Sherry – Page 30 – Rosemary and the Goat

Cucumber Noodle Salad

Ever see green noodles? These are cucumber.

Do you have a lot of tools/pans in your kitchen pantry? I have way to many but I NEED them. Never know when I might need one of them to make something special. The spiralizer is my newest gadget. See picture of my pan pantry below and this doesn’t even include my gadgets hiding away in my drawer or mini tart tins and cookie cutters in pull out bins. I even have a strawberry huller/pinfeather plucker and I never intend on plucking a chicken.

I first tried making cucumber noodles when I made my Spiralized Veggies with Salmon; now, I’m on the search for anything to twist out of my Paderno Pro 4 Blade Spiralizer. English cucumbers definitely work the best if you can find them.

Yikes, it is almost swimming season and if we start heating our pool this month then I’m in trouble (the dreaded swimsuit season is here). Aren’t we all looking for new recipes for the summer to take to get togethers? Honestly, I don’t think I will ever get tired of cooking and trying out new recipe as long as there is someone around to try them out and with my husband I can always count on getting a thumbs up or thumbs down. I hope for a thumbs up, of course, and the thumbs down never make it on this blog.

April 14, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Red Snapper with Citrus Gremolata

One fish that didn’t get away.

I’ve always loved fishing but not too much into baiting that hook. I remember as a kid my dad taking us fishing and we would always have him to bait the hook. Now, I don’t mind putting a minnow on the hook; after all, that is just a baby fish. But, I never wanted to put a squirmy worm or a hopping cricket on the hook. I remember my dad sometimes trying bread balls or even a piece of bologna to try to catch some kind of fish, and he usually caught something.

A couple of Februarys in the last several years I have gone fishing with my husband and one of his friends at River Ridge Fish Camp in Texas. The fish we are looking for were white bass (not my favorite) BUT we would catch our 25 limit each in less than two hours. Now, that was fun fishing. I wasn’t along on the Alaska fishing trip my husband went on but did get to eat the 75 lbs. of silver salmon, king salmon and halibut he brought home.

Several weekends ago we decided to take a road trip down to Port Aransas and on every menu there was some kind of red snapper listed and when we returned home I hopped on over to the store and bought some; $22/lb., ouch, (this week it was $16/lb.). While at Port A I had a Mahi Mahi with a butter sauce and it got me to thinking about making a gremolata and using it on red snapper.

April 9, 2016 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Salads/ Sandwiches

Smoked Chicken Salad with Cranberries and Roasted Pecans

Not for a sandwich kind of chicken salad.

Back when we were first married my husband always wanted me to put apples in our tuna fish salad sandwiches. Yuck, I would say, fruit doesn’t belong on a sandwich and if he wanted apples in his then he would chop some up and put on his sandwich. When it comes to any creamy type salad that goes on a sandwich my opinion is NO fruit.

But, I have changed my mind over the years (not about fruit on sandwich) about adding fruit to things like chicken salad. There are so many chicken salads that have fruit like grapes, oranges, pineapple and this one has dried cranberries. To me this type salad has to be eaten with a fork or in this case I’m using some endive leaves and radicchio as little containers and also some crackers on the side. And funny thing, the day after my bunco group ate this my husband wanted some for lunch and he said do you have any bread, and I said Noooo, you can’t have bread with that kind of chicken salad. I know that’s crazy but I gave him a fist full of crackers instead.

There are two things I always feel like make a salad recipe better, that is, if it calls for chicken or nuts you use smoked meat and roasted nuts. I do my nuts in the microwave on a Pampered Chef small baking stone and we always have something on the Kamado Joe Smoker I can use in a salad.

April 4, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts/ Ice Cream

Lemon Sorbet with Mint Marigold Syrup and Meringue Bark

Put those marigolds in your yard to good use.

Don’t you just love beautiful desserts. Sometimes they look better than they taste. There is nothing worse than seeing, wanting, buying and eating a beautiful dessert only to find that it was all looks and nothing in the taste department.

You should know by now that I love copying or trying to recreate something I’ve eaten at a restaurant. It’s not like going to someone’s house and you love something and ask the hostess for the recipe and she’ll give it to you. You have to do a little detective work sometimes.

A few weeks ago, I met my daughter, Alexis for lunch in Austin at Olemaie. I always want what the person next to me ordered. This girl had a bowl that looked like salad, had some interesting greens, sprouts, fennel etc on top but it was a bowl of dumplings and not salad at all. The most delicious drop dumplings I’ve ever had and I didn’t think I even liked “dropped” dumplings and the bowl had pieces of fermented carrot floating in the broth along with the dumplings. Of course we ordered their BISCUITS which are not on the menu at all; they are a secret and only people knowing about then, know to order them. I’d read about them before going there. $10 for three biscuits with honey butter and it was the best $10 I’ve spent in a long time. Big square biscuits, brown and crunchy on all sides and soft in the middle. (Of course, I’m trying to find out how they made them and I did read some of their secrets which I will be trying.)

