Sherry – Page 61 – Rosemary and the Goat

White Bean Hummus

Lots of people like hummus but not everyone likes Chickpeas!

So for that reason, I make white bean hummus. I think the flavor is so much better than using chickpeas and the reason I do not like chickpeas/garbonza beans… all started on my honeymoon.

Don’t you just love making things that you can simply throw everything in a food processor, stand back, flip the switch, and moments later have a delicious, healthy dip that can be used with pita, vegetables or crackers/chips. I also love eating a bowl of white beans that have been cooked long and slow with a ham hock stuck in for flavor, and cannot resist the urge to add a squirt of mustard and a big spoonful of chow chow on my beans. Weird, huh, but the mustard is actually good.

I remember as a kid my grandmother driving us through town and when we went by the jail house her telling us that the prisoners had to eat frozen white beans and bread. Now, I don’t know how she knew that, but for some reason it stuck in my head and that’s what I think of when I sit down to eat a steaming bowl of white beans with cornbread.

I think if you like hummus you will appreciate the flavor of this dip.

If you have tried this recipe and have any comments, please post them below. Thanks.

March 4, 2011 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Sauces/ Scones

Chocolate Cherry Scones

Chocolate and Cherries a perfect match!

Once upon a time I wanted to open a tea room but I gave up on that idea and realized I could still do the same types of foods that I loved to make for parties I catered. I love doing baby showers, and showers of all sorts because it gives me a chance to try new scone recipes and all sorts of finger sandwiches and little foods. Check out the Baby Button Cookies I made for a shower a few weeks ago. They were delicious and oh, so cute.

I love scones that are buttery, flaky and filled with either lemon curd or Devonshire cream. I usually make a mock Devonshire cream for parties and on occasion will buy the real thing from the grocery even though it is about $5-$6 a jar. I get very disappoint when I have a scone that is nothing more than a biscuit with a little sugar added in and not really a scone at all.

February 28, 2011 By Sherry

Cookies/Bars

Baby Button Cookies

Oh so cute and tasty!

I came across this recipe in a Food and Wine magazine and just had to make these for a baby shower I catered last weekend.

This recipe is so buttery and delicious you will not be able to resist a handful of them. Like the article said, these make nice little favors when packed in small plastic bags tied with ribbons.

It’s kind of weird that I photographed these in my mother’s old button/sewing box. I remember my mother using this box to hold miscellaneous buttons and pins/needles. She kept her threads all displayed on some sort of wooden thing that she hung on the wall with little spikes. I have that and have arranged the threads in waves of color and have hung it on my bedroom wall. I have the little red sewing box tucked away in one of my dresser drawers and think of her every time I pull it out to mend something.

My mother won her one and only sewing machine back in 1952 by counting dots in an advertisement in a local newspaper. I guess the person who got closest to the exact number of dots in this square won the machine.

February 24, 2011 By Sherry

Candy/ Dessert

Almond Joy Candies

A chocolate fix for anyone who loves chocolate!

Isn’t this beautiful. Hand dipped chocolates! Yum!

Here’s a new candy recipe for your collection. I have always loved Almond Joy candy bars. My only complaint was that you only got two almonds on top of each piece. I only put one almond in each of these, but since you are the candy maker, you can hide a few extra down in the filling if you feel the urge. Be sure to make a few of these for Valentine’s Day. I did, but I gave them away since I have sworn off sweets (and a lot of other stuff) for 21 days.

A great little afternoon treat. A cup of hot chocolate or sipping chocolate would hit the spot on a cold Valentine’s Day.

Do you remember Valentine’s Day when you were a little kid looking for the perfect container to turn into a Valentine Box for your school party. I remember gathering up rows of crepe paper and making ruffles and gluing them around a shoe box, cutting a hole in the top and taking it to school and eagerly awaiting for valentines to be dropped in. I remember the red punch, the cupcakes with red and pink frosting, the little hard candy hearts with “Be My Valentine” printed on them. I remember the first heart shaped box of chocolates my husband gave me when I was 15. Now I get flowers. Much less fattening. 🙂

February 12, 2011 By Sherry

Salads

Cilantro Slaw

Slaw, slaw, slaw. What can I say?

I plopped this into my herb garden for a quick picture before I put the dressing on. I don’t have cilantro growing right now but do plant it in the spring.

