E:\PAGEJOY\COOKBOOK\COOKBOOK.TXT L---P---T1----+----2----+----3----T@10-4----+-#V-5----+----R----r----7--T-+--r .x:12 funny characters: « = 1/2 ø = degree sign ------------------------------------------ 17 January 2017: Power-bar recipe linked to from rec.bicycles.tech I removed some, but not all, of the web-page clutter. File is clean down to "video tipps" Title is "Msli bars -- power bars for hobby-sportsmen who are fed up with sweet bars. Yields about 30 bars. Salzige Msliriegel Powerriegel fr Hobbysportler, die die sáen Riegel satt haben! Ergibt ca. 30 Riegel. Verfasser Kurp„lzer Zutaten 200 g Haferflocken 250 g Nsse, gemischte, je nach Vorliebe 100 g Speck, fein gewrfelt 200 g K„se, geriebener (™sterreichischer Bergk„se ist mein Favorit) 2 Ei(er) 1 Prise(n) Salz 1 Prise(n) Zucker ™l, (Sonnenblumen”l) Video-Tipps * Nussbutter herstellen * Speck ausbraten ohne Fett Portionen Umrechnen Rezept speichern Nachricht schlieáen Rezept erfolgreich gespeichert Das Rezept wurde erfolgreich in die Hauptsammlung gespeichert. Zum Kochbuch Nachricht schlieáen Rezept nicht gespeichert Das Rezept konnte leider nicht gespeichert werden. Zutaten in Einkaufsliste speichern NEU Die Einkaufsliste hilft dir jetzt auch ohne Login - Probier's aus! Zutaten direkt speichern Einkaufsliste ausw„hlen Zutaten speichern Zubereitung Arbeitszeit: ca. 15 Min. / Schwierigkeitsgrad: simpel / Kalorien p. P.: keine Angabe Haferflocken und Nsse in etwas Sonnenblumen”l mit einer Prise Zucker und einer Prise Salz goldbraun anr”sten. K„se und Speck unterrhren. Die Eier mit etwas Wasser verquirlen. Alles vermengen und auf ein Backblech streichen. 35 Minuten bei 170øC backen. Nach dem Erkalten gleich portionieren und einfrieren, was nicht sofort gebraucht wird. ------------------------------------- E-mail from Alice, 30 December 2006 Okay. I checked cookbook and didn't find this recipe for Date pudding. 2 c. brown sugar 2 c. water big lump of butter vanilla Bring to boil and simmer for ten minutes. 1/2 c. brown sugar 2/3 cup milk 1 stick butter 1 1/2 c flour 1c coursley chopped nuts 1 tsp vanilla 1 c. chopped dates {packed} 1 tsp baking powder Put syrup in baking pan. Mix other ingredients into a batter drop by tablespoon into syrup. Do not stir. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Serve with whipped topping. I actually coppied 1 1/2 cup brown sugar for batter, but that is surely a missprint. The reason this is not in the cook book, I discovered, is because it is Don's family recipe!! Well it's someones grandma's recipe!! ------------------------------------- Liquid Laundry Soap (collected from a survivalist website August 11, 2006) Measure 3 pints of water into a cooking pot. Add 1/3 bar grated Fels Naptha laundry soap. Cook over medium heat until dissolved. Stir in: « cup Washing soda, « cup Borax. Stir until it thickens like honey. Remove from heat. Pour 1 quart of hot water into a two gallon bucket, stirring in the thickened soap mix. Stir and mix until well blended. Cover and set aside for 24 hours. It will gel up. Use « cup for each load. ------------------------------------- Oatmeal Crispies -- Mrs. Pritchard Thoroughly cream 1 cup butter 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup granulated sugar add 2 beaten eggs 1 tsp. vanilla beat well add 1 1/2 cups flour sifted with 1 tsp salt 1 tsp soda add 2 cups rolled oats mix well Form into long rolls. Chill thoroughly and slice 1/4" thick. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet in 350ø oven for 10 minutes. Makes 15 doz. -------------------------------- Comments: I never bother to pre-beat the eggs. "Flouring" your hands with Sesame seeds will keep the dough from sticking to them. Poppy seeds also work, but look dirty. I wrap the "long rolls" in waxed paper, and use waxed paper to catch the flour at the first sifting. The dough "chills" best in the freezer. Refrigerators aren't as cold as iceboxes were! It never freezes too hard to slice. Raisins get too hard when chilled, and shatter the slices when the knife fails to penetrate. If wrapped in aluminum foil, the dough will keep for weeks, and cookies can be sliced off as required.  Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 09:19:31 -0800 1769 a recipe from Mrs Raffalo in the English Housekeeper (1778)279 To make Ten Crumpets. Beat two eggs very well, put to them a quart of warm milk and water, and a large spoonful of barm; beat in as much fine flour as will make them rather thicker than a common batter. barm: The froth that forms on top of fermenting malt liquors, which is used to leven bread and to cause fermentation in other liquors; yeast leven. