Sherry – Page 49 – Rosemary and the Goat

Sweet and Sour Dinosaurs

Ok, so your laughing.

Ok, ok, so I was stretching for something to do with these dinosaurs. At Christmas time, while shopping at Sam’s club, I was trying to buy some of my grandsons’ favorites. I knew they both ate chicken nuggets and I thought how cute these little dinos would be.

As it turned out they might have eaten two and here I am with a dino-size box of chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs. What is a GRAN to do but come up with something to use them for after the wee little ones have gone back home. I thought of Cobb Salad, which I did, then maybe Chicken Dino Parmesan. Now, that’s an easy one; put the dinos in a pan and top with a good jar of pasta sauce, cover with cheese and then bake in oven. I don’t intend to give you that recipe and call it an original GRAN recipe; you can figure that one out.

You’ve heard the saying if given a lemon, make lemonade. Well, when you have a whole box of dinosaurs — make Sweet and Sour Dinos.

So, that is what I did with the nuggets and I will share the sauce recipe with you. Don’t feel like you have to buy the nuggets to make it. You could use real chicken breast, cut in small pieces and either bread and fry or just sauté in skillet and then add to the sweet and Sour Sauce.

This recipe is really all about the sweet and sour sauce recipe and you can use it with chicken, pork or shrimp. I hope you like this recipe; I thought it was a cute idea and believe me I thought of those little boys while eating the different shaped dines. Now what am I going to do with all those Goldfish and juice boxes I bought?

February 6, 2013 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp/ Morning Foods/ Pork

Rosemary Brown Sugar Bacon Twist

Need something special for your brunch? Only three ingredients!

This is by far the easiest recipe I have ever made (Rosemary and The Goat comes in second.) with the fewest ingredients.Go figure, I use to say I like recipes with lots of ingredients which yield lots of taste and flavors; but this recipe just goes to show you that great things come from small beginnings.

Do you know there are entire blogs that are devoted to bacon. Is there anything better than the smell of bacon and the sizzling sound of it cooking to make you want to jump out of bed in the morning. Did you know there are bacon flavored beers, vodkas, candy bars with bacon bits, chocolate covered bacon (now that sounds good), bacon toothpaste (that sounds like a little too much bacon even for me), bacon mayonnaise, and the list goes on and on and on.

When it comes to bacon I will try just about anything that has the cured meat as one of the ingredients. Turkey bacon is not a favorite of mine. If you can find uncured bacon, then you have pork belly and I think this is even better than bacon. Fry it up, salt it because it hasn’t been cured and it is the Cinderella of bacon. Canada has Canadian Bacon, Pancetta is Italy’s version of bacon, all the dieters have turkey bacon (they can keep it), and the Irish have back bacon.

Bacon has such an addictive taste; it is hard to just eat one piece, kind of like potato chips. Have you tried caramel popcorn with bacon added at the last stirring; it’s great.

I’ve seen lots of bacon twist recipes and they all have the brown sugar; but most of the recipes have cinnamon and other sweet type spices. I decided to use the rosemary because I think it pairs nicely with the brown sugar and the bacon. Now these would really be good with a glass of wine or beer or just for your weekend brunch.

One more thing before I get on to the recipe; my son, Paul, made a compound bacon butter at Christmas to put on top of our steaks. I’ve been thinking of doing a blog on different compound butters that can be made and kept in the freezer; so stay tuned because that may be coming in the near future.

February 2, 2013 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert

Chocolate Blackout Cake

Gale Gand’s Blackout Chocolate Cake just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Recently I was going through some old Food and Wine magazines. Anything chocolate always gets my attention; my page flicking came to a screeching halt. I came across this recipe by Gale Gand who was named Best New Chef back in 1994. She is now chef-in-residence at Elawa Farm in Lake Forest and part owner of Tru in Chicago. This recipe has been her most requested recipe and who doesn’t want a “most requested recipe”. (read article able recipe at above link.)

Is there is nothing better than the feeling of chocolate melting over your tongue as you eat a piece of anything chocolate? Whether it is a Hershey’s Kiss, a chocolate covered almond, even a Milk Dud, or the most delicious chocolate dessert you have ever put in your mouth, chocolate is something that creates a buzz, euphoric sensation even stronger than a kiss. (That was results from a study done by a neurophysiologist back in 2007.) Believe what you want.

I know there are people out there who do not love or even like chocolate, and that’s so hard to believe and can you imagine being friends with a person like that, just kidding.

