Fruit From Washington Country Cooking, Household Hints & Other Helpful Tips

My Grandma Violet had the habit of jotting notes on whatever was handy. Her cookbook pages are rife with penned lines that offer suggestions on how to improve recipes to her own taste or ideas on how to run a household smoothly. A tip on how to clean a waffle iron appears on the back of a torn envelope and she underlined the household tips she thought important in the Stanwood Community Cook Book (compiled by Young Married Folks' Club of the St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Stanwood, Iowa in 1948).

Among these household tips and hints are:

Tips on Cooking In The Kitchen
To keep the stovetop clean while you are frying, place an overturned baking sheet across the two burners opposite the skillet. The baking sheeet will catch most of the spatters and is easy to clean. - The Register-Guard, 3/10/04

When making a pie of custard type, bake the crust just enough to set it well before pouring in the filling and the crust will never rise to the top. The pie won't get soggy either.

When frying eggs drop a few pinches of flour in the hot grease in the skillet to prevent the hot grease from popping out.

If a frying pan is heated and rubbed well with salt nothing in it will burn.

To keep doughnuts from absorbing grease add a pinch of cream of tartar to the flour used.

Mix powdered sugar instead of white sugar with whipped cream to prevent water settling.

To make sure pie crust is always flaky, add a little baking powder when making it. This will help to make it flaky.

Good uses for left over egg whites: all kinds of meringues; cake frostings; angel cake, white cake or macaroons; fruit sherbets, parfaits, snow puddings.

Tips on Little Fixes
If a knob comes off a sauce pan cover or other cover, just put a screw thru from the under side, then screw on a cork from the top.

Tips on Cleaning Up
White syrup will take out grass stain.

A cloth dipped in vinegar then in salt will scour the lime ring from fish bowls and vases.

To clean finger-marked furniture or woodwork that is varnished, 1 qt. warm water, 3 T. linseed oil, 1 T. turpentine, keep warm while using. Wash with this and then shine with a soft dry cloth. This may also be used on a piano.

It wouldn't surprise me if she kept the above mixture handy to clean up after visits from those sticky fingered grandchildren (of which I was one).