Liberal living upon narrow means

Contents

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CHAP. A WEEK’S DINNERS FOR; page

I. Jajjxtary 1

Chapter I. January

The practice of publishing bills of fare accompanied by recipes for the preparation of the viands enumerated has become extremely popular of late years. With all due respect for the compilers of such menus, who are often highly skilled in culinary matters, it may be said that one fault marks them all. They are written either for those who can afford to engage trained cooks, or else for those who have abundant leisure to devote to the concoction of elaborate dishes. But to the thrifty housewife who has the aid of only one maid-of-allwork in the management of her home, or to her who is forced to make the charge of the culinary department but one of a number of equally pressing duties to be accomplished by her own hands, such directions are oftener a discouragement than a help. She reads descriptions of dishes far beyond the limits of her purse in cost or of her time in preparation, and goes back sighingly to the old round of tough steaks, stringy chops, and juiceless roasts.

Yet it has been abundantly demonstrated that a wholesome variety may be obtained without a large expenditure of time or money. To illustrate this truth will be the aim of these chapters. Each month the dinners for a consecutive week will be given, thus affording opportunity to direct how to dispose of the “ left overs ” from day to day. The faculty of manufacturing tempting and novel dishes from simple or hackneyed materials grows marvelously with practice. If the outline for seven days’ meals may lighten by a feather’s weight the burden upon even one housekeeper’s shoulders, or give her a suggestion which will render less monotonous the never-ending, stillbeginning toil of catering to her family, the writer will be more than rewarded.

SUNDAY.

Tomato Bisque.

Pot Eoast of Beef.

Mashed Potatoes.

Cold Slaw.

Stewed Celery.

Lemon Jelly. Nut Cakes.

Tomato Bisque.

One can tomatoes.

One quart milk.

JANUARY.

One tablespoonful butter.

Two tablespoonfuls cornstarch.

One teaspoonful white sugar.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Strain the juice from the tomatoes, setting aside the pulp for future use. Put the liquor over the fire in a saucepan, and add the sugar. Heat the milk in a double boiler and thicken with the cornstarch rubbed smooth with the butter. Stir in a pinch of soda, and just before taking from the stove pour the tomato into the milk. Season and serve at once. If left on the fire more than a minute after adding the tomato, the milk is apt to curdle. This will be found a simple and delicious soup.

Pot Roast of Beef.

Lay in a broad pot a boneless piece of beef, cut from the round. It should be between three and four inches in thickness, a solid “ chunk,” bound and skewered into compact shape. A piece weighing from five to six pounds is enough for a family of ordinary size. Pour over it about a pint of boiling water, sprinkle with a few fine shreds of onion and a little salt, and cook over a slow fire. Turn the beef once or twice. Allow about fifteen minutes to the pound for cooking. When it is done, transfer it to a dripping pan and brown slightly in the oven while the gravy is cooling sufficiently to allow the grease to be skimmed from it. Thicken the gravy with browned flour, boil up once, and add a dash of catsup. Pour part over tlie meat in the dish, the rest into a gravy boat.

Mashed Potato.

Peel potatoes, cut in pieces, and boil in slightly salted water until tender. Drain dry and beat with a fork until light and creamy, then whip in a good tablespoonful of butter, and enough hot milk to soften the mixture to the desired consistency. The housekeeper will do well to use the small potatoes for such purposes as this, keeping the large ones for roasting and boiling whole. It is also a good plan to prepare a generous supply of mashed potatoes, as they can be utilized in many forms.

Cold Slaw with Egg Dressing.

Cut the heart of a white cabbage fine with a sharp knife, and just before sending to table pour over it the following dressing : —

Yolks of two eggs.

Two tablespoonfuls oil.

Pour tablespoonfuls vinegar.

One teaspoon fill salt.

One teaspoonful sugar.

One saltspoonful each pepper and mustard.

Whip the oil by degrees into the yolks of the eggs until the mixture is thick and smooth. Add the seasoning and the vinegar, beating all together thoroughly. Both the dressing and the cabbage may be prepared on Saturday, and will keep perfectly in a cold place.

JANUARY.

Steived Celery.

Take the outer and imblanched stalks of celery for this dish, reserving the firm white pieces for Monday’s dinner. Cut into short lengths, stew tender in a little boiling water, drain this off, and supply its place with half a cupful of hot milk. Simmer five minutes, and thicken with a teaspoonful of butter, rubbed smooth with a tablespoonful of flour. Pepper and salt to taste.