Don’t use Dutch processed Cocoa powder (see note below), plain old Hershey’s works just find. There is a difference in the Dutch cocoa that does not work with the baking soda in this recipe.

January 29, 2013 By Sherry

Soup

Creamy Chicken Poblano Pepper Soup

A delightfully warming soup for a cold winter’s day.

Are you having a cold, bone chilling day? Want to just turn off the lights, light a fire in the fireplace and curl up with a blanket and a good bowl of soup and glass of wine? The day I made this soup that is the type day we were having — today it’s 76° here in our part of Texas.

I came across this soup recipe quite a few years ago; back when a friend of mine and I thought we wanted to open a tea room and I envisioned serving this soup in small cups along with some tiny little finger sandwiches and other savories. Am I ever glad I got that out of my head; we would have been working 24/7 and I would not have had a minute to do anything else.

Making soups has become an obsession with me; like my Winter White Vegetable Soup that I had on vacation in Mexico one year. I looked for two years trying to come up with a recipe before stumbling on one from England that I’m sure some little grey-haired lady living in a quaint little cottage posted one dreary, rainy afternoon. After making my changes, I feel like I matched or surpassed the soup I had in Mexico.

Then there was the Egg Flower Soup we had once while on a ski trip in Park City, UT. The soup was nothing more than egg drop soup but there were tiny miniature corn slices floating in the soup which looked just like little flowers. I added some shreds of fresh spinach to an egg drop soup recipe, a tiny bit of minced chicken and went to the salad bar at the local grocery and bought 2 tiny ears of corn (didn’t want to waste money on a whole can) and created a great little soup. (You can try that one without a recipe).

January 25, 2013 By Sherry

Side dish

Mexican Rice with Cheese

Rice with a bite!

I love reading blogs and what I love even more is when people read mine and when they leave a comment, then that just makes my day.

Recently I received two request. One was from someone who wanted to feature one of my recipes (Rosemary and Blue Cheese Wafers) in Food Loves Beer Magazine (great), and the other was from Red Gold Tomatoes company wanting to send me some products to sample.

Wow, this is always exciting for me to receive a product to try out. My first thought was to try out the tomatoes with green chiles and my mothers, Mexican Rice recipe. This recipes makes an appearance at almost every bar-b-q we do. Easy and pretty health since I always use brown rice.

I was so surprised when I opened the can of tomatoes; the can was packed full of tomatoes and chiles. Store brand tomatoes with green chiles seem to have more juice than actual tomatoes and chiles; not with this brand. Now I can’t wait to try their other products.

January 21, 2013 By Sherry

Side dish

Fried Green Tomatoes with Black Eyed Pea Vinaigrette

Another Black Eyed Pea for the New Year recipe!

Not taking any chances this year. I had my black eyed peas, cooked cabbage and fried pork belly (in place of hog jowl). Cabbage for “green money”, black eyed peas for good luck, and pork belly for wealth and prosperity. So I should be covered for the year.

I ate fried green tomatoes long before the movie “Fried Green Tomatoes” got people wondering why someone would want to fry a green tomato instead of waiting for it to ripen to a juicy acidy tomato good enough to go on a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.

My mother use to make the best fried green tomatoes and I think her method was just to dip them in cornmeal. Over the years I have experimented with lots of recipes; sometimes using self rising flour, sometimes, plain, sometimes cornmeal and now mixing the flour and the cornmeal. Instead of just eggs like I did the Fried Green Tomatoes with Romalade Sauce, I’m mixing an egg with buttermilk and a few dashes of hot pepper sauce; Tabasco, Louisiana, any type will do and you can add as much as you want.

I’m sure everyone has had a black eyed pea salad before and my feelings are black eyed peas are good whether they are served hot or cold. This recipe happens to be a Black Eyed Pea Vinaigrette, sounds like a black eyed pea salad to me but I’m calling it a Vinaigrette. Fried Green Tomatoes with Black Eyed Pea Vinaigrette sounds a lot better than take a fried green tomatoes and throw some black eyed pea salad on top. So, since I’m typing this I guess I can name it whatever I want.

January 13, 2013 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta

Brussel Sprouts, Chestnuts and Whole Wheat Pasta

Healthy pasta for dinner tonight.

