A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband With Bettina's Best Recipes (42 page)

That afternoon Charlotte and Bettina served:

George Washington Salad
Rolled Sandwiches Nut Bread Sandwiches
Cherry Ice
Cherry Cake Washington Fondant

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Washington Salad
(Twelve portions)

1 C-diced pineapple
1 C-marshmallows, cut fine
1 C-grapefruit, cut in cubes
1 C-canned seeded white cherries
¼ C-filberts
¼ C-Brazil nuts, cut fine
1½ C-salad dressing
½ C-whipped cream
6 red cherries
12 tiny silk flags

Mix the pineapple, marshmallows, grapefruit, white cherries and nuts. Add the salad dressing. Serve immediately. Place waxed paper in the paper cups of the small, black, three-cornered hats. Place one serving of salad in each cup. Put one teaspoon of whipped cream on top and half a cherry on that. Stick a tiny silk American flag into each portion.

Nut Bread for Sandwiches
(Twenty-four sandwiches)

2 C-graham flour
1 C-white flour
3 t-baking powder
1 egg
²
/
₃
C-sugar
1½ t-salt
½ C-nut meats, cut fine
1½ C-milk

Mix the flours, baking powder, salt, nut meats and sugar. Break the egg in the milk and add to the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly, pour into a well-buttered bread pan and allow to rise for twenty minutes. Bake in a moderate oven for fifty minutes.

Nut Bread Sandwiches

24 pieces bread
²
/
₃
C-butter

When the nut bread is one day old, cut in very thin slices. Cream the butter and spread one piece of bread carefully with butter. Place another piece on the top. Press firmly. Make all the sandwiches in this way. Allow to stand in a cool, damp place for one hour. Make a paper hatchet pattern. Lay the pattern on top of each sandwich and with a sharp knife, trace
around the pattern. Cut through carefully and the sandwiches will resemble hatchets. This is not difficult to do and is very effective.

Washington's Birthday Sandwiches

1 loaf of white bread one day old
8 T-butter
2 yards each of red, white and blue ribbon

Cut the bread very thin with a sharp knife. Remove all crusts. Place a damp cloth around the prepared slices when very moist, and tender. Spread with butter which has been creamed with a fork until soft. Roll the sandwiches up carefully like a roll of paper. Cut the ribbon into six-inch strips, and tie around the sandwiches. Place in a bread box to keep moist. Pile on a plate in log cabin fashion.

B
ETTINA heard a step on the porch, and quickly laying aside her kitchen apron, rushed to the door to meet Bob. Her rather hilarious greeting was checked just in time, at sight of a tall figure behind him.

"Bettina, this is Mr. MacGregor, of MacGregor & Hopkins, you know. Mr. MacGregor, my wife, Bettina. I've been trying to get you all afternoon to tell you I was bringing a guest to dinner and to spend the night. The storm seems to have affected the lines."

"Oh, it has! I've been alone all day! Haven't talked to a soul! Welcome, Mr. MacGregor, I planned Bob's particular kind of a dinner tonight, and it may not suit you at all, but I'm glad to see you, anyhow."

Mr. MacGregor murmured something dignified but indistinct, as Bob cried out heartily, "Well, it smells good, anyhow, so I guess you can take a chance; eh, MacGregor?"

Bettina had a hazy idea that Mr. MacGregor, of MacGregor & Hopkins, was somebody very important with whom Bob's firm did business, and although she knew also that Bob had know "Mac," as he called him, years before in a way that was slightly more personal, her manner was rather restrained as she ushered them into the dining-room a few minutes later. However, the little meal was so appetizing, and the guest seemed so frankly appreciative, that conversation soon flowed freely. Bob's frank comments were sometimes embarrassing, for instance when he said such things as this:

"Matrimony has taught me a lot, MacGregor! I've learned—well, now, you'd never think that all this dinner was cooked in the oven, would you? Well, it was: baked ham, baked potatoes, baked apples, and the cakes—Bettina's cakes, I call 'em. You see, my wife thinks of things like that—a good dinner and saving gas, too!"

"Oh, Bob!" said Bettina, with a scarlet face.

"You needn't be embarrassed, Bettina, it's so! I was just telling 'Mac' as we came in, that two can live more cheaply than one provided the other one is like you—always coaxing me to add to our bank account. It's growing, too, and I never could save before I was married!"

The dinner consisted of:

Baked Ham Baked Potatoes
Head Lettuce Roquefort Cheese Dressing
Bread Butter
Baked Apples
Bettina's Cakes

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Bettina's Baked Ham
(Three portions)
(Bob calls it "great")

1 lb. slice of ham three-fourths of an inch thick
14 cloves
½ C-vinegar
½ C-water
2 T-sugar
2 t-mustard

Remove the rind from ham. Stick the cloves into both sides. Place in a pan just the size of the meat. Pour the vinegar, water, sugar and mustard (well mixed) over the ham. Baste frequently. Bake in moderate oven until crisp and tender (about forty-five minutes).

