Sherry – Rosemary and the Goat

Pork Chile Verde with Rice

A new one for me — and I loved every tangy slow-cooked bite!

For almost 30 years, while we lived in The Woodlands, Friday night meant Mexican food. Back then, the two of us could order a couple of margaritas, dinner, and still have a check for $20 or less. Hard to imagine now when a single margarita can cost that much.

All the more reason to cook more at home.

I do make homemade pork and beef tamales occasionally — just like my sister and my mother used to. When I go to the trouble, I make plenty and put them into the freezer so we can enjoy them all winter long when the craving hits.

February 20, 2026 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Muffins

Streusel Topped Raspberry-Blackberry Muffins

Cold Weather: The Perfect Excuse for Baking.

So, were you one of those people who just had to run to the store for milk and bread before the big freeze last-this week? Not me. I went straight for the good stuff—snacks, steaks, ribs & kraut ingredients, and chicken pot pie.

There’s enough food in my pantry and freezer to last three or four months. I could easily feed a small pack of marathon runners—especially when it comes to pasta, every shape imaginable. And yet, the minute a big storm is headed our way, I still feel the urge to go grocery shopping.

January 26, 2026 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Blue/Goat Cheese Bacon Date Dip

Yum, Yum, Yum—what more can I say?

The first time I tasted a stuffed date was at Mercat a la Planxa in Chicago. The appetizer was a Medjool date stuffed with a Marcona almond, wrapped in bacon, and served with a blue cheese fondue. The presentation —pouring a little pitcher of warm bleu cheese over a tray of stuffed wrapped dates—had our mouths watering before we even took the first bite.

After that first “date”, we traveled to Israel, and I came home with 25 pounds of Medjool dates. With those dates (after giving a good amount to my kids), I tried my first Amaretto Date Nut Shake (here on the blog), Bacon Wrapped Dates with Balsamic, dates wrapped in prosciutto instead of bacon, and of course, Green Beans and Brussels Sprouts with Dates. The prosciutto-wrapped dates are especially good because you don’t have to overcook the date just to get the bacon crispy.

My go-to date appetizer has always been some version of wrapped—often with an almond and blue cheese tucked inside—and I almost always overcook them. Until now.

January 7, 2026 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Oven Fried Mushrooms with Sriracha Dipping Sauce

“I helped! Shake ’n Bake, all grown up—and with mushrooms.”

That old-school shake-in-a-bag magic, updated for crispy baked mushrooms that are anything but retro and add a touch of Sriracha for a little zing.

“Baked, not fried” brings back a memory from the 60’s: a Shake ’n Bake commercial, a little girl with the most exaggerated Southern accent, and that unforgettable line—“It’s Shake ’n Bake… and I helped.”

I’m flashing back to 1969—bell bottoms, corduroy pants (snake skin print), oven-fried chicken. I didn’t even use Shake ’n Bake back then. Now the shake-and-bake idea has gone to culinary school (I did) and grown up into something better.

January 1, 2026 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Pasta

Lobster Pasta in Tuscan Lemon Cream

Simple ingredients, quietly beautiful!

There’s something about lobster, pasta, and lemon that sounds so good on a cold Winter’s night. This recipe brings together sweet lobster, a beautifully shaped pasta, baby spinach, wine, cream and just a hint of lemon in a sauce that is silky smooth. It’s a comforting dish to enjoy — warm, elegant, cozy where the simplest ingredients become a little celebration of the Tuscan countryside. (I have fond memories of a cooking class we took at Il Borro, Italy) (If you look at the video we stayed in one of the lodgings in the medieval village.)

I was looking for a recipe to use the lobster I had leftover from making my Lobster, Shrimp Escargot a few months ago. When looking for ingredients for the escargot appetizer I found lobster meat in the freezer seafood section of our HEB and thought it was perfect for making my trio of escargot and no fooling around with trying to decide how many lobster tails to buy and shell for my dish.

I’m not sure why food memories cling to me the way they do, but I keep a journal of every restaurant we visit when we travel, and I can remember a meal down to its smallest detail.

December 9, 2025 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Lobster and Shrimp and Snails Oh My!

Ooh la la! Until we meet again!

After my French dinner party last week I knew I had to post one of the recipes and the escargot was the easiest thing on the menu.

The first snail that I ever ate was on a cruise that started in Amsterdam and made it’s way to France, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, and Gibraltar. On this cruise I tasted my first escargot and my first really good paté (now, my son Paul’s paté is the best ever). And, at every stop we tried all the local cuisines. After that first taste of escargot and paté, we ordered both every night for the rest of the cruise.

Fast forward many years and I’ve made escargot several times. We made it once for a Michie French Family Feast and several other times when I could find the snails. Along the way, I have learned to buy my French snails from Amazon. Typically escargot is baked and served with French bread to sop up all the garlicky butter. (Papa G hates the word sop, but that is what you do if you want a good bite.)

October 18, 2025 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts/ Duck/ Entree/ Food Stories/ Game/ Poultry

A French Table in the South

Dîner avec des amis! c’était délicieux!

