Sherry – Page 47 – Rosemary and the Goat

Cobb Deviled Eggs

Who doesn’t like deviled eggs any way you make them!

I’m taking back everything I ever said about not messing with deviled egg recipes. I once said “leave those creamy, mustardy, traditional eggs alone”. They just want to live out a peaceful existence as a simple side dish, snack, or appetizer that has the love of almost everyone who has ever eaten one.

WRONG. Why not mess with the recipe anyway you want. I’ve had deviled egg recipes that have mashed avocado as part of the filling, a recipe with shrimp on top (didn’t like that one) and some that have salsa on top, but I have a tendency to go with two kinds of mustard, mayo, salt and pepper and sometimes a little sweet or dill relish and then stick half a stuffed green olive in the top. No one ever turns them down how ever I stuff them. For my grandson’s first birthday, to go with the pig roast, I did deviled eggs and garnished the top with sugar snap pea sprouts that were all curly and cute.

So back to the cobb part of this recipe. I saw this on a menu at a local Houston restaurant. Not sure how they did theirs but I knew exactly how I was going to make my eggs.

June 1, 2013 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta/ Poultry

Gnocchi with Grilled Chicken and Gorgonzola Sauce

Here I go again trying to recreate a food experience.

When we were in Chicago back in March we walked to one of the local restaurants in Bucktown. I just love visiting our son and his family there because they have so many restaurants you can walk to. I guess I better be honest and say I didn’t walk. It was way toooooo cold and we had the little ones. So, Missy, my daughter-in-law, and I drove the boys and the dads walked because we all couldn’t get in the car with two car seats and four adults. By the time we loaded the kids up and lucked out and found a parking spot right in front of the restaurant, here comes the big guys just in time to help carry everyone in.

Club Lucky is a cool retro bar and Italian restaurant and has been part of the neighborhood for more than 50 years. The lounge is always filled with locals and the night we were there (5:30 ish — remember we have kids) the place was filled with families and lots of kids. When we entered, the bar was right in the front and before we were seated I decided to ask the bartender if he could make an aviation cocktail. Of course, he could. This is a cocktail from early 20th century (been around since 1911). The dining room is decorated in red, black and green with simple designs and has such a homey feel.

The waiter brought us a basket of warm bread right out of the oven with some dipping oil and butter. Yum. It was delicious along with my cocktail. I decided on one of the specials which was Gnocchi with Grilled Chicken and Gorgonzola Sauce with some sauteed spinach mixed in for color. It was wonderful and not too blue tasting either.

It was funny watching the kids eat. Oliver had an order of meatballs which he did a good job eating and then licked the butter out of the little individual containers. Now, Charlie, on the other hand, still ate baby food then (only 10 months old) so his mom was giving him bits of the bread and he was making it to his mouth with some of the bread but then we looked at the floor and it was covered with these tiny specks of bread — where were the birds or the DOG when you needed them?

So, I knew I was going to recreate this dish from my first bite and we had made gnocchi at a cooking class in Italy a few years earlier so I knew it would be a piece of cake! Recreating the recipe that is. The gnocchi takes practice.

May 27, 2013 By Sherry

Salads

Cranberry Kale Salad

Can be dressed and ready to go!

Kale seems to be all the rage today. Up until a couple of years ago, I had never eaten kale. Since then I have experimented with kale chips, kale and mashed cauliflower with kale (or potatoes) and just plain old cooked kale.

Our HEB market here sells a Kale salad that comes from the mother ship — Central Market. I’m still mad that the powers that be did not see fit to put a Central Market in The Woodlands about five years ago. Since then we have gotten a Trader Joe’s and a Hubble and Hudson which are great little stores but I miss my trips to Central Market to check out all the unusual things they have. (All I have to do is drive to Houston, but seems like a long grocery shopping trip now since we have so much right here.)

What amazes me about this salad is that it will last for several days after having been dressed at the store (I hope mine last that long). And it really does stay fresh for at least 3 days. We get together with friends occasionally and go out on their boat on Lake Conroe. We usually go out around 5:00, find a nice quite spot and float around on noodles and then have some food and drinks. Although the drinks are happening as we float also. When we went recently, the water was still a little too cold to float in so we just enjoyed the afternoon, friends, good food, wine and the beautiful sunset. This salad was perfect for the afternoon because I mixed it all up with the dressing and it was perfect by the time we were ready to eat.

