Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1875 — HOUSEHOLD HINTS. [ARTICLE]

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Blue Whitewash.—Dissolve one and a half pounds of bine vitriol in boiling water and add one pound of well-dissolved glue. Add-th is to whitewash, prepared with slaked lime in the usual manner, until the right shade is acquired. Put on two coats at right angles with each other. -•-• ;; * To drive away rats, an English journal gives the following recipe, which it says has proved very successful: Take some glass and powder with pestle and mortar, then mix with some lard into pills and drop into th® rat-holes. It will drive rats and mice out of the place; they die of decline. Thorn-Apple Jelly.—Gather thornapples after the frost has made them red and stew them with water enough to cover them; strain, and to a cup of juice use a cup of dry white sugar—granulated is best; boil about fifteen minutes and .try on the back of a silver spoon. This jelly is excellent.— Household. Pruns: Cake. —Flour three pounds, sugar half a pound, butter one pound, raisins two pounds, dried prunes one pound, chopped fine, eight eggs, one teacupful of yeast, one teacupful of cinnamon water, half ounce of pulverised cinnamon ; form into loaves and let it rise. Bake in a moderate oven one hour. In cases of a sudden jar, knock or jam of the hand or fingers, immediately after the blow press the injured part with the uninjured hand, say between the thumb and forefinger, and gradually let up on it It will nearly always remove the pain, and generally any swelling that might occur under the circumstances.— Scientific American.

There is an objection to the common way of boiling eggs which people do not understand. It is this: The white under three minutes’ rapid cooking becomes tough and indigestible while the yolk is left soft. When properly cooked eggs are done evenly through like any other food. This result may be attained by put ting the eggs into a dish with a cover, as a tin pail, and then pouring upon them boiling water, two quarts or more to a dozen eggs, and cover and set them away from the stove for fifteen minutes. The heat of the water cooks the eggs slowly and evenly and sufficiently and to a jellylike consistency, leaving the center or yolk harder than the white, and the egg tastes as much richer and nicer as a fresh egg is nicer than a stale egg, and no person will want to eat them boiled after having tried this method.— Rural New Yorker. Ts&LoMt of Life gives the following in reply to an inquiry for a recipe for Graham crackers: We answer with pleasure, and for the purpose have interviewed the cook who makes “ the sweetest ones that ever was.” Have some soft water, either cold or tepid, in a mixing dish, and sift nice meal slowly through the fingers into the water, stirring it until too stiff to manage with the spoon; then mold the dough on a board with the hands until it is about as stiff as for common biscuit. Roll it with a rolling-pin about threefourths of an inch thick, cut with a round cookie-cutter, and lay on a bakingtin, not greased but dusted with flour, so the cakes will not touch each other. Bake about thirty minutes in a pretty hot oven, making them sharp and crusty or tender, as preferred. Take them from the oven into a pan or bowl, and lay a napkin over them to steam awhile, then lay them in neat little piles on plates for the table. They are excellent and more popular in our private family than any other form of bread.