A Forest Ranger's Cookbook - Vegetables

from The Lookout Cookbook, 1938. U.S. Forest Service, Region One

VEGETABLES

Candied Sweet Potatoes
1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes
1/4 cup sugar
water

Put sugar in a pan and let heat until all is melted and beginning to get quite dark brown, then add a little warm or hot water. Let boil until quite thick and pour over heated sweet potatoes.

Spinach de Luxe
2 slices bacon
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 oz. can spinach
1 tablespoon butter

Dice bacon and fry until lightly browned. Add spinach, which has been drained, together with butter and salt, and cook for a short time or until well heated.

Stewed Tomatoes
1 cup tomatoes
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon minced onion
1/2 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon butter
dash pepper

Combine all ingredients first mixing flour and sugar. Simmer 10 minutes. This recipe may be varied by using fine bread crumbs, or rolled cracker crumbs if possible, in place of the flour to slightly thicken the tomatoes. Spuds de Luxe
Slice ham in bottom of baking pan. Cover with diluted milk. Add sliced raw potatoes, pepper, salt (unless ham is salty). Bake until potatoes are soft.

Hot Pot
Put small chunks of raw potato in baking pan (the amount depends on appetite). Add 1 sliced onion, 1 small can tomatoes, salt, pepper. Add water if the tomato juice doesn't cover. Over the top, place sliced bacon and bake in oven. If oven is too hot and cooks bacon too fast, cover until potatoes begin to soften, then uncover to brown bacon.

Creamed Lima Beans
1 cup dried beans
salt and pepper
3/4 cup milk

Soak dried beans overnight in cold water to cover. Drain and cook in boiling salted water until soft. Drain, add cream, add a little butter and season well. (You can use undiluted canned milk where it calls for cream.)

Home Baked Beans
1 1/2 cups navy beans, boiled in enough water to cover (which have been previously soaked overnight), boil these until skins crack.
Mix the following:
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons shortening
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup catsup
1 teaspoon mustard
1 tablespoon sugar

Drain beans and add to this last mixture. Then add enough water to cover. Mix well, place two or three slices of bacon on top and bake two hours or more. (High altitude takes longer to cook things than low altitudes.) You may have to add a little more water to the beans occasionally.

Scalloped Potatoes
2 large or 4 small potatoes
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups milk
1 medium sized onion
large piece of cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Wash, peel and slice thinly, potatoes and onions. Place layer of potatoes, dot with cheese and several slices of onion. Add salt and pepper. Continue this until you use all of the potatoes and onions. On top of this put a layer of cheese. Cover with the milk and bake in oven until potatoes are tender when tried with a fork.

Scalloped Corn
If you open a can of corn and do not eat all of it, you can make scalloped corn by combining corn, bread crumbs, or crackers (mashed up real fine), salt, pepper and enough milk to cover and bake in oven until it gets firm or sets.

Macaroni and Tomatoes
1/3 package macaroni
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon salt (or bacon grease)
1 can tomatoes
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 onion (cut fine)
little pepper

Cover macaroni and salt with water and cook until macaroni is done. Drain water off if any. Add rest of mixture and let it cook 15 minutes. If a little bacon is cut fine and fried with onion and added, this improves flavor greatly.

Baked Potatoes
Take 4 medium sized potatoes, wash really well, cutting out all bad holes and spots in them. Dry them off and put in oven to bake. Bake for about an hour or until you can put a fork into them and they feel done, mushy.
If you want to have a very fine dish, after the potatoes have been baked, cut in two parts, careful not to harm the jackets. Scrape the potato out of the jackets. Put in kettle and proceed to fix them as one would mashed potatoes. Then butter the inside of the jackets, and stuff mashed potatoes back into the shells. Put these back on the stove to warm, then serve warm.

Mashed Potatoes
Boil about 5 potatoes, without the jackets. After they are done, take off the stove and drain the water off them, then mash them until there are no lumps, then put a heaping tablespoon of butter, salt, pepper and about two tablespoons of milk into them and beat them until they become creamy.
If you have any mashed potatoes left over, you can put them away and at another meal fix potato patties.