Pickled Cucumbers

Make a brine of one pint of coarse salt and six quarts of boiling water, boil and skim clear, wash one hundred and fifty small cucumbers, put in the brine and let remain forty-eight hours, covered, then drain. Soak in cold water for two hours, drain and put them in a crock. Stick one large onion full of cloves, an ounce of horseradish root and several little red peppers, and put with the cucumbers and a piece of alum the size of a pea. Fill a muslin bag with one cup of mixed spices, celery seed, white mustard seed, whole cloves, allspice, peppercorns, stick cinnamon, boil this in vinegar enough to cover the cucumbers for ten minutes. Put the bag in the crock with the vinegar, pour off the vinegar the third day, reheat it and return to the pickles. Do not use for three weeks.

Mixed Pickles

Anything that you wish to use can be added to the cucumbers in the brine - pieces of cauliflower, small onions, nasturtium seeds, watermelon, beans. All make good pickles.

Cucumber And Onion Pickles

Four hundred small cucumbers. Two pounds of pickling onions. Spices. Soak cucumbers in salt brine over night. Drain. Rinse well with cold water and dry in a towel. Place in an earthen crock layers of cucumbers and onions and spices. Then cover with boiling hot vinegar. These will be crisp and ready for use after three weeks.

Mustard Pickles

Equal quantities of small cucumbers, button onions, cauliflower picked apart, sliced green tomatoes and two or three sliced green peppers. Soak in 12 the brine and drain, as given in Fickle Cucumbers. Prepare enough of the following mixture to cover: To one quart of vinegar, use one cup of brown sugar, one-half cup of flour and one-half cup of ground mustard. Boil the sugar and vinegar for five minutes, skim, mix the mustard and flour together, pour the hot vinegar slowly onto it, stirring until smooth. Pour hot over the pickles. They will be ready to use in three weeks.

Dill Pickles

Fill a quart jar with pickles about the size of a finger. Between the pickles put in a piece of dill or more if desired. When the jar is full add a level tablespoonful of salt. Pour in cold water. Put dill on top and seal air tight. Place the jars in the sun each day until the water is cloudy. When the water looks clear again the pickles are ready for use. A few whole peppers may be added.

Piccalilli Or Chow-Chow

8 lbs. of green tomatoes.

1 cup of salt.

2 cups brown sugar. 8 small onions.

2 heads of celery. 1 teaspoonful of white pepper.

1 tablespoonful whole cinnamon, broken up.

1 tablespoonful of whole allspice.

1 tablespoonful mustard seed.

2 quarts best vinegar.

Chop or slice the tomatoes, sprinkle the salt over them and let stand over night, in the morning drain off the water and chop the onion and celery, place all in a porcelain lined kettle, sprinkle with sugar, tie the spices in a bag, add those and the vinegar, cook slowly all day. Put in jars or earthen crock.

Chili Sauce

Make the same as the chow-chow, only using ripe tomatoes and chop them quite fine. To eight pounds of the tomatoes use one pound of onions chopped fine. Salt over night and proceed the same as the above receipt.

Tomato Catsup (Mrs. Campbell.)

Boil one bushel of ripe tomatoes, skins and all. When soft, mash through a colander to remove the skins and seeds. Mix one cup of salt, two pounds of brown sugar, half an ounce of cayenne pepper, three ounces each of ground allspice, mace and celery seed, two ounces of ground cinnamon, tie in a muslin bag, add to the tomato two quarts of best vinegar. Cook slowly till reduced to one-half. It is an improvement to add a cup of brandy a few minutes before it is done. Put in small bottles, seal, keep in a cool place.

Watermelon Pickle

Cut rind in inch pieces, and soak in a weak brine over night. In the morning rinse well and drop in strong boiling alum water. (One tablespoonful of powdered alum to two quarts of water). Let stand fifteen minutes. Then drop in ice water. Let remain until cold. Make a syrup of cup of sugar and one quart of water. When boiling drop melon in and simmer six to eight hours. Pour off this syrup and drop the melon into a syrup made of two cups of vinegar and six cups of sugar. Add spices tied in a cheese cloth. Let boil thoroughly and remain over night in the syrup. Next morning fill the jars full of the melon boiling down the syrup and pour into the jars. Seal.

Confiture

5 boxes of cherries. 5 lbs. sugar.

5 oranges. 2 lbs. raisins.

Grate rind of half the oranges; peel the rest and slice in thin pieces; chop raisins; stone cherries; first add the sugar and let remain until the other things are prepared, then mix together and boil hard thirty minutes.