=Pea Soup.=--Use half a pint, or seven ounces of dried peas, (cost three cents,) for every two quarts of soup you want. Put them in three quarts of cold water, after washing them well; bring them slowly to a boil; add a bone, or bit of ham, if you have it to spare, one turnip, and one carrot peeled, one onion stuck with three cloves, (cost three cents,) and simmer three hours, stirring occasionally to prevent burning; then pass the soup through a sieve with the aid of a potato-masher, and if it shows any sign of settling stir into it one tablespoonful each of butter and flour mixed together dry, (cost two cents;) this will prevent settling; meantime fry some dice of stale bread, about two slices, cut half an inch square, in hot fat, drain them on a sieve, and put them in the bottom of the soup tureen in which the pea soup is served; or cut some bits of very hard stale bread, or dry toast, to use instead of the fried bread. By the time the soup is done it will have boiled down to two quarts, and will be very thick and good. This receipt will cost you about ten cents.
=Thick Pea Soup.=--Fry one sliced onion, (cost half a cent,) in one ounce of suet or drippings, (cost half a cent,) using an iron pot to fry it in; as soon as it is brown, put into the same pot, three quarts of cold water, one pint, or fourteen ounces of well washed peas, (cost five cents,) and boil as above; this quantity of peas does not need any crusts in the soup; it will be thick enough; but bread may be eaten with it, if you want it. This soup costs six cents.
=Bean Soup.=--For this, use the receipt for pea soup, using beans instead of peas; the cost will be about the same.
=Lentil Soup.=--For two quarts of soup half a pint of yellow lentils, (cost five cents,) washed, and put to boil in three pints of cold water, with one cents' worth of soup greens, and boiled gently until the lentils are soft enough to break between the fingers; every half hour a gill of cold water should be added, and the lentils again raised to a boiling point, until they are done; they should then be passed through a sieve with a wooden spoon, using enough of the liquor to make them pass easy, and mixed with the rest of the soup; it should be seasoned with salt and pepper, and is then ready to simmer for half an hour, and serve hot, with dice of fried bread half an inch square, like those used for pea soup, or with bits of stale bread. A plentiful dinner of lentil soup and bread costs only about ten cents.