Vintage Quick and Easy Recipes.

You all know what it is like, that first few days after returning from a fabulous holiday - the serious reality check provided by the need to empty the suitcase and fill the washing machine, to shop and re-stock the fridge and pantry, to deal with the backlog of snail-mail and email and so on and on and on.

At times like this we are in need of quick, easy recipes. I wonder what Australian newspaper cookery columns of yester-year can suggest?

Quick Soup.

Into one quart of boiling water put one cup of cracker crumbs, one half cup of Irish potatoes chopped fine, one tablespoon of rice, butter the size of an egg, onion enough to flavor and salt and pepper to taste. Let this boil until done, then add a teaspoon of extract of beef and a raw egg. Beat the egg altogether for a few minutes, then pour slowly into the boiling soup and stir constantly. The soup is now ready to serve.

Petersburg Times (South Australia) 26 January, 1894.

Quick Tomato Soup.

Rub through a strainer one quart of stewed tomatoes, and cook five minutes. Then stir in a saltspoonful of baking soda; when it stops foaming add two plain biscuits rolled into fine crumbs, a tablespoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of salt, dash of paprika, and one cup of scalding hot milk. Cook five minutes, and the soup is ready to serve.

The Telegraph (Brisbane, Queensland) 10 March, 1917.

Bacon and Vegetable Pie

[“is easily prepared”]

For this you will require four rashers of bacon, a potato, an onion, a white turnip, pepper and salt. Place the bacon in a pie dish, then add the vegetable in alternate layers, finishing with a layer of potato in top. Cover with stock or water. Steam in the oven until the vegetable is cooked, then cover with pastry and bake until brown.

News (Adelaide, South Australia) 5 August, 1932

Some Quick Recipes.

Cheese Pudding

Take l oz. butter, 3oz. grated cheese, l ½ oz. breadcrumbs, a little  made mustard, 1 gill milk, 2 eggs, pepper, salt, and a little cayenne pepper.

Put the breadcrumbs and butter into a basin. Boil the milk and pour over them, add cheese, keep

ing back about 1 dessertspoonful, the yolks of eggs and seasonings, and beat well. Beat up the whites to a stiff froth and mix them in lightly at the last.

Pour the mixture into a fireproof dish.  Sprinkle the remainder of .cheese on top and bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes or until nicely risen.

Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative (NSW), 29 January, 1940

Some Pudding Reminders.

"What pudding shall I make?"

It is the cry of so many housewives so often. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon with the vegetables done, the soup simmering nicely, and the roast all ready for the oven, the pudding is invariably

the problem. So here are a few simple quick recipes that the housewife will welcome when ideas won't come:-

Snow Pudding.-Mix together 1 pint of milk, 3oz. bread crumbs, grated rind of 1 lemon, 2oz. butter, yolks of 3 eggs, sugar to taste. Grease a pie dish, cover the bottom with any preserve, pour the mixture over it, and bake for an hour. Beat the whites of the eggs and a little castor sugar to a stiff froth, spread it over the pudding and leave in a cool oven for a few minutes to brown. This is a good cold pudding.

Spanish Pudding.-Mix ¾ lb. flour, ¼ lb. suet, ½ lb. treacle and half a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda: make into a cake mixture with a little warm milk;  put into a greased basin, and boil

for 1 ½  hours.

Examiner (Launceston, Tasmania) 19 November, 1927