A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband With Bettina's Best Recipes (9 page)

Bettina had thus far no flower garden, but she was never without flowers. The weeds and grasses in her backyard had a way of turning themselves into charming centerpieces, and then, too, red clover was always plentiful.

Bob moved the coffee percolator and the electric toaster to the porch and attached them while Bettina spread the luncheon cloth upon the small table. "Aren't you glad we thought to
plan it so that we might have the percolator and the toaster out here?" she said. "That was your idea, wasn't it?"

"Aren't you glad you married me?" said Bob enthusiastically. "I'll bet I'm the only man on this street who can frizzle dried beef and cream it! And make coffee!"

"Who taught you that, I'd like to know? Give some credit to your wife who forces you to do it! Here, Bridget! The grapefruit is in the ice box; did you see it? And the oatmeal in the cooker is waiting to be reheated. Set it in a kettle of water over the fire, so that it won't burn. There are rolls in the bread-box. Put them in the oven a minute to warm up. If they seem dry, dip them quickly in water before heating them. Now shall I be making some toast-rounds for the chipped beef?"

"Well, you might be doing that. I'm getting dizzy with all these orders, ma'am. You can hunt up the cream and the milk and the butter, too, if you will. Now for the beef! Say, but this is going to be a good breakfast! 'Befoh de wah' I used to sleep late on Sundays, but not any more for me! I like to cook!"

"There's someone at the door. I'll go; you're busier than I am."

There on the doorstep beside the Sunday paper stood a little four-year-old neighbor, her hands full of old-fashioned pinks.

"My mother sent these to you," she said.

"Oh, lovely, dear! Thank you! Won't you come in?"

"No'm! My daddy has to shine my shoes for Sunday school."

"Bob, aren't these pretty with the white feathery weeds? I do love flowers!"

"They don't look half so pretty as this 'ere frizzled beef does! Breakfast is all ready!"

Bettina sat down to an open-air breakfast of

Grapefruit
Oatmeal Cream
Creamed Beef Toast Rounds
Rolls Butter
Coffee

After a jolly and leisurely meal, Bob announced that he was ready to wash the dishes.

"Ever since I've seen that nice white-lined dishpan of yours, I've wanted to try it. It's oval, and I never saw an oval one before."

"I like it because it fits into the sink so well, and fills all the space it can."

"See how efficient I am! I put on the water for the dishes when we sat down to eat! Now I'll have nice hot, soapy water, and lots of it, to rinse them!"

"But don't rinse the glasses, dear. See how I can polish glass and silver that has just come out of that clean soapy water! Look! Isn't that shiny and pretty? There, you can scald everything else!"

"There's the telephone! It's Mrs. Dixon! What on earth can she want? She asked for you!"

Bettina talked for a few moments in monosyllables and then returned to the dishes. "What did she have to say?" Bob asked.

"She asked me not to tell you, Bob. Nothing much. Perhaps you'll know some day."

Bob looked puzzled and slightly hurt. It was the first time that Bettina had kept anything from him and he could not help showing some displeasure.

Bettina saw this, and said: "Bob, I don't want to have any secret from you, and I'd like you to know that this is nothing that I wouldn't tell you gladly if I were the only one concerned. I promised, that's all. You'll smile when you know all about it."

And Bob was mollified.

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Oatmeal
(Four portions)

¾ C-rolled oats
2 C-hot water
½ t-salt

Put the hot water in the upper part of the double boiler.
When boiling, add salt and oats. Boil the mixture for three minutes. Cover and place the upper part in the lower part of the double boiler. Cook over a moderate fire for one hour. Stir occasionally.

Creamed Beef
(Four portions)

¼ lb. diced beef thinly sliced
2 T-butter
2 T-flour
1 C-milk

Place the butter in a frying-pan, and when the pan is hot and the butter is melted, add the beef separated into small pieces. Allow it to frizzle. Add the flour, mix thoroughly with beef and butter, allowing the flour to brown a little. Add the milk slowly, cooking until thick and smooth. Pour over rounds of toast. Garnish with parsley.

