Sherry – Page 46 – Rosemary and the Goat

Tomato and Onion Salad

There’s nothing better than a summer ripen tomato.

Do you have tomatoes growing in your yard/garden/pot or even in a hanging upside down pot? If you do, you really need to try this salad. If you don’t have them growing (like me) then go to a farmer’s market or road side stand and buy the freshest smelling ones you can find.

What is that incredible smell (some call it summer perfume) when you put a freshly picked tomato to your nose. If you have ever brushed against a tomato plant you will know that smell or for me have my now deceased dog coming in smelling like the most perfect tomato you could have wanted to eat, but she got to it first. Would you describe them as earthy, musky, sweet, tangy. The tomato has a unique aroma, odor, fragrance, or scent; and no matter how you describe it most of that smell comes from the stem and foilage than the fruit itself.

When we did those bar-b-q pork steaks a while back that I was telling you about, my husband wanted me to look up side dishes that maybe were difference than what we normally do. Of course, I knew what I was going to find — at Southern Living I found there top 10 bar-b-q side dishes and what were they? — deviled eggs, coleslaws, beans, tomatoes, etc. Exactly what we normally have with bar-b-q. Sometimes we might do cheese grits and years ago we use to do potato salad a lot but there are certain things you just must have with bar-b-q.

Do you have favorite side dishes for your cookouts whether it’s bar-b-q or anything grilled? If you do, please leave a comment below.

August 5, 2013 By Sherry

Salads

Nutty Coleslaw

How many ways have you prepared slaw?

I’m not sure what the difference in a coleslaw recipe and slaw recipe is, but here’s my take on it. Coleslaw is usually shredded cabbage and maybe vegetables but always has some type of mayonnaise based dressing poured over it. Slaw on the other hand, to me, is something as simple as shredded cabbage with vinegar, salt and pepper and a tiny bit of oil that we put on top of our pulled pork bbq (You would never put a mayo type slaw on a pulled pork sandwich in my opinion.). The Asian slaw that a lot of people make with the browned almonds and Ramen noodles is a SLAW not coleslaw.

I’ve also made a lemony purple and green slaw that you keep the two colors separate and they are both dressed with the same oil based dressing. You can’t forget KFC coleslaw, of course, I love the stuff and I found a recipe years ago from Top Secret Recipes that to me is just as good as the Colonel’s recipe. (See bonus recipe below for KFC Coleslaw.)

One weekend my husband decided to do some very thick (1 1/2″ thick cut pork steaks) and as usual they were so tender you could cut with a fork. This COLESLAW was just the needed crunch to the meal. I substituted the almonds with toasted sunflower seeds AND pinenuts. The recipe from Southern Living called for bagged coleslaw mix which I used but I would have preferred to buy a red cabbage and green cabbage so the coleslaw would have had more purple cabbage mixed in.

July 31, 2013 By Sherry

Bread

Jalapeno Popcorn Cornmeal Muffins

I’ve never heard of popcorn cornmeal! Have you?

You can leave off the popcorn; this was just an afterthought for the picture. The picture would have looked better with a plate full of popcorn with muffins on top. Oh well, maybe next time.

Have you ever thought about popcorn and it’s many uses? I’ve used it for a garnish on beer cheese soup, made caramel corn out of it, popcorn balls years ago, used it for packing material (I’ve heard of that, never done it myself), even strung it on thread for garland on a Christmas tree but I have to say I’ve never heard of making cornmeal from it.

Popcorn is the only type of corn that will pop, it is a whole grain corn and there is a difference in popping corn and the kind you eat off the cob, out of a can or package. You can google it and find out for yourself.

I love trying different products and when we were back home a couple of weeks ago, our friends Kay and Steve McKaskle (McKaskle Family Farm) gave me some of their newest product which is Braggadocio Popcorn Cornmeal. They are making polenta also from this corn. So I was asking them about how they came up with the idea and it came from one of their customers who wanted a non-GMO cornmeal and could not find non-GMO corn and then she remembered that their popcorn was in fact non-GMO. She began grinding it and tried it out with corn muffins. They visited the lady and tasted her yummy cornmeal muffins made with the popcorn meal and sampled the popcorn cornmeal. So, from that meeting they decided they wanted to mill their own popcorn cornmeal. Also with a new electric eccentric sifter they discovered they could mill popcorn into polenta and grits. Several chefs are now trying out their polenta. By this fall they will be offering white organic corn grits. And, now they are growing black beans which I can’t wait to try. They already produce basmati rice, long grain brown rice and white rice. Check out their site at McKaskle Family Farm.

