Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book: A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping

pepper and salt. Mash the tomatoes through a colander and stir them into the boiling milk; add a teacupful of rolled crackers; serve immediately. If the milk is put into the tomatoes it will curdle. CREAM SOUPS N. B.—See to it that the milk of which they are made is fresh, and always drop in it before heating a pinch of baking-soda to avoid the danger of curdling. A curdled cream soup is a culinary solecism, and should never be put into delicate stomachs. After the soup is ready for the table do not allow it to stand on the part of the range where it may come to a boil. Cream of spinach soup Wash a half peck of spinach and put it into a saucepan with a scant quart of water. Boil until tender, then chop very, _very_ fine, and run through a sieve. It should be like a soft green paste. Cook together a tablespoonful of flour and one of butter and pour upon them a quart of hot milk. Stir until smooth, add the spinach, boil up once, season and serve. Cream of beet soup Boil the young beets in salted water for an hour. Lay in cold water until cool enough to handle. Scrape off all the skin and chop the beets very fine. Turn the beets and the juice which has exuded from them into a pint of mutton stock, and simmer for fifteen minutes. Rub through a fine colander or a coarse soup-strainer and keep hot at the side of the range. Cook together two teaspoonfuls of butter and two of flour, and pour upon them a pint of milk. Stir until thick and smooth, then add slowly the beet and mutton purée. When very hot, season with salt and white pepper and serve. Tomato cream soup (No. 1) Cut up a dozen ripe tomatoes and stew tender in a pint of water. Rub through a strainer and thicken with three teaspoonfuls of corn-starch rubbed to a paste with a tablespoonful of butter. Season with salt, pepper and sugar, and pour slowly upon