"I
'M so glad that you girls have come, for I've been longing to show you the porch ever since Bob and I put on the finishing touches."

"O Bettina, it's lovely!" cried all the guests in a chorus. "But weren't you awfully extravagant?"

"Wait till I tell you. Perhaps I ought not to give myself away, but I am prouder of our little economies than of anything else; we've had such fun over them. This is some old wicker furniture that Mother had in her attic, all but this chair, that came from Aunt Nell's. Bob mended it very carefully, and then enameled it this dull green color. I have been busy with these cretonne hangings and cushions for a long time, and we have been coaxing along the flowers in our hanging baskets and our window boxes for days and days, so that they would make a good impression on our first porch guests. Bob made the flower boxes himself and enameled them to go with the furniture. This high wicker flower box was a wedding gift, and so was the wicker reading lamp. This matting rug is new, but I must admit that we bought nothing else except this drop-leaf table, which I have been wanting for a long time. You see it will make a good serving table, and then we expect to eat on it in warm weather."

"What are we to make today, Bettina? The invitation has made us all curious.

"'The porch is cool as cool can be,
So come on Thursday just at three,
To stay awhile and sew
On something useful, strong, and neat,
Which, with your help, will quite complete
Bettina's bungalow!'"

"What about the little sketches of knives and forks and spoons in the corners?"

"Bob did that. He wrote the verse, too, or I'm afraid I should have telephoned. Are we all here? Wait a minute."

And Bettina wheeled out her tea-cart, on which, among trailing nasturtiums, were mysterious packages wrapped in fringed green tissue paper.

"What is in them? Silver cases—cut and ready to be made! Oh, how cunning! Shall we label them, too? What is the card?

"'I'll not incase your silver speech,
For that is quite beyond my reach!'"

"Did Bob do that, too? The impudence!" and Ruth threaded her needle in preparation.

"You see," said Bettina, "I hadn't found time to make cases for my silver, so I just decided to let you girls help me! The card tells what to label them, in outline stitch in these bright colors. I used to open ten cases at home before I found what I wanted, so I am insuring against that."

Talk and laughter shortened the afternoon, but at five o'clock Bettina wheeled out her tea-cart again. The dainty luncheon was decorated with nasturtiums. The girls laid aside their work while Bettina served:

Sunbonnet Baby Salad Nut Bread Sandwiches
Iced Tea Mint Wafers
Lemon Sherbet Tea Cakes

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Sunbonnet Baby Salad
(Ten portions)

10 halves pears
20 cloves, whole
20 almonds
10 thin slices pimento
10 T-salad dressing
10 pieces lettuce

Arrange the halves of canned pears, round side up, on lettuce leaves, which curl closely about the pear and have the effect of a hood. Place cloves in the pear for eyes, blanched almonds for ears, and slip thin slices of canned pimento into cuts made for nose and mouth. The expressions may be varied. Put salad dressing around the outside of the pear to represent hair and arrange a bow of red pimento under the chin of the sunbonnet baby. These salads are very effective and easy to make.

Nut Bread
(Twenty-four sandwiches)

1½ C-graham flour
2 C-white flour
4 t-baking powder
1 C-"C" sugar
2 t-salt
1½ C-milk
²
/
₃
C-chopped nut meats, dates or raisins

Sift together all the dry ingredients, add the nut meats and fruit. Add the milk. Stir well, and pour into two well-buttered loaf pans. Allow to stand and rise for twenty minutes. Bake three-fourths of an hour in a moderate oven. Use bread twenty-four hours old for the sandwiches. "C" sugar is light brown sugar and gives food a delicious flavor.

Lemon Sherbet
(Ten portions)

4 C-water
2 C-sugar
¼ C-lemon juice
1 egg white

Boil sugar and water ten minutes. Cool, add lemon juice and strain. Freeze, and when nearly stiff, add beaten egg white and finish freezing.

