HINTS AND RECIPES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 291, 7 December 1929, Page 23 (Supplement)

HINTS AND RECIPES

Only half the quantity of sugar will be required to sweeten stewed fruit if it is added after cooking and not during the process. A teaspoonful of vinegar added to lard used for frying prevents thc food from absorbing too much fat.

Powdered French chalk will remove grease stains from woollen materials. Leave it on the garments for some hours, then shake them well. If a sewing machine needle becomes blunt, you can sharpen it by stitching a few inches through a piece of fine sandpaper. A common clay marble placed in a kettle will collect most of th e fur that would otherwise get caked on the side of the kettle. Ink stains on silks and delicate fabrics may often be removed by washing them in boiled milk. Tar stains should be rubbed with fresh lard, left for several hqurs, and then washed with hot soapy water. Moisten tea and coffee stains with milk, cover them with borax and soak in hot water.

Keep all water in which celery, rice, potatoes, or artichokes have been boiled. Strain and us e when making gravy or soup, and for stews of all kinds. The water is rich in the salts extracted from the vegetables. Rub the knives and forks that are to be put away, with olive oil, and they will retain their brightness and be found free from rust when required again.

A teaspoonful of methylated spirit added to the rinsing water when washing white crepe de chine or other silks keeps the material a good colour and improves its appearance when ironed. New scrubbing brushe 8 should be put into a pan of cold water to which a handful of kitchen salt has been added, and the water slowly brought to the boil. This hardens the bristles and tightens them, so that they do not fall out.

Carpets, after being brushed with salt, should be rubbed with vinegar and water. This freshens them. Dull Steel. —If the steel parts of the kitchen range have become dull during an absence from home, the best and most economical method of cleaning them i s to rub them with very fine coal ashes, freed, of course, from grit, which might scratch the surface of thc steel.