Breakfast, Luncheon, Supper--Odds and Ends
"To-day we will begin on the smaller meals," said Mrs. Thorne, one
morning. "Those seem trifles light as air after the heavy work we have
put on dinners, and as the meals themselves are far from being
substantial, we ought not to have to spend very much time or thought on
any of them.
"Breakfast comes first, of course. For that you will need to plan for
plain, simple dishes only. It would be nice always to have a first
course of fruit, but in winter that is really impossible on our tiny
income, since it has grown so expensive. In summer I do try and have it,
if not every day, at least every other day. Ordinarily I can find some
sort of berries in market within my means; and if we lived in the
country, Dolly, we could have something from our garden, surely. But in
cold weather we either do without or have something twice a week only.
Often I find bananas costing only a trifle, perhaps even ten cents a
dozen at times, and then I get half a dozen; not more, because probably
they are rather too ripe to keep long or they would not sell for the
price. Oranges, too, sometimes come into market in quantities, and then
small ones are cheap for a few days. In the autumn I have baked apples
frequently. We could have dried fruits, prunes, and peaches, and so on,
but neither Dick nor I care for those for breakfast, so I do not get
them. But I do get figs, a half-pound at a time, and dates in the same
quantity, and stew those and cut them up in a hot cereal; they are a
great addition to it. And often we have neither fruit nor cereal, but
instead a second course of hot dry toast and home-made orange marmalade.
"The days we do not have fruit we often have cereal first; not always,
mind, for we tire of it. Probably we have it three times a week. And
here, Dolly, let me give you some advice: look out for the cost of
cereals; there is one place where economy counts more than you would
believe. Many of the cereals that come in boxes cost fifteen cents or
more and do not last any time because they are loose and light; those
are what I call extravagant breakfast foods. You must use the plainer
things; old-fashioned oatmeal and cracked wheat, bought in bulk, and
rice and corn-meal. They go twice, no, three times as far as the things
you buy in packages. If you cook the oatmeal and wheat all night they
will be really very good and far more wholesome and digestible than the
same things bought in small amounts and cooked up in twenty minutes.
Never fail to cook your cereals a long time, Dolly, no matter how
'instantaneous' they are said to be. As for the corn-meal, that you can
have as a second course in fried mush, or you can make up a well salted
mush with raisins in it."
"What we had when we were children, plum porridge!" interrupted Dolly,
smiling, "and didn't we love it!"
Mary nodded, but went on without pausing. "The rice you can have boiled,
with or without raisins in it, for one morning, and another you can have
it in little brown cakes or croquettes; or you can make griddle-cakes
out of what is left over."
"Do you buy extra cream for these cereals?"
"No, unfortunately we can't do that, though I wish we could. Here again
is where I long to keep a cow. But as it is, I take off just a little of
the very top of the milk for coffee and the next best I put on for the
cereal."
"And do you have muffins and cakes and those hot breads?"
"I think I had better tell you in order just what we have, because you
will understand it all better. I arrange breakfast this way:
"First, if it is a day when we are to have fruit, a course of that;
afterward a hot dish, a little bacon, an egg apiece, milk toast, or
creamed codfish, or some simple thing warmed over that I have in the
house; often in summer fried tomatoes on toast. And I have coffee and
hot rolls or biscuits or muffins or toast, too.
"That is one sort of breakfast. When we do not have fruit I have cereal,
let us say; after that we do not care for anything hot and substantial,
as when the first course was an orange, perhaps, so we have the coffee
and muffins alone. Or, for a third breakfast, one for cold weather, we
begin with a hot dish and coffee and have cakes afterward."
"I am astonished to hear you speak of having eggs as though they were to
be bought for nothing. I thought in town they cost too much to eat them
up recklessly."
"So they do, in winter; they are often four cents apiece. But you see
then I do not use them in cooking, or only occasionally, so even at that
price I can afford to have them for breakfast twice a week, and that is
the extent of my recklessness."
"But one apiece! My dear Mary, I am positively certain Fred will demand
two eggs for his breakfast, if that is all he is to have."
