A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband With Bettina's Best Recipes (25 page)

"T
HESE are the first baking powder biscuits I have ever made for company," said Alice, "but I knew that I must begin some time. Mother has gone out to spend the day; I persuaded her that my efforts to serve a luncheon would upset her nervous system completely. Just think, girls! You are at my mercy—for I have prepared this humble repast with my own useless hands!"

"Shame on you, Alice! Don't pretend to be so humble. You do everything so easily that I'll not be surprised to see you papering your own house and acting as your own plumber and doing every other hard thing. A useless butterfly like you who turns out to be so competent after all is the despair of all us plodders who have always plodded and always will!" And Ruth sighed.

"Never mind, Ruthie," said Bettina. "I've eaten a mighty fine luncheon that you cooked yourself—four or five courses, if I haven't forgotten!"

"Yes, and I worried every minute during that day!"

"We all do at first, except maybe Alice!"

"Why worry?" said Alice. "(Seems to me I've heard that expression before.) You girls won't die if the biscuits do fail—I'll give you bread. Harry and I are going to laugh at our own mistakes—and enjoy them. Isn't that a good philosophy? But, girls, to get down to biscuits. I want to ask you—one and all—collectively and individually, to be in my wedding party. With the addition of Sister, who isn't here. She and Bettina will be the matrons of honor. Will you?"

"Will we!" they all cried with enthusiasm.

The luncheon menu was as follows:

Salmon Salad
Green Beans Butter Sauce
Baking-powder Biscuits
Watermelon Pickles
Cream Puffs Coffee

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Salmon Salad
(Six portions)

1 C-salmon
1 C-diced celery
¼ C-sweet pickles, cut fine
1 t-salt
3 hard-cooked eggs, cut fine
1 C-salad dressing

Break the salmon apart carefully with a silver fork, add the diced celery, sweet pickles, salt and hard-cooked eggs. Mix together well, and add the salad dressing. Arrange on lettuce leaves in a salad bowl, garnish with hard-cooked eggs to represent daisies, and pickles cut in strips. Serve very cold. (To represent daisies, cut the whites of each hard-cooked egg in six long petals. Arrange these on the salad. Cut the yolks in half, and place in the center—round side out. Arrange the pickle to represent stem and leaves.)

Green Beans, Butter Sauce
(Six portions)

2 C-green beans (canned)
1 T-water
1 t-salt
¼ t-paprika
3 T-butter

Remove beans from the can and rinse with cold water. Add water, salt, paprika and butter. Cook over a moderate fire for three minutes. Serve.

Cream Puffs
(Twelve Puffs)

1 C-boiling water
½ C-butter
¼ t-salt
1 C-flour
3 eggs

Place the water and butter in a sauce pan. Heat to the boiling point, then add the flour, all at once, and stir till smooth. Cook till the paste comes away from the sides of the pan. (A
very short time.) Remove from fire, and when cold, add the unbeaten eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each egg is added. (The mixture should be stiff enough to hold its shape without spreading.) Chill the paste by placing in the ice-box and then drop by tablespoonsful on a buttered sheet. Bake thirty-five minutes in a hot oven. When cold, make an opening in the side of each and fill with cream filling.

Cream Filling
(Twelve portions)

1 C-milk
½ C-sugar
¼ t-salt
4 T-cornstarch
1 T-flour
1 egg
1 t-butter
½ t-vanilla

Mix the sugar, salt, cornstarch and flour. Gradually add the milk and egg. Cook until very thick, in a double boiler. Add the butter and vanilla. Beat one minute. Cool before using.

"N
OT through dinner yet?" exclaimed the Dixons at the door. "May we sit down and wait? It's a beautiful evening, and we've come to get you to take a long drive with us."

"Fine," said Bob. "Come out to the dining-room and talk till we're through."

"And then I'll help Bettina clear off the table," said Charlotte. "Well, people, it looks like a good dinner, and Sherlock Holmes deduces, moreover, that you had roast lamb yesterday for your Sunday dinner."

