There are so many changes in the world, and even in our own little areas, that it is sometimes a challenge to keep up with them.

One change is in our menus, whether at home or in a restaurant. The “meat and three,” which has been around forever, was a good division of proportions, giving us the three servings of vegetables we need. This offering is no longer listed on many restaurant menus.

My sympathy is with magazine food editors who must present new, healthy, tasty and attractive dishes for their monthly cooking section pages. I suppose that, after a while, pork chops and green beans are not stimulating reading.

I hope that today’s two dishes will stimulate both your cooking and eating. They are a continuation of selections from cookbooks from another time. I like cookbooks and can’t overcome the temptation to buy them — but, then, it is a harmless and not too expensive obsession.

This book is the Kenwood Methodist Cookbook, published in 1939. There was no address, but a page of ads in the back listed businesses in Wisconsin. It was written in the days before almost every household had either an electric or gas range, and the temperature of surface units and ovens in the wood stove was an approximate guess based on the cook’s experience — or if she could get someone to bring in the stove wood.

Because my stove replacement/kitchen repair has not been completed, I could not prepare these two as I normally do. Both recipes sounded like ones we would want to try — and I shall, when I get my kitchen together again.

I have encouraged you to do this before: Write down your best-received recipes and make copies for family members. I am writing the recipes as they appeared in the 1939 cookbook, but was unable to confirm the names of the women who contributed them at the time The Courier went to press. But we can thank the Kenwood Methodist Cookbook for publishing these timeless dishes that you can serve this week for … Sunday Dinner.

Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

Select large, firm tomatoes and cut top from stem end. Scoop out all the center into a bowl. For six tomatoes, add the following to the tomato pulp:

5 slices bread, broken into small pieces
1 small onion, finely chopped
5 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt

Mix well and fill tomatoes, salting inside slightly. Dot generously with butter and bake about 40 minutes in moderate oven.

Baked Sweet Potato Cutlets*

6 medium-sized sweet potatoes
3 tbsp. butter
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. butter
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup ground pecans
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. pepper

Boil the potatoes; peel and press through ricer. Add the butter (melted), the seasonings and the milk (heated). Beat until mixture is light and fold in the chopped pecans. Divide into 12 portions and shape into a cutlet. Roll in the ground pecans. Dot with butter and bake at 425 degrees.

*cutlet: small, flat croquette of chopped meat or fish

Have a recipe? sundaydinner@baptistcourier.com