1 quart of cranberries. Pick them over and wash them, then chop them a little. 1-1/2 cups of cold water. 2 cups of sugar.
Boil five minutes; rub while hot through a sieve, and pour into a pretty mold.
This rule, of course, had to be doubled for two molds. They found it was not very easy to get the cranberries through the sieve; by talking turns, however, they were slowly squeezing them through when Norah came to their aid and gave them the wooden potato-masher to use instead of the spoon they were working with. The molds were set away to get hard, and then they asked their mother for something else to do.
"I've been thinking," she said, "that we ought to have for supper something the men would like very much; they will have had turkey once already, and perhaps they will be tired of it. Would you like scalloped oysters?"
"Mother, we'd perfectly love them!" exclaimed Mildred. "But do you think we could make them? I always thought they were very hard to make."
"My dear, they are the easiest thing in the world. To save time, you may copy the rule now, and then to-morrow, when everybody is here, I will not have to stop visiting and explain it."
1 quart of oysters. 2 packages of crackers, or as many loose ones--about half a pound. Roll fine. Salt, pepper, and butter. 1 small cup of milk.
Drain the oysters and examine each one carefully to see that it is free from shell; strain and measure the juice; add to it an equal quantity of milk. Butter a deep baking-dish and put in a layer of crumbs, and cover these with a layer of oysters; sprinkle with salt and pepper and dot with butter; put on another layer of crumbs, then one of oysters, season, and so on till the dish is full, with a layer of crumbs on top; cover with small bits of butter; pour on the oyster juice and milk, and bake about half an hour, or till brown. Serve at once--it must not stand.
"Sometimes, instead of baking these in one large dish, I fill little brown baking-dishes in just the same way; only, of course, I do not bake these so long--only ten or fifteen minutes. And sometimes for a lunch party, I get from the fish-market very large oyster, or clam, or scallop shells, and fill those instead of the little dishes, and they are very pretty."