"Then you must scramble the one-apiece with milk and serve them on
toast, and he will think he is having any number of them. Or, make a
parsley omelette of two with a little milk; or have them hard-boiled,
chopped, and creamed, on toast or in individual dishes, with crumbs on
top; that is an easy way out of the difficulty. He can't count how many
eggs there are on the table when they are served mixed up."
"I only hope he won't ask, that's all. Now before you leave Breakfasts
tell me whether you ever have waffles."
"Yes, when I have time enough to make them. On Sundays, when Dick does
not have to hurry away, we often have them, but not when I have to rush;
then I have easy things."
"And don't you have to rise with the lark to get a breakfast of two
courses?"
"No, indeed; I put on the things to heat, such as the cooked cereal out
of the tireless stove; or I start the corn-meal mush in the kettle and
put the muffins in the oven. While they are getting themselves ready I
lay the table and make the coffee and put on the butter and set out the
fruit, or whatever else I am to have. I pride myself on having
everything ready in a very little while."
"So breakfast is just fruit or cereal; muffins or toast; eggs or bacon
or codfish, and coffee," said Dolly, as she wrote these down.
"Not quite, for there are a number of small dishes I make out of scraps
of this or that, but those will come later on. Many of them will be
under luncheon dishes; that is, easy things to make up for any informal
meal. But this will do for the present. Now we will begin on Luncheons."
"I think those are so interesting, too; we can have all sorts of good
things creamed and in croquettes and salads. Luncheon is such a dainty
meal."
"Unfortunately you cannot have exactly everything you can think of, for
your luncheons must be made up of odds and ends, usually what is to be
found in the refrigerator. Still I agree with you in thinking this an
interesting meal, but partly, I am afraid, because I enjoy the fun of
getting something out of nothing. You must remember that you cannot use
up anything at noon that will do for dinner; the meat and vegetables
left over from one night, you know--"
"Yes, of course; you must use them up the next night. But if you cannot
have those and cannot buy on purpose, what can you have?"
"There is where the fun comes in; you must study up possible dishes made
out of odds and ends. I am not going to try and make a full list for
you, but just to begin on, I will give you a few things you can have:
"Macaroni and cheese; cheese fondu; rarebit; milk toast; milk toast with
grated cheese on it; French fried toast; vegetable croquettes; fish
croquettes; creamed fish; baked potatoes cut in halves and the centres
scooped out, mixed with creamed codfish and browned; sweet potatoes
treated in the same way, omitting the fish; Spanish toast,--that is,
thick tomato, green peppers, and onion, on toast; corn fritters; clam
fritters; fruit fritters; creamed peas; croustades of bread filled with
any sort of creamed meat, fish, or egg; green peppers filled with
similar things; baked beans; fried eggplant; stuffed eggplant; all sorts
of salads with mayonnaise; creamed celery, baked; cabbage and cheese
baked; rice and tomatoes; rice croquettes; potato croquettes; eggs in
every shape when they are cheap; all kinds of griddle-cakes and muffins.
As a second course, if you want one: jam and thin crackers; or cookies,
or gingerbread, or a bit of cake; left over preserves, or anything sweet
that you have at hand; and of course tea or cocoa. You see how easy
luncheons are, even if you can't have meat. Really the greatest help in
learning to keep house is to understand how to have good luncheons at a
small expense; when you know that, you know how to do both breakfast and
dinner better."
"Of course if I am all alone I can have a good luncheon with but little
to eat, but you know what a way people in town have of dropping in at
that time. Suppose you, for instance, should come in some fine day; I am
sure there would not be enough for two people."
"That is one of the places where I hope, my dear, your grandmother's
'faculty' will assert itself. Suppose I do come in, or even a more
formidable person than I. If you were planning to have a cup of soup
left over from the night before for a first course, thin it with a very
little boiling water and a seasoning of kitchen bouquet if it is a stock
soup, and add a little milk if it is a cream soup, and serve it in two
half-filled cups instead of one full one. There will be enough that way
without too much liquidating. If you were to have had a hot dish first,
say a little baked corn, put in a beaten egg and a trifle of milk, and
it will grow larger at once; or, if you planned to have one plate of
string-bean salad, add a hard-boiled egg quartered to the quantity, and
there will be enough for two. If you were to have had some little hot
thing which you cannot add to, fry some potatoes to go with it, and add
'sippets of toast.' If there is nothing whatever to eat, make an
omelette, or open one of the tins of tomatoes you keep for such an
occasion and have Spanish toast, and then tea and crackers and cheese
and jam; you see it is simple enough."
