CROQUETTES OF ODDS AND ENDS.

These are made of any scraps or bits of good food that happen to be left from one or more meals, and in such small quantities that they cannot be warmed up separately.  As, for example, a couple of spoonfuls of frizzled beef and cream, the lean meat of one mutton chop, one spoonful of minced beef, two cold hard-boiled eggs, a little cold chopped potato, a little mashed potato, a chick’s leg, all the gristle and hard outside taken from the meat.  These things well chopped and seasoned, mixed with one raw egg, a little flour and butter, and boiling water; then made into round cakes, thick like fish-balls and browned well with butter in a frying pan or on a griddle.

Scraps of hash, cold rice, boiled oatmeal left from breakfast, every kind of fresh meat, bits of salt tongue, bacon, pork or ham, bits of poultry, and crumbs of bread may be used.  They should be put together with care, so as not to have them too dry to be palatable, or too moist to cook in shape.  Most housekeepers would be surprised at the result, making an addition to the breakfast or lunch table.  Serve on small squares of buttered toast, and with cold celery if in season.

PORK.

The best parts, and those usually used for roasting, are the loin, the leg, the shoulder, the sparerib and chine.  The hams, shoulders and middlings are usually salted, pickled and smoked.  Pork requires more thorough cooking than most meats; if the least underdone it is unwholesome.

To choose pork:  If the rind is thick and tough, and cannot be easily impressed with the finger, it is old; when fresh, it will look cool and smooth, and only corn-fed pork is good; swill or still-fed pork is unfit to cure.  Fresh pork is in season from October to April.  When dressing or stuffing is used, there are more or less herbs used for seasoning—­sage, summer savory, thyme and sweet marjoram; these can be found (in the dried, pulverized form, put up in small, light packages) at most of the best druggists; still those raised and gathered at home are considered more fresh.

ROAST PIG.

Prepare your dressing as for DRESSING FOR FOWLS, adding half an onion, chopped fine; set it inside.  Take a young pig about six weeks old, wash it thoroughly inside and outside; and in another water put a teaspoonful of baking soda, and rinse out the inside again; wipe it dry with a fresh towel, salt the inside and stuff it with the prepared dressing; making it full and plump, giving it its original size and shape.  Sew it up, place it in a kneeling posture in the dripping-pan, tying the legs in proper position.  Pour a little hot salted water into the dripping-pan, baste with butter and water a few times as the pig warms, afterwards with gravy from the dripping-pan.  When it begins to smoke all over rub it often with a rag dipped in