March 30, 2016 By Sherry

Egg Dishes/ Morning Foods

Asparagus with Poached Egg, Toast and Bacon Vinaigrette

What better reason to have a brunch than a rooster table-cloth!

I didn’t need a reason to have a brunch but my rooster table-cloth has had me wanting to do brunch and have a bunch of friends over. The friends never got asked over for this recipe; someday they will.

While working at Williams Sonoma for 6 years I collected so many of their tablecloths and paid next-to-nothing for them once they went on sale. The rooster table-cloth is navy blue and have these cool roosters (and I’m not even a rooster fan.) along the border of the cloths which is just screaming or “crowing” make brunch and serve it on me.

So what should I do? Of course, make brunch but as it turned out the bunch with friends was just my husband and myself. I couldn’t wait to try to make this so rather than fuss with a bunch of other dishes and arrange time for friends to actually make it over for brunch I made it just for the two of us.

I was tracking down this chef (John Fleer) who now works at Rhubarb restaurant in Asheville and read where he had worked at the Blackberry Farm Restaurant located at the foothills of The Smoky Mountains in Walland, Tennessee, so I had to mosey on over to the Blackberry Farm website to see what was going on. Of course, the first place I look is the restaurant and the menu where I happened upon a menu item Asparagus with Poached Egg, Toast and Bacon Vinaigrette and thought I could do this without a recipe. We have eaten at Rhubarb in Asheville but this wasn’t on his menu at that time.

March 25, 2016 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Side dish

Caramelized Mushrooms

I love these little fungi.

How many ways can you love a mushroom. Well, I love them in mushroom soup, love them fried, raw in a salad, on pizza, from a can, fresh from the market and of course, who doesn’t love stuffed mushrooms. I actually won a contest with my Italian Stuffed Mushrooms back in the 70’s when we lived in Jeffersontown, Kentucky.

I would love to go foraging for mushrooms but it would be my luck I would pick the wrong kind and end up in a deep sleep or worst. What fun it would be hunting these little things; kind of like an Easter egg hunt but much tastier.

So, when I saw this recipe for Caramelized mushrooms and the instructions said “walk away” I knew I was going to have to try these. So many times, when I walk away from something I’m cooking, I end up burning the thing I was so looking forwarding to eating; but this night I did not. We were enjoying the outdoor kitchen before another one of our “cold spells” came through Texas and I decided to whip us up a little appetizer while we cooked outside. These were gone in a few minutes so make plenty if you plan on sharing them or just make a batch for yourself.

These mushrooms would be delicious as a side dish to a good grilled steak, chicken or how about a big platter of them for no particular reason.

March 20, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts

Peppermint Delight

Born again! and just in time for St. Pat’s Day.

This is a born again dessert recipe. Over the last few years I’ve been watching Paula Deen and Pioneer Woman make desserts and recipes that my mother use to make back in the 50’s and 60’s and now on Facebook all these old recipes that we grew up with are popping up all over the place. I think anyone under 50 would have never been treated to some of these family favorites.

This particular recipe is one that my sister, Terry, and I put in our Double Delight Cookbook that we did many years ago and came from one of her friends in Caruthersville.

What a fitting dessert for a St. Patrick’s Day party or anytime in the month of March when you are looking for something green to make. One year I was desperate for something green to make to celebrate St. Pat. and made these Green Velvet Cakes in a jar. I should make an Irish dinner every year since my husband’s grandmother’s family came from Ireland (grandfather’s from Scotland). My favorite Irish side dish has to be Potatoes Colcannon which is mashed potatoes mixed with some sautéed cabbage and onions and topped with cheese. I’ve only prepared corn beef like once so maybe this year with our new outdoor kitchen we can try doing it outside on the smoker. Throw in some green beer and some other green foods and some decorations and we can have a party.

March 15, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Morning Foods/ Pies/Tarts

Rustic Citrus Almond Tart

Rustic and beautiful citrus tart.

All I can say is “wow”, this was one beautiful tart. Not too tart and not too sweet, as Goldilocks said “it was just right” and I think all the ladies that tried it at my craft circle enjoyed it.

I’m sure you have all heard that snapping turtles bite and don’t let go. In Alabama they use to (may still do) call a snapping turtle “thunder turtles” because they believed that once bitten by the ST that it would not let go until it thundered. So, what does a snapping turtle have to do with this recipe.

Well, I have a problem letting go of an idea for a recipe I’ve seen or a product I have not used before. See the chunky sugar on the above tart. Well there’s even a story there. While in France back in 2012 (see, I told you I hold on to an idea for a long time) we spent a week in Provence after doing Paris (liked Provence much better) and we stayed in Eygalières in Provence area. This little commune, town, or whatever they call a town less than 1,700 actually had two bakeries a couple of grocery stores (very small, one English-speaking the other not) and one very good restaurant, sous les micocouliers which we ate at our first night there. I still get emails from them with their menus and I can’t read a word of it. (I just looked at their website and I never noticed they have “English” version.)

