Made-Over Dishes/Vegetables
VEGETABLES
String beans, cauliflower, carrots, beets, peas and even a cold boiled
potato may all be cut into neat pieces, mixed together, and served on
lettuce leaves, dressed with French dressing as a salad. One cold boiled
beet may be used as a garnish for a potato salad. String beans, if you
have sufficient quantity, may be served alone as a salad.
Stuffed Egg Plant
Throw a good-sized egg plant into a kettle of boiling water; boil ten minutes; when cold cut into halves and with a blunt knife scoop out the center. Chop this scooped-out portion fine, mix with it an equal quantity of finely-chopped uncooked meat, add a grated onion, a clove of garlic mashed, a teaspoonful of salt, a little chopped parsley, if you have it, and a dash of pepper. Fill this into the egg plant shells, stand them in a baking pan, add a cup of stock and a tablespoonful of butter, bake slowly one hour, basting every ten minutes.
Cucumbers
Raw cucumbers are easily wilted, and are then unfit for serving. Soak them in pure cold, unsalted water until serving time. Pass French dressing in a separate dish. In this way the "left-overs" may be placed in the refrigerator and used next day as an addition to the dinner salad.
Left-Over Tomatoes
A half cup of stewed tomatoes may be used with stock for brown tomato sauce, or for making a small dish of scalloped tomatoes, helping out at lunch when perhaps the family is less in number. The Italians boil down this half cup of tomatoes until it has the consistency of dough; then press through a sieve, add a little salt, pack down into a jelly tumbler and stand in the refrigerator to use as flavoring. A tablespoonful in a soup, or in an ordinary sauce, or mixed with the water for baked beans, or added to the stock sauce for spaghetti or macaroni, adds greatly to the flavor as well as appearance.
Corn Oysters
6 ears of cold boiled corn 2 eggs 1 cupful of milk 1/2 cupful of flour 1/2 teaspoonful of salt 1 saltspoonful of pepper
Score the corn, press it out, add the eggs, well beaten, and the oil or butter; then stir in the milk, salt and pepper. Sift the flour, stir it in, and drop by spoonfuls into shallow hot fat.
Chicken Corn Pie
6 ears of cold cooked corn 4 eggs 1 level tablespoonful of butter, melted 1 cupful of milk 1 teaspoonful of salt 1 saltspoonful of pepper 1 young chicken
Score the corn and with a dull knife press it out. Carefully beat the eggs, without separating, until light, add the milk, melted butter, salt and pepper. Pour this into a casserole mold or pudding dish. Have the chicken drawn and disjointed; make two pieces of the breast, cut it into four pieces, dust with salt and pepper, brush with melted butter. Lay the chicken on top of this mixture and stand the baking dish in a moderately quick oven about one hour. Serve in the dish in which it was cooked. Some prefer to broil the chicken on the bone side before they put it into the pudding, the pudding may be baked, and then put it in the pudding and brown it with the pudding. This is a good way to use cold left-over corn, and cold bits of chicken may be used in the place of the fresh chicken.
Green Corn Cakes
4 ears of left-over cooked corn 1 egg 2 tablespoonfuls of milk 1 tablespoonful of melted butter 1/2 cupful of flour 1/2 teaspoonful of salt
Score the corn, press out the cooked pulp, add to it the beaten egg, milk, melted butter and salt. Stir in the flour, and drop by tablespoonfuls into a little thoroughly heated fat.