Raspberry Jam.—Weigh equal parts of sugar and raspberries. Mash and boil the fruit, then add the sugar; when it boils skim well and let it boil 20 minutes.
Strawberry Jam is made same as the raspberry.
Peach Jam.—Wipe, stone, and boil, adding one-third sugar.
Another.—Peel and stone, mash the peaches over a fire till hot, then rub through a sieve, and add a pound of loaf-sugar to each pound of peach pulp, boil 12 minutes, and skim.
Quinces.—Preserve by paring thin, cut in quarters, and to every five pounds add three pounds sugar, and half pint water. Cover tight, and simmer gently 3 hours. Or they may be preserved whole.
Currant Jelly.—Strain the juice, add pound and quarter sugar to each pint juice. Boil gently, and skim till it is clear.
Raspberry and strawberry jelly is made same as the currant.
Apple Jelly.—4 lbs. apples, pared, chopped, and boiled to juicy pulp, 3 lbs. sugar, boil to a jelly, and flavour with lemon.
DRINKS.
Table Beer, cheap and wholesome. 8 bottles water, 1 quart molasses, 1 pint yeast, 1 table-spoon cream tartar, mixed and bottle in 24 hours.
Ginger Beer.—4 dozen bottles may be made of 3 oz. good ginger, 3 lbs. sugar, 1 oz. cream tartar, 2 lemons, 1 gill strong yeast, 3 and a half gallons water. Boil the ginger and sugar 25 minutes, then pour it on the sliced lemon and tartar, mix, and when milk-warm, add the yeast. Let it work 2 or 3 days, and skim it well. Strain it into a cask, bunged tight, and in a couple weeks, draw off and bottle, tieing the cork down. If necessary, add a little more yeast.
Temperance Beverage.—10 gals. water, 15 lbs. lump sugar, whites of 8 eggs, well beat and strained; mix cold; boil and skim well, add half pound ginger, and boil 20 minutes. Pour the liquor on the thin rinds of 7 lemons; when cool, pour in cask with 2 spoons yeast, stir 2 oz. isinglass shavings in 1 quart of the warm fluid, and put all in the cask. Next day stop it up, and in 3 weeks bottle, and in 3 months it will be a delicious and safe drink.
Another.—20 quarts water, 5 lbs. sugar, 5 oz. white ginger, 1 oz. stick liquorice, boil well together, and add, when cold, a little good yeast, barrel for ten days, and then bottle it, putting a lump while sugar in each bottle.
Spruce Beer.—Pour 8 gallons boiling water in a cask containing 8 gallons cold water, then add 16 lbs. molasses, and a strong decoction of the small twigs and leaves of the spruce, or a few table-spoons essence of spruce, mix well, and then add half pint good yeast; keep in temperate place, with the bung-hole open till sufficiently worked, then bottle it, and drink in a day or two.
Another.—1 oz. hops and spoonful ginger to each gal. water, boil, strain, and add 1 pint molasses, and half ounce essence of spruce. When cool, add tea-cup yeast, and let it ferment in a clean tight cask till done, and then bottle. Sprigs of spruce fir may be boiled instead of the essence.
Switchel, a pleasant, wholesome drink, is made of molasses, vinegar and water, mixed in suitable proportions.
Common Beer.—2 gallons water, large handful hops, fresh gathered spruce, or sweet fern, and 1 quart wheat bran; boil 2 or 3 hours, strain and stir in, while hot, 2 cups molasses. When lukewarm, pour in a clean barrel, and add a pint yeast. Shake it well together, and use next day.
Lemonade.—3 lemons and half pound loaf sugar to 1 pint of water, makes a strong lemonade, pleasant, salubrious and refreshing.
Water is the best beverage of the healthy. Bad water is doubtless injurious. It may be improved by filtering, which cools and purifies it.
Filter water by putting a bit of sponge in the hole at the bottom of a common flour pot, or spread a piece of flannel over the bottom of a vessel perforated with one or more holes, then over the flannel spread a layer of fine charcoal, and over this a layer or bed of fine sand, four or five inches thick, through all of which the water will filter clear as chrystal.
Rain Water is the best for drinking, cooking or washing, when it can be had pure. Every house should have a reservoir in which to collect rain water, which always, with, and sometimes without, filtering, will be found an advantage, especially where water is impure and hard.
PASTE.
For Pies, 6 oz. butter, 8 oz. flour, worked well together, with as little water as possible. Roll out thin.
Another.—Quarter pound lard or suet, large table-spoon butter, pound flour and water enough to mix stiff. Roll thin.
For Tarts, 1 oz. sifted loaf sugar, 1 lb. flour, make into stiff paste, with 1 gill boiling cream, 3 oz. butter. Work it well, and roll out thin.
Custard Pudding.—1 pint milk, 3 large spoons flour, 6 eggs, salt, sugar and spice to your taste.
Another.—2 eggs and 3 large spoons sugar beat light, 1 pint milk, and spice to your taste. Bake in cups or in paste.
Cup Cake.—3 cups sugar, 1 butter, 5 flour, 3 eggs, teaspoon pearl ash, all beat together, with spice as you please.
Lemon Ice Cream.—Stir a pound of powdered loaf sugar into a pint of cream, add the grated rind and juice of 5 lemons, or flavour with essence or oil of lemon; mix and beat all gradually into 3 pints of cream. Cover and let it stand an hour, then strain it into the freezer, (a long tin vessel, with a tight lid,) close and stand in the ice tub, which fill with a mixture of equal quantities of coarse salt and ice broken small, that it may lay compact around the freezer. Snow is better than ice. Press down and keep turning till the cream is froze, which will be in 2 hours. Occasionally scrape down the cream. Be careful not to let the salt fall in the cream, and do not freeze so long as to freeze out the flavour.
When cream is deficient, eggs are sometimes beat up with milk, or arrow root is powdered and rubbed smooth in a little cold milk, and added to the cream.
Strawberry Ice Cream.—Hull 2 quarts strawberries, add half pound fine sugar, cover and stand an hour or two, then mash through a sieve till all the juice is pressed out. Stir in sugar enough to make a thick syrup. Then mix by degrees with 2 quarts cream, beating it hard. Freeze as above.
Raspberry, pine-apple, and other fruit ice cream make according to preceding receipt.
Vanilla ice cream made by splitting up half a vanilla bean, boiling it slowly in half pint milk till the flavour is drawn out. Mix it in same as the strawberry, and freeze as directed.
USEFUL DIRECTIONS.
Ink spilt on a carpet take up with a spoon, then pour on clean water and apply the spoon again, and repeat this till the stain is out.
Polish Mahogany by rubbing it once a week with cold drawn linseed oil, wipe off the oil, and rub with a dry cloth.
Flies.—Keep from frames, glass, &c., by boiling 4 leeks in pint water, and washing over with a soft brush.
Flannel.—Wash in hot, clean suds, and never rinse.
Wet Clothes should not be worn near a fire, or so as to occasion sudden heat. Keep in motion till dry can be had, then change at once, and give the feet a long heating.
Black Silks wash in warm small beer and milk.
Windows, clean with a damp linen cloth, then a dry one, then dust over powdered whiting in muslin, which clean off with wash-leather or dry cloth.
Clean Paint without using cloth. Remove dirt with a fine brush. If soiled, dip flannel in pearl ash or soda water, wash and dry quickly.
