Science in the Kitchen Part 51

Beverages from fruit juices are prepared by using a small quant.i.ty of the juice, and sufficient cold water to dilute it to the taste. If it is desirable to use such a drink for a sick person in some household where fruit juices have not been put up for the purpose, the juice may be obtained from a can of strawberries, raspberries, or other small fruit, by turning the whole into a coa.r.s.e cloth and straining off the juice; or a tablespoonful of currant or other jelly may be dissolved in a tumbler of warm water, and allowed to cool. Either will make a good subst.i.tute for the prepared fruit juice, though the flavor will be less delicate.

The hot beverages and many of the cold ones given in the chapter on Beverages will be found serviceable for the sick, as will also the following additional ones:--

_RECIPES._

ACORN COFFEE.--Select plump, round, sweet acorns. Sh.e.l.l, and brown in an oven; then grind in a coffee-mill, and use as ordinary coffee.

ALMOND MILK.--Blanch a quarter of a pound of sh.e.l.led almonds by pouring over them a quart of boiling water, and when the skins soften, rubbing them off with a coa.r.s.e towel. Pound the almonds in a mortar, a few at a time, adding four or five drops of milk occasionally, to prevent their oiling. About one tablespoonful of milk in all will be sufficient. When finely pounded, mix the almonds with a pint of milk, two tablespoonfuls of sugar, and a little piece of lemon rind. Place the whole over the fire to simmer for a little time. Strain, if preferred, and serve cold.

APPLE BEVERAGE.--Pare and slice very thin a juicy tart apple into a china bowl. Cover with boiling water, put a saucer over the bowl, and allow the water to get cold. Strain and drink. Crab apples may be used in the same way.

APPLE BEVERAGE NO. 2.--Bake two large, sour apples, and when tender, sprinkle a tablespoonful of sugar over them, and return to the oven until the sugar is slightly browned. Break and mash the apples with a silver spoon, pour over them a pint of boiling water; cover and let stand until cold; then strain and serve.

APPLE TOAST WATER.--Break a slice of zwieback into small pieces, and mix with them two or three well-baked tart apples. Pour over all a quart of boiling water, cover, and let stand until cold, stirring occasionally. When cold, strain, add sugar to sweeten if desired, and serve.

BAKED MILK.--Put a quart of new milk in a stone jar, tie a white paper over it, and let it stand in a moderately heated oven eight or ten hours. It becomes of a creamy consistency.

BARLEY LEMONADE.--Put a half cup of pearl barley into a quart of cold water, and simmer gently until the water has become mucilaginous and quite thick. This will take from an hour to an hour and a half. The barley will absorb most of the water, but the quant.i.ty given should make a teacupful of good, thick barley water. Add to this two teaspoonfuls of lemon juice and a tablespoonful of sugar. Let it get cold before serving. By returning the barley to the stewpan with another quart of cold water, and simmering for an hour or an hour and a half longer, a second cap of barley water may be obtained, almost as good as the first.

BARLEY AND FRUIT DRINK.--Prepare a barley water as above, and add to each cupful a tablespoonful or two of cranberry, grape, raspberry, or any tart fruit syrup. The pure juice sweetened will answer just as well; or a little fruit jelly may be dissolved and added.

BARLEY MILK.--Wash two tablespoonfuls of pearl barley in cold water until the water is clear. Put it to cook in a double boiler, with a quart of milk, and boil till the milk is reduced to a pint. Strain off the milk, and sweeten if desired.

CRANBERRY DRINK.--Mash carefully selected, ripe cranberries thoroughly in an earthen dish, and pour boiling water over them. Let the mixture stand until cold, strain off the water, and sweeten to taste.

Barberries prepared in the same manner make a nice drink.

CURRANTADE.--Mash thoroughly a pint of ripe, red currants, and one half the quant.i.ty of red raspberries; add sugar to sweeten and two quarts of cold water. Stir, strain, cool on ice, and serve.

CRUST COFFEE.--Brown slices of Graham bread in a slow oven until very ark in color. Break in pieces and roll fine with a rolling pin. A quant.i.ty of this material may be prepared at one time and stored in gla.s.s fruit cans for use. When needed, pour a cupful of actively boiling water over a dessertspoonful of the prepared crumbs, let it steep for a few moments, then strain and serve.

