Sherry – Page 42 – Rosemary and the Goat

Chinese Fried Rice

Good to make with leftover chicken, bacon or pork.

This is another recipe that my sister and I have made for years (decades). I added a couple of extra ingredients and did the egg a little different but in the end it is just as delicious as the dish we have been making all out lives.

Since I was serving my Egg Foo Yung with this fried rice and I didn’t need the whole cane of bamboo shoots, water chestnuts or bean sprouts, I decided to add them to the recipe. If you want to make our original version then you can just leave out those three ingredients. BUT, I hope you will make the Egg Foo Yung along with the fried rice as a side dish.

Originally the egg was beaten and stirred into the finished dish. But I decided to beat the egg with a little soy and sesame oil and cook it like an omlette, really quick in a hot pan, flip it and then cut in strips. The egg has a better look like this rather than kind of mushing up with the rice the other way.

Just about any dish you have in a Chinese restaurant can probably be made better at home.There’s a Walnut Shrimp dish I had once in Austin and I will be posting that soon.
Continue Reading…

March 31, 2014 By Sherry

Beef/Veal/ Entree

Beef Filet with Blue Cheese Sauce

And then there was one.

Once upon a time I was cooking for two; then along came the first little Michie boy and I was cooking for three. Three years later came another Michie boy and I found myself cooking for four. To our surprise three years later a baby girl joined the group and we were a family of five.

Years later (hundreds/thousands of meals) as the Family grew, we became five, then six then seven, eight and now adding up all the grand kids and the one joining the clan in April will bring our table to 13.

So one night I found myself cooking for one. How strange is that? My hub was off on a fishing trip for a couple of days (UPDATE: they caught their 25 each limit in 50 minutes) and I could have easily thawed a frozen dinner or gone out for some terrible fast food. Instead, I decided to try this steak recipe that I have had waiting in the wings. Armed with the recipe, I headed to the store to buy the best steak I could find and maybe a bunch of asparagus to go with it; I didn’t know that tenderloin was going to be $25/lb.

What a quite dinner that was. Me in front of the TV eating this wonderful steak wondering what the cooler of fish was going to look like when my husband came home.

I can’t wait for the next family dinner with the table full of family and kids crying, throwing food (not really) spilling milk and having a great time enjoying each other’s company and the stories of what’s going on in their busy lives. The steak was delicious and my mouth waters now just thinking of it but I would have preferred to enjoy the steak with a table full of friends or family.

I love blue cheese and walnuts together and paired with this steak it was so tasty. I added a little blue cheese crumbles to the top along with some chopped walnuts and parsley for garnish.

March 26, 2014 By Sherry

Salads

Marinated Bean Salad

New twist on an old favorite.

This time of the year I start thinking what can I cook that does not have all the high fat and calories that holiday foods have in them. I have to admit nothing was better than the Beef Wellington my son Paul prepared for the holidays and the garlic mashed potatoes tasted like a gift made especially for you and what can I say about the sauce that he cooked for 4 hours reducing it down until we had the richest, thickest gravy to pour over the slices of beef wellington.

I love vinegary crunchy salads and this is an old recipe that I added a few new ingredients to. And you can probably come up with your own additions. Water chestnuts would add a great crunch and I love the crunch edamame adds to the salad. This salad would be good with beef, fish, pork or just about any kind of entree.

When I first made this salad back in the 70’s we actually used canned La Seur peas and canned green beans. I can’t believe any recipe calls for canned vegetables. This would be a great addition to any springtime dinner.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Cauliflower Mash with Kale is a really good substitute for potatoes and the kale added makes it even more healthy.

March 21, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Fish/Seafood/ HotApp/ Side dish

Shrimp Foo Yung

Ugly duckling, but oh so good.

There are recipes that my sister and I have been making for a couple of decades maybe even three decades. Isn’t that a long time to use the same recipe. As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I’ve been saying I want to make more Chinese (Asian I guess is politically correct) food and this is a recipe that’s been in our collection for so long, we don’t even know where it came from.

Not the cutest kid on the block by far, but it is so tasty you will go back for another one and then maybe even one or two more and the sauce that you pour over it is just the right touch.

While visiting my sister a while back we were iced in for several days and all we did was make tamales and cook. One night we (she) made our Shrimp Foo Yung recipe and I remembered just how good it was and scold myself for not making it more often.

