Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-08-18
Cooking summer Vcgetnb les.

A lady writing in an Eastern ex-
change says that in cooking vegeta-
blcs one must use what the Yankee
housekeeper calls "jedgment." Half
the vegetables cooked are spoiled by
being just half done. Hard potatoes,
stringy squash, woodeny beets, and
tough onions exasperate anybody
who cares for good food. These
most delicious foods are utterly de-
testable if not thoroughly done, yet
people go on eating them indefinitely,
unconscious apparently that they can
be made to taste any better.
Potatoes of average size should be
boiled fully half an hour. If they
are to be mashed, pour off the water
and set the kettle back upon the
range, with the lid half on, until the
moisture has cvaporated, and the po-
tatoes have grown dry and mealy.
Then if you have large quantity
mash them with potato-pestle !; if
only a few, beat them up with stout
iron or plated spoon. Add salt, but
ter, and enough milk or cream to
make them rich and smooth. Be sure
to beat them sufficiently to make them
snowy white and light. Nearly all
cooks know theoretically that this is
the right way to cook mashed pota-
toes, but how many dish up the de-
licious mixture that this method
thoroughly followed insures? The
chief fault with most of them is that
the potatoes are not allowed to dry
entirely before they are mashed. If
after dinner there is quantity of
mashed potato left, pack it tightly in
a shallow dish, and at breakfast time
cut it in moderately thick slices, and
brown them delicately with little
butter in pan. Potato warmed over
in this way is exceedingly good with
boiled fresh fish. Boiled in their
jackets, these vegetables should also
be suffered to dry off when they are
done. The very best way to warm
over potatoes cooked in this fashion
is to slice them paporthin with a
sharp knife, and let them simmer on
the range with generous quantity
of milk and butter. Turn the potato
about carefully with a broad-bladed
knife, so that the pieces may not be
broken too much. Let 1t simmer UNI
til the milk and butter are all cooked
into the potato, but not till it is dry.
Season it to taste with salt, and when
1t is dished up sprinkle it delicately
with pepper. Never chop up cold
potatoes into sea of milk and water.
Potatoes when cold are also very good
cut in two, broiled and buttcred and
sailed at the fire. Cooked in this way
they are better for summer breakfast
than the Saratoga potatoes, which are
always more or less greasy, no matter
how carefully they are cooked.
That most delicious of vegetables,
squash, is often spoiled by the same
cause that makes potatoes UNBEATABLE
the water in or over which it is
cooked is not thoroughly dried out.
Squash should be steamed, and the
pieces, when they are done, must be
squeezed III a coarse cloth until the
vegetable is comparatively dry. Then
beat it up briskly and season liborally
with butter, pepper and salt. Don't
allow squash to come to the table
mushy" and stringy. When you
cook peas, leave little of the liquor
in which they are boiled in the pan,
and season with butter, pepper and
salt in spite of French cooks, peas
are not nearly SO good when dry as
when cooked in this manner. To
matocs cooked with butter and fresh
soda crackers broken into small bits
and stirred i'll until the mixture is
thick, are delicious. Nothing is much
more uninviting than tomatoes cook
ed after the popular fashion--half a
dozen half cooked Jumps swimming
in weak, greasy liquor. But toma.
toes IN their perfection are raw.
Choose large, perfect, ripe ones, and
pour boiling water over them to loos-
en- the skins, pouring 1t off immedi-
ately. Peel them, cut them in slices.
and put on ice or in the oellar to get
cold before they are put on the table.
Sprinkle the slices lightly with pep
per and salt. If very cold they are
better simply dressed in this way than
with vinegar. Eat thin, hot toast
with them.
Treat Lima beans as you do peas.
Cook them thoroughly, and leave
with them a little of the liquor richly
seasoned. In cooking all summer
vegetables use fresh butter generous
ly ; without it they are "poor stuff"
But do not in frying egg plant allow
1t to be soggy with grease. Let the
slices lie for several hours in water
until the bitterness Is extracted, then
dry them, dip them in batter, fry in
fresh hutter and drain. They are not
catable when immersed in quantity
of hot lard.
When you boil beets be sure that
they are thoroughly done. Thin slice
them, and eat them hot with butter
on them. They are thousand times
| better this way than when cut up in