Question box : answers from home economists of the U.S. Department of Agriculture

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Thursday, November 19, 1942,

QUESTION BOX ANSWERS FROM
What breakfast fruits in wartime? sfecanyartne of the
Hore ways to use cranberries?

S {Department.of SE

Stuff bird with cornbread? CURR

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The war has brought many changes in food shoppgpe. ‘p Very often tou supe have
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to take what you can get in the stores and make it do seo ina ygg| sow

that women are trying to meet these war-time changes and still feed t ‘ base
for good health, One question today is about breakfast fruits, Another asks about
Cooking cranoerries without using much sugar. And still another inquires about

| orn—-bread stuffing for chicken. The answers are from the food specialists of the

U. S. Department of Agriculture.

First, here's a letter from a homemaker who is concerned about the scarcity
Of breakfast fruits. She writes: "We live in a small town. ‘The grocer is often
out of oranges and grapefruit. Dried fruits like prumes are also scarce lately.
SO are canned fruits and tomato juice, Of course, I have some home-canned fruit.
But we counted on that for desserts. What can we have for breakfast fruit this
Winter?"

The food specialists reply: What about apples and grapes? They say apples
have been so plentiful this year that twice they have gone on the list of Victory
Food Specials. You'll see plenty of apples on the market for some months ahead,
Serve them as they are for breakfast...or as applesauce...or serve them baked or
fried. Grapes of eyeael kinds will be on sale for some weeks yet. And cranberries
are coming in more and more, You can cook cranberries for juice for breakfast.
Cranberry juice needs sweetening, and you can sweeten with part honey or sirup.

(over)

EN) es
You'll see a few more dried prunes and raisins soon. You might even use lemonade
occasionally for breakfast. You can sometimes get lemons when you can't buy
oranges. Hot water and lemon juice, hardly sweetcned at all, is a favorite with
‘many for starting-off the day.

However, while it is desirable to serve fruit for breakfast, it is not
essential. The necessary thing is to serve at some time during the day enough
foods that are rich in vitamin C. Cabbage, kale, spinach, and other leafy
vegetables are good sources of vitamin C, and so are white and sweetpotatoes,
baked or boiled in their jackets. Use extra amounts of such foods when you can't
get citrus fruits and tomatoes.

Now for that question about cranberries. "I notice plenty of cranberries
in the market, but how can I cook them without using a great deal of sugar?"

Just a few weeks ago the food specialists sugzested using cranberries for
juice, and making them into a sauce, sweetened with part honey and part sugar,

You an serve cranberry sauce on ice cream, on puddings, and in fruit salads.

Here are some more ideas: HEver try cranberry shortcake? To make it, boil 4 cups
of washed and drained cranberries with 1 cup of honey, until tender. Adda little
salt. Prepare a rich biscuit dough by a standard recipe, but add a little sugar
to the dough, Roll the dough acout a fourth inch thick, Cut it into rounds,
butter half of then, and place one unbuttered romd on top of a buttered one.

(The buttering helps them come apart easily.) Bake in a hot oven until lightly
Drowned. Split, and cover with some of the cooked cranberries, and serve.

Here's another idea ~- cranberry muffins. Add one cup of washed and dried
Cranberries to an ordinary muffin recipe containing some sugar. Roll the berries
in a little of the sugar before you fold them into the batter. And don't stir the
mixture any more than you have to. Maybe you'd like a standard muffin recipe to
; use with cranberries,..or any other berries, for that matter. Here's what goes

= into mffins: Sifted flour, 2 cups...baking powder, 3 teaspoons...salt, one-half

beaspoon...sugar, 2 to 4 tablespoons...milk, three-fourths cup...1 egg...fat, 2 to 4
tablespoons. This recipe has a little less liquid than the rule for plain mffins
because the berries are juicy.

And here's an easy relish made of cranberries. Grind 1 pound of washed and
drained cranberries with 1 whole orange, - that is, the pulp and rind. (Of course,
you leave out the seeds.) Mix with three-fourths to 1 cup of strained honey, and

add one-fourth teaspoon of salt. Mix well, This relish keeps 2 or 3 weeks if stored
in a tight jar in the refrigerator.

Last question: "I have heard of using cornbread stuffing for a chicken. As
we are going to have roast chicken for Thanksgiving, I thought it might make a change
for the family to have a different stuffing from usual. How do you make combread

stuffing?"

Cornbread stuffing is easy to make, and you will find it goes particularly

| well with a braised chicken, A braised chicken, you ‘mow, cooks in a covered roaster

instead of an open pan, so that it partly cookes by steam. You can braise either a
tender bird, or a somewhat older bird, after steaming it.

About making the cornbread stuffing: For a 5-pound bird, you'll need three-
fourths cup of chopped celery...one-fourth cup of chopped parsley,..and one small
chopped onion, all cooked together for a few mimutes in 6 tablespoons of melted
Mutter or other fat. Add one quart of cornbread crumbs. Season with one-fourth to
| one-half teaspoon of thyme, and salt. Mix well, and stuff into the bird.

That finishes the questions and answers for today. More next week.

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