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* The cakes are cooked upon a hot iron plate such that one side only is uniform and is brown and well cooked in texture. the top side is full of holes of various sizes. the crumpet is springy when fresh and uncooked. the preferred method is to put the crumpet on a three pronged fork and toast before an open fire with red embers, both side are toasted and the hot crumpets have a large dollop of butter put upon the top which melts and flows into the numerous holes. The crumpet is consumed immediately while still hot and fresh. They seem to originate in this form in the Shropshire area. However in 1382 Wyclif a cake of a loof, a crusted cake spreynde with oyle, a crumpid cake, of the leepe therp looues; Vulgate tortanique panis unis, crustulam conspersam oleo. laganum de canistro asymoram. Buck wheat seems historically to be a feature of the crumpet. Now which brave soul is going to try out the ancient recipe. Gary, and are there buttered crumpets still for tea. Just had a buttered crumpet with a poached egg on for breakfast. -- Gary.Peach@dial.pipex.com http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/gary.peach/ To unsubscribe send email to majordomo@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat your@address.here --------------------------------------------- X-POP3-Rcpt: jbeeson@mail Return-Path: knit@geom.umn.edu Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 02:44:04 -0600 Errors-To: amy@winternet.com Reply-To: Kathiesue@aol.com Originator: knit@geom.umn.edu Sender: knit@geom.umn.edu From: Kathiesue@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: KNIT: Rice Pudding Recipe, FO, KIP X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0 -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: Knitters' Mailing List Here's my holiday gift; a simple rice pudding recipe I got from my very elderly (almost-96-year-old) aunt. I actually make this when I venture into the kitchen from time to time. It's easy and tastes good. Rice Pudding 4 cups milk 3 tablespoons uncooked rice (yes, that's all) one-third cup sugar (more if you like it sweeter, up to twice as much) one-half teaspoon salt one-half teaspoon nutmeg one-half cup raisins (more or less, as you wish) Bake in buttered dish (I use a bread pan), three and a half hours at 300 degrees. Stir a couple of times during the first hour. Can be served warm or cold. Charity Knitting, FO! I finished the Wool-Ease socks I began Thanksgiving. I managed to Kitchener-stitch the toe of the second one while giving an exam to my night class Thursday night. I'm thrilled at how fast these socks got done, so I started another pair right away to keep up the momentum. BTW, does this constitute knitting in public? I knit while my history classes take their exams, just carry the skein of yarn tucked under my arm and walk around the room from time to time to keep an eye on them, knitting all the while. Some of the students even tell me it has a calming effect on them. Next week is finals week, maybe I'll get a whole pair of socks done. Blessings and peace to all, Kathie Kathiesue@aol.com. 3 X-POP3-Rcpt: jbeeson@mail Return-Path: knit@geom.umn.edu Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 18:14:27 -0600 Errors-To: amy@winternet.com Reply-To: bourque@ios.bc.ca Originator: knit@geom.umn.edu Sender: knit@geom.umn.edu From: Marie-Claude Bourque To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: KNIT: knitting for SO; my Xmas gift; pospone X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0 -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: Knitters' Mailing List ICOSH: knitting for SO; my Xmas gift; pospone Hi there all knitlister, I am taking a bit of time from my hectic schedule to post one more time before I go home for the holidays (flying tomorrow morning to Quebec City for a nice 4 weeks!). So, I will have to go on pospone during that time. I will miss you all. First, again thanks a lot for the at least 20 people who offered help on Toy Knit. I haven't reply to all of you yet but I have not forgotten. It will have to wait until I get back. No email at my folks. KNITTING FOR SO: I have a funny real story that happened to an old roommate of mine. She had knitted this really nice blue aran pullover for her boyfriend in Toronto. They broke a couple years after and she moved to Halifax. She then knitted another aran pullover from the exact same pattern for her new boyfriend (in green thought). She brought boyfriend nb 2 over to Toronto for the holidays and they attended a small dinner were boyfriend nb 1 was also. And yes ... they were both wearing the same pullover! and ... they didn't even noticed, although all the other girls at the dinner did and my roommate was worried the whole time. So, make sure you at least change your pattern. (She was relieved to see that boyfriend nb 2's pullover was nicer since she had those extra years of knitting practice ) Well, I will still knit something for SO since we have been together for quite a while and being Scottish he totally appreciates knitting and he sees me knitting a lot so he knows how much work goes in even a small pair of socks. GIFT TO THE LIST (food so delete at will): TARTE A LA TOMATE (or french tomato pie) This is a totally genuine french recipe that I picked up from a friend while living in Paris the last 2 years. This is a easy-veryquick version since I use a frozen pie crust. If you have time to make your own crust it is even better. I like the quick version for dinner after a long day when I don't feel like cooking (perfect for the hectic holiday season) Ingredients: One pie crust Some tomatoes (if you can afford the vine rippened ones it is better) A few eggs (2-4 depending on the size of the pie and your taste) Digon mustard (real strong one) good strong cheese grated (like Emmenthal or Gruyere) some heavy cream (in France they have something call fresh cream which doesn't exist in North America- I used whipping cream here) Fresh herbs if you have. Preheat the oven at 350F. Put the empty pie crust in for 5-10 minutes. Take it out of the oven. Brush some Digon mustard all over the pie crust. Slice the tomatoes and take out all the mushy transparent liquidy stuff where the seeds are (very clear intruction no ?). Cover the bottom of the pie crust with one layer of tomatoes. In a bowl, mix the eggs, some cream (1/4 to 1/2 cups) and add the grated cheese (I like lots of cheese), a little salt and pepper, fresh herbs (still very good without). Pour this mixture over the tomatoes. Cook in the oven for about half an hour or until the egg mixture is solid. If you are confused by any of these instructions feel free to email. I love this easy dish. That is probably what I will have for dinner in fact since I still have to pack my suitcases. (and yes I am finishing my dad's last sock for Chrismas in the plane) MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you, Marie-Claude in Victoria BC (but soon in gorgious and white Quebec City!) bourque@ios.bc.ca 5 Mrs. Stanley's Spice Cupcakes  1 egg 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup butter 1 cup muscat raisins (seedless raisins will work, but haven't the flavor of the seeded variety) 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon cloves 1 cup water 2 cups sifted flour (all-purpose or bread, not cake) 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon soda Beat eggs. Add sugar, raisins, butter, cinnamon, cloves, and water. Bring to a boil. Cool. Add flour, baking powder, and soda. Bake in loaf or cup cakes at 350ø. Honey Spice Cake  Substitute 7/8 cup honey for the sugar, and reduce water by three tablespoons. You can get honey out of a measuring cup if you butter the cup before you use it. I never asked Mom who Mrs. Stanley was; it might have been the wife of Archie Stanley, who was in the Checker Club. The eggs do not curdle under this treatment, though I never believe the recipe is going to work. I used to use this batter to stick candied fruit together and bake little fruitcakes in toy loaf pans. I've lost my taste for candied fruit and think Christmas cakes are much better if filled with raw nuts and dried fruit. If you haven't got butter, use cooking oil, not margarine. 6 Crumb Pie 1 cup flour 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 egg Crumb together like peas. Spread thin. Mom would put fruit, usually canned peaches, in her 9 x 13 pan, sprinkle this mixture on top, and bake it. It was a quick and easy way to produce the pies farmers required, and crumb pie is delicious _ especially if served warm with ice cream. I inherited the pan, or a similar one, but have no need for a quick way to make rich food. I don't believe any thickener was used in the filling, because the flour in the crumbs would do the job. I can't remember whether or not canned fruit was put in the pan syrup and all, but I think it was. Mom would also use the pan for cobbler: she lined the pan with pie dough, allowing it to hang over the sides, put in pie filling, then folded the excess dough over the top, leaving a naked rectangle of filling in the middle. You could make a bigger pie in less time, and the crust would taste better because it hadn't been handled much. 7 Strawberry Preserves Put three cups strawberries in the preserving kettle, pour three cups sugar in a mound in center, using a funnel or paper cone. Do NOT mix sugar and berries. Place kettle over a low fire. After it begins to heat, a bubble will appear at the side of the pan near the edge. After the third bubble has formed, let the berries cook twenty minutes, then (pour them into a stone crock or porcelain pan and) leave uncovered until the next day. [Step in parenthesis unnecessary if you have a stainless-steel kettle, and it is better not to disturb the berries.] Pour or spoon them from the crock without reheating and seal in sterile jars. Mom froze these preserves in pint jars, so that they tasted fresh all winter. We would fish out the berries to spread on our bread and put the syrup on our ice cream. We always had one of those cylindrical boxes of ice cream in the freezer; I think it held two and a half gallons. With weeds to pull and a woods to play in, nobody worried that children would get fat. Before we got the freezer, Mom would pack the berries as soon as they were cooked, so that the hot preserves would melt paraffin in the bottom of a sterile pint jar; the paraffin rose to the top and formed an air-tight cork as the preserves cooled. If left in the kettle overnight, some of the syrup goes back into the fruit and the preserves will be thicker and more like jam. 8 Corn Bread Mix 4 cups sifted flour 2 tablespoons baking powder 2 teaspoons salt « cup sugar 3 cups corn meal « cup shortening (this always meant bacon grease) Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar. Add cornmeal. Cut in the shortening. 