The Fun of Cooking Part 24

"That's easy enough," Jack said as they left. "Rather fun, I think, too.

I don't care if Norah stays away quite a while."

For supper that night they found their mother had planned this:

Spanish tomatoes (Mildred) Stuffed baked potatoes (Brownie) Biscuits (anybody) Pancakes and maple syrup (Jack)

"Spanish tomatoes sounds good," said Mildred, reading her easy rule.

SPANISH TOMATOES

6 tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or 1 can.

3 chopped green peppers (first cut each in two and take out the seeds).

1/2 an onion (chop with the peppers).

1/4 teaspoonful salt.

3 shakes pepper.

1 large teaspoonful chopped parsley.

Mix all together and cook about twenty minutes, slowly, or till they look like a thick paste. Pour over b.u.t.tered toast.

Mother Blair had put a can of tomatoes on the kitchen table and the peppers with it, so it took only a few moments to get this first dish ready; then while it stood waiting to go over the fire and cook, Mildred made the biscuits and popped them into the oven. Brownie washed and baked the potatoes and when they were done she stuffed them beautifully and just browned them at the last moment, and Mildred made the toast to go under the tomatoes.

Everything was delicious, and while Jack made the cakes and brought them in, one plateful after another, all hot and steaming, the family said what fun it all was.

"Isn't it queer that some girls just hate to cook, and think it's simply dreadful when they have no maid and have to do their own work?"

said Mildred. "When I'm grown up--I'm going to have a house--no, a flat, I guess, that's cunninger,--and do every single bit of my own work."

"Do," said Brownie enthusiastically; "and I'll come and stay with you and help you."

"So will I," laughed their father.

"And so will I," said Mother Blair. "But you'll have to hurry up and learn lots more, Mildred; there are just hundreds of things you can learn to cook, and all of them are ever so good."

"I'm going to learn every single one," said Mildred solemnly.

As the week went by, the children found they were really learning ever so many of the "hundreds" of good things their mother spoke of. Among them were these, the rules for which they put right in their books with the rest:

EGGS IN RAMEKINS

4 eggs.

4 rounds of b.u.t.tered toast.

Sprinkle of salt and pepper.

b.u.t.ter any small dishes; put in the toast rounds, break an egg carefully on each, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake in the oven till the eggs are done.

EASY MEAT PIE

1 cup chopped cooked meat 1 cup boiling water.

1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.

1 teaspoonful chopped onion.

1/2 teaspoonful salt.

1 teaspoonful b.u.t.ter.

2 cups mashed potato.

(If the potato is left-over, and so is cold, add 1/2 a cup of hot milk to it and beat it up till it is smooth and hot.)

Mix the meat, water, and seasoning all together in a saucepan and let it cook till it gets rather dry, stirring it often. b.u.t.ter a baking dish and cover the sides and bottom with the potato, half an inch thick. Put the meat in the center, and then put the rest of the potato over the top and make it nice and smooth. Put bits of b.u.t.ter all over the top and brown in the oven.

CREAMED SALMON

1 can of salmon (medium size).

1 large cup of white sauce, well seasoned with salt and pepper.

Open the can, drain the fish of oil and take out the skin and bones; mix lightly, lay on squares of b.u.t.tered toast; put slices of lemon and bits of parsley all around the edge of the platter.

(You can use any sort of cooked fish instead of salmon.)

HOT SARDINES

1 box large sardines.

4 slices of toast Juice of 1/2 a lemon.

Sprinkles of salt, pepper and dry mustard.

Open the sardines and lift them out carefully; drain the oil off.

Put them on a tin plate in the oven to get very hot while you make toast and cut it into strips; cut the crust off and b.u.t.ter them a little. When the sardines are hot put one on each strip of toast, sprinkle with lemon juice, salt, pepper and mustard (only a tiny bit of mustard), and serve at once on a hot dish with parsley all around.

Besides these good things the children made all sorts of potatoes and m.u.f.fins and everything else they had learned, and they really had a beautiful time. But the most fun of all was on Sat.u.r.day when they had the cooking to do for two days and plenty of time in which to do it.

CHAPTER XV

THANKSGIVING DAY SUPPER

"Mother Blair, did you ever think that Thanksgiving Day has one great defect?"

"Why, no, Mildred, I don't believe I ever did," smiled her mother. "Do tell me what it is."

"Well, we have to have dinner in the afternoon so the littlest cousins can go home early, and so Norah can get away in time for her regular party--she always goes to one, you know, that evening; and that leaves us with nothing to do for hours before bedtime. I don't know why it is, but that time always drags."

"That is a real defect, Mildred, and I'm glad you told me, because we don't want any part of Thanksgiving Day to drag. It ought to be lovely till the very end. What can you think of that we can do to make it so?"

"I think if all the cousins would stay on instead of going home at dark, and if we arranged something interesting, like a little play or charades, first, and then, when we got hungry, about eight o'clock, we had a hot supper, that would be just perfect."

"Of course! That's a bright idea, Mildred. All the cousins are old enough now to spend the evening, and we can have a lovely time together.

You arrange the play, and I'll get up the supper for you."

"No, indeed, Mother Blair! We three juniors will get it--that's part of the fun. And don't you think it would be nice to have it in here on the big library table? We could bring the things in on trays and then just help ourselves."