Lemon Jelly.

Half package gelatine soaked in a cupful of cold water for an hour.

Two cupfuls boiling water.

One cupful sugar.

Two lemons, juice and rind.

Plalf teaspoonful cinnamon.

Stir the sugar, cinnamon, lemon - juice, and grated peel into the soaked gelatine, and pour over this the boiling water. Strain through a thick cloth into moulds wet with cold water. Set in a cold place to form. Eat with cream.

Nut Cakes.

Half cup sugar.

Half cup butter.

Two eggs.

Half cup water.

One and a half cups 'prepared flour.

One cupful hickory nut kernels, freed from all bits of shell and dredged with flour.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the yolks of the eggs, the water and flour, and the whites. Last of all, stir in the nuts. Bake in small tins, and ice if desired.

MONDAY.

Beef a la Jardiniere.

Baked Sweet Potatoes. Celery.

Fruit.

Beef a la Jardiniere.

Slice three carrots, two turnips, and two beets, and cut into inch lengths the contents of a pint can of string beans. Stew these until tender, and drain dry. Pour over them whatever gravy you have left from the day before, and add the residue of the can of tomatoes opened yesterday. Heat your beef in a steamer. If you have none, one may easily be improvised by placing a gridiron or toasting rack over a pan of boiling water set in the oven, laying the meat on the bars and turning another pan over it. When it is heated through, lay it in a platter, arrange your vegetables about it, and pour the gravy around it. This will prove an easy and appetizing method of serving the beef for the wash-day dinner,” that is a bugbear in numberless households.

Browned Potatoes.

Boil potatoes and peel them. Lay them in a pan and pour over them a cupful of the gravy

JANUARY.

i

reserved from your beef. Set in the oven uncovered, and turn them occasionally, watching closely to see that they do not scorch. Let them brown nicely before taking from the oven.

Celery.

Serve the fresh white pieces reserved from yesterday’s supply, and arrange in a long dish or a tall glass.

Fruit.

If possible, have a set of fruit plates. Pretty ones may be bought for from five to eight dollars a dozen, and sometimes for even less. Dainty plates, arranged with doilies and finger bowls and furnished with small silver fruit knives, add an air of elegance to a dish of bright apples or winter pears that makes the simple dessert doubly tempting.

TUESDAY.

Potato Soup. Boiled Ham.

Mashed Potatoes. Boiled Squash.

Crackers and Cheese.

Potato Soup,

A dozen potatoes.

One cup milk.

Two quarts cold water.

Bunch of soup herbs and celery tops.

Half onion, minced.

One tablespoonful butter.

One tablespoonful flour.

Peel and slice the potatoes, and boil ten minutes. Drain off the water and return the saucepan to the fire with the two quarts of cold water, onion, herbs, and celery. Boil for an hour, then rub through the colander, and return the strained contents of the soup pot to the fire. Bring to a boil, and stir in the butter, rubbed smooth with the flour. Season and pour into the tureen ; after this is done add the cup of milk, which should have been heated in a separate vessel. Mix well.

This is a palatable and nourishing soup. Soups are to be especially recommended as much more wholesome than pastry and rich puddings, and costing less trouble. Let them supersede desserts occasionally, and place the extra course at the beginning of the meal instead of at the end.

Boiled Ham.

Get a corned ham in preference to a smoked one, as the latter are less digestible than the former. Soak over night, and put on to boil early in the morning in cold water. Cook steadily, but not too fast, allowing fifteen minutes to the pound. Skin, sprinkle over thickly with cracker crumbs, dot with “ dabs ” of pepper, and garnish with parsley.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as directed on Sunday, cooking enough to leave a supply for next day’s dinner.

JANUARY.

Boiled Squash.

Peel and slice the squash, removing the seeds. Lay in cold water half an hour, then put it on the stove in enough boiling water, slightly salted, to cover it. Boil for an hour, drain dry in a colander, and mash and beat smooth in a wooden bowl. Heat again, stirring in a lump of butter the size of an egg, and quarter of a cupful of milk. Season to taste and serve very hot.

Crackers and Cheese.

Clear the table as though for dessert; have the crackers heated in the oven, and eat with the cheese. Neufchatel and Philadelphia cream cheese, or the home-made pot cheese,” are very good, or, when these are not available, good English or American cheese. A cup of coffee or tea is a pleasant addition.

