Sherry – Page 21 – Rosemary and the Goat

Spicy Green Bean and Cucumber Salad

Hello Betty. Long time no see.

Where would I be today without you Betty? Betty who you say; Betty Crocker of course.

I grew up watching my mother cook and living next d00r to our grandparents I also saw my grandmother cook up a lot of new dishes, some good, some not so good. Especially during the holidays there were always new recipes. I remember the strawberry shortcake made with Twinkies for a summer dessert – good, but the thought of Twinkies now makes me shutter. Watching my mother cook breakfast, lunch and “supper” for us, I’m sure, gave me the desire to learn to cook and experiment with different foods. My dad was always experimenting with things like making his own bar-b-q sauce, or canning fish to make fish cakes and experimented with hushpuppies until he settled on a recipe that he used from then on.

So, back to dear old Betty and I wonder how old she is these days. Does she have wrinkles, grey hair? Has she put on a ton of weight from eating all her recipes over the years. I guess we will never know.

Betty Crocker was one of the first cookbooks I bought as a newlywed and I still have it although it is stuck away upstairs along with most of my other cookbooks since now with a flick of a few keys a person can have hundreds of recipes to choose from; sorry Betty you were replaced.

December 29, 2017 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Cheesy Bacon Caraway Toast

An old favorite!

Talk about quick, that’s this recipe. Talk about old, this was one of the first appetizers I made as a newlywed. Growing up I don’t ever remember having “appetizers” before a meal. I remember dips we had but they weren’t really appetizers before a meal.

For our December bunco get-together, our hostess, Gail, decided it would be a fun theme to bring some appetizers we remember making or having in our early years of being married. (I’ve been married going into 49 years now and still searching for new and interesting appetizers to make.)

So, we had a spinach madeline with crawfish and FRITOS (I still buy those things), a Yule Tide Log, rum balls, and a cheese ball I remember making with pineapple, green peppers etc. Didn’t we all love cheese balls back then. What happened to that trend I wonder. Someone brought deviled eggs too. I remember early on in catering a lady wanted me to make deviled eggs for a cocktail party and I thought that was not very trendy at the time. Guess what, they were the first things to be eaten. We also had a peach half salad and Cheesy olive balls (cheese pastry with an olive hiding inside) then baked. Yum. Mincemeat pie was brought by one friend. I remember my grandmother making mincemeat pie and I would not ever try it.

December 18, 2017 By Sherry

Dessert/ Ice Cream

Popcorn Ice Cream

How do I describe how good popcorn ice cream is?

Well, it taste like popcorn (my favorite food group), it’s smooth and full of vanilla flavor. Pair it with a sprinkling of salt, maybe some salted popcorn or caramel corn or my favorite with movie popcorn add-ins — Milk Duds (don’t do that any longer) and you will have a surprisingly good dessert. Crunchy, sweet, salty, what more could you want?

One beautiful night in Santa Fe back in September, with the sun going down and the temperature starting to drop my twin sister, two friends from high school (Pauletta and Judy) and me went to dinner at Eloisa restaurant. We had been to this restaurant as one of the stops on our walking food tour and during that tour they took us to the rooftop bar (Bar Alto) to show us the 360° view. A magnificent view to have cocktails before going to dinner downstairs and we knew we just had to go back there for drinks and dinner.

The Eloisa is in the Drury Hotel which is a historic renovation filled with artwork throughout the hotel (we didn’t stay there). My dinner for the night was a Beef Tenderloin with wood-grilled shrimp and a potato-corn gratin, asparagus and a spicy chipotle béarnaise. (Menu) None of us finished our steaks and we took leftovers back to the house for steak and eggs the next morning; we HAD to save room for dessert.

The Caramelized Brioche French Toast with popcorn ice cream and apricot sorbet sounded so interesting we couldn’t resist. I think I could do a better job on the Brioche French Toast (too thick and didn’t soak up enough of the cream mixture it sat in overnight), but the popcorn ice cream was so delicious and they told me (kind of) how to make it.

December 12, 2017 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Pumpkin Bacon Spread

Ok, I know what you are thinking — PUMPKIN AGAIN.

I promise, I promise, this is the last pumpkin recipe this year. I told you I couldn’t get all the pumpkin recipes posted before December.

