The home cook book

Pour it in heated tumblers after five minutes' cooking. Leave it to cool, then cover with paraffine. One secret of quick and perfect jellying is to have everything which comes in contact with the juice quite hot. APPLE GINGER Pare two and a half pounds of sour apples, core and chop them coarse. Put in a saucepan with a pound and a half of brown sugar, the rind and juice of one and a half lemons, half an ounce of ginger-root and one cup of cold water. Let the fruit come to boil, then set back on the stove where it will merely simmer for four or five hours. Stir occasionally to keep it from burning. Put hot into jars and seal. BLACKBERRY JAM Blackberry jam is made after the same receipt. Take one quart of berries from each gallon. Heat them and strain the juice, adding it to the berries and thus avoiding too many seeds. BRANDIED CHERRIES AND OTHER FRUITS Have perfectly ripe, but not over-ripe, sound, sweet cherries. Keep their stems by cutting them short, or carefully free the fruit wholly from stems. Drop the cherries, a few at a time, in a boiling syrup made of a pint of water and half a pound of sugar. When they have boiled three to five minutes, lift out and lay them on plates. Allow to cool and to dry as they cool. They should be perfect in form. Make a second syrup twice as sweet as the first; that is, use a pound of sugar to a pint of water. After the syrup boils clear, set it aside to cool. Carefully pack the cherries in glass jars. To the cooled second syrup add its same liquid measure of the best brandy. Pour the mixed syrup and brandy over the cherries in the jars, seal, and set in a dry, dark, cool fruit closet. Other fruits may be brandied by this receipt. CRAB-APPLE JELLY Choose red-skin crabs. Wash, cut off all spots and blemishes, and quarter, keeping the peel and the cores. Put in a preserving kettle with enough water to rise in sight. Boil gently till the apples are tender and falling to pieces. Put in a jelly bag — preferably a flannel bag — and let the juice drip into an earthen bowl. If you squeeze the pulp the jelly will be cloudy. Measure the juice by pints and allow a pound of sugar to each pint. Simmer at the bubbling point a full twenty minutes. Then put in the sugar, which you have weighed and heated. Cook five minutes at a bubbling point. If you test on a saucer you will find the syrup a jelly. If by any inadvertence or inaccuracy it is not a jelly, cook longer. Finally put in jelly glasses while hot. After the jelly hardens, lay on top brandied paper and cover tight. Keep in a cool, dry, dark place. CRANBERRY CATSUP If the catsup supply is running low, replenish with a delicious substitute made from cranberries. Cook together ten pounds of the berries, one quart of vinegar, five pounds of brown sugar, three tablespoons of cinnamon, two tablespoons of allspice, one tablespoon each of cloves and salt, and quarter of a teaspoon of cayenne. Boil slowly till thick, then strain and bottle.