Head Lettuce with Roquefort Cheese Dressing
(Three portions)

1 head of lettuce
½ t-salt
3 T-oil
¹
/
₈
t-pepper
¼ C-Roquefort cheese
1 T-vinegar

Cream the cheese, add salt, pepper and vinegar. Add the oil gradually. Mix well, shake thoroughly. Pour over the lettuce and serve.

Baked apples
(Four portions)

4 apples
6 T-brown sugar
4 T-granulated sugar
1 t-cinnamon
4 marshmallows
1 t-butter

Wash and core apples of uniform size. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together. Fill the apples. Press a marshmallow in each apple also. Dot the top with a piece of butter. Place the apples in a pan, add the remaining sugar, cover the bottom with water, and bake until tender (twenty-five to thirty minutes), basting often. Serve hot or cold.

Bettina's Cakes
(Eight cakes)

1 C-flour
½ t-cinnamon
¼ t-powdered cloves
¹
/
₃
C-sugar
2 T-melted butter
½ t-soda
¼ t-baking powder
¹
/
₈
t-salt
1 egg
¹
/
₃
C-sour milk

Mix and sift the dry ingredients. Add the egg and the sour milk. Beat two minutes. Add the melted butter; beat one minute. Fill well-buttered muffin pans one-half full. Bake in a moderate oven twenty minutes.

B
ETTINA was busily setting the table in the dining-room when Bob appeared.

"Oh, Bettina," said he in a disappointed tone, "why not eat in the breakfast alcove? I'd like to show MacGregor how much fun we have every morning."

"Won't he think we're being too informal?"

"I want him to think us informal. The trouble with him is that he doesn't know that any simple brand of happiness exists. His life is too complex. Of course we're not exactly primitive—with our electric percolator and toaster——"

"Sorry, Bob, but you can't use the toaster this morning; I'm about to stir up some pop-overs."

"Well, I'll forgive you for taking away my toy, inasmuch as I do like pop-overs. Let me help you with them, Bettina; this is one place where you can use my strong right arm."

"Yes, indeed I can, Bob. I'll never forget those splendid pop-overs that you made the first time you ever tried. They look simple, but not very many people can make good ones. The secret of it is all in the beating," said she, as she stirred up the smooth paste, "and then in having the gem pans and the oven very hot."

"Well, these'll be good ones then," said Bob, as he set about his task. "You light the oven, Betty, and put the gem pans in it, and then before you have changed things from the dining-room to the alcove, I'll have these pop-overs popping away just as they ought to do!"

The percolator was bubbling and the pop-overs were nearly done when they heard Mr. MacGregor's step. "He's exactly
on time," chuckled Bob. "That's the kind of a methodical fellow he is in everything."

"Well, there's no time when promptness is more appreciated than at meal-time," said Betty, decidedly. "I like him."

"Come on out here!" called Bob, cheerfully. "This is the place in which we begin the day! We'll show you the kind of a breakfast that'll put some romance into your staid old head. I made the pop-overs myself, and I know they're the best you ever saw—likewise the biggest—and they'll soon be the best you've ever eaten!"

When Bob had finished removing the pop-overs from their pans, the two men took their places at the table to the merry tune of the sizzling bacon Bettina was broiling.

"I never entertained a stranger so informally before," said she.

"And I was never such a comfortable guest as I am at this minute," said Mr. MacGregor, looking down at his breakfast, which consisted of:

Grapefruit
Oatmeal
Bacon Pop-Overs
Coffee

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Pop-Overs
(Eight)

1 C-flour
1 C-milk
½ t-salt
1 egg, beaten well

Add the milk slowly to the flour and salt, stirring constantly, until a smooth paste is formed. Beat and add the remainder of the milk, and the egg. Beat vigorously for three minutes. Fill very hot gem pans three-fourths full. Bake thirty minutes in a hot oven. They are done when they have "popped" at least twice their size, and when they slip easily out of the pan. Iron pans are the best.

MARCH.

Weary are we of our winter-time fare;
Hasten, O Springtime, elusive and arch!
Bring us your dainties; our cupboards are bare!
Pity us, starved by tyrannical March!

"S
PRING is in the air," thought Bettina, as she opened the casement windows of her sun room. "I believe we'll have dinner out here tonight. If Bob would only come home early, before the sun goes down! Now I wonder who that can be!" (For she heard a knock at the kitchen door.)

"Why, Charlotte. Come in!" she cried a moment later, for it was Mrs. Dixon with a napkin-covered pan in hand, whom she found at the door.

"I've brought you some light rolls for your dinner, Bettina," said Charlotte. "I don't make them often, and when I do, I make more than we can eat. Will they fit into your dinner menu?"

"Indeed they will!" said Bettina. "I'm delighted to get them. Now I wish I had something to send back with you for your dinner, but I seem to have cooked too little of everything!"

"Don't you worry," said Charlotte, heartily. "When I think of all the things you've done for me, I'm only too glad to offer you anything I have! Well, I must hurry home to get our dinner. That reminds me, Bettina, to ask you this: When you escallop anything, do you dot the crumbs on top with butter?"