80 
American Agriculturist,'August 4,1923 
Hints for the Housewife in the Busy Season 
Elizabeth Owen Tells How to Simplify the Work — Midsummer Recipes and Patterns 
I N some communities, the housewife 
must prepare two meals each day 
in the busy seasons, for the extra help 
on the farm. This means long hours 
of hard work over a hot stove. A 
fireless cooker is the best servant a 
woman can have at such a time, but if 
that is out of the question, there are 
still many ways in which she can 
lighten her labor. 
Beginning a week beforehand let us 
do a little unusual shopping. First, 
we’ll buy two slabs of soapstone, which 
are invaluable as fuel and space savers. 
Pieces six by eight inches and about 
an inch and a half thick can be pur¬ 
chased for a few cents. They heat 
through in a few moments and then 
can be placed on the shelf, or back 
of range, leaving the range free for 
other things. Anything placed on them 
will boil steadily for some time, and 
for simmering things they are beyond 
compare. 
Rid the House of Flies 
Flies will get into the house in spite 
of screen doors, and there’s only one 
thing more discouraging than trying 
to eat with flies in the dining-room, 
and that is to cook with flies in the 
kitchen. So next we will buy ten cents’ 
worth of oil of lavender, two pounds 
of rosin, and a pint of castor oil. 
Heat together until the mixture looks 
like molasses, smear while hot with 
paint brush on any kind of paper, and 
place several sheets about the room. 
Having rid the house of flies, use 
a small paint brush dipped in the oil 
of lavender on the outside of the 
screens. We may even sprinkle a few 
drops in each room; the odor is fresh 
and sweet. 
Next on the list are paper napkins 
and towels, which save many a rub 
next wash day; also cup towels, and 
kitchen hand towels. 
Have you a leaky milkpan or dish- 
pan? Then we’ll make it leak worse. 
Make a sort of overgrown colander 
out of it, then take four large spools 
and nail them on for legs. In the 
center nail an old can for the silver¬ 
ware, when washing dishes place in a 
larger pan, fill with those troublesome 
dishes, then scald, and if you must dry 
them, use a paper towel. Dish wash¬ 
ing thus loses many of its terrors. 
To Prepare a Fat Hen 
If you haven’t any roaster, we will 
get an oblong self-basting one, and if 
you are short of canned meats or sau¬ 
sage smother a fat hen, (by the way, 
soda is fine for cleaning chickens; it 
takes out the pinfeathers). Cut up 
the fowl, salt, take half flour and half 
cornmeal, dredge each piece, put two 
tablespoonfuls of shortening in your 
roaster, have it hot, put in the chicken, 
then pepper, put in four slices of 
sugar-cured breakfast bacon, and 
enough water to come around the edge 
of the chicken (don’t entirely cover 
with water), put on lid and set in the 
oven. If you want to roast sweet po¬ 
tatoes in the roaster, peel, cut into 
pieces, put in a little butter, lay in 
potatoes, sprinkle with sugar and salt. 
Put in one-third cup of water, put on 
lid and set in the oven. When almost 
done, take off lid, set in upper oven 
a few minutes to brown a little. 
A Useful Home-Made Casserole 
Have you a casserole? If not, get a 
one or two gallon crock with lid, tem¬ 
per by first soaking in cold water for 
twenty-four hours, then place it in the 
oven and let the water come slowly to 
a boil. To cook roasts ' or chicken, 
place in the bottom a rack made of 
bucket lid or tin pan, punched full of 
nail holes. Place the meat on this 
with a little water underneath. In 
cooking pot roasts, put your roast in a 
spider on top of the stove and brown 
on all sides, to prevent loss of flavor. 
The toughest cuts of mec*t are made 
tender and palatable in the casserole. 
I suppose you will cook a ham for 
a change, and while you are about it, 
you should save some of the stock for 
seasoning- baked or green beans. Both 
are permissible on such a table. It 
would save time and labor if you 
baked your beans the day beforehand. 
You can seal part of them in glass 
jars and if set in a cool place they 
will keep perfectly. 
'New beans, peas or spinach should 
be put on to cook in hot water, just 
enough to’ cover them. Cold water ex¬ 
tracts the flavor during its heating. 
Never use the led while cooking them if 
you want them to preserve their color. 
Your cakes can be baked the day 
before. Just try this icing and see if 
your family even suggests that you 
cook icing again: Heat three table¬ 
spoonfuls of orange juice and one 
tablespoonful of butter, one teaspoon¬ 
ful of lemon, add the grated rind of 
the orange and enough confectioner’s 
sugar for a thick icing. 