Slaw is one of those things that you can put with any meal or make a meal of it by topping with some chopped BBQ (my daughter and I use to do this for a quick lunch). Slaw is basically shredded cabbage with maybe some carrot thrown in or anything that suits your fancy from fruit to jicama. Just the word “slaw” doesn’t really tell you what is inside the salad does it? You would think that anything called “slaw” would have shredded cabbage as it’s main ingredient. But what about “broccoli slaw”, and I’m sure there are a lot of other variations out there that I have never heard of.

February 9, 2011 By Sherry

Morning Foods

Shirred Eggs with Kale

What the heck are shirred egg anyway?

In case you are wondering what shirred egg are, well, they are eggs baked in either cream or butter (or both) in a small ramekin until the whites are firm and the yolks are runny.

Ever wonder what it would be like to go out and gather your own fresh eggs every morning. I remember as a kid going to my grandfather’s sister’s house where my mother and grandmother would buy their fresh milk, butter and eggs and my sister and I would go out into the hen house and gather a few eggs. I don’t remember lifting the chickens up and I’m sure we would have just shooed them off their nest to get to the eggs.

When we were back home a few weeks ago, a friend was telling me about her granddaughter, Hannah’s, interest in raising chickens. She has names for all her chickens and she actually sells their eggs to local residents. I checked out her website and it was so cute and I think you might enjoy visiting her site at https://hannahshappyhens.com. Here is her old site that has some cute pictures of her chickens. https://hannahshappyhens.blogspot.com Way to go Hannah.

January 31, 2011 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Duck Crepe with Port Wine Cherry Sauce

A Delicious appetizer we had at Galatoires in New Orleans.

I knew when I tasted this dish I would soon be trying my own version at home. (Picture is of the crepe we had that night.)

Back in September on our Mother/daughter trip to New Orleans we had some of the most wonderful food I have ever tasted. Dinner our first night there was at Galatoires and since we were celebrating our birthday weekend (we celebrated every night), we chose this landmark restaurant as our first meal in The Big Easy. We shared this crepe and also tried their sweetbreads which were melt in your mouth delicious.

I’ve had duck before and probably quite often growing up. My dad would go duck hunting and my mother would bake the duck in the oven and all I remember is this dry bumpy skin that didn’t taste that good and occasionally finding a buckshot in your mouth that didn’t belong there. Then my parents started making creole duck which was kind of stewed and would fall off the bone in this spicy sauce and we would serve it with wild rice.

A whole new world of eating duck opened up to me when my son Paul introduced me to duck rillettes, duck pate, and duck confit. I have made duck confit before for a cassoulet recipe we did one Thanksgiving and also made the duck confit for this recipe. We used this Duck Crepe with Port Wine Cherry Sauce as part of our New Orleans FEAST meal that we did the day after Thanksgiving. (Every year we pick a different theme or country and everyone cooks — this recipe was my contribution.)

January 22, 2011 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Side dish/ Vegetables

Crab, Corn and Bacon Maque Choux

The last of my summer corn and it tasted fresh out of the field.

After making my Corn and Crab Fritters back in the summer I decided to use some of my corn that I had frozen and add some crabmeat to a Corn Maque Choux recipe I have been wanting to try for a long time. Good decision.

Can’t say I ever had Maque Choux before but when a neighbor once showed me how she was cutting the corn off the cob, I knew that was what we always called “fried corn”. Our version didn’t have the onions or peppers — just good corn, and bacon drippings and you cooked it until it was creamy and thick.

Sometimes we get fresh crabmeat on sale and when that happens, I just have to buy some. I decided to add the crabmeat to this dish and I think it would make a wonderful accompaniment to a steak dinner — surf and turf.

January 12, 2011 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Muffins

Raspberry Cheesecake Muffins

If you like cheesecake, you will love these Raspberry Cheesecake Muffins.

This was another one of those Betty Crocker days because by the time I was finished baking, I had flour all over me and my kitchen. I should have been packing for our trip tomorrow) but instead I’m de-stressing and baking. We leave on a 8 day cruise that starts in Amsterdam and ends in Barcelona and then we have 9 days to explore Barcelona, Seville and Madrid. I sure hope I come back with some new recipes ideas to blog about.

I use raspberry preserves with the seeds. I think the preserves with the seeds for some reason have more color than the seedless preserves which are usually kind of brownish.