WEDNESDAY.

Mutton Stew with Dumplings.

Potato Cones. Scalloped Squash.

Baked Sweet Potatoes.

Cottage Pudding.

Glutton Stew with Bumjplings.

Two pounds lean mutton.

Two cups cold water.

One tablespoonful browned flour wet with cold water.

Herbs, chopped onion, etc., for seasoning.

Have the meat cut into inch squares by your butcher, and put it on the fire in cold water with the onion. Stew slowly until tender, and add the herbs and seasoning. Cook ten minutes longer ; remove the meat with a split spoon, and set aside in a hot place. Thicken the gravy with the flour, and cook the dumplings.

Dumplings.

One cup prepared flour.

One small tablespoonful lard.

A little salt.

Milk enough to make a moderately stiff dough.

Eub the lard and salt into the flour until they are thoroughly mixed ; add the milk, and roll the paste into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick, handling as little as possible. Cut into strips about the length and width of the finger, and drop these into the boiling gravy. Cook about ten minutes, and arrange around the meat on a hot dish. Pour the gravy over all.

Potato Cones.

Beat the whipped yolk of an egg, a teaspoonful of butter, and a little salt and pepper into two cupfuls of cold mashed potato. Form with the hands into cones, leaving a hollow in the top of each. Place the cones in a greased pan, and brown in the oven. Two minutes before removing them, put a little of the whipped white of an egg into the hollow on top.

JANUARY.

Scalloped Squash.

Heat a quarter ciq^ful of milk almost, but not quite, to scalding ; stir into it a lump of butter half the size of an egg, creamed with a tablespoonful of flour; remove from the fire, and add a beaten egg. Whip this into a cupful of cold boiled squash, season to taste, put into a buttered pudding dish, sift crumbs over the top, and brown in a quick oven.

Baked Sweet Potatoes.

Wash and wipe sweet potatoes, and bake on the floor of the oven until soft to the touch.

Cottage Pudding.

One cup sugar.

One tablespoonful butter.

One cup milk.

Two eggs.

Two cups prepared flour.

Cream the sugar and butter ; add the whipped yolks of the eggs, the milk, the flour, and the beaten whites. Bake in a brick-shaped mould well greased, and slice crosswise. Eat with either hard or liquid sauce.

THURSDAY.

Mutton Broth. Barbecued Ham.

Corn Pudding. Cream Turnips.

“ Brown Betty.”

Mutton Broth.

One pound lean mutton, cut small.

Two pounds mutton bones, well cracked.

Two quarts cold water.

Chopped onion and parsley ; salt and pepper.

Let the meat, bones, and onion simmer slowly several hours. Season, and set aside until cold. Eemove all the fat, and strain out the bones and meat, squeezing out every drop of soup. Have ready half a cupful of rice, which has been soaked in a little cold water for two hours. Add this to the soup ; put them on the stove and let them simmer until the rice is soft and broken. Add the chopped parsley and the milk, which should have been heated to scalding in another vessel.

A little foresight will enable the housekeeper to prepare the stock for this soup the day before the broth is to be used.

Barbecued Ham.

Cut large slices of cold ham and fry them in their own fat. Prepare a sauce of three tablespoonfuls of vinegar, half a teaspoonful of sugar, the same of made mustard, and a little pepper. Lay the ham in a hot dish, stir the sauce into the fat left in the pan, boil up once, and pour over the meat.

Corn Pudding.

Drain the liquor from a can of corn and chop the kernels very fine. Rub together a tablespoonful of butter and sugar ; add a beaten egg and

JANUARY.

two cupfuls of milk. Stir the chopped corn into this ; salt slightly, and bake in a good oven for about half an hour. A delicious dish.

Cream Turniios.

Peel, slice, and stew the turnips until tender. Make a sauce of a cupful of milk thickened with a tablespoonful of butter worked into half as much cornstarch, and seasoned with pepper and salt. Drain the turnips, pour the sauce over them, and let them stand over the fire in a double boiler for ten minutes. Do not let them come to a boil.

Brown Betty.

Six large apples, sliced, cored, and chopped.

Two cups fine bread crumbs.

Half cup sugar.

One tablespoonful butter.

A little cinnamon.

