The Fun of Cooking: A Story for Girls and Boys

Peel onions of about the same size, and drop them in a kettle of boiling, salted water; when they have cooked half an hour, throw this water away and put them in fresh boiling water. This will prevent their being too strong. Cook for one hour altogether. Put melted butter, pepper, and salt over them.

Before they could possibly think it was time to go home, their vacation was over.

For dinner, the last night, Father Blair made something very good indeed:

CAMP PUDDING

½ pound of dried prunes.

8 slices of bread, cut thin and buttered.

½ cup of sugar.

1 tablespoonful of butter.

Wash the prunes and cover them with cold water, and let them stand all night. In the morning, put them on the fire in this water, and cook slowly till they are very soft; then take out the stones. Line a dish with the bread, cut in pieces, with a layer on the bottom; put on a spoonful of prunes and juice, then a layer of bread, and so on till the dish is full, with bread on top; sprinkle with sugar and bits of butter and bake brown.

"My, but we've had a good time!" said Jack, thoughtfully rubbing the end of his sunburned nose as he watched the shores of the lake fade away the next day. "I never supposed it was such fun to camp. And I've become quite a cook; now haven't I, Father Blair?"

"I should say you had. Too bad your mother and the girls can't know about it. But they will never know!" and his father smiled mischievously.

"Well, perhaps some day I'll cook something for them," said Jack, sheepishly. "I don't mind knowing how to cook as much as I thought I should, now that I know men cook. I guess I'll surprise them some day, Father!"

CHAPTER X

JAMS AND JELLY

Norah was preserving peaches. The fragrant odor filled the house one day, and Mildred sniffed it delightedly. "Dear me! I wish I could make preserves," she sighed. "Norah's always look so lovely in their jars, and they taste so good, too. I wonder if she would let me help her?"

But no, Norah would not. Peaches, she explained, must be done up very carefully, and nobody could do them up unless they knew just how.

"But, Norah, if you can't begin till you know how, how does anybody ever learn? And I want to do them so much! Just see how beautiful yours are," and Mildred looked longingly at the row of jars on the kitchen table full of yellow peaches in a syrup like golden sunshine. "Oh, Norah!" she murmured pathetically.

But Norah was firm. Miss Mildred couldn't do up peaches; she was too young; and, anyway, she couldn't be bothered teaching her. So Mildred sighed and gave it up. But when she told her mother about it, Mother Blair laughed.

"You want to begin at the top," she said, "Norah is quite right in saying that peaches are not easy to put up – that is, not the very best, most beautiful peaches, and nobody wants any other kind. But why not make something else to begin with, jams and jellies and other good things? And by the time you know all about those, you will find that peaches will be perfectly easy for you."

Mildred brightened up. "Now that's what I call a good idea, one of your very best, Mother Blair. Can't I make something right away to-day?"

"Just as soon as Norah is all through with her preserving, if she doesn't mind, you may. And perhaps she has something all ready for you to begin on. Run and ask her if you may have the parts of the peaches she did not want to use."

That puzzled Mildred, and as she hurried to the kitchen she thought about it.

"Norah, Mother says you are not going to use all the parts of the peaches, and perhaps I may have what you don't want. But what are they? Because if they are just the skins and stones, I don't want them either."

Norah was just fastening on the last top on her jars of preserves, and she looked very good-natured.

"Sure, I've got lots left!" she said, and showed Mildred a large covered bowl filled with bits of peach pulp.

"I won't put any bruised peaches in preserves," she explained, "so I just cut up peaches with soft spots and put 'em in here; and when I'm done, I make a shortcake out of 'em. If I've got enough, sometimes I make 'em into – "

"Jam!" interrupted Mildred. "Of course! delicious peach jam that I love. Oh, Norah, do let me make some; don't use any of those peach bits for shortcake – let's have something else for lunch."

"Well," said Norah, "I guess you can have 'em." So Mildred ran for her apron and a receipt, which, when she read it over, proved, strangely enough, to be a rule for making not only peach but all sorts of jams.

JAM

Prepare your fruit nicely; strawberries must be washed and hulled, peaches pared and cut up, raspberries looked over for poor ones. When they are ready, measure

1 large cup of fruit to

1 small cup of sugar.

Mash the fruit and put it in a kettle in layers with the sugar, and press and stir it till it is all wet and juicy. Then gently boil it, stirring constantly from the bottom up, so the fruit will not burn. Mash with a wooden potato masher till all is smooth. When it has cooked nearly an hour, try a little on a cold saucer and see if it gets firm. When it does, it is done. Some jams take longer to cook than others, because some fruits are more juicy.

This sounded very easy indeed, and Mildred began to mash and measure at once, and soon the jam was over the fire. But it took a long time to cook. Norah brought a dishpan full of jelly-glasses and put them in the sink, and Mildred washed these and dried them and arranged them on two trays, all ready for the jam; but every moment or two she stirred the jam well. By and by, after more than an hour, the peaches looked transparent, and then Norah said they were done; and, sure enough, when she hurriedly put some on a saucer and stood this on the ice in the refrigerator to get it cold quickly, it grew a little stiff and the edges were like jelly.

Mildred carefully lifted the hot saucepan from the fire and began to dip out the jam with a cup and put it in the glasses; when she finished, there were eight of them, all filled with clear golden-pinky-brownish jam, beautiful to look at, and, oh, so good to taste! Mildred ran for her mother and Brownie to look at it. "I wish Father and Jack were here," she sighed, "and Miss Betty, too. I am so proud, I want everybody to see it."

"It really is lovely," said her mother. "I never saw any that was nicer. Next winter we will eat it on hot buttered toast, and put it in layer cake, and have it ready for school sandwiches."

"But only eight little, little glasses," mourned Mildred. "Why didn't I make eight dozen of them?"

"Well, eight dozen is a good many," laughed her mother. "Perhaps – just perhaps, you know, you might find you got tired even of peach jam before you had eaten all those up. But the beauty of making jams in fruit time is that you can make a few glasses of it any time you want to. Peaches are just in season now, and we have them nearly every day, so you can put up more at any time."

"Of course!" said Mildred, delightedly. "I never thought of that. I'll make the rest of my eight dozen yet, Mother Blair; I'm sure it won't be a bit too much."

"Why not make some other things that are just as good? Grapes are in season too, and plums, and pears – "

"I'll make them all! I'll make every single kind of jam that there is!"

"You can make jelly too, and compotes, and spiced things; I'll be so glad to have you learn, and they are all as easy as can be."

"But, Mother, what can I make?" Brownie looked very sober. "Is Mildred going to make everything all alone? I like to make things, too."

"Of course you do, and you shall certainly help; jams are so easy anybody in the world can make them."

"Even Jack?" laughed Mildred.

"Yes, even Jack, if he wanted to. Why don't you and Brownie together make some nice grape jam to-morrow?"

The girls said they would love to; then their mother had them write down a special receipt, because grape jam is the one kind that is different from every other.

GRAPE JAM

Wash the grapes; take them off the stems one by one as though you meant to eat them, but press them between your fingers and put the skins in one dish and the pulp in another. When you have finished, heat the pulp and stir it till you can see that the seeds have come out; then put the pulp through the colander. Add this to the skins, measure, and follow your regular rule.

This seemed like a queer receipt; grape skins in jam! It sounded rather horrid. But they made it, anyway, and when they had finished, though it was a clear, reddish black, it was really delicious.