Salmon Patties

As our garden is now starting to produce peas I was reminded of one of my favorite fish dishes. If you know me you know that I am not extremely fond of fish, but I love this recipe! I remember helping Grandma make this when I was little. She would get all the ingredients out and dump them into a large bowl. I then got the super fun job of mashing it all together with my bare hands! Of course, you had to be kind of careful not to make too much of a mess. 

-Jennifer Figgins
daughter of Jesse Figgins and Mary Bryan

Salmon Patties

Ingredients:
1 sleeve of saltines
1 large egg
1 can of pink or red salmon
vegetable oil

Crush the sleeve of crackers into small pieces.

Drain the can of salmon.

Slightly beat the egg.

In a large bowl incorporate all the ingredients together.

Form mixture into skinny patties.

Use enough oil to coat the bottom of a skillet.

Add patties once the skillet is hot.

Fry on both sides until a golden brown crust forms.

Serve hot.


Makes about 4-5 hamburger-sized patties

*Note: Peas are a great side to go with the patties.

Homemade Ice Cream at Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2011 in Arizona Max Miller, Jon Jelen, and Steve Jelen

I thought you might like this picture of my dad (Max Miller), Tammy’s husband (Jon Jelen), and Tammy’s son (Steve Jelen) working on homemade ice cream at Thanksgiving. It reminded me of the picture you posted of Grandpa making ice cream.

- Marcia Chadly

daughter of Max and Shirley Miller

Mulberry and Rhubarb Pie

Last night I waited up to meet my egg fairy, well everyone else might know him as my cousin Mike! He and his wife, Chris, raise free-range laying hens and there is nothing like farm fresh eggs! The best part is he delivers right to your refrigerator! LOL As we are in the middle of Mulberry season I was processing mulberries when he arrived. We then got to talking, as Millers often do, about picking mulberries. I told him how I picked them the hard way the first round... you know the painstaking way of one ripe berry at a time. 

I had to laugh because a couple of days later I went to my brother's and picked more with Sara. She taught me how to use old sheets and shake the tree. We lined the ground under the tree with old sheets and then grabbed the branches above them and shook them until the ripe mulberries stopped raining down on us! In a matter of minutes you are left with sheets covered with ripe mulberries and then all you have to do is grab the corners of the sheets and pour them into your buckets. So simple and fast! 

The truly funny part of that is that it was my mom who told her how to do it that way. I guess she remembered Auntie and Grandma Spratt picking them that way, but somehow she neglected to tell me about it. :) Mike then laughed and said that he could remember picking mulberries when he was younger with his parents. He told me that they used rope or something like that to loop around the tree so that you could shake the living daylights out of it. LOL He said that he even remembered his dad using the tractor to shake the tree! I guess it worked great and there wasn't a ripe berry left on the tree when they were done! LOL Kind of makes me think of the old cowboy motto only modernized by replacing the horse with a tractor... if you can't do it from the seat of your tractor then it's not worth doing!

-Jennifer Figgins
daughter of Jesse Figgins and Mary Bryan

Mulberry and Rhubarb Pie

Ingredients:
2 cups mulberries with green stems removed
1 cup chopped rhubarb
2 tsp lemon zest
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
unbaked double-crust pastry for pie

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 

Combine mulberries and rhubarb with salt, sugar, flour and lemon zest.

Pour the filling into the lined pan.

Distribute the filling, heaping them toward the center.

Brush rim of the pastry with a little milk. 

Cover with the remaining piece of pastry. 

Gently press the edge with thumb tips. 

Cut off excess, holding the knife at a slight angle. 

Flute the edge with your fingertips, then brush the top with milk and sprinkle with sugar.

Cut a 1/2 inch steam hole or design in the top crust. 

Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly.

Grandma Joy's Homemade Ice Cream

I have been searching for Grandma Joy's homemade ice cream recipe for a long time now.  It took a lot of searching by several family members and I am excited to announce that I think we have finally located it!! 

The following is some of the relaying that lead up to the discovery... 

To Max:
From: Marie Miller
I found this hand written recipe (in one of the girls' handwriting)   I believe it is the one Mom used to use.  Let me know if this is the right one.

To Marie:
From: Max Miller
Thanks, Marie.  It sounds likely, but I don’t know how we would know for sure.  I will send it on to Mary too, so she won’t need to keep looking for pasteurized eggs.  

The email was then forwarded by Max to Mary Bryan.

To: Jennifer
From: Mom (Mary Bryan)
Here is Mom’s Ice Cream recipe or close enough.

...You have to love the game of telephone!! Thank you to all who have searched for this recipe. It is definitely loved by many and will be cherished for years to come!

- Jennifer Figgins

Daughter of Jesse Figgins and Mary Bryan

Homemade Ice Cream

Ingredients:
6 eggs

2 cups Sugar

1 tsp salt

1 qt cream

1 tbsp vanilla
milk
rock salt
ice

Beat 6 eggs well.

Add 2 cups of sugar incorporating one cup at a time into the mixture.

Next stir in salt, cream and vanilla.

Mix Well.

Pour the mixture into the ice cream-maker container.

Add milk to the container filling it up to the middle of 2nd loop from top.

Next place container into ice cream-maker.

Pack ice around container using 1 part rock salt to 4 parts ice.

Be careful not to over fill ice and salt. The ice should not go over the lip of the container. This could contaminate the ice cream mixture inside.

Serve immediately!