Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 143, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1918 — RHUBARB IS ONE OF BEST PLANTS [ARTICLE]

RHUBARB IS ONE OF BEST PLANTS

Advance Guard of Many Good Things in Way of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. i 9 YOUNG LEAVES ARE TENDER Expert of Department of Agriculture Relates Her Experience in Making Delicious Dishes—Some Recipes Are Given. I always hail with delight the first tender stalks of rhubarb that grow in my garden. They are the advance guard of so many good things in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables that the spring and summer bring to us. Even the back yard or city garden can have its clump of rhubarb. I find it one of the most useful plants in my garden. By cutting out the bloom stalk before it matures and pulling the stalks oflen I have good rhubarb all summer. If neglected too long the leaf stalks become woody, but the young leaves in the center of the crown will be tender and usable all summer. The leaf area should not be reduced too much by harvesting, as it will weaken the root and reduce the harvest the following year. Even when fruits come I do not forget the rhubarb, and in preserving time it my care by saving me money. Making Preserves. Strawberries and raspberries are usually expensive~tcrbuy by the crate for preserving, but I make preserves, using from one-third to one-half by weight of rhubarb. Both raspberries and strawberries have a decided flavor, so that the rhubarb is not noticeable. I allow the rhubarb to cook down until fairly concentrated before adding the berries. The result is a delicious jam or preserve. From time to time I cut the rhubarb and, if it is not wanted for immediate use, put up a few cans for winter. I have kept seme very sue cessfully by cutting into half-inca pieces, packing in jars and filling to overflowing with cold water, then sealing the jars as usual. Later in the summer J make a few jars of rhubarb conserve, cooking the rhubarb with sugar until concentrated, then adding nuts and raisins. When rhubarb made its appearance this spring I resolved to find a way to use it without using more than my share, of sugar. I have found that by ■ using corn sirup I can make rhubarb sauce successfully.

Rhubarb Sauce. ■ Wash the rhubarb and cut in halfinch pieces. Put three cupfuls of the cut rhubarb in a saucepan with ' two tablespoonfuls of water and cook for five minutes. Add on'e and one-half cupfuls of corn sirup and cook together until the rhubarb is tender. If you desire a sweeter sauce, a tablespoonful or so of sugar will tfelp. One of my favorite desserts is rhubarb tapioca. Rhubarb Tapioca. Soak a half cupful of pearl tapioca In two cupfuls of water until soft. Put in double boiler and cook until clear, adding more water if necessary. Add* a half teaspoonful of salt and stir in two cupfuls of rhubarb sauce. When cool add a teaspoonful of vanilla. Chill and serve with cream. Another favorite of mine is rhubarb scallop. I save all left-over muffins or ‘biscuits made from the wheat substitutes and grind them into crumbs. These I use as a basis for scalloped dishes. i Rhubarb Scallop. Wash tender rhubarb stalks and cut Into pieces about an incn long. For each cupful of crumbs use a cupful and a half of the cut rhubarb. If the crumbs are very dry, moisten slightly

with water. Butter a baking dish and put a layer of crumbs sprinkled with cinnamon or nutmeg, then a layer of rhubarb and three or four tablespoonfuls of corn sirup. Dot with butter. Repeat until dish is full, covering the top with buttered crumbs. Bake for 20 minutes and brown on top. This may be served hot with or without sauce.

Breadless Meals Save Wheat. How are you saving wheat? One way is to serve breadless meals now and then. Have you ever tried them? Breadless meals need planning ahead. You can’t take just any menu and take the bread out and expect the family to like it. Bread has several functions in the meal, and fully deserves the high opinion which we have of it. It is one of our best foods for fuel, furnishing carbohydrate In the form of starch and also body-building protein and mineral substances. But if the meal contains enough other food to furnish the starch and the protein needed why not save the bread? Try. planning your meals so that these wheat-saving dishes take the place of the bread. Potatoes, sweet potatoes or dasheens —mashed, baked, boiled or riced —rice, oven-fried cornmeal mush, hominy grits, large hominy, baked beans, lima beans, split peas—all are good served as vegetables, with meat and grayy. It is not necessary to serve more than one of these starchy foods at a meal, but serving two of them, for instance, well-brow’ned, crusty croquettes or fried mush (and these can be cooked in the oven instead of in the fat kettle) in addition to potatoes or sweet potatoes, makes the meal more tasty for many of us and is an easy way of securing variety. Aside from the question of economy qnil convenience the important thing in such a case is not the number of cereal foods served, but the character of the meal as a whole, which must be truly varied and not made up almost entirely of any single type of food. We' must have other kinds of food in our diet in abundance as well as starchy foods. > Therefore, in planning your breadless meals make, sure that you serve an abundance of fresh vegetables, such as green cabbage, kaje, turnip tops, onions, onion tops, dandelions and other greens, asparagus, green peas, tomatoes, spinach, carrots and so on, choosing those which are in son and abundant in your hr your market. With a varied\jn>hl. planned in the usual way, except that the seryings of the starchy foods and the vegetables are larger than usual to make up for the bread, you can have a breakfast, dinner or supper which may be pleasing to the taste and which will meet the body needs. There are other food combinations and dishes which you can take advantage of in planning the meals with bread. For instance, you may prefer to replace part of your usual allowance of bread with a wheat-saving dessert. These desserts furnish much the same food materials as bread, but in a different form: Rice pudding, hominy pudding, Indian pudding, tapioca cream or fruit tapioca, cornstarch pudding, baked bananas (use bananas which are underripe, because they are richer in starch than the ripe ones), or gingerbread made from the wheat substitutes.