sauce
Bread Butter
Peaches Custard Sauce

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Veal Chops
(Two portions)

2 chops
1 t-salt
¼ t-paprika
4 T-flour
1 T-fat

Trim and wipe chops one-half inch thick, which are cut from the thick part of the leg. Season with salt and pepper and roll in flour. Put the fat (bacon fat or lard) in the pan, and when hot, add the chops. Brown both sides evenly and allow to cook ten minutes.

Creamed Carrots
(Two portions)

1 C-carrots
3 C-boiling water
1 t-salt

Carrots should not be peeled, but after being scrubbed well they should be scraped with a knife. Cut into one-half inch cubes, cook in boiling water (salted) twenty-five minutes, or until soft when pierced with a knitting needle. Drain and serve with Bechamel sauce.

Bechamel Sauce
(Two portions)

1 T-butter
1 T-flour
¼ t-salt
¹
/
₈
t-pepper
1 egg-yolk
²
/
₃
C-milk

Melt the butter, add the flour, salt and pepper and mix well. Gradually stir in the milk. Cook until it thickens slightly. Add the beaten egg-yolk, cook one minute and serve immediately with one cup of diced carrots.

"R
UTH has had some of the loveliest engagement presents," said Bettina to Bob across the dinner table. "And some that are so practical and sensible!"

"Did you see her this afternoon?"

"Yes, and we walked over to the new house. She has had Fred put up a shelf in the kitchen for her cook-books and recipe card box, and she finds that she really has quite a library! And the various engagement gifts are all put away. In fact the bungalow is nearly ready for use. I've told Ruth that she might write a magazine article on 'Engagement Presents' using her own for illustrations."

"What does she have?"

"Well, a dear old Aunt of Bob's presented her with some wonderful kitchen scales—an aid to economy. Then it seems to me that every friend who has some favorite kitchen device has given one to her—she has egg-beaters, waffle-irons, cream-whippers, silver-polishers, cases for linen and silver—oh, everything you can think of!"

"What did you give her?"

"The cards and card box for her indexed recipes. I included many of my own recipes, you know. That is to be my own particular engagement gift to all my friends."

That night Bettina served:

Salmon Loaf Salmon Sauce
Baked Potatoes
Bread Butter
Marble Pudding Whipped Cream
Iced Tea

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Salmon Loaf
(Two portions)

²
/
₃
C-flaked, canned salmon
¹
/
₃
C-cracker crumbs
½ t-salt
¼ t-paprika
1 egg
¹
/
₃
C-milk

Flake the salmon apart with a silver fork, add the crumbs, salt and paprika. Beat the egg and add the milk. Add to the first mixture. Place in a well-buttered mould and bake in a moderate oven for twenty-five minutes. Allow to stand three minutes, remove from the mould, and place on a warmed platter. Pour salmon sauce around the loaf and serve at once.

Salmon Sauce
(Two portions)

3 T-flour
2 T-butter
¼ C-liquor from the salmon
²
/
₃
C-milk
1 egg, hard-cooked and chopped fine
½ t-salt
1 T-pickle, chopped fine
½ t-chopped parsley
¼ t-paprika

Melt the butter, add the salmon liquor. Add the flour, salt and paprika and mix well. Add the milk and cook two minutes. Add the egg, pickle and parsley, mix well, and pour around the loaf.

Baked Marble Pudding

1 C-flour
2 t-baking powder
¼ t-cinnamon
¹
/
₈
t-salt
½ C-sugar
1 egg
2 T-melted butter
¼ C-water
½ t-vanilla
½ square of chocolate, melted

Mix and sift the sugar, flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Add the egg-yolk, water and vanilla. Beat one minute. Add the egg white stiffly beaten. Mix well. Add
the butter, melted. Divide the mixture, and to half add the melted chocolate. Prepare a loaf-cake pan or a small round tin with waxed paper. Fill it with both mixtures, first placing in it a tablespoon of the plain mixture, then a tablespoon of the chocolate mixture, then the plain, until all is used, and the pudding has a marbled appearance. Bake thirty minutes in a moderate oven. Serve warm with whipped cream.

"B
ROILED steak and French fried potatoes! Whew!" said Bob, strolling into Bettina's shining kitchen. "Why so festive?"

"Because I've just finished house-cleaning, Bob, and I want to celebrate. Doesn't everything look splendid?"