44 
American Agriculturist, July 19, 1934 
Serve Soft Pies this Summer 
Simplify Cooking, Housework and Living Habits for the Hot Days 
1TF YOU and your family are fond of 
* the one-erust pies, or “soft"' pies as 
they are often called, the following 
recipes may be of interest to you and will 
provide a variety in this line. 
As for the crust, I have tried out a 
number of so-called “best’" ways, but I 
have the most satisfactory results with 
the plain old-fashioned method, having 
the lard and water very cold and handling 
the crust as little as possible. 
The meringue is, of course, the crowning 
glory of many of the one-crust pies. 
Some do not like it browned, but I think 
a pie is so much more attractive with the 
frosting a delicate golden brown. One 
tablespoonful of sugar should be allowed 
to each well-beaten egg white. Then I 
beat it until very smooth and creamy, 
spread it on evenly and do not have too 
hot an oven. If it bakes rather slowly 
it will not fall nor shrivel away from the 
edges. It should not cling to the knife 
when the pie is cut. 
The first five recipes are for filled 
pies, the crust being baked and cooled 
before the filling is added. The base 
recipe is as follows: 
Yi cup sugar 
1 egg yolk for 2) 
1 pint hot milk 
2 tablespoons cornstarch 
Add last 2 tablespoons dry co oa. Bake 
slowly and the cocoa will rise to form a 
thin chocolate coating over the top of the 
custard, imparting a delicious chocolate 
flavo” to the pie. 
Maple Custard Pie 
Use the same recipe as before, omitting 
the cocoa and substituting one-half cupful 
of soft maple sugar for the 4 tablespoons 
of white sugar. Our “men folks” 
consider this a great treat. 
Carrot Pie (Mock Pumpkin) 
(Canned carrots may be used in this 
away from home. The next day we 
tackle our work with fresh enthusiasm 
and accomplish twice as much as we 
would had we remained at home and 
stayed in the same old rut. 
This time of year most housewives are 
busy with their liouseeleauing. While 
you are doing this, you will find many 
opportunities to arrange your house to 
make housekeeping easier. Take down 
some of your old-fashioned and unattrac¬ 
tive pictures and put away some of your 
useless ornaments, which will lighten your 
work and improve the appearance of 
your house at the same time. 
Stir sugar, eggs, and cornstarch to¬ 
gether with a little water and when 
smooth add slowly to the milk. Stir until 
smooth. 
Cocoanut Filling 
Add to the above recipe 1 large teaspoon 
vanilla flavoring and one package 
shredded cocoanut, after removing the 
custard from the fire. 
Banana Pie 
After the plain custard, flavored with 
1 teaspoon vanilla, has been poured into 
the crust, cover the top closely with thick 
slices of banana. Press these down into 
the filling. Then frost as usual. 
Orange Pie 
Flavor the plain custard with orange 
extract, then cover the filling with diced 
oranges, pressing the pieces down into 
the custard. Now cover thickly with 
whipped cream, instead of the meringue. 
This is delicious. 
Chocolate Pie 
While the plain custard is cooking 
dissolve 2 tablespoons bitter cocoa in a 
little hot water and add slowly, stirring 
the custard to smooth out all lumps. 
After it is taken from the fire, add a few 
drops of Manilla. Cool, fill the crust and 
add the meringue. 
Lemon Filling 
1 tablespoon cornstarch Stir all together with a little 
1 large cup sugar water and add slowly to 
Grated rind of 1 lemon 1 large cup boiling water 
Drop in a small lump of butter. Beat 
up the yolk of 1 egg with the juice of the 
lemon and stir this into the rest of the 
filling last. Cook slowly until thick. 
The filling has a clear almost transparent 
appearance when the egg yolk is added 
at the last. 
In the next five recipes the filling is 
poured into the crust and both are baked 
at the same time. 
Mock Lemon Pie 
Cut up fine enough pie-plant to fill a 
crust. Add 1 large cup sugar, 1 tablespoon 
flour, yolks of two eggs. Stir all together 
well and fill crust. Bake until filling is 
set and pie-plant tender. 
Currant Pie 
This is made exactly like the mock 
lemon pie, using instead of pie-plant, a 
quantity of large red currants that have 
been washed and stemmed. These two 
pies should have meringue on top. 
Chocolate Custard Pie 
Stir together: 
2 large or 3 small eggs. 2. lieaping tablespoons 
which have been beaten sugar 
well , with an egg beater A little salt, and nutmeg 
1 generous pint rich milk 
“HD HE prettiest centerpiece in the house” is what one reader said after 
-*■ making up the cross-stitch design of the picture. She made it in Dutch 
blue on oyster-white linen. The transfer pattern of E 7 is 15c—Order from 
Embroidery Department. 
way). Cook carrots until tender, drain, 
mash fine and force through a collander. 
Then proceed as you would for a pumpkin 
pie. I use about 
lJd cups carrot pulp A little salt 
1 tablespoon flour Spices to taste 
3 or 4 tablespoons maple 1 or more cupfuls of milk 
syrup or sugar 
This can scarcely be told from a pump¬ 
kin pie. It is a good way to use up the 
last of the winter carrot supply and makes 
a change in the pie line. 
Serve all of these pies after they have 
been chilled well, and they will taste 
almost as good as ice cream on hot 
summer days.— Mrs. F. L. Blount. 
