The home cook book

Put half a peck of well-washed spinach in a saucepan of boiling water. Add half a tablespoon of salt, and cook three minutes from the time it begins to boil. Remove, drain, and chop the spinach fine, then weigh it. There should be two pounds. Melt two tablespoons of butter, add one heaping tablespoon of flour, stir and cook two minutes. Add one cup of milk, and cook to a thick, smooth sauce. Remove from the fire, pour the sauce into the spinach and add four wellbeaten eggs. Season with salt and pepper, mix all well together, pack the spinach in a well-buttered melon mold ; place this in a steamer and cook for one hour. Shortly before serving, turn the mousse on to a warm dish. Rub the yolks 9 Vol. 2 of two hard-boiled eggs through a sieve and decorate the top of the spinach with it. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs cut in half. [See illustration, Plate XX.] TO COOK SQUASH The small crookneck summer squash is the best. All kinds are cooked the same way. Cut the squash apart and take out the seeds. The crookneck does not require peeling. Lay the pieces in cold water. Squash is best steamed. Set the steamer over a kettle of boiling water. Cook until tender, which will be from one-half to three-quarters of an hour for the softer squashes. When done, put in a saucepan, mash fine and smooth, add butter, salt and pepper to taste, and serve very hot. BAKED SQUASH Cut a winter squash in two down its length. Take out the seeds and filaments and set the halves in a dripping-pan. Put water in the pan and cover the squash, and in a moderate oven bake from an hour and a half to two hours. A quarter of an hour before the squash is done take from the oven, empty the water from the pan, and sprinkle salt and spread butter round the upper or pulp portion of the two halves. Set back in the oven to brown, and serve, setting the halves on a platter and dipping the squash from its own shell. SQUASH IN THE SHELL Select a well-shaped cymling, cut a thick slice from the stem end and scoop out seeds and fibre. Fill up with forcemeat and breadcrumbs highly seasoned. Stand in a shallow baking-pan in a larger pan of boiling water. Bake four or five hours. Garnish with fried sausages. [See illustration, Plate XX.] SQUASH CAKES This is an excellent way to utilize squash left from a meal. Put it through a colander or sieve. Mix in half as much fine bread rolled or crumbed as you have squash. Season to your taste with salt, pepper, butter and a dash of onion- juice. It is a good proportion to allow about a tablespoon of butter to two cups of the mashed squash. Mix all together and form into cakes or croquettes. Have upon a plate a raw egg, or the white of an egg whipped with a tablespoon of cold water. Also have rolled cracker or bread crumbs. Dip the squash cakes in the egg, then in the crumbs, and fry in hot fat until brown. RAW TOMATOES