July 26, 2013 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta/ Side dish

White Cheddar Mac and Cheese w/ Truffle Oil

Who says you can never go home again!

We were recently back home for my twin sister’s husband’s (Gary) funeral. Why is it so hard to say goodbye to someone you have known for most of your life even though you know there is no more suffering and he is in a better place.

We saw so many of their friends and our old friends from years of growing up in Caruthersville and while sitting in Church looking around, I’m thinking did I get older too, and when did that happen; I guessI haven’t spent too much time looking in the mirror.

Even though it was such a difficult time it was great seeing all of Gary’s family together for each other. One night while visiting with his cousin, Frankie and her husband, Paul (we grew up as neighbors) reminded me of the time he was pulling my sister and me in a little wagon and we were topless. He has the picture and if I get it I will surely post it here. Now, I’m sure we were five or six years old and cute as a bug back then.

So, when I here “you can’t go home again” I say phooey. I can close my eyes and find myself in Figgens ice cream shop as a little kid sitting on a stool, legs swinging, having a Walk-Away sundae, or pulling in at Knox’s drive-in during lunch at high school, or picking cotton (for fun) when we were in high school, riding the loop of our small town, parking at the sea wall, going into Sears and Roebuck to pick up an anticipated brown package with a plaid back to school dress and even memories of standing in the kitchen with my mother with “The Wayward Wind” playing in the background from some vintage radio. When we go back home I really feel like we never left.

One of the homiest (if that’s a word) food I can think of as a comfort food would be macaroni and cheese. While we were in Nashville a few weeks ago, we had dinner at the Firefly restaurant with my sister. We decided to try their Truffled White Cheddar Mac and Cheese appetizer. It was perfect for the three of us to share. It was such a delicious, creamy, tangy concoction topped with crunchy panko bread crumbs.

July 21, 2013 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ Garnish

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Garnish

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose……

What is Christmas in July anyway. I never really understood celebrating Christmas in July but I decided to show you this cute little garnish I use to make for all the Christmas parties I catered.

This is such a great tray garnish for your holidays. No instructions really needed but here’s how I would always make them.

Choose a perfectly “reindeer head” shaped pear. I always used the brown pears. Now for the ginger root, I would sort though the bin of ginger root pieces and find two that looked like reindeer antlers and then break off what I needed; why buy what you don’t need, right.

Decide how you want to situate the antler pieces and cut the bottom off in a slant to fit the shape of the pear where it will be sitting.

Cut the bottom of the pear off at a slant so it will sit with the nose end up. Put two toothpicks into each piece of ginger (that way they don’t swivel around) and insert into the back of the pear.

Cut radishes slices for the eyes. Attach them by using half a toothpick for each and insert that almost all the way into the pear leaving just enough sticking out of the radish to attach the raisin to.

July 17, 2013 By Sherry

Food Stories

Re-visited Recipes

Some of my most viewed recipes.

Only occasionally do I get comments on recipes I post. I wish I got them more often especially if someone out there ever tries any of the things I make and post; but even if I don’t I get excited seeing how the count continues to go up on people searching for recipes to try.

So I decided to sort through some of the most viewed things and see if by chance you missed these.

PEANUT BUTTER SHADOW COOKIES

My all time highest viewed recipe is the Peanut Butter Shadow cookie that I have made since the 70’s. Don’t ask me how 21,023 people even found this recipe. They would have had to Google Peanut Butter Shadow Cookies. Anyway, it is a delicious cookie full of peanut butter and chocolate.

BACON WRAPPED DATES WITH BALSAMIC

If you love dates then you will love these Bacon Wrapped Dates with Balsamic — 3,015 views. I love the sweet and salty taste of this appetizer. And appetizers are one of my favorite things to make.

July 13, 2013 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Parmesan Crab Grilled Oysters

Not an oyster eater? I think you would love these.

After our vacation a month ago (can’t believe it has been that long since we were at the beach) we went to Panama City Beach. I already told you the honeymoon story when I posted the White Chocolate Key Lime Pie.

