Potatoes, Creamed

Cut I pint cold potatoes in cubes or thin slices; put in pan and cover with milk; cook gradually until milk is absorbed. Then add I tablespoon butter, l/2 teaspoonful salt, some pepper, and parsley. Stir a few moments, and serve.

Potatoes Au Gratin

"Chop cold boiled potatoes rather fine. Rub a tablespoonful of butter with one of flour, add 1/2 pint of milk, and season with salt and pepper. When this mixture has boiled, mix it with potatoes and turn into a baking dish. Sprinkle grated cheese over the top, pressing it down into the cream sauce. Bake in a quick oven until a golden brown." (Arthur Chapman).

Potatoes, Stewed

Cut cold boiled potatoes into dice, season with salt, pepper, butter, and stew gently in enough milk to cover them. Stir occasionally to prevent scorching. Or, peel and slice some raw potatoes. Cover with boiling water and boil until tender. Pour off the water. Roll a large piece of butter in flour, heat some milk, beat these together until smooth, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil. Then stew together five minutes. Serve very hot.

Sweet Potatoes Boiled

Use a kettle with lid.

Select tubers of uniform size; wash; do not cut or break the skins. Put them in boiling water, and continue boiling until, when you pierce one with a fork, you find it just a little hard in the center. Drain by raising the cover only a trifle when kettle is tilted, so as to keep in as much steam as possible. Hang the kettle high over the fire, cover closely, and let steam ten minutes.

Sweet Potatoes, Fried

Skin the boiled potatoes and cut them lengthwise. Dust the slices with salt and pepper. Throw them into hot fat, browning first one side, then the other. Serve very hot.

Potatoes And Onions, Hashed

Slice two potatoes to one onion. Parboil together about fifteen minutes in salted water. Pour off water, and drain. Meantime be frying some bacon. When it is done, remove it to a hot side dish, turn the vegetables into the pan, and fry them to a light brown. Then fall !;o, and enjoy a good thing!

Beans, Boiled

Pick out all defective beans, and wash the rest. It is best to soak the beans over night; but if time does not permit, add one-quarter teaspoonful of baking soda to the parboiling water. In either case, start in fresh cold water, and parboil one quart of beans (for four men with hearty appetites) for one-half hour, or until one will pop open when blown upon. At the same time parboil separately one pound fat salt pork. Remove scum from beans as it rises. Drain both; place beans around pork, add two quarts boiling water, and boil slowly for two hours, or until tender. Drain, and season with salt and pepper.

It does not hurt beans to boil all day, provided boiling water is added from time to time, lest they get dry and scorch. The longer they boil the more digestible they become.

Left-over beans heated in a frying-pan with a little bacon grease have a pleasant and distinctive flavor.

Beans, Baked

Soak and parboil as above, both the beans and the pork. Then pour off the water from the pork, gash the meat with a knife, spread half of it over the bottom of the kettle, drain the beans, pour them into the kettle, put the rest of pork on top, sprinkle not more than one-half teaspoonful of salt over the beans, pepper liberally, and if you have molasses, pour a tablespoonful over all; otherwise a tablespoonful of sugar. Hang the kettle high over the fire where it will not scorch, and bake at least two hours; or, add enough boiling water to just cover the beans, place kettle in bake-hole as directed on page 297, and bake all night, being careful that there are not enough embers with the ashes to burn the beans.

If a pail with thin lid must be used for a bean-pot, cover its top with a two or three-inch layer of browse or green twigs before shoveling on the embers.

Baked beans are strong food, ideal for active men in cold weather. One can work harder and longer on pork and beans, without feeling hungry, than on any other food with which I am acquainted, save bear meat. The ingredients are compact and easy to transport; they keep indefinitely in any weather. But when one is only beginning camp life he should be careful not to overload his stomach with beans, for they are rather indigestible until you have toned up your stomach by hearty exercise in the open air.

Baked Beans For Transport

" Cook the amount thought necessary and, when finished, pour off every last drop of water, spread them out on plates, and let them dry over a slow fire, stirring constantly. When dried they can be carried in a sack or any other receptacle, and can be prepared to be eaten within five minutes by the addition of hot water. If the weather is cold, do not dry them, but spread them out and stir around with a stick. They will freeze, and if constantly stirred will be so many individual beans, hard and frozen; they can be handled or carried like so many pebbles, and will keep indefinitely. Add hot water and, as soon as thawed out, they are ready to eat." (Edward Ferguson).

Onions, Boiled

More wholesome this way than fried or baked. Like potatoes, they should be of as uniform size as possible, for boiling. Do not boil them in an iron vessel. Put them in enough boiling salted water to cover them. Cover the kettle and boil gently, lest the onions break. They are cooked when a straw will pierce them (about an hour). If you wish them mild, boil in two or three waters. When cooked, drain and season with butter or dripping, pepper, and salt. Boiled milk, thickened, is a good sauce.

Green Corn

If you happen to camp near a farm in the " roasting-ear " season, you are in great luck. The quickest way to roast an ear of corn is to cut off the butt of the ear closely, so that the pith of the cob is exposed, ream it out a little, impale the cob lengthwise on the end of a long hardwood stick, and turn over the coals.