mom's bread & butter pickles

The other day, we ate up the last of my "stash" of my mom's bread and butter pickles.

She always had a couple of jars in her fridge and whenever we ate egg salad or tuna salad sandwiches these would be eaten alongside.

Growing up though she would put sweet pickle relish in her egg salad and tuna salad, dunno when she changed over to these pickles...

So, since my stash was depleted, I decided to try my hand at making these.

If you want to make these here is her recipe:

8 cups cucumber, sliced
2 onions, sliced
1/3 cup Hawaiian salt
*mix and let stand for 2 to 3 hours

Sauce: 2 cups vinegar
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons whole mustard seed
1 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
*bring this mixture to a boil

After the 2 to 3 hours, squeeze out the liquid
Add the veggies to the boiled mixture
Put into jars

Enjoy!

NOTES: This recipe is super easy! The thing that takes the longest is the waiting for the salt to "wilt" the onion and cucumber.

I cut this recipe to a fourth because even though I love these, I just don't have the space to keep them, especially with the awful heat of our summers.

Luckily the tiny vegetable stand had a bunch of cucumbers on sale. I used 6 for my batch.

Instead of cayenne, I added some chili flakes. I also had to use some brown sugar because I ran out of white. I thought the taste might differ because I used rice vinegar instead of white (which she used), but the taste is the same.

Now that I've replenished my pickle stash, I think we'll be eating egg salad and tuna salad more often.

If you eat bread & butter pickles, please share with me how you enjoy them.

Have a nice weekend!

remembering

It's Mother's Day.

It's the first one without my mom.

Sometimes it is hard to believe she isn't "here".

Am thankful to all the "moms" in my life.

Love you.

comforts of home

On a cold, blustery day, nothing beats mom's cookies.

She would make them for our birthday party goodie bags, Christmas give-aways and exchanges, and recently for church bazaars.

Our dining room area would look like a factory with baking racks on the dining room table and cookie sheets anywhere they could be placed--on chairs, other tables....Of course, when she made her spritz cookies, we would have to help put the sprinkles on them. (At the time, I rebeled helping, but now I look back and am glad to have such nice baking memories with her.)

She had the "gun" like gadget that pressed out her spritz cookies, which I could never get the right pressure to get them out--she had the special touch.

Earlier this year, we celebrated my grandmother's birthday, which I posted about here, I hand carried these cookies back to Japan and put them into my freezer.

Recently, I took a couple out for us to eat, warmed them up in a low heat oven, put some mac nut ice cream on the side and voila! comforts of home!