A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband With Bettina's Best Recipes (43 page)

"No, Charlotte, I melt the butter, add the crumbs, stir them
well, and then spread them on the top of the escalloped oysters, or fish, or whatever I am escalloping."

"I'm glad to know the right way of doing, Bettina. Good-bye, dear."

For dinner Bob and Bettina had:

Ham Timbales Macaroni and Cheese
Baked Apples
Light Rolls Butter
Grapefruit Salad
Chocolate Custard Coffee

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Ham Timbales
(Three timbales)

1 C-ground, cooked ham
¹
/
₃
C-soft bread crumbs
¼ t-salt
¼ t-paprika
1 egg
½ C-milk

Mix the ham, salt, crumbs and paprika. Add the egg, well beaten, and the milk. Pour into a well-buttered tin or aluminum individual moulds. Place in a pan of hot water and bake in a moderate oven for thirty minutes. Unmould on a platter. Serve hot or cold.

Grapefruit Salad
(Two portions)

1 C-grapefruit, cut in cubes
¼ C-marshmallows, cut in squares
¼ C-diced celery
¼ t-salt
2 T-cottage cheese
¼ t-paprika
3 T-salad dressing
2 lettuce leaves

Place the lettuce leaves on the serving plates. Arrange carefully portions of grapefruit, marshmallows, celery and cheese upon the lettuce. Sprinkle with salt and paprika. Pour the salad dressing over each portion and serve cold.

Chocolate Custard
(Two portions)

1 C-milk
1 large egg
4 T-sugar
¹
/
₃
square of chocolate, melted
1 T-water
½ t-vanilla
¹
/
₈
t-salt

Cook half the sugar, the chocolate and the water until smooth
and creamy (two minutes). Add the milk while the mixture is hot. Stir until smooth. Beat the egg, add the rest of the sugar and the salt. Add to the custard mixture. Mix well. Pour into two well-buttered custard moulds. Place the moulds in a pan surrounded by hot water. Set in a moderate oven and cook until a knife piercing it will come out clean. (Generally thirty minutes.) Allow to stand fifteen minutes in a warm place. Unmould and serve cold.

"W
ELL, Uncle John! Hello!" said Bob, as he came into the kitchen. "Is Aunt Lucy here, too?"

"No, she isn't," said Uncle John, shaking his head solemnly, "and the fact is, I shouldn't be here myself if it weren't for a sort of conspiracy; eh, Bettina?"

"That's so, Bob," said Bettina, coming in from the dining-room, her hands full of dishes, "and now I suppose we'll have to let you in on the secret. Uncle John has just bought a beautiful new fireless cooker for Aunt Lucy. Haven't you, Uncle John?"

"Well!" said Bob, heartily. "That's fine! How did you happen to think of it?"

"Well Bob, she's been dreading the summer on the farm—not feeling so very strong lately, you know—and this morning she was just about discouraged. It's next to impossible to get any help out there—she says she's given up that idea—and at breakfast she told me that if the spring turned out to be a hot, uncomfortable one, she believed she'd go out and spend the summer with Lem's girl in Colorado. I naturally hate to have her do that, so I concluded to do everything I could to keep her at home. I telephoned to Bettina, and she promised to help me. The very first thing she suggested was a fireless cooker, and we bought that today. I believe your Aunt Lucy'll like it, too."

For dinner Bettina served:

Meat Balls with Egg Sauce
Baked Potatoes
Creamed Peas
Marshmallow Pudding Chocolate Sauce

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Meat Balls
(Three portions)

1 C-raw beef, cut fine
¼ C-bread crumbs
2 T-milk
1 egg-yolk
¼ t-salt
¹
/
₈
t-paprika
1 t-chopped parsley
¼ t-onion salt
¼ t-celery salt
3 T-bacon fat

Soak the crumbs, milk and egg together for five minutes. Add the beef, salt, paprika, parsley, onion and celery salt. Shape into flat cakes one inch thick, two and a half inches in diameter. Place the fat in the frying-pan and when hot, add the cakes. Lower the flame and cook seven minutes over a moderate fire, turning to brown evenly. Serve on a hot platter. Garnish with parsley. Serve with egg sauce.

Egg Sauce for Meat Balls
(Three portions)

3 T-flour
2 T-butter
1 t-chopped parsley
1 C-milk
¼ t-salt
¼ t-paprika
1 hard-cooked egg,
cut fine

Melt the butter, add the flour, salt and paprika. Mix well, add the milk, and cook for two minutes. Add the hard-cooked egg sliced, or cut in small pieces. Serve hot with the meat balls.

Marshmallow Pudding
(Three portions)

2 t-granulated gelatin
2 T-cold water
¹
/
₃
C-sugar
½ C-boiling water
1 t-lemon extract
1 t-vanilla
1 egg-white

Soak the gelatin in cold water for three minutes. Add the boiling water, and when thoroughly dissolved add the sugar. Allow to cool. Beat the egg-white stiff. When the gelatin begins to congeal, beat it until fluffy, add the extracts and then the egg-white. Beat until stiff. Pour into a moistened cake pan. When hard and cold, remove from the pan, cut in one inch cubes and pile in a glass dish.

"C
OME in! Come in!" cried Bob to the Dixons. "You're just in time to have dessert with us! Bettina, here are the Dixons!"

"Do sit down," said Bettina, "and have some Boston cream pie with us!"

"Frank won't need urging," said Charlotte. "Our dessert tonight was apple sauce, and Boston cream pie (whatever it is) sounds too enticing to be resisted."

"It looks a little like the Washington pie my mother used to make," said Frank. "Only that wasn't so fancy on the top."

"Washington pie needs whipped cream to make it perfect," said Bettina, "and as I had no whipped cream I made this with a meringue."

