Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

Put a pound of prunes into a bowl of cold water, and let them stand for five minutes ; then wash them by rubbing between the hands. As they are washed, drop them into another bowl of cold water, and wash them very carefully in this second water. Put them into a stew-pan with a quart of water and three table-spoonfuls of sugar, and heat them slowly to the boiling-point j then simmer gently for two hours. Turn into an earthen dish, and set away to cool. They will keep for several days in cold weather. The thorough washing and slow cooking are very necessary. * Rhubarb Sauce. Rhubarb may be made into a good sauce in spring and •early summer. It should be fresh and tender when used. Pare it, and cut it in pieces about an inch long; then wash it, and put it into an earthen baking-dish. For each quart add a cupful of sugar and half a cupful of water. Cover the dish with a large plate, and bake slowly for two hours. Rhubarb may be put into a stew-pan with sugar and water, and cooked in fifteen minutes, if the water boil all the time ; but the sauce will be green and the rhubarb broken, whereas by the first method a richcolored sauce may be obtained, and the pieces of rhubarb kept whole. * Dinner Apple Sauce. Put into a deep earthen dish two quarts of pared and quartered apples, and sprinkle over them half a cupful of sugar, a teaspoonful of ground cinnamon, a cupful of water, and one-third of a cupful of molasses. Cut a table-spoonful of butter into little pieces, and sprinkle upon the ingredients. Cover the dish with a large plate, and bake for an hour in a slow oven. If you prefer, you may use almost a cupful of either sugar or molasses instead of the smaller quantities of both ingredients, as given above. At any rate, if the sauce be liked exceedingly sweet, it will be necessary to increase the amount of sweetening slightly, whichever plan be followed. * Evaporated Apple Sauce. In the spring and early summer the housekeeper often is troubled to make changes in sauces. Most of the winter fruits have gone by ; the stock of canned and preserved fruits may be low, and the only fresh fruits in the market are from the South, and are so high-priced that the housekeeper of moderate means does not think of buying them. This is the time when dried and evaporated fruits become especially desirable. If they be properly cooked they will be both appetizing and health- . ful. When fruits are dried they are, of course, exposed to much dust, and they should therefore be washed very carefully afterward. Here is a receipt for evaporated apple sauce : Use one pint of the apples, one quart of water, the juice of one lemon, and one cupful of sugar. Wash the apples in cold water, rubbing them between the hands the same as in washing rice. Now put them into a large bowl with the quart of cold water, and soak them over night. In the morning put the apples and water into a porcelain, earthen, or granite-ware stew-pan. Add the lemon juice and sugar, and set the pan on the back part of the range, where its contents will cook slowly for three hours. Do not stir the apples while they are cooking. At the end of the three hours turn the sauce into a bowl, and set away to cool.