Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1875 — RECIPES, ETC. [ARTICLE]

RECIPES, ETC.

—All sorts of vessels and utensils may be purified from long-retained smells of every kind, in the easiest and most perfect manner, by rinsing them out well with charcoal powder, after grosser impurities have been scQured on with sand and potash. —Carefully conducted experiments have demonstrated the fact that seasoned wood, well saturated with oil when put together, will not shrink in the dryest weather. Wheels have been known to run many years, even to wearing out the tires. Boiled linseed oil is the best for general use, although it is now known that crude petroleum on even old wheels is of great benefit. —Bedbugs are said to be most readily destroyed by nux vomica in the form of tincture, combined with liquor ammonia, which mixture is to be freely applied to the joints and cracks of the bedstead. It is equally efficacious against cockroaches, water-bugs and other vermin, and if applied to the harness of horses the animals will be no longer annoyed by flies.—A. T. Herald. —Spring Soup.—Spring soup may be made of a knuckle of veal—allowing a quart of water to each pound—with four calves’ feet, a little cold ham or salt and cayenne, simmering slowly for several hours. Add then, two quarts of young green peas and a pint of asparagus tops, previously boiled with the juice of -spinach and other green herbs or vegetables, and a quarter of a pound of butter rolled in flour. Boil up together and serve. —Poor Author’s Pudding.—Flavor a quart of new milk by boiling in it for a few minutes half a stick of well-bruised cinnamon or the thin rind of a small lemon; add a few grains of salt and three ounces of sugar and turn the whole into a deep basin; when it is cold stir to it three well-beaten eggs and strain the mixture into a pie-dish. Cover the top entirely with slices of bread free from crust and half an inch thick, cut so as to join neatly, and buttered on both sides; bake the pudding in a moderate oven lor half an hour. —— -

—Coventry Puffs.—Roll out your paste in a sheet about half an inch thick and cut in square pieces according to the size you intend your puffs to be; roll it out rather thin; put some raspberry jam in the center; fold up the sides so as to form a three-story, cornered puff; turn it over; notch the edges with a knife, and ice them by first washing them over with white of egg that has been whisked to a froth; then dust them well with finelypowdered loaf sugar, and with a brush sprinkle them with clean water, just sufficient to moisten the sugar. If you sprinkle them too much they will appear as if they were not iced at all, as it washes the sugar off again. Good bread will feel light in the hand when lifted in it, which will not be the case with that which has been imperfectly kneaded. Good bread when cut will resemble a fine sponge of uniform texture and be equally free frOtn the spaces caused by large air bubbles and -from the dark-streaks-whichshow either that it has been made with adulterated flour, or that it has been inattentively prepared, or too heavily kneaded when it was made up for the oven. The loaves, also, of well-made and well-baked bread will retain their shape and not spread about like unsightly forms as they will when the dough has been rendered too moist. They will also be equally browned, but not dark-colored and hard. Loaves which have been carelessly baked are sometimes burnt in one part while the dough is scarcely set in another.