Now, if you make up a quart of 
your favorite salad dressing, another 
of pudding sauce, and a jar of new 
beet pickles, you will find your “battle 
half won.”_ 
THE LOGANBERRY BACK IN 
STYLE 
W E have learned to use both the 
“old-fashioned,” popular fruits 
and others which used to go to waste. 
The strawberries and raspberries and 
other midsummer berries are always 
used on the table and put up in large 
quantities, but recently we have come 
to appreciate the loganberry as giving 
both variety and flavor to the menu. 
It may be used as a filling for pie 
and also put up as a preserve. Logan¬ 
berry jelly is also delicious and the 
berries may be used in equal quanti¬ 
ties with strawberries for a combina¬ 
tion jam that has quite an unusual 
flavor. Loganberries also give both 
taste and color to plain junket, tinting 
to a delicate pink, which makes a very 
attractive dish with fresh stewed 
loganberries and whipped cream. 
Some unusual recipes for the logan¬ 
berries are as follows: 
Loganberry Batter Pudding 
Fill a small granite pudding dish 
about half full of fresh loganberries. 
cover with 2 cups sugar. Dot with 
butter. Cover and set in oven while 
preparing the following batter: One 
egg, Vz cup sugar, Vz cup milk, 2 
tablespoonfuls butter or other shorten¬ 
ing, 1 Vz cups flour, 2 y 2 teaspoonfuls 
baking powder. Remove fruit from 
oven, spread this batter over the top 
and bake until a rich brown. 
Jr 
Loganberry Sherbert 
One quart loganberries, 4 cups sug¬ 
ar, 1 pint water, 2 tablespoonfuls gela¬ 
tine and the fruit, which has been 
pressed through a sieve to remove 
seeds. Lastly, add beaten whites of 2 
eggs and freeze. 
Loganberry Tapioca 
Soak 1 cup pearl tapioca in luke¬ 
warm water over night. In the morn¬ 
ing put this in a deep 2Vz or 3 quart 
pudding dish (granite or enamel), add 
a pint of fresh loganberries, with 2 
cups sugar. Fill the pan nearly full 
of warm water, add a tablespoonful of 
butter, and bake until the tapioca is 
clear. It will be well to stir it from 
the bottom once or twice and it may 
be necessary to add a little hot water 
if the oven is very hot. Serve with 
milk or cream. 
Loganberry Ice Cream 
Scald 2 quarts of milk in double 
boiler, then dissolve 2 cups of sugar in 
it. Let cool, add 1 pint of whipped 
cream, and when partly frozen, add 1 
pint of fresh loganberries, crushed 
and sweetened. Serve with chopped 
nut meats. 
Loganberry Dessert 
Make a custard of 1 quart of milk, 
1 cup of sugar, and yolks of 4 eggs; 
flavor with vanilla. Spread bottom of 
pudding dish with slices of stale, plain 
cake. Cover with custard, then a layer 
of loganberries, sprinkled with sugar 
until the dish is full. Cover that with 
meringue made with the whites of 2 
eggs, sweetened, and slightly brown in 
the oven. 
Loganberry Sauce for Cottage and 
Bread Pudding 
Rub together 2 tablespoonfuls of 
butter and the same of flour, add ^2 
cup or more of sugar, and when blend¬ 
ed add 1 cup loganberries mashed, to 
which some sugar has been added, and 
work in smoothly. Then place on stove 
or in a double boiler, and add boiling 
water, boiling until smooth and of the 
desired thickness. 
Loganberry Cake Filling 
Beat Vz cup butter and 1 cup sugar 
to a cream. Add the white of 1 egg 
beaten stiff and 1 cup crushed logan¬ 
berries.—H. A. Lyman. 
SOUTHERN SUMMER SOUP 
One marrow soup bone; salt, pepper, 
and dried celery leaves for seasoning; 
2 quarts of water; several very ripe to¬ 
matoes; 1 cup diced okra; 1 large onion 
chopped fine; 2 potatoes; 2 carrots; a 
few butterbeans; 1 tablespoon of rice 
or barley for thickening. 
Put the bone and other ingredients' 
on in cold water in order to extract the 
juices of the meat, and simmer slowly 
for an hour or more. The potatoes and 
thickening may be added after the soup 
has cooked for some time and danger 
of sticking is avoided.— Hazel H. 
Harris. 