While rummaging through my refrigerator the other day I came up with something interesting ingredients – a partial bag of Brussels sprouts from Christmas (yes they were still good), 1/2 a jar of steamed chestnuts that were left from a yummy Brussels sprout dish that had some sauteed butternut squash added to it, and oh, this partial tub of marscapone (you can use a soft cream cheese if you don’t have marscapone). My grandson, Milo loves cream cheese on his turkey sandwiches. Go figure. He’s a pretty persnickety eater. But he loves his cream cheese and turkey sandwiches. I remember when he called once (age 3) and said “Gran, I like cream cheese now”. Isn’t it just so cute; just about anything the grandsons say if is is preceded with “Gran” just makes me smile.

I love hearing the grandsons say “Gran”. (Two out of the four can talk.) Little Oliver (from Chicago) was so surprised by the snowman pretzel sticks I sent back with their Christmas gifts. He ate so many of these while visiting over Christmas and when I was packing up everything to mail back, there were a couple still staring at me from a glass I had them standing up in. So after falling out of his chair at the dinner table one night, mom gave him a snowman pretzel. She took a picture of him saying “Thanks, Gran, and then a big Ta-duh as he shows the pretzel to the camera.

I think I have finally purged the house of all the sweet things that were made for the holidays that were never eaten. So to come up with some healthy ingredients while cleaning out the refrigerator and pantry was exciting.

The bacon does not have to be used, of course, in this recipe if you want to go meatless; I just like the taste that it brings to the dish.
Continue Reading…

January 8, 2013 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Fromage Fort

Looking for a way to use your leftover holiday cheeses?

Look no further. Fromage fort (four) is what you want to try. My first bite was — WOW! Why had I not heard of this “fromage fort” before?

I stocked up on several cheeses during the holidays. Trader Joes is the perfect place for me to go for different types of cheeses which are $$$ cheaper than any other grocery store and you don’t have to buy a huge piece like some of from those wholesale type clubs.

One morning when I was checking out some of my favorite blogs, I saw a fromage fort recipe at Smitten Kitchen’s site. My first thought was of all the cheeses I had from Christmas sitting in my refrigerator and I did not want to waste them.

Fromage fort is a French cheese spread and it means strong cheese and is traditionally made with different types of leftover cheeses thrown together in a food processor with some white wine, garlic, herbs and some recipes call for a little butter. No two recipes will be the same. I think the French know what to do with cheese and I’m sure they never let it sit in the refrigerator long enough to grow mold.

I watched Jacque Pepin make this spread and he talked about how his dad would put leftover cheese in a jar with wine and blended it. He served his fromage as a spread and also topped some baguette slices with it and ran them under a broiler.

This spread can be made with hard, soft, semi-hard, sharp, tangy or milk cheeses. I’m buying a small amount of bleu which for some reason I’m missing in my holiday cheeses. Smitten used 25% bleu; I don’t think I will add more than 2 ounces at most of the bleu because I don’t want the bleu to steal the show. I would not use a yellow cheddar or (GASP) Velvetta or you will end up with a very ordinary looking cheese ball.

You will want to grate your hard cheeses and have your other cheeses and butter at room temperature. I made mine a few days before needed it (bunco again) so the flavors would meld. You can decide on the consistency you want by the amount of wine you add. Most recipes called for 1/4-1/2 cup dry white wine.

January 4, 2013 By Sherry

Breads/Biscuits/ Morning Foods/ Pastries

Bacon Belgian Waffles

What’s better than the smell of bacon wafting in air?

Someone told me once that sometimes in the bakery section of supermarkets they will fry bacon just so it will get people’s taste buds going. Makes sense to me. It works every time my husband gets up before me which is ALWAYS and if he fries bacon you better believe I will get out of bed and make my way to the kitchen to find that big pile of crispy bacon; sometimes it is pork belly which is even better than bacon.

So, on to the waffle story. If I have told this story before, please forgive me; maybe all that anesthesia went to my head. Just blame it on the knees and my inability to get them back in working order. Anyway, my mother would often do waffles for Sunday night supper since we usually had a big Sunday lunch. Sometimes she would make just plain waffles and we would cut a big slab of ice cream and put between two hot off the waffle iron waffles and eat it with a fork as the ice cream ran all over the plate faster than you could sop it up with a waffle piece.

The other thing my mother would do was to put raw bacon across the waffle batter before shutting the lid of the waffle iron. There would only be one piece of bacon across every two waffles so that isn’t really all that much bacon; and certainly not as much as you would gobble up as it cooled and got crispy out of the frying pan. Back when I was doing technique classes at Williams Sonoma and we were demoing the All-Clad waffle iron. I told the group about the waffle story. A year later one of the the attendees (a UPS lady) came in and said ” you know since you told me about putting the bacon on the waffles” my family won’t eat them any other way. So if you can’t trust a UPS lady, who can you trust. Try them you will like them.

