by Sherry on January 20th, 2019

Avocado Bacon and Egg Pasta Salad

What’s not to like about ABE in anything?

Anything that has avocado, bacon and egg together has to be good. Can’t say why this recipe jumped off the page at me but my first thought was boy does that look like a good “potato” salad. And then after another look I thought it was tortellini pasta and then finally after looking at the recipe I realized it was a trottole (spinning top shape) pasta.

I love potato salad and I can’t tell you the last time I’ve made it. My Cauliflower Potato Salad kind of took the place of my traditional version. When I make the cauliflower version now I like to add just one potato to the recipe to give it a little more dimension in flavors. This recipe I think will be the best of both versions; potato and pasta but with more of a potato salad taste.

So, if you can’t find the trottole (Kroger sells it) I would probably use orecchiette (little ears), giggle (little flowers is beautiful), or even a rotelle (wagon wheels) to add some visual interest to the dish.

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by Sherry on January 14th, 2019

Potato and Leek Soup with Pancetta

Nothing better on a cold winter night.

There’s nothing better on a cold winter night than a warm bowl of soup. Curl up in a blanket and by the time you finish this soup you will feel nice and toasty. Light a fire in the fireplace and you will get there even quicker.

We’ve had some pretty cold days so far this winter in our part of Texas; (we were in the 30’s this morning) and we have not lost any of our plants to a freeze. Usually we lose maybe a fourth of our yard if we have more than 3 days of freezing temperatures in a roll. When the temperatures start to drop, and this time of the year they will go from the 70’s to the 40’s and back every few days, I start looking for a soup to make.

This soup only needs some good saltine crackers. You could do a crusty French or Italian bread; which would be wonderful. But if it is just me and my hub then I will probably throw out a sleeve of saltines and we are happy campers.

My mother use to make potato soup using Coffee Mate as the milk part of the soup. I always loved that soup but when I started making my own I wanted to use something a little healthier than the Coffee Mate. My mother always used potatoes and onions but I think the leeks have a much milder taste than an onion.

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by Sherry on January 9th, 2019

Chocolate Martini

A toast to everyone for 2019!

This is my first toast to the new year — “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet!” (Unknown author)

I’ve tried more new cocktail recipes in the last couple of months than my 9 years of doing this blog.

I happened to be one of those “cheap dates”, “lightweight”, “two pot streamers” (Australian saying) drinkers. And, after one drink, I’d say I’m a little tipsy, my eyes start blurring a little, lips get a little numb. Then if I happen to have a second drink then maybe I start getting in the category of groggy (never giddy), maybe a little pie-eyed. But after two drinks, I usually stop before I get three sheets to the wind and her never close to being hammered. That says a lot about how much I drink.

The idea of a little cocktail before dinner (or after) is more appealing to me than a glass of wine. I’ve been know to take my own set ups with me if I want something special. Not many bars have Creme de Mure or Creme de Violet. Once I asked for a Blackberry Bramble at one of our favorite local restaurants and after telling the bartender what was in it, he went to the kitchen and fished out some blackberries that were marinating for their blackberry cobbler and made me the drink. Now I call that service. (Thanks John)

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by Sherry on January 3rd, 2019

Rosemary Goat Cheese Biscuits

Another yummy biscuit right out of the oven.

Happy New Year to everyone! I have a short list of New Year’s Resolutions and that is to keep mall walking 5-6 times a week and hopefully add going to the gym a couple of days on top of that. Also and to try new biscuit recipes.

How many different ways can you possibly make a biscuit? Probably a lot more than I have baked. I love making biscuits and I can almost make them as fast as cracking open one of those tubes from the grocery. I always cringe when I pop those things open. I seldom buy canned biscuits but when I do and you take that wrapper off and you whack it on the counter I’m always jumping like I’d just exploded a M80 firecracker or something.

My mother use to make the best biscuits and her’s were thin. I’m sure I said this before but we liked the tops and bottoms because they were crunchy so she would hit them on the counter a few times so they would fall and then not rise as much. These days I like big biscuits but still like a crispy bottom and I finally learned how she got them that way. My mother always used melted bacon fat on the sheet pan and she would take the biscuit and put it on the pan (before baking) and let it touch the fat then flip it over leaving the tops of the biscuits with bacon fat on top too; no brushing with milk/cream/butter. So if you save your bacon fat like I do, use that instead of the milk or butter for brushing the tops of the unbaked biscuits. If you want you can always brush the baked biscuits with some melted butter when they come out of the oven. I brushed these with butter before baking because I didn’t want bacon taste to the biscuit since I was filling with country ham.

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by Sherry on December 22nd, 2018

Roast Beef Rose Tea Sandwich

Sweet little rose sandwiches for Christmas!

I love having tea at different places and after visiting tea at the Fairmont Hotel in Victoria, Canada and then again at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and many other places I still prefer my tea sandwiches and savories. I usually want things a little less traditional than a pimento or chicken salad sandwich or smoked salmon on pumpernickel bread and it is so much fun coming up with beautiful food for a tea party.

If you need a little appetizer over the holidays, here’s one that was a tea favorite at a friends tea we did this fall.

I love little bites of food and I think it is more fun to graze on a lot of little finger foods than to sit down with a big plate full of food. And this was the perfect little tea sandwich — a lightly toasted baguette topped with some horseradish sauce, arugula leaves and a roast beef rose. How much easier can it get.

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