Household Hints.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 96, 21 August 1908, Page 4

Household Hints.

Tomato Sauce.—Cut up : nto a bcw! four tomatoes, arid put them, seeds, skin, and ail into a, saucepan; add a wmeglassful of ccM water, with an onion cut in thin rings, a large biade of mace, a sprig each of thyme, and parsley, and pepper and salt to taste. In my opinion, half a clove of garlic and two dredges of cayenne are an irnrpovemont but these are "optional extras.'' Let it boil for half-an-hour. then rub as much of it as will go through a sieve -the seeds and tough skins of the tomatoes and the herbs and spices should not pass, nor the garlic if employed; but the onion decidedly should go through, and of course every scrap of the tomato, except the hard pip and skins. Now put two ounces of butter in the saucepan, sprinkle in it a dessertspoonful of flour, stirring all the time, and keep ing it smooth; add the tomato pulp, with a teaspoonful of vinegar and a teaspoonful of sugar; stir altogether, let it boil five minutes to thicken, and it is ready. In the absence of fresh tomatoes, the "tomato pulp," sold in tins by grocers, will answer very well treated in the same way but. the flavour is not quite so good as the fresh fruit affodrs.

Six-Cup Pudding.—Take a teacupful each of the following six' itigredients: Flour, breadcrumbs finely chopped suet, saltana raisins, sugar and milk. Rub the suet into the flour, mix in the other dry ingredients, and moisten with the milk. Put in a basin, cover with a floured cloth, and boil two hours.! " Serve x with a sweet sauce made with a tablespoonful of cornflour flavoured with the zest and juice of two lemons, boiled in half a pint of water with loaf sugar to taste.

Black Cap Pudding.— Ingredients: Half a pound of flour, two eggs, threequarters of a pint of milk, three ounces of currants, a pinch of salt. Method: Sift the flour into a basin, add the salt, beat up the eggs, and stir gradually into the flour, add the milk by degrees, and work into a batter. Butter a large pudding basin. Srpinkle in the currants, and pour in the prepared batter. Cover the basin with buttered paper, and steam for one hour. Turn out to serve; wine sauce is an improvements

"Baking" The Pie. "Bridget," said the mistress, reprovingly, this is absolutely the worst pie I ever tried to eat. You told me you could bake as good pies as any cook in the city." The new kitchen girl placed her arms akimbo, and faced her new mistress defiantly. "So I can, mim," she said. "So I can. But all the leddies I iyer wurruked fur mixed the pies thimsilves befure I baked 'em, mim!" ' Distilled Water as a Beverage. —A physician, Dr. William Kinnear, believes that if distilled water were invariably used as the drink with meals, man might greatly prolong life, apart of course, from accident or organic disease. In the "North American Reiew," Dr Kinnea.r bases this opinion upon the fact that Qld.age is practically a "deposit of earthy matter of a gelatinous and fibrinous character in the human system." To potpone old age, therefore, it is necessary to arrest this process of ossification, which may be done i n two ways. First, avoid foods containing an excess of "earthly salts"—that is live on fruit, fish, poultry, young mutton, and veal. Second, dissolve these salts out of the system and counteract them chemicaUy. The elixir of life is therefore, several tumblerfuls of distilled water each day, with ten drops of dilute phosphoric acid in each.

Cheese Custard.—Boil up a pint of milk, adding to it a pinch of salt. Beat up two fresh eggs, and stir them into the hot milk. Have ready grated loz. of cheese, Gruyere, or Parmesan, and mix with the above. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish, and bake in a moderately heated oven for about half an hour. Serve the cus tard hot, with plain biscuits.

Iced Fruit. —Make a thick syrup and stew a pound of the small ripe apricots (foreign), which are often pocurable, until they are quite tender, then remove the fruit and put it aside to get cold, but boil the syrup rapidly for a few minutes, adding a little more sugar if necessary, and skimming it well, then strain it through fine muslin strainer into a basin. Cut half the quantity of apricots into pieces of a convenient size, and put them into a deep dish with two or three sliced bananas and about six ounces of grapes, which have been skinned and divided in half (the seeds being removed) ; add a wineglassful of sherry and half the quantity of Maraschino to the apricot syrup, pour over the fruit and let stand for two hours. Then nearly fill some little china ramebpuin cases' with the mixed fruits and place them in an ice cave or surround them with ice for at least an hour. Just before serving the fruit put the china cases into dainty ones made of paper (either in the form of baskets or little tubs), and cover the fruit with a little pyramid of lemon cream ice garnishing the top of each with a glace cherry.