9 High-Calorie Muffins 1 cup raw sunflower seeds 1 cup raisins 1 cup self-rising mixed edible powder 1 cup liquid (more or less) sweetener to taste Mix ingredients, divide among twelve or eighteen generously-oiled muffin tins, bake at 350ø (or what whatever else you're baking takes) until done. A cup of the syrup off canned fruit makes a good muffin. Apple- juice concentrate makes the muffin unpleasantly tart. A few overripe bananas instead of liquid make a very good muffin. Honey is good when the powder is of delicate flavor; molasses is good with spices _ but spiced muffins aren't good on the road. Package in sandwich bags and freeze until wanted. Muffins will keep two or three weeks in the freezer and about twelve hours at 90ø. These muffins were my answer to a cyclist's need for small amounts of food at frequent intervals, and an old lady's need to be fed immediately when hungry. "Mixed edible powder" is assorted thises and thats to taste: soy flour and torula yeast for meat, kelp powder for vegetables, rose hip powder for fruit, malt flour for flavor, potato flour because I want to use it up, calcium carbonate because I don't want to put milk in something that may sit around for hours at incubator temperature, . . . sufficient whole-wheat bread flour to make six cups, and two tablespoons of baking powder. It makes good pancakes if it's at least two-thirds wheat flour. Sift the powder from one bowl to another until thoroughly mixed. An old-fashioned crank-type sifter is almost essential for this operation. A half-gallon tea strainer will work. A five-pound honey tin holds six cups of mix. Mix keeps indefinitely if kept in an airtight container in the freezer, but might go rancid at room temperature. White-flour muffins don't cotton to raisins and sunflower seeds, but a mix based on white flour can make good pancakes. 10 Tarts 2 cups brown sugar 2 eggs butter size of walnut 1 tablespoon flour Mix, place in tart shells, bake at 350ø. It seems to me that we called these "bobandy tarts" or "Bob Andy tarts". You would put only a tiny amount of filling in each shell, because it puffed way, way up, then collapsed to leave a glaze on the crust, and ohh, they were good. I've haven't felt thin enough to make these since I got my full height. I haven't the foggiest idea whether that was a black walnut or an english walnut, and if black, whether it was with or without the green shell. Try a quarter of a stick. (One ounce.) 11 Crackerjack This recipe isn't in my book, perhaps because I knew I'd never have the guts to make it. It isn't particularly fattening, but it's downright dangerous. First Mom would pop enough corn to fill an enamel dishpan. (Only a little over half full, to allow for stirring.) Then she put white sugar into her heaviest skillet, which was a cast-aluminum chicken fryer. As I recall, the sugar was at least half an inch deep in the pan. Now I've done this next stage, though I can't remember why I wanted to melt sugar. You put the skillet over high heat. (I'm not sure an electric stove will work for this; it was always done over gas.) You start to stir at once, and you don't stop stirring for an instant; I recall Mom once said "I can't come to the door, I've got a bull by the tail." You use a small spatula to stir, so that you can continuously scrape the bottom and see to it that not one grain rests undisturbed for more than a few seconds. After a while the grains start to stick together, then they begin to be wet with a white syrup. No matter how diligently you stir, the sugar will burn a little before you melt it all, and the syrup will be a golden caramel brown. You want to pour it on the corn the instant it's completely melted, before it can change from "caramelized" to "burnt". A second person stirs the corn while you pour the syrup in a thin stream over it. Each kernel gets a glaze on at least one side, many of them stick together into lumps, and there are sugar threads to be snitched and eaten by watching children. If you expect to have any left for your party, you must not leave the dishpan in the same room with the children. You and the second person must be perfectly co-ordinated, and you must trust one another, for this syrup is much, much hotter than boiling water; it would crack the glass on your candy thermometer if you were silly enough to stick one in. AND it sticks to everything it touches. We're talking about an opportunity for a featured spot on Rescue 911 here. If I ever did make it, I'd fill the sink with cold water before starting work, in case I wanted to cool something off in a big hurry. Do not attempt to scrub the sugar glass off the skillet, spatula, and dishpan. Sugar glass is so hard that you will injure the finish if you try to scour it away, but it will disappear in a short time if left under water. 1994 Alice tells me that she makes crackerjack unaided, by melting the sugar in a saucepan instead of a skillet to make it easier to pour. It is obvious that co-ordination will be better if one person does both pouring and stirring. 