Wedding Day Photos

HiHo and lobster

On a boat in the Gulf of Maine :D Always a lady. I love and miss you Mom!

Wedding Day Photos

Breakfast in Florida!

A fun picture of Hi-Ho on vacation!

HiHo's Famous Spinach Dip

This dish epitomizes Mom in terms of my favorites dishes. I also adore this picture of my mother as a young girl in Stonington. I see my oldest son in her face, they were almost doppelgangers a few years ago. Only a handful of recipes things conjure such a direct, memory filled, and long term connection to my Mom - and this is most certainly one of them. . Spinach dip sandwiches, tea sandwich sized pieces served on red and gold plates, were a Christmas tradition for my Mom.
This recipe is easily doubled or tripled for large groups. It became my staple, as the family vegetarian, for many years. It was our most frequent meal in college, so this one is for you La!

Ingredients
1 package frozen chopped spinach
1/2 teaspoon dill weed
1/2 cup chopped scallions
1 cup mayonnaise (or less)
1 cup sour cream (or less)
salt
pepper
1/2 cup chopped parsley
Juice of 1/2 a lemon (or a tablespoon of the stuff in the jar)

Process

1. Places frozen spinach into strainer. Thaw spinach and drain thoroughly.
   
2. Press to remove extra water, ladles or potato mashers also work well.
   
3. Mix all ingredients and add to drained spinach.
   
4. Mix well.
   

Dip is better if allowed to chill a few hours or overnight. Serve with raw vegetables or make into small sandwiches.

Garro's Egg Nog

This Eggnog is legendary! There are countless stories out there from the numerous people that have consumed this on Christmas Eve at our house. Please, if you have a memory to share, leave a comment and share a story. Also, don't question the measurements - they are tried and true.  

Ingredients

75 oz eggnog

25 oz. whiskey

12.5 oz rum

12.5 oz brandy

3 oz. meyers

 

Process 1. Reserve plastic milk jugs to store egg nog in. 2. Combine ingredients. 3. Make a nutmeg ice ring, placing water and ground nutmeg in a bunt pan, and place in freezer. 4. When ready, place Eggnog and ice ring in punch bowl. 5. Establish your designated driver, and drink accordingly.

Cucumber Sandwiches

Meet my favorite summer sandwich. HiHo loved making cucumber sandwiches. My kids ask for them by name. Friends want me to fax them and there is none other can compare. My making of these sandwiches has been compared to OCD and has rendered other people incapable of making sandwiches. They are so good, SP at them while mowing the lawn.

Meet the cast of characters - a simple line up.

Ingredients











1/4 to 1/2 a red onion, minced
White Bread, preferably Pepperidge Farm
Hellmann's Mayo
one cucumber (yea there's 4 in the picture but you only need one)
lemon pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Process
1. Mince your onion

















2. Fork your cucumber - yes you take a fork and drag it down the skin, cutting slits into the skin and therefore softening it and beautifying it for your future slicing.
Yes and because HiHo taught me how.

























3. Slice your cucumber thinly.
















4. Lay out your bread into an assembly line.

















5. Spread mayonnaise, salt, pepper and lemon pepper on slices of bread.


















6. Sprinkle a layer of red onion down, and then cover it with a layer of cucumbers.















7. Close your sandwich and press.















8. Cut into different shapes, and arrange on a plate.

Happy Mothers Day!

I know - it's a blurry picture of a picture again.
But it is HiHo, holding me on her hip, standing next to my sister, while we were in the top of the lighthouse in Stonington. It is a special very meaningful picture to me.
I miss you HiHo.
Happy Mother's Day.

HiHo’s Apple Cake

Ingredients
2 teaspoons cinnamon
5 Tablespoons sugar
5 DELICIOUS apples; peeled, cored and sliced
3 cups flour
3 cups sugar
3 teaspoons baking soda
4 eggs
1 cup Wesson oil
1 teaspoon salt
Juice of one orange
2.5 Teaspoons vanilla

Process
1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Mix first three ingredients in large bowl and set aside.
3. In another bowl, mix remaining ingredients and beat 5 minutes.
4. Grease and flour pan.
5. Pour into tube pan by layers, first batter then apples then batter and finally apples.
6. Bake in oven for 1 and 1/2 hours

HiHo’s Blueberry Pudding

This recipe card is one of my favorites. It came out of a recipe book that HiHo helped put together for the Hospital volunteer Guild. HiHo was a member of the guild and a veteran volunteer for the local hospital, where I was born and where I later birthed my first child. This particular page has HiHo’s handwriting scrawled all over it with additions and recommendations. Why? Because this was HER recipe and donation to the cookbook! She added to it and improved it over the years! Well used and much loved, this recipe is timely this August since I have been storing quarts of blueberries daily.

Ingredients
3 cups blueberries
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
6 slices bread (HiHo noted “no crust”)
Butter (HiHo noted “melted”)
Cinnamon
Dash of Rum (HiHo recommended Myer’s Dark rum)
And then added in HiHo’s writing:
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 tsp. Gelatin? (My best guess is that it is added in the first step with the berries)

Process
1. Over medium heat, cook berries with sugar and water for 10 minutes.
2. Add rum and stir.
3. Spread melted butter over bread and sprinkle with cinnamon.
4. Arrange bread and berries in alternate layers in a loaf pan.
5. Refrigerate for several hours.
6. Un-mold, slice, and serve with heavy whipped cream and some Rum! :)

I love you HiHo!

HiHo's Hors d'Oeuvres

Today I have decided to throw order out the window, go back in time, and post recipes from HiHo's recipe box.

Why would I do something so non-linear on a day like today?

Because today is a day like no other, a day I mark time with, a day that 10 years ago changed our family life irreversibly, when HiHo died suddenly and unexpectedly.

Today I am wishing her, and my brother, sister, and father; peace and happiness with music, flowers, and good home cooking!

One thing HiHo was notorious for was keeping track of what she served her guests. Every dinner party she even had was documented, with a list of the guests and what she served. She had notations written on the cards about where the recipes were found. The difficult part has been the detective work it took to figure out what cookbook or chef, for example, C.C. stood for. Better yet, many of her recipes were ideas written out on a recipe card and added to over time, so that there are no ingredients, proportions or instructions, just a written out idea of what she had in mind. So now I present to you, some of these ideas a card simply listed as Hors d'Oeuvres.

Hors d'Oeuvres

• Smoked salmon wrapped around cucumber
• Hearts of palm marinated in salad dressing
• Smoked Oyster in top of slit cherry tomato
• Pickled carrots
• Chopped and sauteed mushroom sandwiches - extra thin bread, only butter, no mayo.
  
• Roasted pecans
• Pickled watermelon rind, wrapped in bacon, and broiled.
• Cream cheese with chutney or sweet/sour mustard
• Endive with pate dip.