So our first night there we got recommendations for a couple of restaurants. One was the Boat Yard and another one was Anderson’s Seafood (we had eaten at Anderson’s 44 years ago). While we were strolling around the boat docks looking at what the fishermen and their clients had caught for the day we came upon Boat Yard. It had really good reviews etc. and when we went in there was at least an hour’s wait. We like our nice restaurants just like everyone else, but we both kind of looked at each other and decided it was too touristy for us, too big and not at all what we were looking for. I had done some googling for oyster and soft shell crab restaurants and found Billy’s Oyster Bar which turned out to be just across the street. Definitely a local spot.

Upon arriving at the restaurant I was told that there would be a 20 minute wait for either inside or outside dining. By the time my husband parked the car and found me I was at the bar. We ordered drinks and sat there for awhile waiting and watching a young guy shuck oysters and ended up eating our meal at the bar listening the the oyster guy. And, the soft shell crabs were delicious. I had never had them before and will definitely be looking for them on menus when we go out.

July 7, 2013 By Sherry

Egg Dishes/ Morning Foods

Duck Confit Hash

I’m using the last of my duck confit; time to make some more I guess.

For Father’s day this year I decided to do a special dish for my husband who has been doing more than his share of the work around here for the last year.

I have talked about duck confit in the past and have told you how to make it so I’m hoping someone out there has tried it and maybe has one leg quarter stashed away in the refrigerator. I just happened to have a leg and thigh left over in a jar, covered in duck fat and just waiting to be used. There are still two packages in my freezer I need to make some more confit because there is a pear salad with crispy duck that I want to make this summer.

All hash has potatoes in it but I decided to use the small purple fingerling, regular fingerling and tiny red new potatoes. This recipe was so easy to throw together and if you want to practice your egg poaching skills, this is the perfect recipe to try it on. My poached eggs could have been cooked less by about 15-20 seconds.

July 1, 2013 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert

Very Berry Cake

This mixture of berries is wonderful.

It’s berry picking time again and what berries are you going to be picking and the BIG question is what are you going to make with them. Don’t you just love trying out new recipes on friends and family? I do and this one turned out great.

This recipe came to life when I saw Pioneer Woman make her Blackberry Cobbler. I needed a quick dessert for a meeting I was having at my house one night and with blackberries and blueberries in the freezer I had a head start on the grocery shopping. I knew I wanted to add strawberries to the mix and I think that was a good move. You can decide what fruits to use when you make it and if you do, please leave a comment below.

I made one other change which you may or may not want to try; I added some chopped crystallized ginger to the top of the cake. I love the peppery, sugary bite it added to the cobbler. This recipe is definitely more of a cake than a cobbler, I think, and a little vanilla whipped cream just takes it up a notch. I guess ice cream on the warm cobbler/cake right out of the oven would be wonderful but I’ve always gone more for whipped cream than ice cream on desserts.

I’m calling this a cake because to me a cobbler has lots of fruits, juice and pastry crust strips on the bottom and top of the dessert. That’s what I grew up with.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Need another use for those berries. Here’s a Blackberry and Raspberry Upside Down Cake that I posted back in 2009.

June 21, 2013 By Sherry

Side dish

Asparagus Coins

Happy Father’s Day to all the great dads out there.

I love this time of the year when we start getting all kinds of asparagus in the grocery. For this dish you will want the biggest asparagus you can find.

I love all kinds of asparagus, the purple, the fat, the very thin green but I have not tried the white asparagus. Don’t gasp but I do still love canned asparagus. Something about that brings back memories of when I was first married and made this asparagus casserole that was my sister’s mother-in-law’s recipe. It’s delicious and one day I may try to make it with fresh asparagus.

When I first saw this Asparagus Coins recipe in Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc cookbook I loved the idea of asparagus being cut into small coin pieces and I thought it would look such an interesting look around a piece of fish.

I’ll have to tell you that a recipe that looks so simple turned out to be a lot of trouble. TK’s recipe had you sauting parsley and then making a parsley water in your blender (another piece of equipment dirtied) that you were suppose to cook your asparagus in; then you made a chive oil that had to be refrigerated. It was so much work I almost decided it wasn’t worth it. All I was going for was the look of asparagus cut in tiny cute little pieces.