"You might also deduce that we had baked potatoes, from which these creamed ones are made," laughed Bettina. "Nothing else to guess at, except that part of a cabbage made cold slaw yesterday and escalloped cabbage today. And my dessert, while simple, has no secret past," she added as she removed the first course. "A plain and simple custard, that's all."

"Suits me," said Bob, heartily, "especially when it's cold like this."

"By the way, Bettina," said Charlotte, "did you ever get rid of those black ants you were telling me about?"

"Yes, I've never seen one since."

"Well, you know how worried I was about the little red ones that bothered me. Aunt Isabel, in a letter, gave me a remedy that has worked like magic."

"Aunt Isabel has her uses, after all," teased Frank.

"I should say she has! She knows all about housekeeping, from A to Z! Her remedy sounds queer, but I can vouch for its efficacy, so if anyone ever asks you what to do for red ants, you tell them this, Bettina. I took some covers from baking powder cans, and some Mason jar covers, and some pie tins, and chalked the sides well with common school crayon. Then I set them on the pantry shelves to hold dishes of whatever kinds of food the ants liked. The ants never climbed over those chalked covers and soon they had all disappeared. I don't have to use the chalked tins any more, but if I ever see a red ant in my pantry again, I'll get out the chalk."

"Couldn't you make a heavy chalk mark on the shelf paper around the dish of food?" asked Bob.

"I tried that, but it didn't do any good. But the other way worked beautifully."

"I'm glad to know about it," said Bettina. "Well, Bob, are you ready? It will take only a few minutes to carry out the dishes and pile them up. I'm sorry we've kept you people waiting."

For dinner that night they had:

Cold Sliced Lamb Creamed Potatoes
Chili Sauce Escalloped Cabbage
Bread Butter
Baked Custard

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Escalloped Cabbage
(Two portions)

1 C-cooked cabbage
1 T-butter
1 T-flour
¼ t-salt
½ C-milk
2 T-fresh bread crumbs
1 T-melted butter

Melt the butter, add the flour and salt, and mix well. Slowly pour over the milk and cook until creamy. Add the cabbage. Pour into a buttered baking dish. Add bread crumbs to melted butter, and place the buttered crumbs on the cabbage. Bake in a moderate oven for fifteen minutes, or until the crumbs are browned.

Chili Sauce
(One and one-half pints)

12 large, ripe tomatoes
3 green peppers
2 onions
2 T-salt
2 T-sugar
1 T-ground cinnamon
3 C-vinegar

Peel the tomatoes and onions, and chop separately very fine. Chop the pepper also, and add the salt, sugar and cinnamon. Mix all the ingredients together and add the vinegar. Cook one and one-half hours over a moderate fire, stirring sufficiently to prevent sticking. Bottle, and when cool, seal with paraffin.

Cup Custard
(Three portions)

2 eggs
2 C-milk
4 T-sugar
¹
/
₈
t-salt
A few gratings of nutmeg
¼ t-vanilla

Beat the eggs slightly, add the sugar and milk slowly. Add salt and flavoring. Stir well. Pour into well-buttered cups. Sprinkle the nutmeg gratings on the top. Set the cups in a pan of hot water and bake in a moderate oven until a knife comes out clean upon piercing the custard (about thirty-five minutes). Do not allow the water in the pan to boil. Serve the custard cold, removing from the cups just before ready to serve. The custards may be served in cups.

"O
H, Ruth!" called Bettina from her door to Ruth, who was walking past. "Come in and stay to dinner!"

"My dear, I'd love to, but——"

"I'm going to have baking powder biscuits, and I remember that you were longing to learn how to make them."

"Oh, Bettina! Would you really show me? I'll simply have to come, then. I hesitated because Aunt Martha is here, but I know she'll excuse me for one evening. What time is it? Five? I'll take these packages home and be back in fifteen minutes!"