12 Cocoa pudding I always thought my chocolate pudding was lumpy because I made it only once a year _ and so it was, but indirectly. It was lumpy because I thought a once-a-year treat should be made with nothing less than real chocolate. When I needed a small serving of sweet to round out lunchbox meals, I discovered that cocoa makes much better pudding. The following recipe comes out perfectly smooth every time, and contains very little fat: 1/3 cup baking cocoa 1/2 cup white sugar 2 tablespoons corn starch 1/8 teaspoon potassium chloride 1/8 teaspoon sodium chloride 1 teaspoon torula yeast (makes up for the lack of butter) 1 1/8 cup milk 1 teaspoon vanilla Put the dry ingredients into a heavy metal saucepan or a small iron skillet. Mix well, turn the gas on high, and add the milk a few drops at a time while stirring constantly. Once all the ingredients are wet, add more milk each time the mixture threatens to thicken or boil. When all the milk is added, bring the mixture to the boiling point, reduce heat, and cook one minute. Turn off the heat, stir until the pan cools below boiling, then stir in the vanilla, dip into serving dishes, and chill. When half-cup lunchbox dishes are filled half full, this recipe makes five servings. For chocolate sauce, reduce cornstarch to one tablespoon and reduce milk to one cup. 13 MS found upon a sixteen-ounce can of "Cannon" whole sweet potatoes in syrup: Martha's Sweet Potatoes with Praline Topping 1 16 oz. can "Cannon" sweet potatoes 1/4 cup softened butter 1/4 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/4 cup evaporated milk 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla 1/4 tsp nutmeg Drain and mash sweet potatoes. Add all other ingredients to the potatoes, mixing well after each addition. Place in shallow casserole dish. Sprinkle with Praline topping (below) and bake at 350ø for 25-30 minutes. Praline Topping: Mix 1/2 cup brown sugar, 3 tblsp flour, 1/4 cup softened butter, and 1/2 cup chopped pecans until crumbly. This is a rich pudding, not a side dish, and nicely fits a 9" pie shell. Butter the shell well to keep it from getting soggy. I left the butter out of the potatoes, and buttered the pan liberally instead. (There is plenty of butter in the Praline Topping.) Half a can of condensed milk substituted for the evaporated milk and sugar, and hazel nuts filled in for the pecans. Because the sweet potatoes stabilize the custard, I could have put in the whole can of milk. The pudding can be sliced like brownies, and when cold, it can be eaten out of hand like candy. A 9¬" x 6«" cake pan is about the right size. A wooden potato masher is handy for creaming stiff butter into brown sugar. A wire pastry blender will make the mixture "crumbly" for spooning over the runny custard. 14 Chicken Livers and Mushrooms in Butter over Rice  This isn't exactly your everyday healthy supper, but it's good on special occasions -- say finishing the Race Across America. Do not attempt to skimp on the butter and don't substitute margarine. A fine cooking oil might work, if you substitute a tablespoon of cultured buttermilk for the butter residue. An hour or more before suppertime, put half a cup of long-grain brown rice per person into the top of a double boiler. (If feeding bikies, use one cup per person.) Add twice as much water as rice, and a teaspoon of salt per cup of rice. Bring to a good rolling boil, cover tightly, and keep over hot water until serving time. Wash twelve ounces or a pound of fresh mushrooms under cold running water. Keep the caps uppermost so that water doesn't get into the gills, and throw them onto a cotton towel in the dish drainer to draw the water off. Transfer them to another towel on the counter when the first towel gets wet all over. Slice them about a quarter inch thick, set aside. Melt one whole stick of butter -- that's half a cup -- in a measuring cup or small pan. Pour the oil into a small hot skillet, being careful not to get any of the buttermilk into the skillet. It will be necessary to leave a layer of oil on the buttermilk to be sure of this. Saut‚ half a pound or so of chicken livers in the butter oil. At intervals, cut the largest piece in half to check on progress, because overcooked liver is revolting. Remove the livers, leaving the oil in the skillet. Dump the mushrooms into the liver-flavored oil and stir them until they have soaked it up. Dump in the buttermilk, which will cause the mushrooms to give off liquor. Stir the mushrooms around in the gravy until they are almost cooked, then return the livers, stir, and serve at once, in the skillet. Among fattening dishes, this is unusual in that you can in good conscience have all the gravy you want -- but look out for those innocent-tasting mushrooms! 