EGG CREAM.--Beat the white of an egg to a stiff froth, add one tablespoonful of white sugar, then beat again. Next add the yolk, and beat; then a tablespoonful of milk, one of cold water, and one of any fruit juice desired.

EGG CREAM NO. 2.--Prepare as above, using two tablespoonfuls of water instead of one of water and one of milk, and a teaspoonful of lemon juice in place of other fruit juice.

EGG CREAM NO. 3.--Beat the yolk of a freshly laid egg with a tablespoonful of sugar until it is light and creamy; add to this, one half cup of hot milk and stir in lightly the stiffly beaten white of the egg. Serve at once.

EGG LEMONADE.--Beat the white of an egg to a stiff froth, then mix with it the juice of a small lemon, and one tablespoonful of sugar. Add a half pint of cold water. Or, beat together with an egg beater a tablespoonful of lemon juice, a teaspoonful of sugar, the white of an egg and a cup of cold water, until thoroughly mingled, then serve at once.

FLAXSEED TEA.--Take an ounce of whole flaxseed, half an ounce of crushed licorice root, an ounce of refined sugar, and four tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. Pour a quart of boiling water over them; keep near the fire for four hours, and then strain off the liquid. The flaxseed should not be crushed, as the mucilage is in the outer part of the kernel, and if braised, the boiling water will extract the oil of the seed, and render the decoction nauseous. Make fresh daily.

GUM ARABIC WATER.--Pour a pint of boiling water over an ounce of clean gum arabic. When dissolved, add the juice of one lemon and a teaspoonful of sugar, and strain.

HOT WATER.--Put good, fresh water into a perfectly clean granite-ware kettle, already warmed; let it come to a boil very quickly, and use at once. Do not leave it to simmer until it has become insipid through the loss of the air which it contains.

HOT LEMONADE.--Put in a gla.s.s a thin slice of lemon and the juice of half a small lemon, being careful to remove all seeds; mix with it one dessertspoonful of white sugar, and fill the gla.s.s with boiling water. Or, remove the peel of a lemon in very thin parings, turn one pint of boiling water over them, letting it stand for a few moments covered. Remove the peel, add the juice of a lemon and one tablespoonful of sugar, and serve.

IRISH MOSS LEMONADE.--Soak one fourth of a cup of Irish moss in cold water until it begins to soften; then work it free from sand and tiny sh.e.l.ls likely to be on it, and thoroughly wash. Put it in a granite-ware basin, and pour over it two cups of boiling water. Leave on the back of the range where it will keep hot, but not boil, for half an hour; strain, add the juice of one lemon, and sugar to taste. Drink hot or cold, as preferred.

ORANGEADE.--Rub lightly two ounces of lump sugar on the rind of two nice, fresh oranges, to extract the flavor; put this sugar into a pitcher, to which add the juice expressed from the oranges, and that from one lemon. Pour over all one pint of cold water, stir thoroughly, and serve.

PLAIN LEMONADE.--For one gla.s.s of lemonade squeeze the juice of half a small lemon into the gla.s.s; carefully remove all seeds and particles. Add a dessertspoonful of sugar, and fill the gla.s.s with cold water.

SLIPPERY ELM TEA.--Pour boiling water over bits of slippery elm bark or slippery elm powder, cool, and strain, if desired, a little lemon juice and sugar may be added to flavor.

TOAST WATER.--Toast a pint of whole-wheat or Graham bread crusts very brown, but do not burn. Cover with a pint of cold water. Let it stand an hour, strain, and use. Sugar and a little cream may be added if allowed.

TAMARIND WATER.--Boil four ounces of tamarinds and the same of raisins slowly, in three quarts of water, for fifteen or twenty minutes, or until the water is reduced nearly one fourth; strain while hot into a bowl with a small slice of lemon peel in it. Set away until cold before using.

BREAD.

For invalids who are able to partake of solid foods, the Breakfast Rolls, Whole-wheat Puffs, Beaten Biscuit, Crisps, and other unfermented breads, directions for the preparation of which are given in the chapter on Bread, will be found excellent.