When Ruth returned she found Bettina in her kitchen with all of the ingredients for the biscuits set out on the table.

"Perhaps two cups of flour will make too many for three people," she said, "but Bob has a good-sized appetite these crisp fall days, and he's fond of biscuits with jelly. Now, Ruth, you can get to work! Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, and then cut the lard in this way with this knife.... Fine! Now add the milk very slowly—perhaps it will take a little more than two-thirds of a cup, it all depends on the flour. There! Now pat the dough into shape on this floured board, and then you can cut the biscuits out with this little cutter. Yes, about three-fourths of an inch thick. Ruth, those look fine! We'll wait a little while to bake them, they're better perfectly fresh. Set them out in the cold, there, until I have fixed the macaroni, and they can pop into the oven at the same time."

"That was so easy, Bettina. I do hope those biscuits will be good!"

The dinner consisted of:

Lamb Chops Macaroni and Cheese
Sliced Tomatoes
Baking Powder Biscuits Jelly
Apple Tapioca Pudding Cream

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Macaroni and Cheese
(Three portions)

½ C-macaroni, broken in pieces
1 qt. water
1 t-salt
2 T-butter
4 T-cheese, cut in small pieces
1½ C-milk
½ t-salt
¼ t-paprika
3 T-flour

Cook the macaroni in the boiling salted water until tender. (About fifteen minutes.) Drain and rinse thoroughly with cold water. Melt the butter, add the flour, salt and pepper. Gradually add the milk and cheese. Cook three minutes. Add the macaroni. Mix well, and pour into a well-buttered baking dish. Place in a moderate oven and cook twenty minutes.

Baking-powder Biscuits
(Fifteen biscuits)

2 C-flour
4 t-baking powder
½ t-salt
3 T-lard
²
/
₃
C-milk

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt, and cut in the fat with a knife. Slowly add the milk. (More or less may be required, as it depends on the flour.) Pat into shape three-fourths of an inch thick. Cut with a cutter, place side by side on a tin pan. Bake in a hot oven twelve to fifteen minutes.

Apple Tapioca
(Three portions)

6 T-pearl tapioca
¼ C-cold water
1½ C-boiling water
¹
/
₃
t-salt
3 T-sugar
1 C-sweetened apple sauce
½ t-vanilla

Soak the pearl tapioca in the cold water for ten minutes in the upper part of the double boiler. Add the boiling water, salt and sugar. Cook in the double boiler until transparent. Add one cup of apple sauce and the vanilla. Mix well. Serve either hot or cold.

"O
H, Bob, I can hardly wait to tell you all of Alice's wonderful plans," said Bettina.

"Don't wait, then. (Say, these are my favorite potatoes, all right!) Well, what about the wedding? All the gowns are being made, I suppose?"

"Yes, indeed. You know the four bridesmaids are to wear lavender maline over lavender taffeta, very fluffy and short,—can you picture them in your mind, Bob?"

"Not exactly, but then, go on."

"Well, they're nearly finished. I saw them today, and they're lovely. The girls are to carry lavender maline muffs, too—the round kind with fluffy bows at each end, and little pink rosebuds around the hand, you know. Then a corsage bouquet of violets with a pink rose in the center will be pinned on each muff. The bridesmaids will also wear lavender maline hats, with fluffy tarn o' shanter crowns and pink rosebuds around them."

"Is that what you'll wear?"

"No, Lillian and I are the matrons of honor, and we will be all in white, with white muffs, and corsage bouquets of pink roses on them. Won't that be lovely? I don't know yet whether Lillian's little Elizabeth, who will scatter rose petals from a fluffy long-handled basket, is to wear pink or white. Oh, I wish you might have seen the girls this afternoon! We tried on our dresses and planned the hats and muffs. I shall
begin my muff this evening; won't that be exciting?"

For dinner that night they had:

Pork Chops Bettina's Potatoes
Date Bread Butter
Head Lettuce French Dressing
Chocolate Sponge Cake
Coffee

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)