15 Bean Soup  I was astonished to read a column by a professional food writer which said that she used canned beans because she was afraid to try to cook dried beans. Dried beans are the easiest dish in the world to prepare, and used to be the staple when the cook was too busy to cook. You just pick the beans over, wash them, soak them overnight, and boil them in the soaking water. Folks are always touting a "quick soak" in which you bring the beans to the boil, turn the heat off, and wait one hour before proceeding. I can't think of any reason to go to that much trouble, and I think the beans are better if they have time to think that they are going to sprout. Since I like my beans simmered all day, I've never tried to find out how short a time they'll cook in, but I think that well-soaked beans will cook done enough to puree as a chestnut substitute or toss in a salad as a garnish if you merely bring them to a good rolling boil, then allow them to set until they come down to handling temperature. (If you're cooking a small amount of beans, it might be well to simmer them for a while before turning off the heat.) To make good beans, you need a good meaty bone. It's possible to make a good vegetarian bean soup, but not easy. The bone of a good ham is best, but ham bones have gotten scarce. Sometimes you can find smoked pork necks; when these are good, they are very, very good -- if you don't get hysterical at finding small bones in your soup. In a pinch, a boneless picnic ham will do; if you can find some smoked yeast to throw into the broth, it will taste more like broth made with a good bone. Instructions for making bean soup will be long and wordy; bear in mind that making soup is something easier done than said. Start the night before. The beans must be picked over and washed even if you shelled them yourself. "Picking over" means that you look at the beans and pick out any stones, lumps of dirt, or discolored beans. You will probably find very little foreign matter and few spoiled beans, but you should always look. Then you put the beans into water and pick out any that float. Floating beans are probably hollow and may contain bugs. Then you lift the beans out of the water, using your fingers or a slotted spoon, so that the small particles remain in the water. If the water is visibly dirty, wash the beans a second time. If you dally over this, the beans will start to soak and the resultant wrinkling of the skins may cause some sinkers to start floating. If you stirred the beans well and are sure that you got all the floating beans when you first put them into the water, don't worry about beans that start to float later -- unless they look funny. If you want to wash and soak in the same container, pour the beans and water into a colander, then run some water over them and rinse out the pot before putting the beans back. If you intend to cook the beans in a stainless-steel or enamel pot, soak them in the cooking pot. If you intend to use a cast iron pot, soak them in a stainless or glass container. If you happen to have some whole grains in the house, soak a tablespoon or two of brown rice or whatever with the beans. (Whole celery seed is a nice addition to soaking beans.) After soaking all night and simmering all day, grain will dissolve entirely and add body to the broth. The next morning, turn the fire on under the beans and add a tablespoon of cornmeal (optional, but, like the grain, it adds body). Throw in a spoonful of oatmeal, rolled oats, or other cereal if it strikes your fancy, or if you wanted to add whole grain and didn't have any. Some folks like a grated potato. Add the bone and a chopped stalk of celery. Add water to the kettle if necessary. A touch of acid is needed; add a chunk of tomato if they are in season; else use a drop of lemon juice or vinegar, or up to two tablespoons of canned tomatoes. (Note: if your water tastes bad, use bottled water or rain water to cook your beans. Some mineral waters toughen beans.) Any ground starches you add should be put in while the water is cold, but other things can be added in the intervals of cooking breakfast. If you are in a hurry in the mornings, put stuff into a bowl in the refrigerator the night before. Dump seasonings in before breakfast, switch on the crock pot, come home to a hot meal. If the pot is thin, the heat should be low from the beginning. A heavy pot can be brought to the boil on high. When the soup begins to boil, reduce the heat as far as you can without putting the fire out. It should be just enough to keep the soup moving slightly. It may be necessary to use a flame tamer. I found that one of my burner grates would stack stably on top of another, and used that to move the pot farther from the fire. That's all you need to do before time to eat, but it's nice to add some chopped onion and some carrot sticks about an hour before suppertime. You can add the carrot and onion at the beginning if you aren't going to be around; if so, use only a teeny bit of carrot. The soup will be done enough to sample for lunch -- a big help on a busy day. All kinds of seasonings harmonize with beans. I like garlic, thyme, oregano, tobasco, and garlic. Scrounge around in the spice cupboard and get creative. If you add significant amounts of vegetables, you have to call it "mulligan," and should use leftover meat instead of a bone. ("Mulligan" is thick soup or thin stew made of leftovers and beans.) Put pre-cooked meat in late in the cooking. Serve bean soup with freshly-baked cornbread, if possible. Bake it in iron if you