Dolly groaned. "Yes, simple enough for you, my experienced sister, but
most frightfully difficult for me."
"Just in anticipation, Dolly. Really it is great fun to manage, and you
will enter into the spirit of the thing when once you get to work. Now
we will take Suppers next in order."
"I thought you did not believe in suppers."
"I do not, but I must take into consideration that you may have to live
where it is customary to have them instead of dinners at night, and you
must possibly conform; or, Fred's work may send him home at noon and
again late in the evening; in that case you must also have them. Anyway,
the subject is part of your education and you cannot be allowed to skip
it.
"You lay the table in the same way as for breakfast and luncheon, with
doilies instead of a tablecloth; suppers are really the very same thing
as luncheons, you have the same things to eat. You can have a first
course of soup, if you like, served always in cups or bouillon bowls,
not in soup plates; or, you can begin with a hot dish. In winter time
you must have things of the same sort as I planned for luncheon; not
meat, but baked corn, or minced clams, or milk toast, or bread
croustades, or baked beans; with them go potatoes, possibly, sometimes,
or merely tea or coffee, with hot biscuits or muffins. Then comes a
salad, if you choose. In summer I have the main dish for either luncheon
or supper of salad, and you can serve mayonnaise or French dressing on
them. Here a meat or fish salad comes in if you can afford it; chicken
or cold salmon with mayonnaise, or lobster, or whatever you can have
easily. Afterward comes the sweet course; or you can omit the salad, as
you did the soup, and have the supper consist of the main dish first,
with tea or coffee, and the sweet course next and last. It depends on
circumstances what you will decide to do. Of course with a heavy dinner
in the middle of the day you would have a lighter supper at night; but
if you wanted to enlarge the meal for company, you do it by putting on
the extra courses.
"For the sweet course you usually have preserves in winter and berries
in summer, with cake or cookies or gingerbread. Or, you can have hot
gingerbread and American or cream cheese, and no fruit; or you can have
first one thing and then the other."
"It seems to me you have a good deal of cheese in your suppers and
luncheons. I thought it was considered indigestible."
"Not at all, by those who understand how to use it. Most of the nations
of the world live largely on it and have digestions of iron. Do not have
it with meat, but in the place of meat, because it is so hearty. When
you put it in a dish and cook it, always put in a tiny pinch of cayenne
pepper and one of soda, that makes it perfectly wholesome. When once it
is digested it is all solid nourishment, too, and for the money you get
more than you can in any other way; so don't be afraid to use it. Cream
cheese is always considered easily assimilated, and if you can get some
one to make it fresh for you out of country milk you will find it a
perfect standby."
"You passed lightly over the subject of cake for supper; don't we have
chocolate layer-cakes at all?"
"Dolly, try hard to curb the natural propensity to make chocolate cake
which lies in every woman's heart. All girls, I know, consider it the
very staff of life, but it isn't; it is an expensive thing to make, and
as few men care for it, it is largely wasted on them. Do not make much
cake of any sort, and when you do, make up simple little things and have
them fresh. Make cookies and gingerbread and drop-cakes and spice-cakes
and peanut wafers and such things, and when you are tempted to indulge
in a great layer-cake, count up first the ingredients, the butter and
sugar and eggs and other things--and refrain."
"I have already written down somewhere in my book, 'Beware of
ingredients,'" said Dolly, meekly.
"That is an excellent rule, too: 'Beware of ingredients.' Stick to it,
my dear. Now, if you are sure you understand Suppers, we will go on."
"I think I do. Have a hot dish in winter for a main course, and
something nice and cold in its place in summer. Have coffee or tea and
preserves or shortcake or gingerbread and such things afterward,
usually. When you have company, begin with soup, then have the main
course, then the salad, and last the sweet. It really seems exactly the
same thing as a luncheon."
