HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 4 March 1909, Page 1

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

3 ' — Yeast Dumplings.^ No more inexpensive puddings can be , made, yet, if properly cooked, yeast ' dumplings are excellent eating. Get some dough from the baker, and k*ep it warm with a cloth until wanted. Set it near the fire to rise for half an hour ' or so, before making it into balls. Have \ a large pot full of fast boiling water, ' and throw the dumplings in, one at a \ time. Cook for 2O.minntes rapidly. Take j them up with a skimmer, and serve with jam sauce, or with golden syrup. The water must be steadily boiling at a gai- [ lop. For jam sauce, make some good . melted butter, and flavour it with jam. Some cooks put a squeeze of lemon in sweetened butter sauce, which, of . course, is made with water, not milk. , I — Boiled Plum Pudding. \ | Required : Five ozs of breadcrumbs, ' | seven ounces of flour,, five ounces of '. | suet, three ounces of sultanas, three . ounces of raisins, two ounces of moist sugar, one teaspoonful of baking powder, two eggs, a little milk, and half-a , ' pint of sweet sance. Chop the suet very . i finely and rub it into the flour in a ba- , ! siu, "add the breadcrumbs, sugar, baking . ' powd«r, and a pinch of salt. Clean the 1 ! currants with a little flour, stalk the . raisins. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Break the egge in a basin and . beat them up, add the milk to them, and stir it all into the pudding. Mix thoroughly and put into a well-greased basin. Flour a pudding-cloth, tie it se- [ curely over the pudding, and put it into ■ boiling water. Plunge into fast-boiling . water and cook at a gallop for three and . a-half to five hours. Turn out to serve and pour sweet sauce round. s —To Purify Honey.— To purify honey, about 251b of honey . at a time is diluted with half this , weight of water, and boiled over a gentle , fire with a paste obtained by twjrling , three sheets of white blotting-paper with water until the paper is reduced to very fine fibres. The two ara miied together, and boiled over a gentle fire. The mixture is allowed to cool, and then put into a woollen straining-bag previously moistened. The honey runs off quite clear, and wh?n the remaining paper pulp is washed out, the dark yellow winecoloured fluid is evaporated to the required consistency in a vapour bat' . Excellent purified honey can also be ob- ' taiued by diluting the honey with twice ! its weight of hot water, digesting with I ch.uvoal. whi.h lias been freshly anneal-c-il, ooarsr-iy crnslwd, and Ireed from tine powder. Strain and evaporate wth , a fentU' heat. ; — A Savoury Rol.v Poly Pudding.— Make a nice £uet crust with threcquartfi= of a pound of flour and a quarter of a pound of suet, ot leas quantities if not fur a Lugo pudding. Roll out the paste, and .-over it thinly with chopped raw potatoes, then with some be*f, cut into ting!T lengths, then lay over it some chopped onions, then minced parsley, and a liberal seasoning of salt and PePP er ; ; With the edges of the paste, and roll it i up bolster fashion. Dip a cloth in boiling water, wring it dry and flour it, tie the pudding up securely, and boil it for : two hours, keeping the pot fast boiling the whole time. —Sausage Pudding.— Steep a pound of sausages in. boiling water to remove their skins. Make a suet crust, and line a basin with it. Put the sausages in and any scraps of cold meat you have, also an onwm chopped small, a few sage leaves minced, a little stock and a flavouring of store sauce or ketchup : Put a crust over the puddmg, mesTthe edges close to keep in the P^vy, and boil for three hours as fast fs possible, filling up the (sot , w^^boUin- water from time to time. The mere dients should be well mixed before they are put in the basin. j Suet may be kept any length of time if it be melted down in «.e oven and put into jars; rooreo%er, this meltcd-down suet is particularly ) To keep the .ater frc^h and sweet in vases of cut flowers add to it a email bit of sugar This is sunccessful even in the case of Euch things as wallflowers. Boot* that have become hardened, bv damp and mud. will not cmk.t a'little glycerine be rubbed into them. The leather should be wiped free of glycerine before the boots are blacked. t . When ironing handkerchiefs, begin in the middle. When tho edges are ironed first the middle of the handkerchief is apt to swell up like a balloon, making it difficult to iron '. the whole properly. Ink-stains on silver inkstands may be removed by rubbing the spots with chloride of lime and water, but immediately afterwards the article so treated "should be washed -with warm water, and polished in the usual way. Those who keep a gas fire burning in the bedroom should half-fill an ornamental jar -with prepared soil from the- florist and then fill up with vrater. Place this by the gas fire, nrirt ill.- a. r will «mell n». if n frejh ■;h.-,xvor had fallm in the green woods. A j.^piilar w:,y of renovating crape is to Ji]> ir in water in which a lump !of sugar has been dissolved aud a ' j blue bag has been squeezed, and then < tolav it on a cloth and pin it down ' securely. As the crape dric3 it Trill u pain 'its old stiff, fresh appearance. To renovate black kid gloves, mis ' together equal quantities of white of cgii. black ink, and milk or cream. Put tho gloves on the hands, and apply the compound to the nibbed parts j with a bit of soft flannel. Kid shoes j may bc^*treated in the same way. To remove mildew, soap the spots well, and', while still wet. rub into them powdered chalk. Then place j the garment. out. of doors all day to bleach damping it as often as it dries. After this, washing with soap and water will remove what remains of the stain. [ To clean a discoloured copper kettle, wash the kettle in strong soapBuds with soda, and let it stand in this for a couple of hours. Then, take j some fine coal ash (sift the ash) mixed with paraffin into a paste, and with it seonr the kettle. This treatment will soon make the copper as bright as when new. ! General directions for dyeing feathers: Immerse the feaihers for a few moments in hot water. Let them o>ain, and then puji'them into tho dye, afterwards rinso.^bom in two or three baths of cold iwater, and shako them dry. Finally. ydraw them between tho thumb and the back of a knifo. so as to raise tha^down and restore their natural curtWj