Not less than a peck is needed for a dinner for three or four.  Pick over carefully, wash, and let it lie in cold water an hour or two.  Put on in boiling, salted water, and boil an hour, or until tender.  Take up in a colander, that it may drain perfectly.  Have in a hot dish a piece of butter the size of an egg, half a teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of pepper, and, if liked, a tablespoonful of vinegar.  Chop the spinach fine, and put in the dish, stirring in this dressing thoroughly.  A teacupful of cream is often added.  Any tender greens, beet or turnip tops, kale, &c., are treated in this way; kale, however, requiring two hours’ boiling.

ARTICHOKES.

Cut off the outside leaves; trim the bottom; throw into boiling, salted water, with a teaspoonful of vinegar in it, and boil an hour.  Season, and serve like turnips, or with drawn butter poured over them.

TOMATOES STEWED.

Pour on boiling water to take off the skins; cut in pieces, and stew slowly for half an hour; adding for a dozen tomatoes a tablespoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of pepper, and a teaspoonful of sugar.  Where they are preferred sweet, two tablespoonfuls of sugar will be necessary.  They may be thickened with a tablespoonful of flour or corn-starch dissolved in a little cold water, or with half a cup of rolled cracker or bread crumbs.  Canned tomatoes are stewed in the same way.

BAKED TOMATOES.

Take off the skins; lay the tomatoes in a buttered pudding-dish; put a bit of butter on each one.  Mix a teaspoonful of salt, and a saltspoonful of pepper, with a cup of bread or cracker crumbs, and cover the top.  Bake an hour.

Or cut the tomatoes in bits, and put a layer of them and one of seasoned crumbs, ending with crumbs.  Dot the top with bits of butter, that it may brown well, and bake in the same way.  Canned tomatoes are almost equally good.  Thin slices of well-buttered bread may be used instead of crumbs.

FRIED TOMATOES.

Cut in thick slices.  Mix in a plate half a teacupful of flour, a saltspoonful of salt, and half a one of pepper; and dip each slice in this, frying brown in hot butter.

BROILED TOMATOES.

Prepare as for frying, and broil in a wire broiler, putting a bit of butter on each slice when brown, and serving on a hot dish or on buttered toast.

RICE.

Wash in cold water, changing it at least twice.  It is better if allowed to soak an hour.  Drain, and throw into a good deal of boiling, salted water, allowing not less than two quarts to a cupful of rice.  Boil twenty minutes, stirring now and then.  Pour into a colander, that every drop of water may drain off, and then set it at the back of the stove to dry for ten minutes.  In this way every grain is distinct, yet perfectly tender.  If old, half an hour’s boiling may be required.  Test by biting a grain at the end of twenty minutes.  If tender, it is done.