The various crackers, wafers, and invalid foods manufactured by the Sanitarium Food Co., Battle Creek, Mich., are also to be recommended.

Zwieback, prepared as directed on page 289, will be found serviceable and wholesome to be used with broths and gruels. It may be prepared so as to look especially tempting by cutting off the crust of the bread, and cutting the slice into fancy shapes with a cookie-cutter before toasting. In cases where their use is allowable, many of the various toasts given under the head of Breakfast Dishes will be relished.

_RECIPES._

DIABETIC BISCUIT.--Make a stiff dough of Graham or entire-wheat flour and water. Knead thoroughly, and let it stand three hours; then place on a sieve under a faucet, turn a stream of water over the dough, and wash out the starch, kneading and working with the hands so that all portions of the dough will be equally washed. When the starch has been all washed out, as will be indicated by the water running off clear, the dough will be a rubber-like, glutinous ma.s.s. It may then be cut into long strips, and these divided into equal-sized pieces or cubes. Place the pieces on shallow baking pans in a rather hot oven, which, after a short time, should be allowed to cool to moderate heat, and bake for two hours, when they should be of a dark, rich brown color and light and crisp throughout. If tough, they need rebaking. If the oven is too hot, the pieces will puff up, becoming mere hollow sh.e.l.ls; if not sufficiently hot, they will not rise properly.

DIABETIC BISCUIT NO. 2.--Prepare a dough and wash out the starch as in the preceding. Add coa.r.s.e middlings so that the dough can be rolled into thin cakes, and bake.

GLUTEN MEAL GEMS.--Beat together one half cup of ice water, one half cup of thick, sweet cream, and one egg; then add one cup and a tablespoonful of the gluten meal prepared by the Sanitarium Food Co.

Turn into slightly heated gem irons, and bake in a moderately hot oven from one half to three fourths of an hour.

JELLIES AND OTHER SIMPLE DESSERTS FOR THE SICK.

Invalids whose digestion will allow of other than the plainest foods will find most of the desserts made with fruits and those with fruits and grains given in the chapter on Desserts, excellent for their use.

The following are a few additional recipes of a similar character:--

_RECIPES._

ARROWROOT JELLY.--Rub two heaping teaspoonfuls of arrowroot smooth in a very little cold water, and stir it into a cupful of boiling water, in which should be dissolved two teaspoonfuls of sugar. Stir until clear, allowing it to boil all the time; lastly, add a teaspoonful of lemon juice. Serve cold, with cream and sugar if allowed.

ARROWROOT BLANCMANGE.--Rub two and a half tablespoonfuls of best arrowroot smooth in half a cup of cold milk, and stir slowly into two and one half cups of boiling new milk. When it begins to thicken, add three fourths of a cup of sugar, and cook, stirring constantly for several minutes. Turn into molds and cool. Serve with fruit juice or fruit sauces.

CURRANT JELLY.--Soak an ounce of c.o.x's gelatine in half a pint of cold water for fifteen minutes, then pour over it a teacupful of boiling water; strain, and add one pint at currant juice, one tablespoonful of sugar, and set on ice to cool.

ICELAND MOSS JELLY.--Wash about four ounces of moss very clean in lukewarm water. Boil slowly in a quart of cold water. When quite dissolved, strain it onto a tablespoonful of currant or raspberry jelly, stirring so as to blend the jelly perfectly with the moss. Turn into a mold, and cool.

ICELAND MOSS BLANCMANGE.--Subst.i.tute milk for the water, and proceed as in the foregoing. Flavor with lemon or vanilla. Strain through a muslin cloth, turn into a mold, and let stand till firm and cold.

ORANGE WHEY.--Add the juice of one sour orange to a pint of sweet milk. Heat very slowly until the milk is curded, then strain and cool.

WHITE CUSTARD.--Beat the whites of three eggs to a stiff froth, add a little salt if desired, and two tablespoonfuls of sugar. A bit of grated lemon rind may also be used for flavoring. Add lastly a pint of new milk, little by little, beating thoroughly all the while. Bake in cups set in a pan of hot water. When firm in the center, take out and set in a cool place.