I finally broke an old waffle iron I had had since we were married. I loved that waffle iron because you could reverse the plates and have a griddle on one side and waffles on the other. I broke down and bought an All-Clad Belgian maker (4 squares) and have made waffles several times with the bacon. If you like bacon, fry some extra to go on the side.

December 31, 2012 By Sherry

Side dish

Julienned Veggies (with tuna)

A delightful accident.

(I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and looking forward to the new year.)

I have to say this recipe was an accident. We went to one last movie before the second knee surgery back in October. Usually we are so full of popcorn when we leave we really don’t want to eat dinner. Earlier that day I found one abandoned tuna steak that had been in my freezer for awhile and decided to thaw and grill it after returning home.

Trying to come up with a side dish that would be quick, I found a few veggies that were just begging to be cooked. I started with two small zucchinis and used my handy little julienne tool and made long pieces of beautiful zucchini. Next I found some green cabbage and sliced it just as thinly as I possibly could, and red and yellow bell peppers came next along with a little sesame oil, sesame seeds and last to dive into the pan were a few halved cherry tomatoes.

To my surprise it was delicious. The tuna just had a quick marinade and grilled 2 minutes on each side. I may have rushed the last 2 minutes a bit. Also had some sweet soy glaze in the refrig so the tuna had a few drizzles of that.

This recipe just goes to show you that you can make a wonderful little side dish with just about anything you can find in your refrigerator. I always say, if I can do it, you can do it!

December 26, 2012 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ Garnish/ Jams & Marmalades/ Morning Foods

Tangerine Kumquat Marmalade

Beautiful color marmalade.

Delicious scones and great marmalade.

I decided to do the duck appetizer over the holidays and wanted to try Thomas Keller’s marmalade recipe. You’re have to wait until Christmas for the duck appetizer but for now, here’s the Tangerine Kumquat Marmalade recipe.

Recently I found some fantastic little (or big) Weck brand jars at one of our local gourmet grocery shops. I love them, they have rubber rings and instead of the normal screw tops, they have clips that hold down the lids; so retro looking. You can find these online at Amazon, Crate and Barrel, or to to www.weck.com to order them.

I have never been a toast and jelly kind of person. Strawberry jam, even though it isn’t a favorite of mine, is a must for freshly baked Cream Scones. All kids and adults probably love peanut butter and jelly. Not me. I’m strictly a peanut butter and bread type of person.

A couple of years ago I did make some wonderful peach preserves. Aren’t preserves so much better than jelly anyway; you get those bits of fruit and rind that give it so much more intense flavor. Some habanero peppers even got slipped into a few jars of the peach preserves for some extra kick and was fantastic on top of different types of cheeses.

I just had to try some scones with this jam but you can try it on any type of bread, put it on a cheese or even incorporate it into some recipe. A beautiful marmalade that can have so many uses.

If you are interested in the difference between a marmalade, preserves, jelly, jam, look here.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: If you haven’t already tried this Sugar Plum Cake you need to make it for the Christmas holidays. It’s the best and I’m sure your family will love it. If you make it and like it, please leave a comment at the bottom of that page.

December 21, 2012 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Mini Grilled Pork Skewers

Star skewers!

Don’t you just love cute little foods on a stick. Forget those corn dogs, although I make a pretty darn good corn dog that would rival any concession stand at your county fair; forget those caramel apples on a stick and how about the deep fried Twinkie on a stick. So long beloved Twinkie. Even though I haven’t eaten a Twinkie in years, I do have fond memories of the pillowy puffs of cake with that yummy vanilla filling.

If you are tired of preparing the same old appetizers for your get-togethers, why not try this pork skewer for your Christmas company. Spicy and nice and not that hard to make.

I love pickonuscom. They have some of the cutest picks. I bought these star picks to use during the holidays and also some heart shaped ones. I couldn’t pass up some little blue porpoises ones I plan to use at the beach this summer for our family vacation. (I’m already planning the food and I want to have an “app of the day”, “cocktail of the day” and maybe even an “ice cream of the day.” I may do my pickled shrimp in a jar and use the cute porpoise pics. I also found horseshoe and horse pics which will be great for my daughter’s annual derby party; can’t wait to hear what she comes up with to spear for her guest.

I saw Giada make these cute little pork skewers and they are delicious to boot. As usual, I’m testing these out on my bunco group along with the cranberry avocado salsa recipe of my daughter by way of Martha Stewart.

December 16, 2012 By Sherry

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