Pickles
1 peck medium sized pickles 1 gallon cider vinegar 1 cup sugar 1 cup mustard 1 cup salt
Wash pickles well and pack in stone crock. Dissolve mustard in some of the vinegar and mix all together and pour over pickles cold. Put on a weight--ready to use in three days.
Tomato Pickle
2 gallon crocks of sliced green tomatoes sprinkled with salt.
4 small sliced onions mixed and let stand 2 quarts cider vinegar, heated and added 5 cents' worth mixed spices 2 lbs. brown sugar, and boil.
Makes 3 quarts of pickles Corn Salad
2 doz. ears of corn; boil twenty minutes on cob. Cut off cob; chop one head cabbage; 3 green peppers, and 1 red pepper. Mix together. Put in kettle with four pints vinegar; 3 tablespoons salt, 2 tablespoons ground mustard; 4 cups sugar; 2 teaspoons celery seed. Cook 20 minutes.
Tomato Catsup (very fine)
To 1/2 bushel skinned Tomatoes, add 1 quart good vinegar 1 pound salt 1 pound black pepper (whole) 1 ounce African Cayenne pepper 1/4 pound allspice (whole) 1 ounce cloves 3 small boxes mustard (use less if you do not wish it very hot) 4 cloves of garlic 6 onions (large) 1 pound brown sugar 1 pint peach leaves
Boil this mass for 3 hours, stirring constantly to keep from burning.
When cool, strain through a sieve and bottle for use. Vegetable coloring may be used if you wish it to remain a bright red. (A family recipe handed down for generations and very good, indeed).
CANDIES, ETC.
Five Oz. Childhood Fondant
1 oz. kindness 1 oz. sunshine 1 oz. pure food 1 oz. recreation 1 oz. rest
This should be on hand in every household where children gladden the hearth. Wherever possible distribute it among the little children of the poor.
Rose Leaves Candied
Take red roses, remove all the whites at the bottom. Take three times their weight in sugar, put a pint of water to a pint of roses, skin well, shred the roses a little before you put them into the water, and cover them, and when the leaves are tender, put in the sugar.
Keep stirring lest they burn and the syrup be consumed.
Delicious Fudge
Delicious fudge is made with sour cream instead of fresh milk or cream.
Taffy
2 lbs. brown sugar 1 tablespoon butter 1 tablespoon golden syrup 3/4 cup water 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 tablespoon white vinegar
Mix well and allow it to boil slowly. Skim but do not stir. Boil until a little hardens in water. Then add the vanilla and vinegar.
Now pour into buttered tins and when the edges harden, draw lightly to the center. When cool pull until light. When doing so flour the hands lightly.
Creole Balls
Chop half a cupful each of almonds, pecans and walnuts and add enough fondant to make the mixture of the right consistency to mold into bonbons. Boil into little balls and dip in maple or chocolate fondant.
Chocolate Caramels
1 pint brown sugar 1 gill milk 1/2 pint molasses 1/2 cake sweetened chocolate 1 generous teaspoon butter 1 tablespoon vanilla
Boil all of the ingredients (except the vanilla) over a slow fire until dissolved, and stir occasionally as it burns easily. Test by dropping little in water. If it hardens quickly, remove at once from the fire.
Add vanilla and pour into buttered pans.
When cool, cut in squares with a buttered knife.
Sea Foam
For sea foam candy cook three cupfuls of light brown sugar, a cupful of water and a tablespoon of vinegar until the syrup forms a hard ball when dropped into cold water. Pour it slowly over the stiffly beaten whites of two eggs, beating continually until the candy is stiff enough to hold its shape. Then work in half a cupful of chopped nuts and half a teaspoon of vanilla. Drop in small pieces on waxed paper.
How to Make Good Coffee
When the National Coffee Roasters' Association tells how to make good coffee the housewife is naturally interested, no matter how fervently the family may praise her own brew. Coffee is the business of these gentlemen. They know it from the scientific standpoint as well as practically. Their opinion as to the best method of preparing it for the table is, therefore, worth consideration.
They tell us, first of all, that the virtues of the infusion depend primarily upon the fineness with which the roasted bean is ground.
Careful experiments have shown, indeed, that when pulverized it gives a larger yield of full strength beverage than in any other shape, so that such grinding is urged in the interest of economy, as well as from a gastronomic standpoint.
The grinding, however, must be done immediately before the coffee is made. Otherwise no little of the delicate and much prized flavor of the bean will escape.
The method of making the infusion is governed by the solubility of the various elements composing the coffee. The caffeine and caffetannic acid readily dissolve in cold water, but the delicate flavoring oils require a considerable degree of heat. It so happens that water at the boiling point, 212 deg. F., is twice as effective in extracting these flavors as when at a temperature of 150 deg. F.
Nevertheless, the usual method of boiling the coffee is unsparingly condemned by the association. The infusion thus made is very high in caffeine and tannic acid. It is muddy, too, and overrich in dissolved fibrous and bitter matters. As most of the deleterious effects of coffee are due to dissolved tannin, owing to excessive boiling or the use of grounds a second time, this method of making the beverage is unqualifiedly condemned.
Steeping--that is, placing the coffee in cold water and permitting it to come to a boil--is also deprecated. An infusion so made contains less caffeine, to be sure, but it lacks the desired aromatic flavor and the characteristic coffee taste.
In fine, the association leans to a method of coffee making known as filtration. This consists in pouring boiling water once through finely pulverized coffee confined in a close-meshed muslin bag. The resultant infusion is one in which the percentage of tannin is extremely low.
There is a medium amount of caffeine, but the full flavor and characteristic taste are present.
STATE OF OREGON EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT SALEM.