So, if you have a jar of pumpkin butter left over from Thanksgiving, you just have to give this a try. Years ago when I worked at Williams Sonoma I often was in charge of doing the “tastings” during my shift, which meant I was trying to talk people into buying the things I was cooking even if they didn’t know they really needed to buy those products.

I remember the first time I was told to make this pumpkin dip. I thought it sounded terrible. And, I have liked salty and sweet taste together since I was a kid and dipped potato chips into soft serve ice cream. After making this several times and people immediately snatching up a jar of the pumpkin butter I decided to give it a try and I absolutely loved the taste of the salty bacon with the sweet pumpkin butter and throw in some cream cheese and green onions and spread on a crunchy cracker and it was on my list of things to “sell” when I worked. I knew if I could get people to taste it, they would be buying the pumpkin butter.

December 6, 2017 By Sherry

Salads

Pumpkin Salad with Goat Cheese with Maple Vinaigrette

So Thanksgiving is over, that doesn’t mean you still can’t make this salad.

Didn’t Thanksgiving come and go in a wink of the eye? And all those little grandsons have gone home.

I had so many pumpkin things I wanted to share this year that I couldn’t fit them in before Thanksgiving. So if you can still get those little pie pumpkins, grab one and make this salad. If you can’t or don’t want to do a pumpkin recipe in December or for Christmas, substitute butternut squash for the pumpkin pieces.

Hopefully you aren’t like me and only think certain things should be cooked in certain months. I really need to get that out of my head – that stuffing/dressing can only be made in November. That is the only time I make dressing. Even though I might freeze leftover dressing, it really never gets eaten because it seems to just not fit in March when I’m cleaning out my freezer and find a dish of my Thanksgiving stuffing that was so delicious back on the day smothered with giblet gravy with some mashed potatoes and saurekraut sitting beside it. Now that has my mouth watering and me wanting some dressing. Maybe I could stuff pork chops with stuffing, that doesn’t sound very Thanksgivingly but would use up that dressing you may have popped in the freezer.

November 30, 2017 By Sherry

Sauces

Chipotle Butter

Compound butters…

While in Santa Fe back in September we had these wonderful Blue Corn Muffins served with chipotle butter. The butter was so good and had a little heat and a little sweetness to it and got me thinking about the compound butter post I had started years ago and never finished.

Compound butter is simply butter with elegance added and we all are aware that anything with butter is all that much better and when we are starting to see our herbs come to the end of their summer lives what better way to resurect them than to make a compound butter to put in your freezer for those cold (or chilly) months and remember what your herbs gave up for you. Typically compound butters are rolled into a cylinder shape and chilled or frozen and then pats of the butter are served on the steak, fish or even vegetables or even better a sweet butter with a warm scone.

I love making compound butters because it makes whatever you put it on so delicious. A compound butter simply means that there is some sort of flavoring or seasoning added to the butter. It can be a savory butter or a sweet butter to go along with your morning scones.

I think the first time I ever made a compound butter was when I made Chicken Kiev as a newlywed and wow, how wonderful it made something that wasn’t much more than a fancy fried chicken breast, rolled around a piece of butter and deep fried. But, when you cut in the Chicken Kiev and that herbed butter streamed all over the rice you had set it on, I knew then that I was going to like this new adventure of cooking for my family.

November 24, 2017 By Sherry

Bars/ Cake/ Dessert

Pumpkin Walnut Squares

Pumpkin Cake, Bar, or Square — Good thing!

Who doesn’t need one more pumpkin recipe for the holidays? When I found this recipe I wasn’t really looking for another cake recipe but decided to give it a try and I took it to craft circle to my expert tasters. I have to omit that I did not try it because I’m still on this diet. But, I got thumbs up from everyone that tried the cake and it was gone long before we broke for lunch.

Now, I wish I had tried the cake. I’ve done this before, on a diet, make something delicious and won’t try it. That’s crazy and I need to change and at least take a bite of the desserts I make.

November 19, 2017 By Sherry

Bread/ Muffins

Blue Corn Muffins

Blue Corn Muffins – Santa Fe Style

I’ve had blue corn tortilla chips before and didn’t think much of them one way or the other; after all, they were tortilla chips that were blue in color and I’ve never noticed much of a difference between the regular and the blue corn.