So, how did I get this recipe. Well I didn’t. Since it is sold in the “foods to go section” of the grocery, they put a label on it saying exactly what is in the salad; I simply copied down the ingredients and set about coming up with an orange sesame vinaigrette recipe. I love the texture of the kale (chopped in small pieces) because it does not get soft or limp after sitting all “dressed” and waiting for you to eat it. The crystallized ginger is yummy in it and the dried cranberries add a lot to the sweet/tart taste of the salad. If you don’t like almonds, substitute walnuts or pecans. I did add bacon to the recipe; never a mistake.

May 22, 2013 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Muffins

The Best Blueberry Muffins

The vote is in and these are the best blueberry muffins!

Don’t these make you want to grab one and get a cup of tea/coffee or milk.

I always thought I had the BEST blueberry muffin recipe and in fact, in a cookbook that my sister and I put together, that is exactly what I named my recipe — The Best Blueberry Muffins.

If you love blueberry muffins and you think you have a recipe that is wonderful, I would like to hear from you and try your recipe. Like I said I always thought I had the best muffin recipe for those freshly picked blueberries I gather each year. But this recipe is from a friend, Kay, in Missouri (my sister’s husband’s cousin) and my sister had been telling me recently that this was the best recipe and that her husband, Gary, said they were the best he ever had.

Well, I have a freezer full of blueberries from last summer’s harvest and I’ve decided if I’m never picking blueberries again, I need to use up the ones I have in the freezer. For some reason they have a tough skin, I think, when they are thawed and they are not washed before freezing so I know that’s not the problem; but they are wonderful in muffins. Anyway, my berry picking this year will just be blackberries and maybe strawberries.

These muffins freezer beautifully and after thawing and few seconds in the microwave will give you a muffin that taste straight out of the oven.

I made a double recipe of these muffins and put them in a cute wire farm basket and took to craft circle of 50 or so ladies. They were gone before lunch.

May 17, 2013 By Sherry

Garnish/ Salads

Zucchini Bowl for Salad

Give any salad a new look.

Ok, I’m sitting around with nothing better to do than think of a way to use a leftover zucchini and then I happened upon a recipe; not really a recipe but more of a presentation idea I saw in Catering Source magazine. (Seems like there is a theme going here of me sitting around with nothing to do — after doing water aerobics a couple of times a week, gym a couple of times a week, craft circle working on doll houses, laundry, shopping etc. etc. I still do have a lot of time left over to ponder unimportant things like a vessel for a salad.)

I would really like a do-over with the last 20 years. Not that I would change one thing about raising my kids or any other thing I have done but I would like to have more time to travel and take cooking classes. What I always loved about catering was, of course cooking the food, but most of all I loved watching others enjoy what I prepared. Maybe I would be a food-truck owner. I love that idea and if I haven’t said it before, one weekend I want to go to Austin and check out at least 4-5 food trucks and sample their foods until I can’t hold another bite. So far, I have only been to the Flip Happy Crepe Truck and had a delicious Nutella and banana crepe which I may try to make sometime soon.

May 12, 2013 By Sherry

Dessert

Chocolate Banana Quesadillas

A quick and easy dessert.

I’m a couple of days late for a Cinco de Mayo dessert but what the heck, this will be good any time of the year.

Chocolate and bananas are made for each other, a match made in heaven; and chocolate, bananas, topped with cinnamon sugar tortillas, grilled and served with ice cream is a combination you do not want to miss.

Ya know, there is so much you can do with a flour tortilla; make chips is the first thing that comes to mind, roll up some fillings or lunch-meat for a quick sandwich; and have you ever tried cutting them up into strips and dropping them in a pot of boiling chicken broth to make chicken and dumplings. The dumplings are delicious by the way and you would never guess they were made from flour tortillas.

These quesadillas are getting spread with Nutella first, then a bananas sliced thinly over the chocolate, and then the tortillas are brushed with butter, grilled and at the end they are sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. You can top these with whipped cream, or ice cream and drizzle a little melted Nutella over and a sprinkle of nuts if you desire a crunch to your quesadilla dessert.

Hope you like these. Please leave a comment below in the comment section if you do; would love to hear from you.

May 7, 2013 By Sherry

Dessert/ Ice Cream

Coconut Almond Ice Cream

Sometimes you feel like a nut! Sometimes you don’t!