In the bottom of a greased pudding dish place a thin layer of the crumbs ; follow this by one of apples, well dotted with bits of butter and sprinkled with sugar and spice. Kepeat the layer of crumbs, and continue in the same order until all the materials are exhausted, making the top stratum of the crumbs and laying bits of butter on it. Bake the pudding covered fifteen or twenty minutes, then uncover and brown. Eat with sauce or with butter and sugar.

FRIDAY.

Boiled Cod with Tomato Sauce.

Mashed Potato, browned.

Boiled Pice with Cheese.

Plain Macaroni Pudding.

Boiled Cod with Tomato Sauce.

Order a good solid piece of cod ; lay it in cold water, salted, for fifteen minutes ; sew it up in a piece of cheese cloth or white mosquito netting, and put on the fire in boiling water. Cook twenty minutes to the pound. Prepare the sauce by draining the liquor from a can of tomatoes, heating this liquor over the fire, seasoning, and thickening with browned flour moistened with a little of the cold juice. Lay the piece of cod, released from the netting, upon a hot dish, and pour the sauce over and around it.

Mashed Potato, browned.

Prepare the mashed potato as usual, stir a beaten egg into it, mound on a pie plate, and bake in a quick oven.

Boiled Bice with Cheese.

Wash a cupful of raw rice in cold water, picking it over carefully ; put over the fire in two quarts of water that is boiling hard at the time. Salt slightly, and cook twenty minutes, shaking the saucepan occasionally, but never stirring it.

JANUARY.

Ascertain if the rice is clone by pinching a grain between the thumb and finger. When it is soft, drain off the water through a colander, and set this with the rice in it over an empty pot on the stove to dry. Just before sending to table, mix into it with a fork a teaspoonful of butter and a tablespoonful of grated cheese, with salt to taste.

Plain Macaroni Pudding.

Break half a pound of macaroni or spaghetti into inch lengths, and cook soft in boiling water. Scald three cups of milk, adding a pinch of soda ; stir in a little salt and a tablespoonful of butter, and add the macaroni, first draining it dry. Cook ten minutes in a double boiler, and eat hot with butter and sugar.

SATURDAY.

Rolled Steak. Fried Potatoes.

Scalloped Tomatoes. Crullers.

Coffee.

Rolled Steak.

Order a round steak, less than an inch thick. Have your butcher beat it hard with the flat of his cleaver, and score it yourself across both ■ways with a sharp knife. Spread it thickly with a forcemeat made of chopped salt pork and bread crumbs, seasoned with pepper, salt, thyme, sweet marjoram, parsley, and a little finely minced onion. This done, roll up the steak as you would a piece of music, the forcemeat inside, and bind it firmly into shape with stout string. Lay it in a dripping pan half filled with boiling water, cover it closely, and cook two hours, turning two or three times. Serve with the thickened gravy poured around it. Remove the strings before sending to table, and in carving slice across the end.

Fried Potatoes.

Peel your potatoes, and slice them very thin. Throw them into very cold water, salted, and leave them there for an hour. Then dry them carefully between two cloths, and drop them into boiling lard or dripping. They should brown quickly. Take them from the frying pan with a perforated spoon, and lay them in a hot colander. Send them to table in a napkin.

Scalloped Tomatoes.

Cover the bottom of a greased shallow baking dish with bread crumbs, and on this lay the remaining contents of the can of tomatoes opened yesterday, first chopping them to avoid lumps. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and sugar ; cover with another layer of crumbs, and dot this with small bits of butter. Bake covered twenty minutes, and then brown.

Coffee and Crullers.

Make according to directions given in chapter. “For Christmas Week.”

Chapter II. February

Ix beautifying the every-day table, the housekeeper refines and educates her children. The boys and girls who have been accustomed to seeing the best kept for company and the common and unclean made to serve for family use are not only awkward and ill at ease among elegant surroundings, but lose respect for the guardianship that does not hold consistency as an essential in domestic matters.

One may own velvet and satin without despising homespun, but bear in mind that to make the homespun equally worthy of esteem, it must be neat, clean, whole. To drop metaphor, coarse tablecloths and napkins may be well laundried and carefully laid, stone china and pressed glass immaculate and placed on the table with as strict regard to the conventionalities as though it were the finest Minton and Baccarat.