can; if you haven't any cornstick pans, use an iron skillet. (A big skillet for lots of crust, a small skillet for lots of middle.) No matter what it says in the recipe, put the fat that is called for into the pan, not into the batter. If you bake in iron, leave the iron in the oven during preheating so that the batter hisses when you pour it in. Add fat at the last minute so that it won't burn. If you use a solid fat and are baking in a cake tin or other thin container (muffin tins are good), put the tin into the oven until the fat melts before pouring the batter. If you use cornstick pans, a pastry brush is almost a necessity for greasing the hot pans. With caution, you can put oil into each hollow and then, using two potholders, tip the pan this way and that to distribute the oil. Don't try it if you are being stingy with the fat. (Because the pans are hot, it doesn't matter to your technique whether you are using grease or oil.) If the broth is weak, consider tomato juice, shoyu, vegetable boullion, minced onion, herbs, and smoked yeast. A spoonful of shoyu can make the taste and color richer without introducing the taste of soy sauce. Too much shoyu, and all your food tastes the same. Like fire, it's great stuff if you don't let it get out of hand. 17 Two Crust Pie  November 23, 1993 Dear Joy and David, It's been a long time since I made an apple pie, but I used to make a lot of them. I mixed the flour, sugar, and spice in a small bowl and then mixed that into the raw sliced apples. I used a glass pie pan, lined it with the crust, and piled the raw apples in, piled them pretty high. Then I put the top crust over the pie with slits in it to let the steam escape. Then I baked the pie for ten minutes in the microwave and twenty minutes in the range oven at 425 degrees. Microwaves vary, but the apples should have cooked down about as far as they will go when you put the pie in the range oven. Us the Microwave on High. I used to do all my two-crust pies that way; it saves so much time and also makes sure the bottom crust is well cooked and browned. Also the pies never boil out in the oven that way. (Should I write and tell Julia Childs how to do it?) Mom (Evelyn Beeson) 18 Bread Pudding Baked custard is a dainty dish, and apt to weep or curdle. Baked custard with a few slices of bread in it is the easiest sweet to prepare. Throw milk, eggs, sugar, stale bread, and flavorings together in almost any proportion, and it will probably work. Custard-based baked dishes should always be set in a pan of water in the oven to keep them from overheating on the bottom. (Starting with boiling water can also make them cook faster.) A thin layer of cake crumbs on top of a baked custard can give it some of the stability of bread pudding, and also serve as a garnish. Always use pieces of bread, never crumbs, to make bread pudding. It is traditional to break each slice into four or more pieces, but I cut my stale bread into croutons before drying it, because small pieces are more compact in the freezer. Always dry the bread thoroughly before using it, and let it get stale before you dry it. Always eat a sample of your stale bread before you use it. Sometimes it goes off in the freezer, and you don't want to spoil your other ingredients. (This also guards against using raisin bread in the meat loaf and garlic bread in the pudding.) Packaged dried bread cubes will do in a pinch, but pre-packaged bread is often dried while still fresh, and fresh bread makes sticky pudding and dressing. A little extra butter makes the texture less unpleasant. If possible, choose premises-baked bread for drying, because mass- produced bread never gets honestly stale -- it just tastes old. 19 Kitchen scale Every kitchen needs a scale. I used to be baffled by the plethora of gadgets for making estimates of how much spaghetti to cook, all of them much more trouble than weighing out the required amount. Then an immigrant woman was arrested for drug-dealing on no other evidence than that she had a scale in the house -- the officers couldn't conceive of any legitimate use for a scale! If I ever come under suspicion, I'll be accused of cheating as well -- my scale makes eleven one-pound packages of hamburger out of a ten-pound bag. But if I know that my recipe for macaroni and cheese works with enough macaroni to make the needle point at 8 oz., I don't care what it really weighs. At any rate, the recipe calls for anything between seven and eight. A known defect is as good as no defect. It's the flaws you don't know about that kill you. 20 On being prepared Every cook needs a few meals that can be prepared with only canned goods and stuff that you always have in the house. I used to have a splendid recipe for making a company meal out of a canned whole chicken, but too many people balked at picking out the bones, so whole chickens vanished from the canned-goods departments. Baked macaroni and cheese is a good staples-only meal, and can be kept warm for a long time after it's ready to eat. The simplest recipe is the best: half a pound of macaroni, half a pound of extra-sharp cheddar cheese (it comes in half-pound packages