Icing
(White Mountain Cream)

2 C-sugar
½ C-water
2 egg whites
½ t-lemon extract

Boil the sugar and water without stirring until it threads when dropped from the spoon. Pour slowly into the whites of the eggs beaten stiffly. Beat until it holds its shape. Add the flavoring and spread on the cake.

Bettina's Suggestions

Arrange the sunbonnet babies on a salad platter, and let the
guests help themselves. The salad is light and attractive. The stem end of the pear represents the neck. Cream the butter to be used for sandwiches. It spreads more evenly and goes farther. Sandwiches taste better if allowed to stand for several hours, wrapped securely in a napkin which has been well dampened (not wet). Cut the slices very thin and press together firmly. Cut into fancy shapes.

"R
UTH asked me today how we manage our finances," said Bettina over the dinner table. "She said that she and Fred were wondering what plan was best. I'm so glad I have a definite household allowance and that we have budgeted our expenses so successfully. The other day I was reading an article by Carolyn Claymore in which she says that three-fourths of the domestic troubles are caused by disagreements about money."

"Then we haven't much to quarrel about, have we, Betty? That is true in more than one sense. But I'm sure that this way seems to suit us to a T."

"I'm even saving money, Bob."

"I don't see how you can when you give me such good things to eat, and when we have so much company."

"Well, I plan ahead, you know—plan for my left-overs before they are left, even. I do think that an instinct for buying and planning is better than an instinct for cooking. And either one can be cultivated. But it was certainly hard to get that budget of expenses fixed satisfactorily, wasn't it? I told Ruth that no two families are alike, and that I couldn't tell her just what they ought to spend for clothes, or just what groceries ought to cost. After all, it is an individual matter which things are necessities and which are luxuries. The chief thing is to live within your means, and save as well as invest something—and at the same time be comfortable and happy. I told Ruth we started with the fixed sums and the absolute necessities,
and worked backward. I told her they must absolutely be saving something, if only a quarter a week. Then, that Fred must manage the budget of expenses that comes within his realm, and not interfere with hers, and that she must do the same with the household expenditures, and not worry him. It takes a lot of adjusting to make the system work satisfactorily, but it is certainly worth it."

"Did you tell Ruth about the envelope system that my sister Harriet, uses? She says she is so careless naturally that when George gives her her allowance each month, she has to put the actual cash in separate envelopes, and then vow to herself that she will not borrow from the gas money to make the change for the grocer-boy, and so forth. That is the only way she can teach herself."

"My cousin's wife used to keep the most wonderful and complete accounts, but she couldn't tell without a lot of work in hunting up the items how much she already had spent for groceries or clothes or anything. She had to change her method, and it was she who taught me to keep my accounts in parallel columns, a page for a week, because you give me my allowance each week. I like this way so much, for I can tell at a glance how my expenses are comparing with the allotted sum."

"I like to look at your funny, neat little notebook, Bettina, all ruled so carefully for the week, and the headings, such as gas, electricity, groceries, meat, milk, laundry, across the top."

"Don't make fun of my notebook. I couldn't keep house without it. In case of fire, I'd save it first of all, I know! It is almost like a diary to me! I can look back over it and remember, 'That was the day Bob brought Mr. Green home and we almost ran out of potatoes!' Or 'This was the day I thought my brown bread had failed, but Bob seemed to like it!'" she exaggerated.

"Failures in cooking! Why, Bettina, I don't know the meaning of the words! And I don't see how you can feed me so well on the sum I give you for the purpose. I'd feel guilty, only you don't look a bit unhappy or overworked."

"I should say not!"

"You surely don't remember how to cook all the things you give me!"

"No, indeed, Bob, not definitely, that is. You see, on the shelf by my account book, which you smile over, I have my card index with lots and lots of recipes filed away. Then I have notebooks, too, with all sorts of suggestions tucked in them just where I can lay my hand on them."