That’s one candy bar commercial that always rang true with me. Sometimes I did feel like a nut (literally) and other times I just wanted the creamy coconuty piece of candy without the almonds.

Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars are sister bars but with a few differences; the mounds is covered in dark chocolate and the almond joy has milk chocolate with two almonds on each piece. (“Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t / Almond Joy’s got nuts ‘ Mounds don’t”. I’m merging the two candy bars into a delicious cool treat for the summer months that are ahead. I don’t think they even have commercials for candy bars any more do they? I just love being able to have a quick and easy ice cream to throw together at the last minute.

I always loved both candy bars when I was younger. My only problem with the Almond Joy was there were only two almonds per piece and I would carefully eat around each almond saving the almonds for the last bite. Now with this recipe I can have the best of both. I can all add all the toasted almonds I want and I can have a dark chocolate shell instead of milk chocolate.

May 2, 2013 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Chicken Liver Pâté with Cognac Gelée

Luxuriously smooth……

I would describe this pâté as a luxurious treat. Throw in some cornichons and some thin slices of crostini and you will be delighted with the results. (I forgot the cornichons so my group did not get the tiny little pickles to go with the yummy pate.

I’ve eaten and cooked my share of organ meats; things like tongue, lamb fries, sweetbreads, tripe, chitterlings and gizzards but I’ve never been a fan of chicken livers and their mushy texture; although I do love terrines and pâté. So, when I saw someone on one of the cooking networks make a pâté, I knew I was going to have to make one. But, where was I to start, the Internet of course.

I started with Julia Child’s recipe but then I went to one of my favorite French sites — David Lebovitz. I ended up making his recipe for the pâté but added cognac instead of the port; but then I went back to Julia’s recipe and added fresh thyme and allspice. Thyme is a classic seasoning in most liver pâté and I have a fantastic herb garden this year. (see pics below)

I also added the allspice to the Gelee that goes on top of the pâté.* I was intrigued by the idea of David putting hard boiled eggs in the mixture and by the time it was blended in the food processor there was no evidence of egg parts. The one thing I would have liked to try was David’s jelly on top. He used the port wine again which gave the gelee a really pretty shade of crimson.

While in France last year we found ourselves snacking on pâté and other French favorites daily. I’ve made rillettes before and have made a country pâté but have never tried a chicken liver pâté so this is a first for me.

The pâté can be served without the gelee on top but I like the finished touch it adds to the serving container. Serve with some toasted thinly sliced baguettes with a sprinkle of sea salt. Thinly sliced apples would also be delicious with the dish. One recipe I came across used calvados (apple brandy) in the pate (some call this a mousse) and the gelee and she also put the apples in the pâté.

April 28, 2013 By Sherry

Side dish

Zucchini Tomato Boats

Other things than oars, jackets and booze go into this boat.

What is it about a really easy recipe that makes me turn away sometimes. Sometimes I feel like a recipe with just a few ingredients won’t be big on taste. That was not true with this recipe.

The one thing I should have changed is that I used small zucchini the first time I made these over Easter and they were so good, I wanted more. I was afraid I had scooped out too much of the flesh and wouldn’t have enough “boat” to hold the other ingredients. They turned out fine, but bigger would have been better in this case.

I loved the fontina in this dish. I was tempted to use pieces of string cheese only because I have a ton of left from Christmas. Not much I would change about this recipe either. Loved it just the way it was written other than I added some Parmesan cheese to the bread crumbs.

April 23, 2013 By Sherry

Bread/ Breads/Biscuits/ Morning Foods

Chive, Dill and Cheddar Biscuits

Dreaming of biscuits!

At 6:00 this morning I woke up with the idea of making a new flavored biscuit. Shouldn’t there be something else I’m thinking about the first thing in the morning; like are my knees going to bend this morning? or that pile of laundry that’s staring at me in the laundry room, or what’s for dinner tonight or at least something more profound than a BISCUIT. But what can I say….

Maybe I woke up thinking of this biscuit because I spent so much time yesterday entering all my herbs in a garden app on my iPhone. I spent a couple of hours walking through my yard photographing newly planted flowers — morning glories, delphiniums, snap dragons, hummingbird bush, and herbs; the list goes on and on.