Hope you like this. It is delicious served with my Beef and Pea Pods (her recipe too) or my Chinese Fried Rice or if you have a hankering for some Asian style ribs, this would be a wonderful side dish.

My sister and I both want to try making these using egg rings so the end result will be a perfectly round circle of goodness. When I do, I will repost picture of what they look like.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Zucchini Pasta with Pine Nuts is a pretty carb friendly dish. It only has a tiny bit of whole wheat pasta and the remaining “pasta” is made from zucchini. Since I posted this 1/12 I’ve had almost 2000 views of the recipe. (Someone’s looking.)

March 16, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Pork Belly (PBLT) Bites

If you like BLT’s you’ll love this.

Here’s the third installment of the pork belly saga. I know you are thinking “is she ever going to get over pork belly” — the answer is NO. I will save the taco and benedict recipes for later.

I made Anne Burrell’s recipe for braised pork belly a while back and knew since pork belly is my favorite “bacon” type product I wanted to try braising some.

I usually pick up my pork belly at an Asian market. It’s about the only thing I buy at the Asian market since I bought those frog legs that time that still had little webbed feet on them and looked like the offsprings of some mother or father that had been gigged one dark night from a “John” boat. (That’s the way my dad got them anyway.) These particular frogs looked more like babies than the big plump ones I have had in the past and I could have gone out in my yard and rounded up a few yard frogs if that were the type I wanted. (Of course I wouldn’t do that.)

If you don’t see pork belly ask your butcher about it or if you live where we were from in Missouri, it’s called Fresh Side Pork, or uncured bacon. Here’s the recipe just in case you want to try making braised pork belly.

This little appetizer is a play on BLT sandwich. I love Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches, who doesn’t, and I cannot tell you what year I last had one. Why? I don’t know, but this app has all the ingredients but in one small (or two) bites.

Longman and Eagle in Chicago use to serve a pork belly sandwich that was spread with a tomato fennel jam and it was mouth watering delicious. Since I don’t intend on making that jam, I was excited to find a jar of tomato preserves at our local gourmet market.

My plan of attack for this little bite was to butter a thin slice of baguette, top with a little tomato jam, a leaf of arugular, crispy pork belly (or thick apple smoked bacon), then a thin slice of calmari tomato and maybe another piece of argula (or not). Then a little drizzle of balsamic glaze.

March 11, 2014 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Muffins

Strawberry Goat Cheese Muffins

My daughter introduced me to these one weekend in Austin.

One weekend in Austin my daughter introduced me to this delicious muffin. She had picked up a couple at Central Market. They always have delicious baked goods; and of course they don’t give out their recipes so I had to do some digging to come up with my own version.

I’ve made all kinds of muffins over the years. I hope I haven’t told this story before but when we lived in Kansas, and this was before my catering days and probably what made me start thinking of going to culinary school, I use to sell muffins in our neighborhood. A neighbor and I decided we would make muffins every Saturday morning and sell them to friends in the neighborhood. We printed up a flyer and our kids put them on the doors so people could call in an order if they wanted fresh muffins to enjoy while they read their morning paper. We even bought little bakery boxes and tied the boxes with ribbon before delivery. We probably did this for about 6 months and then moved on to other money making projects 🙂 liked painting our pool fence (will tell that story another time).

I’m sure your thinking “what? goat cheese in a sweet muffin”. But I’m thinking the two make a pretty good match. So many muffin recipes out there are so sweet and I think the goat cheese adds a twang that counters all the sweetness.

Over the years I have made so many different muffin recipes that it’s hard to pick out a favorite. (Check out some of the ones I have posted — under bread section.) I started this recipe with an old Blueberry Muffin recipe that I’ve had in my files for years and made a few changes to it to come up with this version.

What’s your favorite muffin? Is it blueberry, apple, cinnamon or maybe, just maybe, you will add this to your list of favorites.

March 6, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Bread/ ColdApp/ Entree/ HotApp/ Pork

Momofuku’s Steamed Buns and Quick Pickles

Soft and delicious buns and the pickles are bad either.

Here’s the second installment of the pork belly saga.

