Macaroni. Boiled Macaroni

For one-half pound macaroni have not less than three quarts of salted water boiling rapidly. Break the macaroni into short pieces, and boil thirty-five minutes for the small, forty-five minutes for the large. Then drain, and pour sauce over it, or bake it. It is better if boiled in good broth instead of water.

Tomato Sauce

1 quart can tomatoes,

1 tablespoonful butter,

2 tablespoonfuls flour, 1 teaspoonful salt,

1/8 teaspoonful pepper, 1 teaspoonful sugar.

Rub the flour into the butter until they blend. Brown this in a pan. Add the tomatoes and simmer thirty minutes. Stir frequently. Add the seasoning, along with spices, if you wish. This makes enough sauce for 1 1/2 pounds macaroni, but it keeps well in cold weather, and can be used with other dishes. Good in combination with the following:

Macaroni With Cheese

After the macaroni is boiled, put it in a pan with a little butter and some grated cheese. Stir gently, and as soon as the cheese is melted, serve; or, pour the above sauce over it.

Macaroni, Baked

Boil first, as above. Drain. Place in a deep pan, add a cupful of cold milk, sprinkle in three tablespoonfuls grated cheese and one tablespoonful butter. Then bake until brown.

Spaghetti

This has the advantage over macaroni of not being so bulky to carry; but some do not like it so well. Speaking of bulk, if you cannot carry canned tomatoes, a very good sauce is made of Franco-American tomato puree (usually listed under soups in grocers' catalogues) which is put up in cans as small as 1/2 pint.

" Dice one large onion and 1/4 1b- of bacon and cook in a frying-pan until the onion is a light brown. Mix with this one small can of tomato puree, and, if you have it, a half cup of grated cheese. Season well and combine this with the spaghetti, which has been boiled, and blanched in cold water. Place in the baker in moderate heat for an hour. We buy plain American cheese and grate after drying: it should be packed in a push-top tin well lined with oiled paper." (Mrs. Pinkerton).

Porridge. Corn Meal Mush

Mix two level tablespoonfuls salt with one quart meal. Bring four quarts of water (for yellow meal, or half as much for fresh white meal) to a hard boil in a two-gallon kettle. Mix the salted meal with enough cold water to make a batter that will run from the spoon; this is to prevent it from getting lumpy. With a large spoon drop the batter into the boiling water, adding gradually, so that water will not fall below boiling point. Stir constantly for ten minutes. Then cover pot and hang it high enough above fire to insure against scorching. Cook thus for one hour, stirring occasionally, and thinning with boiling water if it gets too thick.

Fried Mush

This, as Father Izaak said of another dish, is " too good for any but very honest men." The only drawback to this gastronomic joy is that it takes a whole panful for one man. As it is rather slow to fry, let each man perform over the fire for himself. The mush should have been poured into a greased pan the previous evening, and set in a cool place over night to harden. Cut into slices one-third of an inch thick, and fry in very hot grease until nicely browned. Eat with syrup, or au naturel.

Polenta

An Italian dish made from our native corn and decidedly superior to plain boiled mush. Cook mush as above for one hour. Partly fill the bake-pan with it, and pour over it either a good brown gravy, or the tomato sauce described under macaroni. Then sprinkle with grated cheese. Set the pan in the oven three minutes, or in the reflector five minutes, to bake a little.

Oatmeal Porridge

Rolled oats may be cooked much more quickly than the old-fashioned oatmeal; the latter is not fit for the human stomach until it has been boiled as long as corn mush. To two quarts boiling water add one teaspoonful of salt, stir in gradually a pint of rolled oats, and boil ten minutes, stirring constantly, unless you have a double boiler. The latter may be extemporized by setting a small kettle inside a larger one that contains some water, with a few pebbles at the bottom to keep them apart.

Cereals. Rice, Boiled

Good precedent to the contrary notwithstanding, I contend that there is but one way to boil rice, and that is this (wdiich is described in the words of Captain Kenealy, whose Yachting Wrinkles is a book wrorth owning) :

" To cook rice so that each grain will be plump, dry, and separate, first, wash the measure of rice thoroughly in cold, salted water. Then put it in a pot of furiously boiling fresh water (I cupful to 2 quarts water), no salt being added. Keep the pot boiling hard for twenty minutes, but do not stir. Then strain off the water, place the rice over a very moderate fire (hang high over camp-fire), and let it swell and dry for half an hour, in an uncovered vessel. Remember that rice swells enormously in cooking".

Plain boiled rice is not an appetising dish, particularly when you have no cream to eat it with; but no other cereal lends itself so well to varied combinations, not only as a breakfast food but also in soups and stews, in puddings, cakes, etc. Boiled rice with raisins is a standard dish; other dried fruit may be used. As a left-over, rice can be fried, made into pancakes or muffins, or utilized in a score of other ways, each dish tasting different from the others.

Rice, Fried

When boiled rice is left over, spread it in a dish. When cold, cut it into cakes and fry it, for a hasty meal. It is better, though, in muffins.

Rice Muffins

Mash very smooth half a pint boiled rice. Add slowly, stirring to a thinner paste, half a pint of milk, three beaten eggs, salt. Then make into a stiff batter with flour. Bake like dropped biscuits.

Rice With Onions

A very good dish, quickly made, is boiled rice mixed with onions which have been chopped up and fried.

Spanish Rice

" Mix two cupfuls of boiled rice, a large diced onion, and a can of tomato puree. Season with plenty of cayenne pepper and bake in the reflector for an hour." (Mrs. Pinkerton).

Risotto

Fry a sliced onion brown in a tablespoonful of butter. Add to this a pint of hot water and half a pint of washed rice. Boil until soft, adding more hot water if needed. Heat half a pint canned tomatoes, and stir into it a teaspoonful of sugar. When the rice is soft, salt it; add the tomato; turn into a dish and sprinkle over it a heaped tablespoonful jf grated cheese.

Rice, Curried

Same as Risotto, but put a teaspoonful of curry powder in the tomatoes and omit cheese.

Grits, Boiled

Put in plenty of boiling unsalted water. Boil about thirty minutes; then salt and drain.

Grits, Fried

Same as fried rice.

"Breakfast Foods"

According to directions on packages.

Left-Over Cereals

See Mixed Cakes, page 355.