So I found some great raspberries on sale this week. I get so excited to find raspberries on sale. Anything less than $3.00 a carton is a steal in my book. My only problem is I will buy them and they will sit in the refrigerator and start getting moldy before I think to use them. Not so with these berries. I bought a couple of packages and the first ones I used to make my Raspberry Nutella Gelato and then I remembered this Raspberry Cheesecake Muffin recipe that I have been holding on to for years and decided to give it a try.

The original recipe did not have the fresh raspberries in the batter and just called for the raspberry preserves. BUT, how could any recipe not be improved by adding fresh raspberries.

Today was one of those Texas HOT days where I just didn’t want to get out of the house. I really didn’t even want to walk to my garage to my extra refrigerator (I have two in my garage) to fetch some butter and eggs. But, I braved the heat just so I could make these muffins. I think my husband appreciated the effort since I always put the baked goods in the freezer and he can grab something on the way out to his golf game.

The cheesecake topping is fantastic on these muffins. The batter is somewhat thick since there is no milk in the recipe but there is plenty of butter and sour cream to make this a delicious treat.

August 31, 2010 By Sherry

Side dish/ Vegetables

Cuban Style Brown Rice and Black Beans

Braggadocios over this rice dish!

In case you don’t know where Braggy or Braggadocio is, well it’s in Southeast Missouri, the “Bootheel” of the State. And it is where my twin sister lives and where her husband grew up farming cotton, wheat, soybeans, rice, and running a cotton gin until a tornado blew the gin away a couple of years ago.

When we go back home for I always start thinking of all the farming adages ….. like “I’m in tall cotton”, “we’re in the short rows”, “don’t count your chickens before they hatch”, “make hay while the sun shines”, and many others that I can’t think of right now. If you haven’t heard any of these look them up and you will understand what they mean.

The closer we get to our part of Missouri, we start seeing rows of crops growing in different stages. I always start thinking of our (my twin and me) grandfather teaching us to drive in hay fields and how we would swerve in and out around the hay bales trying to perfect our driving skills, or, how we chopped cotton once and were fired by the time we broke for lunch. Also remember wheat fields that use to be in our back yard and how we would take a wooden sled out and drag it through the wheat to make little paths that we could play in. That is the extent of my farming experience. We weren’t raised on a farm but we were surrounded by them. We had huge grain elevators on the river and a big compress in town to compress cotton bales for shipping. My mother or grandmother would often go out to my grandfather’s sister house to buy butter, milk and eggs at their farm. My husband’s family use to buy unpasturized milk from her too (they’d pour the milk into gallon mason jars). Maybe that’s where he learned to like milk so much — he can drink 4 gallons a week by himself.

August 27, 2010 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ HotApp/ Pork/ Sauces

Pork Satay with Three Dipping Sauces

Satay’s make a great little appetizer or entree.

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

I know I have mentioned this before but in case you missed it — DC is the www.thedaringkitchen.com site that I belong to and they have a bakers and cooks challenge each month that members are challened to make certain dishes. The member has almost a month to complete the challenge and post to their site and to our own sites. Every one makes the same recipe but you can do your own variations on part of the recipe. There are only a few things that I have been intimadated by so far with these challenges — The French Meringues and the ginger bread houes (couldn’t do the houses because I was busy catering over Christmas). I would also like to see a challenge for peti fours. I’ve always wanted to make those but never have attempted to make the really pretty ones like I would want to do.

I have made chicken satay’s before for catering but for this challenge I decided to do the Pork Satay and make at least three dipping sauces. I just ordered some really fun looking skewers so I’m going for the appetizer portion but these can also be made with larger skewers.

Satay is a popular dish originating from Indonesia and Malaysia and is often served as “street fare” and accompanied by a dipping sauce. It can be made from cubed meats or strips of meat that are threaded on a skewer. Most of us think of kebabs when we think of skewered meat. To me, satay is strips of meat and served with a peanut dipping sauces. Usually kebabs have vegetables skewered along with the meat and I only do meat when making satays.

Hope you will try this challenge along with me and if you are interested in joining The Daring Kitchen, go to their website and check it out. It is really fun to see what others challenges look like.

I used a pork tenderloin and sliced it very thin. It turned out very tender.

These are all the ingredients for the marinade. It was really fast to throw together in the food processor.

Spread marinade all over the meat and marinate for 4-8 hours.

I talked my husband into grilling these outside in 40° weather.