Nor should one commit the blunder of saving real silver for grand events. It is really more economical than are plated knives and forks. It takes generations to wear out solid silver, and its unbreakable qualities make it an exception to the rules that apply to crockery. Like so-called “company manners,” it should be in daily use. If possible, let each child have his individual fork and spoon. It is a pretty custom that makes the birthday gifts of the boy or girl always include some small piece of silver, — a fork, knife, or spoon, a napkin-ring, or a salt-cellar. The plenishing of the future home is thus begun, and the child given that feeling of ownership in the domestic belongings that strengthens the household ties and creates an interest in making the home and its contents attractive.

SUNDAY.

Split Pea Soup.

Roast Mutton, stuffed. Succotash.

Potatoes au Gratin.

Lemon Pie.

S^Mt Pea Soup.

Two large cups dried split peas, carefull}' washed, and soaked over night in cold water.

Two teaspoonfuls butter.

One tablespoonful flour.

One saltspoonful each salt, pepper, and sugar.

Two quarts cold water.

Put the soaked peas over the fire in the two quarts of cold water, and let them come slowly to a boil. Simmer until the peas are soft, taking care not to let the liquid be reduced to less than two quarts. As it boils away, add water from

FEBRUARY.

the kettle to keep it up to the required quantity. When done, rub through a colander and return to the lire. If it seems too thick, dilute to the proper consistency with milk or water. Bring to a boil and stir in the butter and flour, rubbed smooth together. It is better to cook these for a few moments before putting them into the soup. Season this to taste, and pour it upon dice of fried bread laid in the tureen.

Roast Mutton, stuffed.

Have the shoulder - bone extracted by the butcher, leaving a cavity for the stuffing. Make a dressing of crumbs and chopped pork, well seasoned with pepper, salt, and sweet herbs. Take a few stitches in the edges of the opening to keep the forcemeat from escaping. Lay the meat in the baking pan, dash a cup of boiling water over it, and bake about fifteen minutes to the pound. Baste frequently. When done, transfer to a platter and set in a hot place while you cool, skim, and strain the gravy, and thicken it with brown flour. Pour a little of the gravy over the meat and serve the remainder separately.

Canned Succotash.

Strain off the liquor and turn out the contents of the can into a bowl for a couple of hours before using, that they may get rid of the close odor peculiar to canned food. Stew about twenty minutes, putting them on in boiling water. Turn off the water at the last and pour over them a half cup of hot milk into which has been stirred a bit of soda the size of a pea. Thicken the milk with a teaspoonful of butter creamed with one of flour, add a teaspoonful of sugar, and pepper and salt to taste.

Potatoes au Gratin.

Prepare mashed potato as usual, and mound it in a pie plate or a dish that will stand the heat. Sprinkle fine dry crumbs over the top and brown on the upper grating of the oven.

Lemon Pie.

Make pastry as directed in the chapter treating of the Christmas dinner. Line the pie plate with the paste and fill with the following mixture : —

One teacupful boiling water.

One tablespoonful cornstarch.

One lemon.

One cup sugar.

One egg.

Two teaspoonfuls butter.

W et up the cornstarch in a little cold water and stir, into the boiling water. Cream the butter and sugar, and stir into the cornstarch and water. Set aside to cool, and when quite cold, add the egg beaten light, the juice of the lemon, the grated peel, and the inside chopped very fine.

Set aside a little of the pastry in a cold place to use for Monday’s dessert.

FEBRUARY.

MONDAY.

Pea and Tomato Soup.

Scalloped Mutton. Baked Potatoes.

Macaroni with Tomato Sauce.

Jam Tarts.

F^a and Tomato Soup.

To the remains of yesterday’s pea soup add half a can of tomatoes, stewed tender with a teaspoonful of sugar and rubbed through a colander. Should this thin the soup too much, thicken with a teaspoonful of butter, rubbed into one of flour. The stock made from the well -cracked mutton bone removed from yesterday’s shoulder will be a welcome addition to your soup.

Scalloped Mutton.

Cut all the meat from the bones of yesterday’s roast. Peject the fattest bits of meat and mince the rest fine with a sharp knife. Put the stuffing with this and moisten all well with the gravy. Fill a buttered pudding dish, strew the top with crumbs, dot with bits of butter, and bake covered half an hour. Uncover and brown. Care must be taken not to have the scallop too dry. Should the gravy run short, borrow a little stock from your soup.

Baked Potatoes.

