AUNT SARAH’S RECIPE FOR CHILI SAUCE

18 large red tomatoes. 10 medium-sized onions. 10 sweet peppers (green or red). 1 cup sugar. 3 scant tablespoonfuls salt. 1-1/2 cups vinegar (cider vinegar).

Tie in a small cheese cloth bag the following: 

1 large teaspoonful whole allspice. 1 large teaspoonful whole cloves.  About the same quantity of stick cinnamon.

Chop tomatoes, onions and peppers rather finely; add vinegar, sugar and salt and the bag of spices and cook slowly about 2-1/2 hours.  Fill air-tight glass jars with the mixture while hot.  This is a particularly fine recipe of Aunt Sarah’s.

This quantity will fill five pint jars.  Canned tomatoes may be used when fresh ones are not available.

TOMATO CATSUP

1-1/2 peck ripe tomatoes, washed and cut in small pieces; also four large onions, sliced.  Stew together until tender enough to mash through a fine sieve, reject seeds.  This quantity of tomato juice should, when measured, be about four good quarts.  Put tomato juice into a kettle on range, add one pint of vinegar, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1-1/2 tablespoons sugar, 1-1/2 tablespoons salt; place in a cheese cloth bag 1 ounce of whole black pepper, 1 ounce whole cloves, 1 ounce allspice, 1 ounce yellow mustard seed and add to catsup.  Boil down one-half.  Bottle and seal while boiling hot.  Boil bottles and corks before bottling catsup.  Pour melted sealing-wax over corks to make them air-tight, unless self-sealing bottles are used.

PICKLED BEETS

One cup of sharp vinegar, 1 cup of water, 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar, 8 whole cloves and a pinch of black, and one of red pepper.  Heat all together and pour over beets which have been sliced after being boiled tender and skins removed, and pack in glass jars which have been sterilized and if jars are air-tight these keep indefinitely.

MARMALADES, PRESERVES AND CANNED FRUITS

Young housewives, if they would be successful in “doing up fruit,” should be very particular about sterilizing fruit jars, both tops and rubbers, before using.  Heat the fruit to destroy all germs, then seal in air-tight jars while fruit is scalding hot.  Allow jars of canned fruit or vegetables to stand until perfectly cold.  Then, even should you think the tops perfectly tight, you will probably be able to give them another turn.  Carefully run the dull edge of a knife blade around the lower edge of jar cap to cause it to fit tightly.  This flattens it close to the rubber, making it air-tight.

To sterilize jars and tops, place in a pan of cold water, allow water to come to a boil and stand in hot water one hour.

For making jelly, use fruit, under-ripe.  It will jell more easily, and, not being as sweet as otherwise, will possess a finer flavor.  For jelly use an equal amount of sugar to a pint of juice.  The old rule holds good—­a pound of sugar to a pint of juice.  Cook fifteen to twenty minutes.  Fruit juice will jell more quickly if the sugar is heated in the oven before being added.