Spend Your Summer Out of 
Doors 
T AM sure that we are all delighted to 
know by these early spring days that 
summer is on its way once more. We 
farm people are so isolated in our homes 
during the long winter months that we 
ought to make the most of our lovely, but 
far too short, summers. 
To enable housekeepers to get the 
greatest pleasure out of the summer 
months they must arrange their work in 
such a manner as to give them time for 
outdoor recreation and social pleasures. 
There are many dutiful housekeepers 
who seldom leave home because they are 
so tied up to their household routine. 
No one can give their best effort to their 
job without some outside interests and 
diversions. We all know how refreshed 
and encouraged we feel after a day spent 
house. You can prepare vegetables. ( ] 0 
your mending and other tasks on the 
porch. For the sake of your health itj$ 
worth your while to do every job that 
you can out of doors. I know some fami. 
iies who do not seem to get any good 0 [ 
their porches. I have often wondered 
why they didn't use them. Perhaps thev 
think they must have expensive wicker 
furniture in order to enjoy them, but it 
really is not necessary. Others say that 
their porches are so sunny they can’t 
enjoy sitting on them. It seems to me 
that in most cases this could be easily 
remedied by climbing vines for a curtain 
to shut the sun out. By the way, yon 
need not buy an expensive awning. 
For several years we used an awning of 
bran sacks sewed together and dyed green, 
Later we used a pair of discarded doot 
draperies. By exercising your ingenuity 
you can probably make a satisfactory 
awning out of old material. 
For furnishings you will need a table, 
some comfortable chairs and if possible 
two hammocks, or you can use an old 
couch if you have it and one hammock, 
Don’t overlook the possibilities of cre¬ 
tonne for cushions and a table cover, 
By all means serve your meals on the 
porch during the pleasant weather unless 
it is so situated that it is too great a 
distance to carry food from your kitchen, 
in which case it would probably make 
you too much work to be feasible. — S, 
Gwendolyn Spink. 
If you are unfortunate enough to be 
burdened with carpets, as many of us are, 
take them up and replace them with 
rugs as fast as you can afford to do so. 
Linoleum rugs are good for bedroom 
floors as they always look neat and at¬ 
tractive and are a great labor-saver. 
They are also suitable for dining rooms 
and sitting rooms that receive hard wear. 
Save yourself work by ironing as little 
as possible during the warm weather. 
Use an oilcloth or Sanitas cloth for every¬ 
day to save laundering tablecloths. Plan 
to have the summer underwear of your 
family of gauze or crepe so they need not 
be ironed. After washing sheets put 
them back on the beds without ironing. 
You need not iron the pillow cases either, 
though it is rather more satisfactory to 
do so, as the beds look better when made. 
Do not iron everyday towels or the men's 
shirts and overalls. 
Unless your family is large perhaps 
you can save labor by washing your 
dishes only twice daily. I know a good 
many families who always leave their 
supper dishes until morning. On Sun¬ 
day you might pack your dinner dishes 
in the sink, thus leaving you an after¬ 
noon free for rest. Sunday nights your 
family will probably only care for a lunch, 
which they can get themselves without 
using many dishes. 
Use the Porch More 
Get the good of your porch through the 
warm weather. It is much more healthy 
for your family than sitting indoors and 
it will saye endless dirt and disorder in the 
Something About Cyclamen 
T HE beautiful cyclamen (or rabbit’s 
ear or Persian violet, as it is often 
called) is not so difficult to raise as many 
people imagine, though it requires quite a 
period of time to bring into healthy bloom, 
The seed, being very hard, should be 
soaked twenty-four hours in warm water 
to hasten germination, then planted in 
soft soil, and kept moist and warm. A 
south window is a good location. Some¬ 
times the seed appears in six weeks, but 
very often requires two and a half or three 
months, especially if planted in cold 
weather. A tiny white bulb is formed 
before the seed comes over ground and as 
soon as large enough to handle should be 
transplanted into soft mellow soil with 
good drainage and kept growing as rapidly 
as possible. It requires about fifteen 
months to develop into blooming plants, 
After plants are through blooming they 
should be set in a cool shady place and 
given just water enough to keep alive. 
When time to repot (I usually do it about 
September 1st) use new soil and bring 
indoors to a sunny window. The blooms 
keep a long time either on the plant or as 
cut flowers, and very often a plant will 
bloom for three successive seasons.— 
A. L. L. 
Oil Cloth Telephone Book Cover 
A “BEST SELLER” for bazaars is a 
black oil cloth cover for a telephone 
book. These render inconspicuous an 
unsightly but necessary object, and may 
be lined with sateen and decorated with 
small, bright Conventional designs, or 
with wool embroidery or left plain. Such 
covers also can be made for other books 
most used, as children’s school books, thus 
enabling the children to sell their book 
second hand when they are through with 
them, also for the family Bible, the dic¬ 
tionary, and the family account book 
etc. —Z. I. Dahrus. 
Shade-Loving Flowers 
“ AA/HAT flowers grow well in the 
* shade?” asked one of our readers 
recently. 
“Please tell your correspondent that 
begonias do w r ell in the shade and the 
Rex begonia is large flowered and brilliant. 
Any seed catalogue will tell her more,” 
writes R. B. H. of N. Y. 