"So it does, and it is, too. Now we come at last to my hobby; such an
interesting hobby, too, Dolly; it is Scraps, or, Left-overs, if you like
that better. And here you must study hard, for to my thinking you stand
or fall as a housekeeper by your knowledge or ignorance of the subject.
"Of course you know the saying that a French family could live on what
an American family throws away. There is something in the saying, though
I will not admit it to be entirely true; but it is a fact that a good
cook seldom has anything to put in her garbage pail, and it really is
horrifying to see what people, especially poor people, do throw out:
half-loaves of bread, good-sized bits of vegetables, bones that would
have made soup, and lots of other things.
"To begin with bread, save all the odds and ends of that. Make crusts
and hard ends into crumbs and sift them well; the half-slices make into
bits of toast and use them at once, whenever you find them in the box,
before they get very dry. No bit of bread should ever be wasted.
"Then there is fat of all sorts; the grease on top of soups, drippings
from meat, bacon fat, everything of that sort is to be saved. Put the
strips of fat through the meat-chopper and then put all in a dish with
water, cover tightly, and set in the oven and let it cook till the water
is gone. Strain it through cheesecloth, put it in a covered pail, and
you will always have enough for frying without buying lard. When you use
part of it and it gets brown, do not pour it back on the white fat, but
put it by itself, and when you have enough cook it up again with boiling
water, strain it twice, and it will turn white and as good as before.
"As to bits of meat, I have told you about those; use them up in soufflé
or in hash, or any way you can. Some people insist that there are some
things that one cannot properly use, such as an end of steak, but I have
yet to find the bit of meat that is not good for something. The steak
ends I pour boiling water over and scrape till the charred part
disappears, and they make either hash of some sort or soufflé. If you
cannot do any better, at least put the bits of meat into soup stock,
and of course all the bones you have go with it.
"As to bits of fish, those go into patties or croustades; the patties
are really baking-powder biscuits. I just cut out the middle, without
opening them, and there is a perfect shell. I put a little butter
inside, heat it well, and fill it with creamed fish or anything else.
The croustades are one of the most useful things of all for serving
left-overs. To make those you take slices of bread three inches thick
and cut them into rounds with a biscuit-cutter; on top you mark a
smaller circle. Dip each one in milk; drop it into hot fat and let it
turn golden brown; fill it with creamed chicken or meat or fish or peas.
A platter of croustades is a really attractive dish and as good to eat
as it is to look at. If ever I have a round loaf of bread that I can
spare I make that into a large croustade, too, especially for company. I
cut out the middle till it is a good-sized shell, butter the inside, and
brown it in the oven, and then fill it with creamed salmon, or anything
else. Creamed oysters are delicious in it. That does not properly come
under left-overs, but as it belongs with croustades I put it there,
anyway.
"As to eggs, begin by saving all their shells and washing them; they do
for clearing coffee. Of course you must not break a fresh egg for that.
Then when you make mayonnaise out of the yolk of one, always make up a
dish calling for one white, perhaps a little cake; or, whip it, sweeten
with powdered sugar, mix with currant jelly, make it very cold, and
serve it in two small glasses as currant fluff. It does for dessert
after a heavy dinner. If you use the egg white first, do not let the
yolk dry out, but stir it with a little cold water and you can keep it
over a day or so till you need it; or make it up at once into
mayonnaise, and do not put water in it.
"Vegetables, as you know, I have already told you a good deal about.
Peel the potatoes carefully. When you have only a little bit of carrot
or turnip, mix this with cooked peas; or put all three together and
cream them. Put a slice of beet in corned beef hash; a spoonful of peas
goes into an omelette; a carrot can be diced and added to beef stew;
celery tops go into soup; mixed vegetables are to be made up into
vegetable croquettes; cooked potato makes potato soup, and so on. Never
let so much as a single pea escape your watchful care. Even in slicing
an onion, remember not to cut through the middle, but to begin at one
end, to keep it fresh for next time, and so on till it gradually
disappears.
"Now, the worst of economies is yet to come, for to my mind utilizing
bits of cold puddings and such things is most difficult. If you feel you
must not eat up such left-overs at luncheon, and of course you ought to
feel so, and yet there is not really enough to make a second dessert as
it is, you have to face a problem at once. But here are a few things I
have learned.