So, the way I’m telling you to make this is much easier. Forget making a parsley water to cook the asparagus in. I’m doing a very quick saute on the asparagus and then adding the parsley to the pan. As for the chive oil, just cut up the chives into the oil and let set for about 10-15 minutes before using.

Like I said, all I wanted were those cute little asparagus coins.

June 16, 2013 By Sherry

Fruit Dishes/ Morning Foods/ Salads

Dragon Fruit Salad

Beautiful and unusual fruit.

How often do you go out of your comfort zone? I’m doing it more lately and on a recent trip to Central Market in Houston I was eyeing some of the fruits that were being sampled. I have to admit I had never tasted the Rambutan, Dragon fruit or Feijoa and I don’t think I have ever laid eyes on them either.

Typically my fruit salads start with bananas, strawberries, melon, kiwi and maybe apples. But today I’m going way out of my comfort zone and adding three new fruits to my repertoire of fruits.

When the man handing out samples of the rambutan, cut it open, my first thought was “hey, this looks like an eye ball” but it has a seed in the center. My first thought of the Feijoa when I opened it was that the center kind of looked like bone marrow. Now, those aren’t very appetizing descriptions of some new fruits I want you to try so I guess I should just be quite about what I thought the fruits looked like. When I opened the dragon fruit, I did think it was beautiful; white flesh full of hundreds of black tiny seeds. And, what can I say about a star fruit, it looks like a star. I once used the star fruit when I made a dragon sushi roll and I cut the star fruit in thin slices and put it in between the sushi pieces to look like scales, very pretty.

So, I’m taking rambutan, feijoa, dragon fruit, kiwi, strawberries, star fruit, a little lime and honey and coconut white balsamic vinegar and making a fruit salad with some new acquaintances.

Dragon fruit — Dragon fruit is a member of the cactus family and is football shaped and has a beautiful pink/red thick skin. There are three varieties, red, white and yellow flesh with greenish petals sticking out here and there and they have hundreds if not millions of black seeds and this fruit tends to be enhanced in flavor when mixed with other fruits. This fruit is very common in Asia. And here’s an interesting bit of information. Dragon Fruits help to protect the environment because they absorb carbon dioxide at nighttime, and then release oxygen to purify the air. Dragon Fruit contain no cholesterol, saturated fat or trans fat. Cross between a kiwi and watermelon.

June 11, 2013 By Sherry

Vegetables

Honey Lime Carrots and Radishes with Cilantro

Carrots are devine… You get a dozen for a dime, It’s maaaa-gic! – BUGS BUNNY

Carrots were probably one of those vegetables that as a kid I pushed to the side of my plate or did as my kids did and hide them under something else looming uneaten on the plate.

As I aged, and don’t we all hate doing that unless we are 15 and can’t wait for the next year to pass so we can start driving, I learned to appreciate the beautiful orange root vegetable and the things you can do with it. It’s hard for me to pass up a crunchy carrot on a vegetable platter and I’ve used the carrot to make flower coins to mix with other vegetables for a side dish, and who doesn’t like carrot cake. As my grandmother use to say “it’s good for you, it has carrots in it”.

I was looking at some recipes on line one day for carrots and ran across this recipe for baby lime carrots at Carries Experimental Kitchen and knew exactly what I was going to do with this recipe to change it up.

Normally I would steam carrots as not to lose any of the nutrients, but for this recipe I wanted to use a lime water to impart some of the flavor into the carrots and I don’t think the carrots will lose that much of their nutritional value with a quick bath in the lime water.

I couldn’t find red carrots the day I bought these so I opted to add some long skinny red radishes to the mix. Next time I won’t use the radishes. Even though I’ve seen recipes for cooked radishes, I didn’t care for the texture.

Carrots are not only orange but also come in purple, white, red and yellow. Here are some fun facts and trivia I found about carrots at Koffeeklatchgals.https://koffeeklatchgals.hubpages.com/hub/Carrot-sayings-quotes-fun-facts-and-trivia.

Some other cute notable carrot quotes:

Heaven is the place where the donkey finally caches up with his carrot: hell is the eternity while he waits for it — Russell Green

Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie — Garfield

I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond – Mae West

June 6, 2013 By Sherry