While in Santa Fe back in September, we visit Eloisa restaurant twice and both times were served their blue corn muffins with a chipotle butter that was as orange as the evening sunset. The muffins had a little sweetness to it and the butter had a little heat to it — a match made in Santa Fe. And, they were just so pretty and hard to resist even though I wasn’t “eating” bread then. I have to say I did not pass up the blue corn muffins or the chipotle rolls we had at Geronimo’s on our last night in Santa Fe.

On our last day in New Mexico, we visited Chimayo. We wanted to check out the weavers and especially eat at Rancho de Chimayo since they had just won a James Beard award last year. While in one of the little shops, I was stocking up on green Hatch chile powder, the dried green chiles, and the red ones both crushed and ground I was talking to a couple of ladies in the shop (I guess they were stocking up on their spices too) and told them about the blue corn muffin I had eaten a couple of days before; and the owner heard me talking and pulled out a bag of blue corn flour. I know I could probably buy it here (Bob’s Red Mill) but there was just something about sharing recipes with these ladies that made my day. They told me how they use the Hatch green chile powder on popcorn and even though I had not had popcorn for about 10 weeks, it made me want to rush home and make some.

November 13, 2017 By Sherry

Bars/ Cookies/Bars/ Dessert

Breckenridge Bars

In the beginning…. there were those who could ski… & and then some not meant for that sport.

Many, many, manyyyy years ago we went on our first ski trip with our neighbors Mary Jo and Randy (Overland Park, KS) to Steamboat Springs, CO. Of course the kids did well first trip out and by end of trip, the Isler’s were taking them on blue (maybe even black) slopes. Me, on the other hand, had my leg wrapped around a tree the first day and being stubborn like I was (am), refused help down the mountain by the ski patrol — now that would have been a little too embarrassing. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t ruin my first day, so the rest of the day I spend on the bunny slope being pulled up by a rope and making my way down the tiny little hill.

Needless to say, by the end of the trip I couldn’t put my leg on the ground because a piece of the cartilage was caught between the joint. So, did I ever ski again? Once? And after that I stuck to snow mobiles and shopping and now with two fairly new knees I would never attempt those slopes again.

November 7, 2017 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Fontina and Mushroom Tarts

Little bites of puffed pastry and mushrooms.

With the holidays right around the corner this little appetizer will be a favorite of your guest.

Appetizers have always been one of my favorite things to make and when I catered most of the parties I did over the holidays were all appetizers. I would always have extras and they would be in my freezer at Christmas time and I could pull out so many different favorites for my family and it saved me a lot of time in the kitchen.

These days, since I’m not catering anymore, I have decide on some of my favorites to make or come up with something new to surprise my kids. I have a few special ones picked out already for Thanksgiving.

November 1, 2017 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Scones

Pumpkin Scones with a Splash of Chocolate

Ready for fall where ever you are?

Nothing says Fall, Halloween and Thanksgiving more than the sight of a pumpkin patch or the smell of something pumpkin cooking in the oven. And, it is starting to feel like fall here in Texas at least for a few days, but it would be great if those hot days were behind us for a few months.

I think pumpkin and chocolate make a great pairing in anything. Years ago I did a pumpkin chocolate chip muffins that is so good you will go back for seconds. And since I love making scones and I love taking baked items to craft circle this was a recipe waiting to happen and happened it did this past week I received so many compliments on this recipe I decided to post it right away because they can be made and frozen so during the holidays all you have to do is preheat your oven and pop these little pumpkins in the oven .

October 26, 2017 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Chicken Avocado Spread

Healthy chicken and avocado spread. Good with crackers or on a sandwich!

I’m not a fan of “diet” foods or even the words low-fat, low-calorie, gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free, free, free, free equals no taste at all in my opinion.

Remember the “fat-free” phase when it started? I think people gained more weight on “fat-free” product than eating normal products. Then you take gluten-free bread. I haven’t met one yet that I like; I’d rather do without. And, when it goes to vegan; who wants to give up soft creamy butter smeared on a piece of freshly baked bread right out of the oven — NOT ME. Life is too short to do without. Sure we could all cut back some place but where taste is concerned I want the real deal and maybe just not eat as much of the item. Continue Reading…

October 20, 2017 By Sherry

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