Old Family Recipes, featuring miracle whip, merachino cherries, and crushed pineapple!

I was visiting my grandma and taking photos of any paintings my mom had done. When my mom was a young woman, she made the chapter pages for her future mother in law's recipe book. She used regular glue and regular paper, not the nice acid-free, archive quality stuff, so her cute watercolors are all stained from the adhesive. But you still get a sense of it. Maybe it adds patina!

Ina's English toffee

Great Grandma Johnson's Sour Cream Cookies and Mary Carter's Sugar Cookies

boiled raisin cookies

Recipe from Francis: Brownies! and Fruit Cake

Chocolate Shortcake, frosting, and peanut butter Brownies

Iris Beach Lake Powell Chicken Soup

Minestrone Nannette

Aunt LaVerne's 4th of July Chicken

Cornell Formula Bread and Soda Bread (Irish)

Grandma's Bread

Best Ever Banana Bread, from Kari (Stout) Zeeman

Scones, Easy Refrigerator Rolls

Banana Bread, Lucky Buttermilk Biscuits

Yvonne Egbert's Relief Society Luncheon Feather Rolls

Bars, Christmas Popcorn, Iris Rhubarb Pie, Bonnie Kofford's Frosting

Jam Sponge Pudding

Strawberry Dessert

Nougat and Frosting

Rancho Verde Bars, Berry Cobbler, and Cheese Cake

Grandpa Davis' Apple Brown Betty

No Bake Cookies

Great Grandma Johnson's Sour Cream Cookies, Mary Carter's Sugar Cookies

Dill Pickles, Superb Sweet Relish

Grandma's Chili Sauce

Francis' Recipe for Dill Pickles

Aunt LaVerne's Frozen Fruit Salad

Hawaiian Salad

Another Hawaiian Salad

Peach Cobbler

Abelskivers

German Mountains African Pancakes

Mrs. Field's Cookies

Quick and Dirty Coco-CocoaTruffles

Quick and Dirties
Throw into your blender:

half a cup of almonds
half a cup of shredded coconut
two big spoonfulls unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons liquid-- milk or water or rum or coffee would work beautifully

blend to a paste, then roll in finely shredded coconut, mush a couple of almonds in each one, then chill for a couple of minutes in the freezer.

They are so dark, so rich, so lovely.

monger. fish monger.

 My friend encouraged me to overcome my prejudice and buy some fresh fish on the side of the road. A few days later, I noticed a hand-printed cardboard sign just around the corner: FRESH FISH. I found the guy, shirtless, cutting the blocks of sweet-smelling pink meat right off of a 20 pound yellowtail. I bought three pounds and he gave me the carcass. It turned into tangy ceviche, hearty tuna steak, and seared tuna salad and about 8 quarts of fish stock. The fish stock is so gelatinous that it's basically an aspic. A deep sea jello! Here, friends, is the result:

the noble carcass

lemon cooked ahi ceviche.

Fish Stock in the Making.

Foamy, frothy, fishy goodness!

How has it taken me 5 years living in hawaii to ever buy fish from the side of the road?

The World's Best Ice Cream Ever: Black Cherry Goat-Milk Ice Cream

This icecream was so groan-inducing, so rich, so fragrant, so tart and sweet... dear Lord. The recipe is adapted from the Vitamix Whole Foods Cookbook's Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe.

Throw the ingredients into your Vitamix (or reglar ole blender, if you must):
1 c. half/half
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. dry goat milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c. ice cubes
2 c. frozen black cherries

If you are of the Vitamix tribe, tamp the ingredients down, blend for 20-60 seconds until the four mounds form. Serve quickly! It melts! If you are of the reglar ole blender tribe, just blend it until it's blended, and then throw it all in the freezer for a while.