Recently we relocated my herb garden from one side of the yard to up next to our house where I had bat face growing for the last 4-5 years. It was time for it to give up this prime, sunny location to some struggling herbs that were not thriving in their old home.

My husband has recently gone pot crazy and now we have 92 pots in our back yard (I counted them twice). On his way to a fishing trip a few weeks ago he and a friend stopped at Marshall Pottery in Marshall, Texas and came back with 7 pots for $100. (Now that was worth the trip just for the pots and he actually caught his limit of white bass also.) I like having my herbs in pots and now I have a huge assortment of potted herbs even closer to my kitchen than they were and they are loving their new spot in the yard.

This biscuit is getting gussied up with some dill and chives from my herb garden and a little grated white cheddar really compliments this biscuit. They are delicious for breakfast and would probably go great with a country style dinner; and there’s hardly a bread recipe that’s quicker to make than homemade biscuits.

April 18, 2013 By Sherry

Entree/ Game/ Poultry

Chicken Dijon with Parsley Mashed Potatoes

Colonel Sanders move over, this isn’t KFC fried.

Years ago after having my first son, I started working part time at KFC in Louisville, KY. Now I wasn’t slinging hash at one of the storefronts, I worked in the marketing department at the KFC headquarters. I would see the Colonel himself walking the hallways and on occasion our department would get a call and someone was asked to come down and do a tasting of new recipes. I remember sitting in a little stall and someone would push a plate of chicken through a window and I was to taste and answer questions about the product. What a job!

On another occasion we ate at his restaurant, (Claudia Sanders Dinner House) out in Shelbyville, KY. I remember the food being served family style not at all like the KFC you would go in and grab a bucket of chicken to go. Everything here was served family style and I remember feeling like I was sitting in someone’s home. The restaurant burned in 1999 and it has been rebuilt, I think, losing some of its charm. On the particular evening we were there, as we were leaving, The Colonel came to his back porch and waved to the guests leaving his restaurant; I thought that was so cool. It didn’t take much to excite me in those days.

I eventually gave up that job in the marketing department at KFC but never forgot the memories of working there and seeing all the beautiful antiques in the building and occasionally running into The Colonel.

April 13, 2013 By Sherry

Soup

Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup

Winter’s over but not for this soup recipe.

I did a lot of soups over the winter months. Someone asked me one day back in February if I was enjoying the weather. It was 70°. I said “no, it’s winter”. Now, that Spring is officially here and the temperatures have started to get into the 70°-80°’s, I’m in hog heaven. But when the calendar says winter, it’s suppose to be cold. Let it get to 50° here and that’s cold enough. Something about the humidity I guess makes 50° seem like 30°. In the winter I want there to be a chill in the house that makes me want to snuggle up with a blanket and watch a good movie, and when I go outside I want to have to put a jacket or coat on and I want to have a pot of hot tea in the morning to warm me up not a glass of ice water to cool me down. When it’s Spring time I want to be able to smell fresh cut grass and the smell of a rainy day. This soup is good on a cold winter day or any other day for that fact.

One day after running around most of the day doing water aerobics (doesn’t that sound fun 🙂 — good for the knees though) and doing a bunch of other errands I decided to take it easy for dinner and make another pot of soup.

If I feel a craving for soup I just can’t pay attention to the weather; I might even have to turn the heat or air down to make it a little chilly inside so the soup taste nice and warm going down. Maybe I should start trying more chilled soups to make for the summer months.

I first tasted this recipe at bunco. The recipe came from 365 Days of Slow Cooking and is a slow cooker recipe. I made this the first time in Chicago several weeks ago and everyone loved it (did in slow cooker all day). I doubled the recipe. I made it again over Easter weekend and loved it just as much. I made mine the second time in my large Le Creuset pot and cooked it 5-6 hours on lowest setting.

There is one part of the recipe I wanted to experiment with. The recipe calls for a roux that you make at the end of the cooking time. It has 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup flour. I really don’t think it needs that since it doesn’t really add much taste. I want to try pureeing a couple cups of the soup and adding it back in at the end with the Half & Half cream instead of using the roux. For the one I made over Easter I used half the amount of butter and flour for the roux to see how that would work and it turned out just fine. So if you want to reduce the flour and butter by half you will still get good results. I did puree a few cups of soup but didn’t see much difference in thickness. If the soup is too thick for you either add more cream or more chicken broth.

April 8, 2013 By Sherry

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