Cooking Hints

No recipe today, just a typewritten page of cooking hints found in Mom's cupboard.  They are obviously older, but I still learned a trick or two.

1.  Use up that bit of leftover meat by combining it in cream sauce and serving it piping hot with toasted corn bread squares; or by grinding it together with minced vegetables and mixing it with mayonnaise for tasty, nutritious spreads.

2.  A little meat can go a long way; combine it with meat extenders, such as rice, macaroni, spaghetti, noodles, cracker or bread crumbs, vegetables, and cereals.

3.  Uncooked smoked meats will will stay fresh and sweet for a long time if you do this; saturate a clean cloth with vinegar, wring out, and wrap the bacon or ham in this damp vinegar cloth.  Then wrap again in waxed paper and store in the refrigerator.

4.  When buying meat, ask for the trimming and "collect the bonus."  Simmer with vegetables, and well seasoned, they make delicious nourishing soups.  Use meat trimmings also to add flavor to dressings, stuffings and casserole dishes.

5.  Roast meats at low to moderate temperature and reap these rewards:  More servings per pound because less shrinkage of meat.  Up to 20% saving on fuel.  More and better flavor.

6.  Remove the burnt taste from scorched milk by putting the pan in cold water and adding a pinch of salt to the milk.

7.  Don't buy a quart of sour milk or buttermilk because you need a cupful for a special recipe.  Just add 2T of vinegar to one cup of sweet milk and stir.  Presto!  Sour milk.

8.  Cheese souffle will stay high, light, and handsome, if you use quick-cooking tapioca instead of flour to thicken the milk base.  Take three tablespoons tapioca to one cup milk for a 3 egg souffle.

9.  Stale, dried-up cheese turns into a delicious spread when placed into the meat grinder with chunks of raw onion.

10.  Get more juice out of lemons by quickly heating them in hot water for several minutes before squeezing, or they can be rolled to soften.

11.  If only a little lemon juice is needed make a cut in the end of the lemon and squeeze out exactly the amount needed.  The rest will keep better.  If the lemon is cut in half, it will keep better if a piece of wax paper is pressed firmly over the cut end.

12.  Fish odors will vanish from cooking utensils quickly if you add two or three tablespoons of ammonia to the dishwater.