Thinking of Steamed Buns brings up thoughts of dim sum and being in Chinatown/San Francisco. Back in 2001 (just a week before 9/11 happened) we were in San Francisco/Napa with our friends Peggy and Gordon. While in San Francisco we were in Chinatown and went for dim sum at supposedly one of their best places. Well, Peggy and I both can now hear the word “dim sum” and it always gets a smile and chuckle from us.

We didn’t know what to order and it seemed like everything put on our plates was sweet and gooey. I remember the buns but not what was in ours, something sweet and gooey I’m sure. Anyway, it was a fun experience watching all the waitpeople come by with their carts of goodies. Too bad we weren’t up on what to order off the menu.

Since, that experience we have had dim sum with our son/daughter-in-law in Chicago and they’re experts on everything on the menu and we have enjoyed it very much and will be much better prepared the next time on what to order.

So for this recipe you will need the Braised Pork Belly recipe that I posted a few days ago and the cucumbers that are used in this little Pork Belly Steamed Bun Sandwich.

I do hope you will try these little buns, or you could make a pulled pork sandwich using these little white buns.

I think these Steamed Buns, the Quick Pickled Cucumbers, Pork Belly and the glaze make one terrific bite of a sandwich and you won’t regret the hours it takes making the pork belly or the buns. I’m giving you the pickle recipe along with the steamed buns just because the pickles are so quick and easy and the “pickle” post would be all of about two lines long. So, you can eat these pickles with whatever you chose; I made them to go with the Pork Belly and Steamed Bun sandwich.

March 1, 2014 By Sherry

Entree/ Pork

Braised Pork Belly

And she said oink, oink, oink all the way home or at least into my pot.

Food trends come and go. In 2013 we had our cupcakes (they’ve been around for quite a while), pretzel buns, sriracha, bacon, egg on top of everything.

From what I have read on some internet chats the top trending things now are citrus flavorings, (especially grapefruit), craft cocktails including “adult” milkshakes, Asian bowls, raw meats, bitter greens, anything fermented, bourbon, oysters, vegetable-based dishes; noodle bars, “Spam” dishes, tortas, biscuits, yeahhhh and pork belly (Lardo) is still on the list, smoked everything, designer brand-name meats, Korean inspiration in our kitchens, woooah and the rise of the pressure cooker.

I love my pressure cooker and I do use it from time to time; it is the quickest way I know how to make a good stew. Just throw in the meat and cook for about 20 minutes and you have fork tender stew meat; and I can cook a pot of beans in less than 30 minutes.

Over the last few years I have seen pork belly in a lot of things. Pork Belly taco is great from Big Star restaurant in Chicago, pork belly on steamed buns (recipe in a couple of days along with the steamed buns), pork belly cut into little lardons and fried until crispy as a garnish for a good bowl of creamy soup. I’ve seen pork belly served on top of french fries, and my favorite is a pork belly BLT sandwich with arugula and a tomato fennel jam (Longman and Eagle); and I may try that one with some of my left over braised pork belly.

So, what is pork belly anyway? It’s a boneless cut of fatty meat from the belly of a pig. Both bacon and the pork belly start as a cut from the fatty underbelly of “porky”. Curing the piece is what turns it into bacon (my son, Paul, smokes his pork belly and turns it into bacon), but braising that same piece of meat turns it into the most mouth watering bite you will ever taste. Some say pork belly is the new bacon. I love them both.

So I’ve decided instead of having one long post with a thousand pictures I would break this pork belly marathon into 3 or 4 different post and post them a few days apart.

February 25, 2014 By Sherry

Side dish

Roasted Onions with Cheese Topping

I love onions, just about anyway you cook them.

One Sunday (football) afternoon my hub asked for burgers and guacamole for the playoff game he was going to watch. I still had some of my smash burger meat I had bought at the Neon Pig in Tupelo back in the summer. I’ve been hoarding it as I usually do when I find something I really like. They call this the “smash grind” mash grind and is made from aged filet, ribeye, new york strip, sirloin, and benton’s bacon. rich and smokey, and they say the best burger in the world which is served with homemade hoisin and comeback sauces.

So the burgers were going to be easy to make and the guacamole I could make in my sleep. I had a gigantic sweet onion I had just bought so I gave him the option of onion rings or sautéed onions. Since he said sautéed, I decided to roast the whole onion and add a few extra ingredients to make them even better.