The Brown Mouse 
(Continued from page 78) 
Bronsons, those queer children from 
Tennessee, the Simmses, the Talcotts, 
the Hansens, the Hamms and Colonel 
Woodruff’s hired man, Pete. 
Jim sat down between Bettina Han¬ 
sen, a flaxen-haired young Brunhilde 
of seventeen, and Calista Simms—Jen¬ 
nie saw him do it, while listening to 
Wilbur Smythe’s account of the exact¬ 
ing nature of the big law practice he 
was building up. 
The repast drew to a close; and over 
by the burr-oak the crowd had grown 
to a circle surrounding Jim Irwin. 
“He seems to be making an address,” 
said Wilbur Smythe. 
“Well, Wilbur,” replied the colonel, 
“you had the first shot at us. Sup¬ 
pose we move over and see what’s under 
discussion.” 
As they approached the group, they 
heard Jim Irwin answering something 
which Ezra Bronson had said. 
“You think so, Ezra,” said he, “and 
it seems reasonable that big creameries 
like those at Omaha, Sioux City, Des 
Moines and the other centralizer points 
can make butter cheaper than we would 
do here—but we’ve the figures that 
show that they aren’t economical.” 
“They can’t make good butter, for 
one thing,” said Newton Bronson 
cockily. 
“Why can’t they?” asked Olaf Han¬ 
sen, the father of Bettina. 
“Well,” said Newton, “they have to 
have so much cream that they’ve got 
to ship it so far that it gets rotten 
on the way, and they have to renovate 
it with lime and other ingredients be¬ 
fore they can churn it.” 
“Well,” said Raymond Simms, “I 
reckon they sell their butter fo’ all it’s 
wuth; an’ they cain’t get within from 
foah to seven cents a pound as much 
fo’ it as the farmers’ creameries in 
Wisconsin and Minnesota get fo’ 
theirs.” 
“How do you kids know so darned 
much about it?” queried Pete. 
“Huh!” sniffed Bettina. “We’ve 
been reading and writing letters about 
it, and figuring percentages on it all 
winter. We’ve done arithmetic and 
geography and grammar and I don’t 
know what else on it.” 
“Well, I’m agin’ any schoolin’,” said 
Pete, “that makes kids smarter than 
their parents and their parents’ hired 
men. Gi’ me another swig o’ that lem¬ 
onade, Jim!” 
(Continued next week) 
Dip a new broom in hot water be¬ 
fore using it the first time to toughen 
the splints. This makes it flexible and 
prevents breaking. 
EVERYDAY STYLES FOR EVERYDAY PEOPLE 
A GLANCE at the diagram shows that No. 
1821, a dress for the teen-age girl, is 
cut all in one piece. It is slashed at the 
low waistline and gathered to give becom¬ 
ing fulness to the growing 
figure. 
No. 1821 cuts in sizes 4, 
6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 years. Size 
8 requires 1% yards of 36- or 
42-inch material with 3% 
yards ribbon. Price 12c. 
A RE you a bit stout? Then 
- No. 1662, with the length¬ 
ened back and the allowance 
for fulness over the bust, will appeal to you. 
The reveres and skirt panels are also good 
features. 
No. 1662 cuts in sizes 36, 38, 40, 42, 
44, 46 and 48 inches bust measure. Size 
36 takes 4% yards 44-inch material, % 
yard contrasting and 7 yards binding. 
Price 12c. 
A DISTINCTIVE model for a gingham is 
No. 1826 and the interesting thing 
about this pattern is that the bias bands, 
the main style feature, may be left off if 
you prefer and the dress would 
still be smart. 
No. 1826 cuts in 16 years, 
36, 38, 40, 42 and 44 inches 
bust measure. For size 36 use 
3% yards 36-inch material. 
Pattern 12c. 
/ Q2* ^ 
A 
LITTLE set of underclothes 
that are easy to make is 
No 8905, which includes a 
simple Gertrude petticoat, hanging from 
the shoulders, and a pair of drawers. For 
all ages from babyhood up. 
No. 8905 cuts in sizes %, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 
10 and 12 years. Size 4 requires 1% yards 
36-inch material, with 2 yards of 4-inch 
flouncing and 2% yards of edging. Pat¬ 
tern 12c. 
To Order: See that your name, address, pattern numbers and sizes are 
clearly written and enclose proper remittance (in stamps, preferably) and 
send to Pattern Department of American Agriculturist, 461 Fourth Avenue, 
New York City. 
Add 10c if you want our summer catalogue. 
