Household Hints.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 94, 7 August 1908, Page 4

Household Hints.

Recipes

Cottage Pie. —Where you have the remains of cold cooked meat you will find this a very useful and inexpensive recipe: Allow about one pound o! meat to one Spanish onion, a teaspoonful of minced parsley ; seasoning of salt and pepper, and a pinch of curry powder. Chop and try the onion until brown ; dust it with flour, and add, slowly, a little water, stock, and the parsley. Mince the meat, add it to the gravy, etc., stir well for a minute, and pour all into a pie dish. Cover with a layer of mashed potatoes, put: a few pieces of dripping on the top, and bake in a steady oven for 40 minutes. London Buns. —This recipe is specially suitable for afternoon tea. \ou require 'two ounces of flour, two ounces butter, two ounces sugar, two ounces cornflour, one egg, halt a teaspoonful baking powder, one tablespoonful minced lemon peel. Beat butter and eggs to a cream and add beaten egg. Mix the dry ingredients, and add gradually. Make into a stiff paste, with, if necessary, a little milk. Cut into pieces about the size of an egg, and shape into buns. Brush over with beaten egg, and bake on a greased tin two inches apart, in a hot oven for about fifteen minutes. Cheese Straws. —Grate two ounces of cheese, and mix into a paste with an equal quantity of butter (just melted enough to mix easily), flour, and bread-crumbs. Add pepper and salt to taste. Roll out about a quarter of an inch in thickness, cut into narrow strips, which should again be tut into two-inch lengths, and bake in a moderate oven until a light brown colour.

Roast Beef Hash. Melt four tablespoonsful of butter in a skillet. Mix lib. of finely chopped cold roast beef, and the same quantity in bulk of finely chopped cold boiled potatoes, moistened with one half-cup of cream. Cook in the skillet until beef and potatoes are well warmed; season to taste, sprinkle with a tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley. Some chopped onion can be added, but must be first cooked with the butter. Egg Sauce. — Cook together two tablespoonsful of butter and flour, and add I pint of milk. Add to the beaten yolks of three eggs, and season with salt, pepper and 'lemon juice. This may be poured around the fish or served separately, as preferred. Apple Cream. —Pare, core and slice two pounds of apples, add the grated rind of a lemon, a gill of water, and soz. of caster sugar. Stew until tender rub through a sieve, add a pint of cream or tinned milk. Mix well, and serve in a glass dish. Mutton Ham.— Mutton ham, if properly cured, makes a nice breakfast dish, either boiled or broiled. Choose the small leg from a freshly killed sheep; then mix lib. of dry salt, loz. of bay salt, %oz. of saltpetre, and 2oz. *of coarse brown sugar. Make these ingredients hot in the oven, then rub the leg thoroughly all over. It should lie for a week, but must be most carefully rubbed with the hand every day, and turned on each occasion. At the end of the week mix a half-teaspoonful of good vinegar and a teaspoonful of black pepper ; put this into the pickle, and rub and turn every day for another seven days ; then drain off the brine, wipe the meat dry, and hang up in a place free from damp to dry. When a month has elapsed, the ham will be fit for eating, and found most delicious ; but on the careful rubbing and turning does its excellence entirely depend.

Dainty Candle Shades. —New butterfly shades for candles are very dainty, made in ordinary cartridge paper, white or tinted. The exact round is got by means of a disused shade laid flat on the fresh paper. From a sheet of transfer butterflies of all sizes, a pretty design is obtained of graduated sizes across the shade, as in flight, and you can touch it, if you care., with a little water-colour or oilpaints. With the addition of a few artistic touches with brush or pencil a charming lamp-shade can be made of a few large butterflies.

To Revive Colours. —After washing blouses or ribbons, dissolve half a penny packet of tartaric acid in cold water and rinse the articles well in it. No matter how faded a thing is, this does wonders.

To Make Starch. —It is a very good plan when making starch to mix with the starch a lump of sugar, and a piece of butter about the size of a hazel nut. This prevents the iron sticking, and imparts an excellent gloss to the linen. Half the quantity of sugar will be saved if preserves are sweetened when the cooking is done instead oi adding the sugar when they begin to cook. To Preserve Suet. —If the suet he melted down in the oven and put into jars it will keep for any length of time, and is much better to chop up if done in this way. Puddings will keep better if made with suet that has been melted in the oven. To Keep Cheese. —Saturate a cloth with vinegar, wring it out, and place over the cheese. By doing this it will be found that any sort of cheese will keep as fresh and free from mould as when first cut, and for any length ol time. To Prevent Chapped Hands.-—Take common starch, and grind it with a knife until it is reduced to the finest powder. After washing the hands, wipe them, and while they are still damp rub a little of the starch all over them. The effect is most soothing. To Prepare New Boots. —1! the following method is adopted boots will last twice as long, and also resist the damp. Procure a pennyworth ot boiled linseed oil, pour it on to a large flat dish, or tin, and allow the boots to stand in it for about twelve hours, or until the soles arc well soaked. This docs not apply to brown boots.