SOME KITCHEN KINKS To hasten the baking of potatoes, I let them stand a few minutes in hot water, after washing them clean.
If you relish celery in soup and live where it cannot be secured the year round, dry the celery leaves as you get them and put them away in a fruit jar. When preparing soup, tie a few of the leaves in a cloth, and drop it into the kettle. You will find that the soup will have even more of the taste of celery than when using the stalk.
In makhig peanut butter, I mix the ground peanuts with cream or milk instead of olive oil, if I only desire a small quantity. It is delicious, al though it does not keep longer than a few days.
Ham may be kept from getting hard and dry on the outside thus: take some of the fat part of the ham and fry it out. Let it get bard then spread on the cut end of the ham; half an inch thick is not too much. This excludes air. Hang in a cool place. When I want to slice ham I scrape off this fat, and afterwards put it on again as before.
If your omelets burn because you have no " omelet pan," put a ta,ble spoonful of common salt in the fry ing skillet. Put it on the stove and heat very hot. Empty salt from the pan, wipe it with a dry cloth. Cook the omelet with a small quantity of butter, and it will not burn easily.
Changing the water two or three times will keep potatoes from turn ing dark, and if they have been frost bitten this will improve them.
Before trying to break a cocoanut put it in the oven to warm. When heated a slight blow will crack it, and the shell will come off easily.
A layer of absorbent cotton in the mouth of fruit cans is an excellent preventive against mold. If mold should forra, it vvill cling to the cot ton and leave the fruit dean.
A delicious kind of sandwich was served with coffee at a recent dub meeting. It took the fancy of each and every one. After tasting, some one asked the hostess of what it was made. She politely replied, " The rec ipe was sent to me from a friend in an Eastern city, with the strict in junction I should not publish it." Im
mediately all began guessing. A nod from the hostess informed one girl she had guessed right. Here is the recipe: One cake of Philadelphia cream cheese, mixed with canned Spanish peppers, chopped fine. One large pepper is sufficient for one cake of cheese.
To keep cream sweet heat it to al most boiling point, put it in a glass bottle or earthen vessel, cover, and set aside to cool. Cream thus treated will keep sweet and fresh several days, in moderate weather, and over the sec ond day in warm weather.
When making fudge, stir in half a pound of marshmallows before you turn it into the tin to cool. They melt immediately and make the candy as smooth and creamy as can be.
If you want nicely flavored butter, with the buttermilk well worked out, try putting in a teaspoonful of clear honey to about three pounds of but ter. You can not taste the honey but it improves the butter.
When using grated or sliced pine apple for sauce the juice of half a lemon with sugar and water added gives et, delicious flavor.
To give frosting a nice flavor add bit of butter, the size of a hickory nut. It will also prevent the frosting from becoming hard too soon.
To prevent staining your fingers, while paring potatoes keep the pota toes in cold water.
Gruels are more tempting to the sick if whipped to a froth with an egg-beater before serving in a pretty cup.
When baking cookies, use a large round pancake griddle to bake them on. First heat it on top of the range, and have it well greased.
If a kitchen window is kept open two inches at the top while frying foods, boiling cabbage or other odor ous vegetables, the unpleasant odor will go out of the window instead of spreading through the house.
After boiling salt ham or tongue re move it from the flre and plunge at once in cold water. This instantly loosens the skin, which then pulls off without any trouble. Treat beets the same way.