"Suppose you have a very little rice pudding left; mix some jam with it,
beat in it the yolk of one egg, pour it into two little moulds, and bake
them in a pan of water. They will come out nice little shapes of fruity
rice, quite different from the previous pudding. Corn-starch left-overs
can be thickened by reheating and adding more corn-starch; when it is
all smooth, pour this into a baking-powder can to harden, then turn it
out, slice it, dip each piece in crumbs, egg, and crumbs again, and fry
in deep fat; they grow soft in the middle and are very good indeed; the
French call them fried cream. Treat bread pudding in the same way, and
serve with a nice sauce. When you make gingerbread, put some raisins and
spice into part and bake separately. When you want this half, steam it
up and serve as a fruit pudding with a hot sauce. You can crumb up plain
gingerbread that is stale, add a little molasses to keep it together,
and raisins and spice, and steam it that way, too. It is surprisingly
like a plum pudding.
"A spoonful or two of boiled custard can be utilized as sauce for
another pudding. Tapioca pudding can have canned fruit with plenty of
juice put with it; it can be cooked over again and this time served
cold, perhaps in a mould. In fact nearly everything but a small bit of
pie can be made over to seem unlike itself. Pie, my dear, I really think
you must eat for lunch, provided there is but one small piece."
"Fred can have it for dinner," said Dolly, complacently. "All men love
pie, and I can have coffee only, for once."
"So you can; or, if you have saved all the bits of pie-crust, as, of
course, you should have done, you can have a little tartlet in place of
the pie. I always make up some tartlets, anyway, when I make crust, and
when they are filled with peach jam with perhaps a dot of cream on top,
they make an excellent dessert. This reminds me to say that a half-can
of fruit or left-over cranberry sauce can be put into a pie-crust shell
with strips of crust over the top; they make very good pies."
"I should think you could use left-overs of canned fruit for pudding
sauces."
"Bright girl! So you can. Chop up the fruit and heat the whole together;
it would be especially good on cottage pudding."
"I hate cottage pudding; I shall never have it."
"Oh, yes, you will; put grated chocolate in it and you won't know what
it is. But don't divert my attention, for I am not done yet with
left-overs. There is orange peel, for one thing. Keep all the orange
skins you have and throw them into a crock of salt and water and let
them stand till you have enough to make candying worth while. Then drain
them and wash them well, and put them in cold water and bring to a boil;
repeat this till the water is perfectly fresh. When the skins are
transparent take them out, put two or three together and cut them in
tiny little strips; cook these in thick sugar and water syrup, only
enough to cover them, and dry in the oven with the door open. Sprinkle
with granulated sugar, put them in a fruit-can with a cover, and they
will keep for years, and be just the thing to put in fruit-cake or plain
bread pudding or any such thing. Lemon peel and grapefruit peel are
good, too, and quite as useful.
"When you have a little syrup left after you have taken out spiced
peaches or pears from a can, stew peeled and quartered apples gently in
it and serve them without canning. They will be almost as good as the
peaches were; and sometimes stew prunes a little, till you can slip the
stone out, and put these in the syrup. You can't guess how good they
are, and how they help out a plain meal."
"And watermelon rind--don't you do something with that?"
"Yes, make that up into sweet pickles, too."
Dolly suddenly threw down her pencil and snatched off her apron.
"Mary, there are the Cliffords coming around the corner. I know they are
coming to lunch, too!"
"Of course they are, and we have scarcely anything to give them. Let me
see." The refrigerator yielded up some outer pieces of celery, a
good-sized wedge of cheese, eggs, and milk.
Before the door-bell had rung, Dolly was told to lay the table. After
she had done that she was to come into the parlor and entertain the
guests while her sister excused herself and transformed the cheese into
a rarebit, and the celery, with hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise, into
salad. The meal was to conclude with thin crackers and jam and tea.
"And plenty for them, too," said Dolly, ungraciously, as the footsteps
sounded in the hall. "I did not want them to interrupt my lesson."
"That was the end, anyway," said her sister, laughing; "and you can't
convince me you are so interested as all that. Now I'll go to the door;
be as pleasant as you know how, and we will surprise them with a good
luncheon of transformed scraps in short order."