55.  Green Tomato Pickles.—­Half bushel green tomatoes, six large onions, six large peppers, one-fourth pound white mustard seed, and three tablespoonfuls celery seed.  Chop all fine together, put in layers, one of tomatoes and onions and one of salt, using in all a half cupful of salt.  Let stand over night.  In the morning squeeze dry and put on to boil in two quarts of vinegar.  Cook until tender, when nearly done, add one pound of sugar, put in cans and seal.

Green Beans Pickles.—­“Green beans with the strings taken off and placed in a kettle, salted and cooked until tender, then place in jars, fill with good cider vinegar and seal tightly.”

[Canning, pickling and preserving 841]

Preserves.

1.  Rhubarb Preserve.—­1/4 lb. almond or walnut meats, chopped, 3 lbs. rhubarb, 3 lbs. sugar, rind and juice of 2 lemons, boil until thick.  Serve with meats.

2.  Preserved Pears.—­Pare the fruit and drop into a bowl of cold water to preserve the color.  When all are pared, put into a pan of clear, cold water, and boil until almost tender.  Make a syrup of the water in which the pears were boiled, allowing one pound of sugar to each half pint of water.  Drop the pears into the syrup and cook them slowly until they can be pierced with a silver fork.  Put the fruit into hot jars and cover with boiling syrup.  Seal.

3.  Fig and Rhubarb Preserve.—­Wash dry and cut up three pounds of figs and seven pounds of rhubarb, put them into a basin, add six pounds of sugar, one cupful of water, two heaping teaspoonfuls of ground ginger and the juice of two large lemons.  Cover and leave for twelve hours.  Boil for half an hour.  Divide into jars and cover.  This is an excellent preserve and keeps well.

4.  Preserved Cherries.—­Select large, rich, red cherries; stone and weigh them, adding three-fourths of a pound of sugar for each pound of fruit.  After the stones have been taken out, allow them to stand in a stone jar over night; in the morning put them in a preserving kettle and cook until clear.  Put in glass tumblers and cover the tops when cool with melted paraffin, before putting on covers.

5.  Strawberry Preserves.—­The fruit for this must be solid, and must be used as soon as they are gotten ready, and not sugared down.  To one pound of sugar add one pound of fruit.  Use just enough water to keep them from sticking, and put fruit, sugar and water all on at the same time, and let them cook twenty minutes.  Then spread on flat dishes and set in sun for three or four days, and then put in glass jars.  They will need no more heating or cooking.  These are considered fine.

6.  Lemon Butter.—­Take two nice large lemons, grate the rind and use the juice, two eggs, two cups of sugar, small lump of butter.  Boil ten minutes in double boiler.

[842 Mothers’ remedies]

7.  Apple Preserves.—­Make a syrup of three-fourths pound of sugar to each pound of apples.  Add a little lemon juice or sliced lemon; keep skimming this as it boils, and put in only a few apples at a time into the syrup, and boil until they are transparent; skim out and put in a jar.  When the apples are done, boil the syrup down thick, then pour boiling hot over the apples and cover closely.  Well flavored fruit, not easily broken, should be selected.