Potatoes roasted in their jackets are generally a popular dish, but they are sometimes sent to the table with the aforesaid jackets bearing too strong a reminder of mother earth to be altogether agreeable. Potatoes served in their skins should be very thoroughly washed. It is best to keep a small stiff brush for the especial purpose of scrubbing them. Cook them until they yield readily to the pressure of the thumb and finger, and send to table wrapped in a napkin.

Macaroni with Tomato Sauce.

Break the macaroni into pieces not over an inch in length and stew in hot water until tender. Drain dry, heap in a hot dish, and pour over it a sauce made of a cupful of stewed tomatoes and half a cupful of gravy from the mutton bones, well seasoned, and thickened with a teaspoonful of butter mixed with as much flour. Sprinkle grated cheese thickly over the top.

Jam Tarts.

Line small pans with the pastry reserved from Saturday’s pies, fill with jam or marmalade, and bake in a quick oven. If you wish, j^ou may lay strips of pastry across the top.

TUESDAY.

Curried Veal.

Rice. Bananas.

Cornstarch Hasty Pudding.

FEBRUARY.

Curried Veal.

Order two pounds of veal for stewing. The neck or the leg pieces are much cheaper than the other parts and serve this purpose equally well. Have them cut small for stew, and let them simmer gently until tender, with half an onion minced fine. About ten minutes before dinner, add a couple of teaspoonfuls of curry powder to the gravy and stir in wmll. The amount of curry used must be regulated by the tastes of the eaters. The average palate does not like it too hot. In serving, put the rice upon the plate first and place the curried meat and gravy on top of the rice.

Rice.

Boil as directed in chapter for January, omitting the butter and cheese, and taking the precaution to prepare a double quantity, as it will be the only vegetable, and also because it will be needed in the bill of fare for Wednesday’s dinner,

Bananas.

These must be passed as a vegetable. Their cool freshness counteracts the heat of the curry.

Cornstarch Hasty Pudding.

One quart milk.

Four tablespoonfuls cornstarch.

One saltspoonful salt.

Heat the milk to boiling in a double boiler.

Stir into it the salt and the cornstarch wet up with cold water. Let it cook ten minutes, add the butter, and let it stand five minutes on the side of the stove before serving. Eat with the following sauce : —

Pudding Sauce.

One cup sugar.

Half cup hot milk.

One egg.

Vanilla to taste.

Pinch of soda.

Beat the egg very light and stir in the sugar. Add the soda to the boiling milk and mix little by little with the egg and sugar. Set in boiling water a few moments and flavor just after taking from the fire.

WEDNESDAY.

Creamed Salt Mackerel.

Mashed Potato. Savory Rice.

Apple and Tapioca Pudding.

Creamed Salt Mackerel.

Soak the fish all night, and wipe dry before using. Broil on a buttered gridiron over a clear fire. Lay the fish on a hot dish and pour over it a cream sauce made as follows : —

One cup milk.

One egg.

Two teaspoonfuls butter.

One teaspoonful cornstarch rubbed smooth with the butter.

FEBRUARY.

Pepper and a little salt.

Chopped parsley.

Heat the milk to boiling, thicken with the butter and cornstarch, mix carefully with the egg to prevent curdling, cook a moment longer, season, and pour over the fish.

Mashed Potato.

Directions given in Chapter I.

Savory Rice.

Heat the cold rice saved from yesterday by adding a little boiling water to it and setting it on the fire in a double boiler. Mince fine half a cupful of cold meat, if you have it. A few remains of yesterday’s curry will work in well, but if these are lacking’ boil a couple of eggs hard and chop them. Stir them into the rice, and season well. Turn into a buttered mould, with plain sides. A brown bread tin or a small pail may be used. Set this in a pot of boiling water and cook steadily an hour and a half. Heat half a cup of gravy, and when the rice is turned out, pour this about it.

Apple and Tapioca Pudding.

Peel and core enough firm apples to fill, without crowding, a pudding dish. Pour over them a teacupful of cold water, cover closely, and steam in the oven until tender. Have ready a cupful of tapioca which has been soaked for several hours in enough water to cover it. Drain the water from the apples, fill the empty centres with sugar, stick a clove in each, and pour the tapioca over and between them. Bake one hour. Eat either with cream and sugar, or with a sauce made by rubbing to a cream two tablespoonfuls of butter with one cupful of powdered sugar. Flavor with a little lemon juice.