tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}img"/> Fresh Vegetable Salad

If there is too little of the roast to serve sliced cold, it can be chopped fine, seasoned well with salt and pepper and moistened with the cold gravy. If the quantity is still too small, it can be increased by adding a beaten egg and half a cupful of dried bread-crumbs. This works into a nice dish by taking sweet green peppers, splitting in half, washing and removing the seeds, and then packing with the minced meat. Bake until peppers are tender, about half an hour, then remove from oven, lay on squares of hot toast, and cover with white sauce or warmed-over gravy.

Good white sauce is needed for so many different kinds of vegetable, fish and meat dishes, that a child should be taught it at the beginning of her work. Have her melt one tablespoon of butter and stir in one tablespoon of flour. When smooth, add slowly one cup of milk, stirring all the time to keep from getting lumpy. If lumps do form, however, before the child has learned the secret of mixing, she can strain after it has cooked five minutes. Season with quarter-teaspoon of salt and a dash of pepper. For brown sauce, simply brown the flour and butter before adding the milk.

A small quantity of chicken is often left from dinner, yet not enough to serve cold. Let the mother show the child how to cut off every bit of meat from the bones—and she will get more than she expects from wings and necks. But all pieces of fat and skin must be discarded. Then for a hot dish, making a white sauce first, she can stir in the minced chicken, let it cook a few moments, and serve on rounds of buttered toast.

Still another way, if the quantity is small, is to add to one cupful of chopped chicken one-half cupful of rolled bread-crumbs, a half cupful of hot milk, two well-beaten eggs, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. This is to be shaped into croquettes, dipped in rolled bread-crumbs, beaten egg, crumbs again, and browned in hot fat.

White sauce served on the side will make it doubly attractive; and if the quantity is still small for the number to be served, it will go farther and be made more savory if garnished with curls of crisp bacon.

If a cold dish is desired, let her add an equal amount of finely cut celery, season with salt and pepper, moisten with cooked salad dressing, and she will have a delicious chicken salad. To be particularly nice, however, she should use only the white meat.

Our little cook should be taught the first thing how to make a good salad dressing, for into a salad it is almost always possible to turn the left-overs that otherwise might be thrown out. Only one other thing (soup) will use up as many scraps in making nourishing as well as appetizing dishes.

As many people do not care for the flavor of oil, a nice easy dressing is made by taking two tablespoonfuls butter, rubbed to a cream, to which is added one teaspoonful salt, one-half teaspoonful mustard, a dash of red pepper, and one cupful hot milk. Stirring well, this should immediately be poured on the beaten yolks of three eggs, and then cooked in a double boiler until thick. Remove from the fire, add one-quarter of a cup of vinegar, and stir until cool. When to be used in fruit salads, add half a cup of thick cream just before serving. But eggs and milk curdle if boiled.

Easily made is the French dressing, and often prepared at the table. To one-quarter teaspoonful of finely minced onion, add one-half teaspoonful salt, a little black pepper, a few grains of Cayenne and six teaspoonfuls olive oil. Stir well, add two teaspoonfuls vinegar, and mix thoroughly.

To make the best of the few vegetables we have found on hand, wash the lettuce carefully (looking out for the tiny green bugs found on some kinds,) and arrange on a plate. Peel and slice the two tomatoes, and lay lightly on the lettuce, with a few bits of celery, several radishes or some thin slices of cucumber if available, and cover with salad dressing.

Heart Salad

For the heart salad illustrated, cut cold boiled beets into heart-shaped sections, and serve on lettuce hearts, with French dressing.

Small quantities of cooked vegetables, such as beets, string beans, asparagus, peas and boiled potatoes, make a nice salad cut into small pieces, laid on lettuce leaves and covered with French dressing. But they must be thoroughly chilled.

Cabbage salad is possible at all seasons of the year, and should be one of the first that the child should learn to make. Insist on getting small, perfect heads, and have the leaves removed one at a time, examined closely and washed as carefully as lettuce, for fear of worms. After chopping finely, the desired quantity is to be seasoned with salt and pepper and served on the small, tender white leaves, with the following dressing:

To half a cup of thick sour cream, add half a teaspoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of sugar, a dash of black pepper, and two teaspoonsful of strong vinegar.

Almost all kinds of fruit are used in salads. Bananas and oranges, alone or together, are served on lettuce with the cream salad dressing, as are also the skinned and seeded white grapes. Pineapple and grapefruit are delicious with head lettuce, served with the French dressing containing but a few drops of the onion juice. Then again, all may be combined, served with either dressing preferred, and improved by the addition of a few nuts.

For four people have the little cook take four pretty red apples, cut a slice off the top, and after removing the core, carefully cut out with a teaspoon the inside of each without breaking the skin. Taking half the scooped-out apple, she must add an equal amount of celery (cut in small pieces) and chopped English walnuts, one teaspoonful salt and boiled dressing enough to cover. After tossing up lightly with a fork pack in the apple shells, and when possible serve in nests made of lettuce cut in strings.

Take sweet green peppers, cut a slice from the top, remove seeds, and fill with either the mixed vegetables or diced cucumbers, covered with French dressing. Serve on lettuce.

CHAPTER III

Every little cook should early be taught how to make a variety of soups, as many small quantities of food can be utilized in this way that otherwise might be wasted.

Take, for instance, the bones and small trimmings from steaks, chops or a roast, and the remnant of a chicken. These, with a five-cent soup