This was a huge onion and I would recommend using small onions to do this recipe. I had the “giant” so decided to use it since I knew we were not having a lot of other things on the menu and we both love onions.

February 20, 2014 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Poached Salmon with Fennel and Lemon Caper Yogurt Sauce

Simple but delicious.

I can’t believe we’re still eating Salmon from my husband’s fishing trip to Alaska last summer and will for some time to come.

Every time I take out a piece of fish I can just see that fish jumping up out of the water begging to be let go knowing all the while it doesn’t stand a chance for a reprieve from the dinner table. Maybe at least he/she will envision what type of tasteful dish it will become and how others will enjoy the life they gave up.

Whatever it’s last thoughts were, I have enjoyed coming up with new ways to prepare all this salmon and halibut.

I would like some new recipes though, especially for the halibut. So, if you have any, please pass them this way.

I’ve never tried poaching salmon before and I think just about any poaching liquid would work. I just happened to have some fennel fonds on hand and a left over bottle of white wine so I used those ingredients. Giada had done this Lemon Caper Yogurt Sauce on one of her shows and it’s delicious with the fish. Wished I had thought of using some of my preserved lemons in the sauce or in the poaching liquid.

Hope you’ll give this a try.

February 15, 2014 By Sherry

Egg Dishes/ Morning Foods

Eggs in a Nest

Chickens came home to roost on these nest.

These were delicious and served with some extra sausage or bacon on the side and some fresh fruit, made a perfect breakfast.

I have always said that breakfast is my least favorite meal to prepare but I keep coming up with different ways to cook those eggs. Recently I saw a recipe where someone scooped out a baked potato and add the egg and other ingredients into the hollowed out vegetable and baked it. Now that does sound interesting.

My son, Paul has a small chicken coop and 5 chickens in his back yard, and they have finally started producing eggs. I do have to say that the “silky” chickens are really cute as far as chickens go. A few months ago my son/family woke up to “crowing” and realized one of his chickens was in fact a rooster and then it happened again a few weeks later. I guess the person selling him his baby chicks couldn’t tell the differences when they were babies. Needless to say, when this happened, they were not around long; within a couple of hours they had a new owner.

About the only time I make breakfast for my hub is Sunday morning. All the other mornings he grabs a bowl of cereal and cup of coffee before heading out the door for the golf course.

I made the fingerling potatoes with preserved lemons a few nights ago and I had a bunch of potatoes left over and just happened to be watching Pioneer woman make her potato egg nest. She didn’t have much luck with the frozen hash browns she said and ended up baking a potato, peeling it, then grating. I took her recipe a few steps further (why not?) and used my preserved lemon potatoes ( you can bake your potato) added some jalapeño, bell pepper, sausage, egg, and a pinch of cheese and a little tomato for garnish.

February 10, 2014 By Sherry

Salads

Mediterranean Grain Salad

Maybe there’s a grain here you haven’t tried.

We are losing one of my favorite specialty stores here in The Woodlands. As of March, Hubble and Hudson will be no more. That has always been my go to place to find unusual ingredients and browse their produce section that has/had amazing fresh products. We are getting a Whole Foods here so I can’t wait to see what I can find there.

Just because I obsess over finding new products to try doesn’t mean you have to. This recipe started off to be just a red quinoa salad and while shopping at Trader Joe’s I came upon this Harvest Grains Blend and thought the salad would be more interesting with a blend of different grains. This Harvest Grains Blend is a savory blend of Israeli style couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans and red quinoa. So if you can’t find this blend of grains then pick a couple or even just one to make this Mediterranean Salad.

Quinoa (keen-wah) is one of the grains in this mix you may not have tried yet. It is a grain-like (more of a seed) from the goosefoot plant. This little “seed” has a long history and if you want to more more about it to to wikpedia and read about it. It has been grown for around 5000 years in the Andes mountains.

There also seems to be a controversy over quinoa because the prices have tripled for the farmer’s selling their crops and they choose to feed their families now on wheat and rice instead of the quinoa that has been part of their diets for hundreds/thousands of years.

If you are looking for a different salad to take to a gathering, try this. I loved the different grains and the look and texture it gave the salad.

February 5, 2014 By Sherry