that keep in the fridge for ages); half a quart of milk, a teaspoon of salt, a crank of pepper, and a sprinkle of paprika. Instead of paprika, you can garnish it with slices of Spam. Leftover or canned meat can be stirred in. Real meat and fake cheese get tough if left on top. If you make the dish with fake cheese, bury it in the macaroni, and protect the macaroni from drying out with a layer of bread crumbs or instant stuffing. Put the salt into a quart or more of water, bring it to a boil, add the macaroni, boil five minutes, dump into a colander or a half-gallon tea strainer. (I don't know where that half-gallon tea strainer came from, but it's the handiest gadget in the kitchen.) Meanwhile, set the oven for 350ø, cut up the cheese, and butter an iron skillet or a casserole. (Butter not strictly necessary if the skillet is well seasoned. The sides need butter more than the bottom.) Put some of the cheese into the skillet, dump in the macaroni and level it out, pepper it, cover it with the remaining cheese, pour the milk over it, garnish as desired, bake an hour or thereabouts. Start checking on it after half an hour. Total cook's time consumed: about ten minutes, including two minutes spent scouring out the skillet after supper. Try to have plenty of the stuff that you always have, so that you won't have to traipse out into a blizzard. If you use powdered or canned milk, for example, buy it six months before you use it. Buy flour when you open the last sack, not when you use up the last sack. Temper stocking-up with due regard for keeping qualities and bugs. In a muggy climate, everything that you haven't room in the freezer for should be used up as quickly as possible, and bought in small packages. Staples should be kept in airtight containers, preferably glass or metal. Canning jars, mayonnaise jars, and five-pound honey tins are good. A five-pound honey tin holds six cups of flour or baking mix. If you don't use canned milk, keep one can of evaporated milk in the house anyhow. Use it up and replace it twice a year, as canned milk does not keep as well as other canned goods. Canned fruits and vegetables can be kept for a year or more. 21 It is de rigeur to act astonished that tomatoes are fruits. I've never figured out why the out-freakers never pick on any of the other vegetables that are fruits, such as okra, bell peppers, green beans, snap peas, and just about everything that isn't a leaf, stem, root, or bulb. For that matter, why don't they ever get excited because some "root vegetables" are bulbs, corms, and tubers? How about the fruits that are stems or receptacles? Botany is botany and cookery is cookery, and there is no reason to suppose that the vocabularies would coincide. What you call a thing depends on what you plan to do with it. To a vet, it's feces. If it's cluttering a pasture, it's cow plop. If you are tracking the animal that left it, it's scat. If you plan to put it on your garden, it's manure. If you step in it, it's shit. Which reminds me of a 1920's cartoon of a sweet young thing examining her shoe. The caption: "Oh shit, I've stepped in doo-doo." 22 Deviled Eggs Deviled eggs are childishly simple to prepare: hard-boil the eggs, cut them in half lengthwise, pop out the yolks, mash them with a fork, stirring in a few seasonings as you mash, put them back into the hollows of the whites. A sprinkle of paprika is a popular garnish; you can substitute cayenne or chili pepper, but should warn your guests. 23 Karo Candy One cup corn syrup, preferably maple-flavored four cups white sugar one cup milk one stick (« cup) butter one teaspoon vanilla Cook syrup, sugar, and milk to a soft ball (238ø). Add the butter and vanilla and move to a cool burner. When it has cooled enough to hold your hand against it, add nuts (if desired) and beat. Spread in a buttered cake pan. Garnish, if desired, with nuts pressed into the soft candy. Cut before the candy fully hardens. Because of the large percentage of corn syrup in this recipe, it's nearly foolproof even when young children are working without a thermometer.  PBL's Bread and Butter Pickles Use about two quarts of sliced pickles or same amount pickles and sliced onions. Put about one-third cup salt on pickles. Cover and weight after putting enough ice cubes over to cover pickles when melted. Leave on counter. Next morning, drain pickles. Heat enough water and about one-half to three-fourths cup vinegar to cover with about a teaspoon alum. Drop in pickles and keep at just boiling point about ten minutes. Do not boil. Drain again. Fix enough vinegar and sugar equal parts to cover -- approximately a cup and a half of each. Add celery seed, mustard seed, curry powder, turmeric, bay leaf, a snort (1/10 tsp) of cayenne pepper or a fresh red pepper (hot). Drop in pickles and stir occasionally till simmer stage. Can or place in ref. + use. Notes: I expanded most of the abbreviations. "Pickles" means cucumbers. "Can" means the open-kettle method. Some open-kettle cans will spoil, but if the pickles are processed, none of them will be fit to eat. (With all that vinegar, you don't need to worry about undetectable spoilage.)