"Dessert with the neighbors!" said Frank, laughing. "Charlotte read me a suggestion the other day that sounded sensible. A housewife had introduced a new custom into her neighborhood. Whenever she had planned a particularly good dessert she would phone a few of her friends not to plan any dessert for themselves that evening, but to stroll over after dinner and have dessert with her family. Wasn't that an idea? It might lead to cooperative meals! We haven't done our share; have we? We should have telephoned to you to have the main course with us tonight. Say, Bettina, I like this Boston cream pie! It's what I call a real dessert!"

Lamb Chops Creamed Carrots
Baked Potatoes
Rolls Butter
Baked Apples
Boston Cream Pie Coffee

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Creamed Carrots
(Two portions)

1 C-carrots
1 T-flour
1 T-butter
½ C-milk
¼ t-salt
¹
/
₈
t-paprika

Carrots

Wash and scrape the carrots thoroughly, cover with boiling water, and allow to boil until tender when pierced with a knitting needle or a fork. (About twenty minutes.) Drain and serve with sauce. Carrots may be cut into three-fourth inch cubes or any fancy shapes, and will cook in less time.

White Sauce for Carrots

Melt butter, add the flour, salt and paprika. Mix well. Gradually add the milk, and cook the sauce until creamy.

Baked Potatoes
(Two portions)

2 potatoes

Wash thoroughly two medium-sized potatoes. With the sharp point of the knife, make a small cut around the potato to allow the starch grains to expand. Bake the potato in a moderate oven until it feels soft and mealy, when pressed with the hands. (About forty-five minutes.) Break open the potato to allow the steam to escape. (Turn the potato about in the oven to insure evenness in baking.)

Bettina's Baked Apples
(Two portions)

2 apples
½ C-"C" sugar
½ C-water
1 t-cinnamon
½ t-vanilla
A few grains of salt

Wash and core the apples. Mix the sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and salt, and fill the cavity with the mixture. Place the apples in a small pan, and pour a little water around them. Bake twenty-five minutes in a moderate oven.

Boston Cream Pie
(Six portions)

3 T-butter
8 T-(one-half C-sugar)
1 egg
¼ C-milk
⁷
/
₈
C-flour
1½ t-baking powder
¼ t-vanilla

Cream the butter, add the egg. Mix well. Add the sugar and mix thoroughly. Add the milk alternately with the flour and baking powder. Mix thoroughly. Add the flavorings. Bake in two layer-cake pans, fitted with waxed paper, in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. Spread the following filling between the layers.

Filling

7 T-sugar
3 T-flour
¹
/
₈
t-salt
1 egg-yolk
1 C-milk
½ t-vanilla

Mix the sugar, flour and salt. Add slowly the egg-yolk, beaten, and the milk. Stir well. Cook ten minutes in a double boiler, stirring occasionally to prevent lumping. Add vanilla and remove from the fire. When partially cool, spread part of the filling over one layer of the cake. Allow to stand five minutes and then add more filling. Allow to stand two minutes. Place the other layer on the top. Spread a meringue over the whole and place in a hot oven long enough to brown it delicately.

Meringue

1 egg-white
¹
/
₈
t-salt
2 T-sugar
¹
/
₈
t-baking powder

Add salt to the egg, beat until thick and fluffy, add the sugar and baking powder and beat one minute.

"M
—M!" said Ruth, walking into Bettina's kitchen late one afternoon. "What is it that smells so perfectly delicious?"

"Lamb stew," said Bettina. "Bob is particularly fond of it, and we haven't had it for a long time. This is such a cold day that I thought lamb stew would taste very good tonight."

"And what are you making now?"

"Soft gingerbread. It's just ready to pop into the oven, and then I can go into the living-room with you and we'll visit in state."

"Don't, Bettina. I'd much rather talk in your shining little kitchen with the kettle bubbling on the hearth (only it's a gas stove and you won't let it bubble long if you think of your gas bill). 'Kitchen Konfidences!' What a name for a nice little domestic science book!"

"Well, we'll stay in the kitchen then, and exchange kitchen konfidences. Where have you been this afternoon in your big woolly coat?"

"Down town to the market. And I did get something besides food—a small purchase that you advised me to buy. A box of labels—plain label stickers, you know—to stick on the boxes that I put away—out of season things and all that. I've noticed how neatly all your stored-away things are labeled."

"It saves so much time in finding things. And a label looks better than writing on the box, for the labels are white and very often the box is dark pasteboard, and pencil marks are difficult to see."

"Well, good-bye, Betty dear, I must run along now."

Bettina's menu that night consisted of:

Lamb Stew
Apple Sauce Rolls
Gingerbread
Coffee

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Lamb Stew
(Four portions)

1½ lbs. lamb (from the shoulder)
3 T-lard
3 C-boiling water
1 small onion
2 t-salt
¹
/
₈
t-powdered cloves
1 C-tomato
2 medium-sized potatoes
2 T-rice
½ C-diced carrots

Wipe the meat with a damp cloth, and cut into two-inch pieces. Place the lard in a frying-pan, and when hot, add the onion cut fine and allow to brown. Add the meat and brown. Add the boiling water to the meat and onion, and cook one minute. Pour all of the contents of the frying-pan into a sauce pan, and let it cook slowly for one hour. Increase the heat a little to allow the stew to boil occasionally. Add the potatoes cut in one-inch cubes, and the diced carrots. In twenty minutes, add a cup of canned tomato pulp or fresh tomatoes to the stew. Add the seasoning (salt and cloves), and cook ten minutes. This allows two hours for the entire stew. If at this time the stew does not seem thick enough, mix four tablespoons of water very slowly with two level tablespoons of flour, stir thoroughly, and pour slowly into the stew. Allow to cook two minutes and serve.