EVERYDAY ECONOMIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 253, 16 January 1928, Page 5

EVERYDAY ECONOMIES

THE Wrrs-END CLUB A new novel may be selected by ths winner sack week as a prize for tha meat original household hint or recipe that has been tested end found to save time, labour or money. Many folk might be glad to have the benefit of your experience, so send in your suggestions, addressed to The Homecrafts Editor, Women's Page, THF SUN. Auckland. The prize has been awarded this week to Mrs. R. H. Rogers, Torrance Street, Epsom, for the following suggestion:— “FIVE MINUTE” JAM I have used this recipe for years. It saves many pounds in money and mufch expenditure of energy. It is applicable to all soft fruits, which must be quite ripe and stoned previous to cooking, but its true merits show up with such fruits as blackberries, loganberries and raspberries. Yet it can be used for peaches, nectarines, all plums, greengages and any squashy fruits, but not strawberries. They will not jell in the time. A great advantage to those who grow the fruit is they can make the jam as they pick the fruit. Method: Weigh the fruit, then take an equal quantity of sugar. Put the fruit in a pan without water, heat very gradually, mash it while heating, taking care that it does not adhere to the pan. One of those potato mashers, like a grating on a handle, is best. While you are mashing and bringing it to the boil, heat the sugar in the oven. When the fruit boils add the sugar, stir till it re-boils, then cook the whole rapidly for five minutes. Skim and put into jars at once, and seal down with hot paste and paper. R.H.R. OXIDISED SILVER Oxidised silver is at once a delight and a terrible worry! Rubbing will inevitably first brighten the silver coat and then take it off and show the brass underneath. The true remedy is either to get a brass-finisher to coat the whole article with white, transparent lacquer, or to do it yourself with one of the transparent spirit-collodion preparations which have been marketed of late years. The effect of either of thes* plans is" to cover the silver with a transparent, horny skin through which the oxidised surface shows. The oxidised silver must then be gently dusted with a very soft cloth. No metal or other polish must be used or the lacquer will be destroyed. CURTAIN RODS Although elastic in place of rods for hanging short curtains is frequently recommended, I have found it unsatisfactory. The continued action of sun and weather on the taut elastic soon causes it to perish, and thus allows the curtain to sag.

The most satisfactory supports, I find, are lengths of wooden dowel rod.

obtainable at any timber yard and many hardware stores. The rods are available from 3-Bin. to lin. in diameter and from about 3ft. to over 7ft. in length. A 3ft. length of 3-Sin. costs only a few pence, and if smoothed with sandpaper (and, if desired, stained or enamelled) makes a good, permanent, non-sagging rod for a short curtain, requiring only a cup-hook screwed into the window-frame at either end to hold it in position. The longer, thicker rod makes an equally good support for long curtains; and if two pairs of curtains —or one pair with a valance across the top—are to be used at the window, there are special metal fixtures obtainable, one pair of which will support two rods. TASTY SANDWICH FILLINGS Salmon Filling.—Make a thick salad dressing with 1 teaspoon each of pepper, salt, sugar and mustard mixed to a paste with 2 tablespoons vinegar and thickened with 2 tablespoons cream. Into this empty a tin of salmon and beat into a. smooth paste. Sufficient for one large loaf of bread. Egg Filling.—Boil 4 eggs for 10 min utes, shell, place in a bowl and mash to a paste. Add 1 tablespoon melted butter, pepper, salt and mustard to taste and a little minced ham (if liked). Cheese Filling.—Grate Jib. cheese, add pepper and salt to taste, 2 teaspoons chopped parsley and 4 tablespoons thick cream. Beat to a cream With 4 eggs boiled, mashed and pounded in, this mixture is particularly appetising. ASPARAGUS TIME Here are two suggestions for cooking asparagus which may come in handy. One way is to use a fryingbasket. After the white part of the stalks has been scraped the asparagus can be cut so that it will lie flat in thf frying-basket with the heads all the same way. The basket is plunged into a stew-pan three parts full of boiling salted water, not forgetting a tiny pinch of soda when the water is hard. It should cook quickly about 30 to 45 minutes, and is easily drained by lifting out the basket. If there is no frying-basket available the asparagus can be tied up in muslin and cooked in an upright position in any ordinary vegetable saucepan. The muslin is useful also for lifting it out. SALAD DRESSING THAT WILL KEEP TWELVE MONTHS Beat 3 eggs, 1 dessertspoon salt, 1 small teaspoon white pepper, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 dessertspoon mus tard in a basin, then add 1 cup vinegar Heat 4 tablespoons butter in a clean saucepan, add to it 1 tablespoon flour and stir until smooth, pour in 1 cup milk and boil up. Then pour into the basin containing the other ingredients, stirring all the time, return to the saucepan and cook until mixture thickens; but do not allow it to boil. Put into jars and seal. If too thick when required it can be thinned by adding a little milk or vinegar. PAINT FROM POTATOES

Boil 2jlb v potatoes and then mash them. Add a little water and rub them through a sieve, then add lib. water and lib. Spanish white. This will make a