I did three different sauces, peanut sauce, taminand sauce and a soy green onion sauce.

Great little recipe and I was glad to take this challenge.

Pork Satay with Three Dipping Sauces

Ingredients

1/2 small onion chopped
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 Tbsp. ginger root chopped
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. turmeric
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 pound pork

Instructions

Cut pork in 1 " strips (I cut my thin). For marinade put all ingredients xexcept for the meat in a food processor and process until smooth. Put the pork in either a bowl or plastic zip-lock and cover the pork with the marinade. Chill for 4-8 hours.
Soak your wooden skewers for about 20 minutes before preparing skewers.
Gently and slowly slide the meat strips onto the skewers. Discard any leftover marinade.
Grill or broil until the edges just start to char, 8-10 minutes.. Flip and cook another 8-10 minutes.
If you are grilling you could definitely brush once with some of the left over marinade when you flip the skewers. Then discard any left over marinade.

Peanut Sauce

Ingredients

3/4 c. coconut milk
4 Tbsp. peanut butter
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1-2 dried red chilies chopped (keep the seeds for heat)

Instructions

Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and lemon, mix well. Over low heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter and your soy-lemon-seasoning mix. Mix well, stir often.
All you are doing is melting the peanut butter, so make your peanut sauce after you have made everything else in your meal or make ahead of time and reheat.

Pepper Dip

Ingredients

4 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. brown sugar
1-2 dried chilies chopped, keep seeds for heat
1 finely chopped green onio

Instructions

Mix well. Serve chilled or room temperature.

Tamarind Dip

Ingredients

4 Tbsp. tamarind paste I used tamarind chutney
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 clove garlic minced
1 finely chopped green onion
1 tsp. brown or white sugar

Instructions

Mix well. Serve chilled or room temperature.

January 14, 2010 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp/ Soup

Roasted Parsnip Bisque with Crispy Pork Belly

What is a parsnip anyway? And do you know what pork belly is???

(Our second course in our “American Tasting Feast” menu after Thanksgiving.)

According to “cookthink.com” — “A parsnip is a pale, homely and under-loved root vegetable that looks something like an anemic carrot. Parsnips have a slightly sweet flavor that peaks during the fall and winter.”

A parsnip can be baked, mashed, steamed, sauteed, or boiled. They have a stronger flavor than the carrot and in ancient times were believed to be an aphrodisiacs. You should read up on the lowly parsnip and you may find other recipes that are delicious as this soup and also my Winter White Vegetable Soup.

I don’t think I had ever tasted a parsnip before making the Winter White Vegetable Soup. I just knew I needed every white vegetable I could think of and this one was on my list.

This soup was a joint endeavor. My friend Peggy did the soup and I prepared the crispy pork belly. This was the second course in our menu which if you haven’t seen the menu, it is here.

Now, for the pork belly. Pork belly is meat derived from the belly of a pig. It is pretty popular in Chinese and Korean cuisine. BUT, growing up we had something we called “fresh side pork” or “fresh bacon” and I was surprised to discover it is one and the same. It has a delicious taste. Unlike bacon, it isn’t smoked so it doesn’t have a smoky or salty taste at all. The process for doing the pork belly was quite lengthy. First it had to be brined for 24 hours and then it was suppose to bake for 24 hours. Instead, I baked for 5 hours on low temperature, then cut it into cubes and fried it for a garnish for the soup.

Sorry I don’t have her recipe for the bisque but when/if I can find it, I will post here.

Brined Pork Belly

Ingredients

1 1/4 lbs. of pork belly
12 c. water
1 cup table salt
1/2 stalk lemongrass
1/2 head garlic
1 1/2 sprigs rosemary
1 stick cinnamon
1/3 bunch thyme
4 bay leaves
4-5 star anise
3 Tbsp. coriander seed
1 Tbsp. ginger or use 4 Tbsp. fresh ginger

Instructions

Mix all ingredients in a pot. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and cool before use. Cover the pork belly with the brine. Brine the pork belly for 24 hours. Remove from brine and rinse. In a pan, cover the pork belly with cool water. Cover with foil. Cook for 24 hours at 325°. (this is the party I ignored and cooked at 250° for about 5 hours). Once cooked, press and refrigerate overnight. Next day, cut the pork belly into small cubes and fry them until golden brown and crispy. **Note, I think the next time, I may brine but after brining just cut up and fry.

December 16, 2009 By Sherry

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