Europeans are in the habit of serving much simpler breakfasts than Americans. The breakfast should be filling and satisfying to start the day well. A few well-cooked dishes served at one time always make a more wholesome meal than when a great variety is served.

It is a good plan to serve some kind of fruit for breakfast. This may be fresh fruit, when it is in season and plentiful and not too expensive, or it may be dried fruit, which has been stewed.

Mildly acid fresh fruit in good condition should be served raw.

Dried fruit may be cooked alone or with the breakfast cereal.

Directions For Cooking Dried Fruit

Wash fruit carefully.

Soak in cold water to cover overnight.

Drain fruit, heat the water in which it has been soaked to boiling point, add the soaked fruit, and let simmer slowly until fruit is plump and soft. A little sugar or syrup may be added if more sweetening is desired.

Cereals

Cereals furnish one of the most important foods we have. Nature provides some kind of a cereal in almost every country. From the oats and rye of the Northern countries to the rice of the Southern countries. Man depends on it for his daily bread. Cereal foods include the kernels of corn, oats, rye, rice, wheat, barley, etc., the breakfast foods, meals and flours made from them, or bread, crackers, muffins, cakes or pastry, which are rich in cereal products. Cereals are used in one form or another, such as in mushes, gruels, macaroni, bread mixtures and all batters and doughs in every home. As a rule, the more cereal food used the cheaper the diet.

Cereal mush, or other cereal dishes, with milk for breakfast, furnishes a meal full of food value. It is a good plan to have several different kinds of cereal preparations on hand, such as those made from wheat, oat, corn, rye, barley and rice, that there may be a change from day to day. Corn and oat preparations furnish particularly good winter foods, as they are rich in fat and are therefore valuable heat producers. Cornmeal, oatmeal, rice and hominy grits are cheaper than the "ready-to-eat" breakfast foods.

As all cereals are rich in starch, they should be thoroughly cooked. The cracked cereals should be cooked twelve hours, while the steamed and rolled preparations require only one-half hour or more, as they are partly cooked at the factory.

Cereals when cooked should be stiff enough so that they can be chewed, that the saliva of the mouth may be thoroughly mixed with the cooked starch.

General Rules For Cooking Cereals

Fill the lower part of a double boiler 1/3 full of water. Place over the fire. Measure the water needed for the cereal and pour it into the top of the double boiler. Place over the fire, and when the water begins to boil, add the salt and the cereal slowly and let boil over the fire 10 minutes. Place over the lower part of the double boiler containing water, cover and let steam until ready to serve. If more water is needed during cooking, add boiling water.

(Instead of double boiler, two saucepans may be used, one a trifle larger than the other, the larger one serving as the lower part of the double boiler.)

(By using the fireless cooker, the cereal can be boiled 10 minutes over the fire in the evening, and then cooked overnight in the fireless cooker.)

Cornmeal Mush

1½ cups cornmeal

2 teaspoons salt

6 cups water

Heat water to boiling point, add salt and the cornmeal slowly, stirring while adding. Boil directly over the fire 10 minutes, then cook over boiling water from 1 to 3 hours or overnight. Half milk and half water may be used.

Oatmeal Mush

2½ cups rolled oats

2½ teaspoons salt

6 cups boiling water

Add the salt to the boiling water, stir in the rolled oats slowly and boil 10 minutes directly over the fire. Cook over boiling water one-half hour or more.

Steamed Rice

1 cup rice

1 teaspoon salt

1 qt. boiling water or scalded milk

Put water and salt in top of double boiler, add gradually the well-washed rice, stirring with a fork to prevent rice sticking to the boiler. Boil 5 minutes. Place over under part of double boiler and steam 45 minutes. Uncover that steam may escape.

What To Do With Left-Over Cereals

Fill molds with cereal mush packed tightly and let stand until cold and firm, slice and brown in fat. Serve with syrup. Cornmeal mush is very good for this.

Cheese sauce, tomato sauce or creamed fish, meat or eggs may be served on slices of fried mush.

Mix left-over mush with cheese, finely-chopped meat or fish, slightly beaten egg, and seasonings; shape into cakes and brown in fat, and serve with a sauce.

Mix cereal mush with salt and pepper, shape into cakes, brush over with melted fat, place a small Hamburger steak on top, and bake in a moderately hot oven until nicely browned. Oatmeal mush is particularly good.

Mix cereal mush with fruit, mold and chill. Serve with cream or a fruit sauce as a dessert.

Arrange cereal mush in layers with sweetened fruit in well-greased baking dish and bake until nicely browned on top. Serve with fruit sauce or cream as a dessert.

Add cereal mush to yeast bread mixtures or quick bread mixtures, several recipes of which will be found in this book.

Add cereal mush to meat loaf mixtures in place of bread crumbs, or both may be added.

Add cereal mush to croquette mixtures.

Boiled rice may be served with meat, or it may be served with cheese sauce as a supper dish, or it may be served with cream or a little sweetened fruit as a dessert.

Toast

Toast is considered easy of digestion and is always palatable.

How to Make Toast. - Cut stale bread into ¼-inch slices, put slices in a wire toaster, lock toaster and hold over or under the heat, holding it some distance from the fire that it may dry gradually, and then brown as desired. Toast, if piled compactly and allowed to stand, soon becomes moist. It should be served as soon after toasting as possible.

Cream Toast

Dip 8 slices of toast into the cream sauce. Pour remaining sauce on the pieces of toast tod serve hot.

Cream Or White Sauce

Rule 1

1 pint scalded milk 2½ tablespoons flour

2½ tablespoons water ¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter or fat

Mix the flour and the water until smooth; add a little more cold water to make it thin enough to pour; add the flour mixture gradually to the scalded milk, stirring constantly until thickened. Boil 5 minutes, if cooked directly over the fire; 20 minutes if cooked in double boiler. Add the salt and butter.

Rule 2

Melt the fat, when 2 tablespoons should be used; add the flour, mixed with the salt, and stir until mixed. Add gradually the scalded milk, stirring all the time until all is added. Cook until smooth and thickened.

Note. - Chipped beef, previously soaked in hot water, left-over cooked meat cut into small pieces, flaked fish, oysters, finely-chopped cheese, chopped hard-cooked eggs or cooked vegetables may be added to the sauce, seasoned, heated and served on the toast.

French Toast

1 egg slightly beaten Slices of bread

1 cup sweet milk

¼ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar or syrup Fat to grease the griddle

Add the salt, sugar and milk to the slightly beaten egg, dip the pieces of bread into the egg mixture. Cook the soaked slices of bread on a well-greased griddle; brown on one side, turn and brown on the other. Serve with maple syrup or jelly. Served with stewed fruit, makes a good dessert.