So, back to the story about the sugar. Every morning we would walk down to one of the local bakeries and buy some beautiful and delicious pastries (see below) for breakfast before heading out for the day. Usually at least a couple of the things we purchased had this sugar that stayed chunky. I couldn’t find it in the small local market but when I came home I looked until I finally located it I think on Amazon (of course). The sugar has been sitting in my pantry since then just waiting to be used for something special. This sugar will not melt and disappear as normal granulated sugar does at baking temperatures. I want to try it on some cinnamon elephant ear pastries sometime soon.

March 10, 2016 By Sherry

Soup

Tomato and Cauliflower Soup

A delicious combination of vegetables.

I said years ago that after moving to Texas I was tired of waiting for it to turn cold to make soup and decided that whenever the cravings for soup arose (they do often) I would make it whatever the temperature may be outside. Now that our temperatures are edging close to 80° (I hope we still have some cool temperatures left for the Spring.) I’m still trying out some soup recipes that I find interesting.

Last weekend our grandson Thomas came to visit. He won’t be two until May but he is developing some pretty good cooking skills. Recently I saw a video of him at the Kitchen Aid mixer helping mom make some banana bread. The fingers almost got pinched by the paddle but he survived to eat some of that bread. It’s kind of hard watching some of those videos cause I’m saying “watch out he’s getting ready to reach into the mixing bowl with the motor on”. He knows how to make the blade turn slower or faster so I think he is on his way to earning an apron in my kitchen. Of course I would never turn down help from a grandson. We had a pot of gumbo while they were here which was really good on a coolish day.

March 5, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Poultry

Cruciferous Chicken Crunch

This is Cruiciferous!

Ok, you are probably not like me and thought that Cruiciferous is another word for delicious or stupendous or another word for boy is that delicious.

I’m always on the lookout for some new green veggie combination and when I first ran across this bag of veggies at Trader Joe’s I thought they were just salad ingredients but upon reading the bag I saw that the veggie blend could be used in sautés also. Here’s what I did one day for lunch then improved upon it the next time I used the bag of veggies.

So my first attempt was to throw it in a skillet with a tiny bit of oil, some garlic and onion powder and after it was cooked for a few minutes I added some chopped smoked chicken thighs I had left over in the refrigerator; it was so good that I told myself that I could easily eat this every day for lunch and what a great “green” thing to make for St. Patrick’s Day.

My second attempt was even better. I used about 1 teaspoon of sesame oil along with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, sautéed the veggies, added in the chicken as I did the first time along with about 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and then sprinkled in some sesame seeds at the end. I’m giving you the second version recipe but know if you just want to throw it in a skillet, sauté, add some chicken, it is still delicious. Continue Reading…

February 29, 2016 By Sherry

Salads

Blood Orange and Mango Salad

There’s nothing prettier than an orange salad made with a blood orange.

Can’t say I’ve ever been a big OJ fan. (I love the orange but just not in juice form.) I use to drink OJ when I bought it for the kids when they were little but I would have much rather had a glass of grapefruit juice. Have you ever had a grapefruit mimosa instead of one made with OJ. Once you have, you will never go back.

Did you ever get oranges in your Christmas stocking. I remember getting them, don’t know how often, or why I remember that but maybe that was a way of filling up the stocking; who knows.

Some of the most delicious oranges I have tasted were in Madrid. I’m not sure what they were called but they were candied. I attempted to make these after returning from that trip and the first time they turned out great (Second time I think I burned them.). These Candied Orange Quarters were the best thing I ever tasted. Ya know those little sugared orange slices you get in a bag for $1, well those are my husband’s favorite candy, but the candied ones were 1,000 times better than those and he loved them.

February 24, 2016 By Sherry

Breads/Biscuits/ Morning Foods

Sweet Potato Waffles

What a beautiful way to start a weekend.

Back in 2012 I posted my Bacon Belgium Waffles and told you about how my mother always use to put one slice of raw bacon across the batter after she had pour it into the waffle iron; and oh what a waffle that made. Once you have tried the bacon in the waffle, you will never want a waffle without bacon.

So, I have this new Paderno Spiralizer machine and was thinking about trying a different version on that waffle. Here’s how the morning progressed. My husband was up early and had already had a bowl of oatmeal so I had to convinced to try my waffle. After spiraling the sweet potato, which took all of about 2 minutes, I proceeded to try and cook them in the waffle iron (see pic below) but when I piled them onto the cooked waffle, they were pretty sad and pathetic looking.

My next step was to try deep frying them which only took about 5 minutes and I had a crunchy pile of coiled sweet potato fries which went on top of the bacon waffle, lathered in butter and surround with some pure maple syrup. Now, this was ready for him to eat and it got a thumbs up.

Then I started thinking of other breakfast ideas where I might use this new gadget of mine. How about some eggs benedict and you make a big pile of white potato curls and pile them high over the bendict or some scrambled eggs on top of a big plate of crunchy curly potatoes. I guess you are getting the idea that I love this new gadget that I got from Amazon.

February 19, 2016 By Sherry

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