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

butter and two of flour. Add the spinach with pepper and salt to taste; cook for five minutes. Butter the insides of muffin-tins or pâté-pans, and press the spinach hard into these. Set in the oven to keep hot while you make a white sauce. Carefully turn out the forms of spinach on a hot platter, lay a slice of hard-boiled egg on the top of each form and pour the white sauce around it. SQUASH The summer squash differs from the winter variety in having a tender shell and in being very juicy. Both may be cooked in a variety of ways, and form many appetizing dishes. In opening the winter squash it is often necessary to exert great strength to break through the outer rind—some housekeepers using a small saw for the purpose. The summer vegetable may be easily peeled or sliced with an ordinary case-knife. Boiled squash Wash two summer squashes, pare them, and cut into pieces about an inch square. Put them over the fire in a saucepan of boiling water and boil steadily for twenty-five minutes. Drain in a colander, pressing hard to extract the water, turn into a wooden bowl and mash with a potato-beater until free from lumps. Now beat in a heaping tablespoonful of butter; salt and pepper to taste. Return to the fire just long enough to get very hot, stirring all the time. Serve in a deep vegetable dish. Baked squash Peel, boil and mash two small squashes. When cold, beat in two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, two whipped eggs, a gill of cream and salt and pepper to taste. Turn into a greased bakedish, sprinkle with bread-crumbs and bake for a half-hour. A good way to use squash left over from yesterday. Creamed squash Peel two summer squashes and cut into dice of uniform size. Boil for fifteen minutes in salted water, or until tender, but not broken. Drain carefully in a colander and keep hot while you cook together two heaping teaspoonfuls of butter and the same quantity of flour until they bubble; then pour upon them a