I’ve been wanting to do a Fall French dinner for friends and I wanted my southern influence to be a part of the meal. What better time than in the middle of Round Top’s Fall Antique Show. (WARNING: Long Read)

From the beginning I knew I wanted to make duck confit and my southern twist was going to be the parmesan stone ground grits.

A French 75 made with Empress Gin had to be the cocktail for the ladies and my husband came up with a Southern Manhattan cocktail for the guys. To go with those cocktails I simply used a box or two of Boursin cheese and stuffed it into two tiny pumpkins that I had removed the tops and scooped out the seeds. I drizzled the two pumpkins with some honey and inserted a couple of sage leaves in the top and served this with some sliced fresh figs, assorted crackers and some pistachio nuts and served this on my beautiful Woodlab board. I even bruleed a few fig slices to try with the cheese. “délicieux”.

I went back and forth on the appetizer (“First Taste”) which I wanted to serve as a first course. It was either going to be a mushroom tart or escargot. The escargot was not going to be your ordinary run of the mill escargot; this one had snails, lobster and shrimp. Instead of using French bread to dip into the garlicky/wine butter that melted all over the dishes I baked some puff pastry circles to put on top of each well on the dish. The escargot won over the mushroom turnover. This turned out very nice but timing that with the duck confit was a little stressful.

October 11, 2025 By Sherry

Salads

Ramen Noodle Slaw with Edamame

Is it a slaw or is it a salad? OR is it a coleslaw?

We’ve had this discussion before with slaws vs. coleslaws and I will repeat myself, yet again, and say I feel like slaws have an oil/vinegar type dressing where coleslaw dressing has mayonnaise as one of the ingredients. Now whether this is a salad or slaw or coleslaw is another question. Considering it is made up of vegetables I say it can go either way; salad or slaw but not coleslaw because I’ve never made a salad with mayonnaise in it. Of course there are always an exception like potato salad (mayo), chicken salad (mayo) so I guess we are just talking about salads with cabbage as the main ingredient.

October 1, 2025 By Sherry

Pasta/ Salads

Hot Honey Peach and Chicken Orzo Salad

Honey and Peaches and Orzo, Oh My!

I love summer peaches and I love hot honey. This recipe didn’t call for the jalapenos or the cabbage, but I made an executive decision (who do I have to report to anyway) to make those changes. It was hard for me to find a good peach this summer. I have decided if I buy one more mealy tasting peach that I’m going to start taking a bite out of one before I buy — if good, I will buy more, if bad, I will just pay for the one I snacked on.

With summer almost over and most schools back in session, I’ve got one more summer salad for you and with Labor Day almost here this will make the perfect take-a-long salad if you are invited to a party. I took this to our Round Top Lunch Bunch a few weeks ago and I think everyone liked it.

August 15, 2025 By Sherry

Egg Dishes/ Morning Foods

Sausage and Asparagus Frittata

What type of breakfast dish is this anyway?

What’s a frittata you say? Well a frittata is a breakfast egg dish somewhere between a crustless quiche, scrambled eggs, and an omelette. It’s an Italian inspired dish that you can add just about everything to your list of ingredients. You can make this partly on the cooktop and pop in the oven or you can use a frittata pan like I did today. A frittata pan is two pans that connect together so they can be flipped during cooking process. One pan is a little deeper than the other and they are non-stick.

As far as ingredients go, just about anything can be added to your eggs. On this particular morning, sitting at my mahjong table, looking out over our property here in Round Top, I can see our pool and our elevated garden an beyond that the pond. Such a peaceful view and WOW do we ever have beauiful sunsets. We started the garden a couple of months ago. Although we haven’t had the best success with the garden I did get the red bell pepper, and tomato out of the garden for this recipe. I was so hoping for some big green tomatoes to fry but looks like I bought the wrong variety. Oh well, maybe the Fall garden will be better.

July 21, 2025 By Sherry

Entree/ Pork

Smoked Sausage with Roasted Vegetables

Lots of veggies in this dish!

One day I was thinking of my mother’s backbone or country style ribs with kraut and next thing I knew I had the idea of baking smoked sausage and instead of using kraut use cabbage and then as I dove deeper, getting lost in the internet, I came across a couple of sites that had sheet pan dinners and one that caught my eye was from Chelsea’s Messy Apron blog. I did change a few things when I added some of our garden ripe tomatoes and some purple kale to go along with the cabbage, carrots, onions and the Kielbasa sausage.

Back to my mother’s kraut and ribs. I’m sure all of you can envision certain things your mother (or dads) made and I think my memories or best when it comes to food. I can smell her kraut, ribs, mashed potatoes just thinking about them. And, I knew the cornbread going with that dinner was going to be the best cornbread I ever ate. I can think about foods we have on trips or dinner parties and all those menus trigger things about the trip/restaurant/dinners that I might not remember otherwise. I can tell you almost every restaurant we have eaten at on trips because I journal them and if it is from a restaurant, I guarantee you that I will try to get the recipe from the chef and several times I’ve succeeded. Continue Reading…

July 1, 2025 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Poultry

Chicken Pad Thai

Fresh, spicy and somewhat easy!

I’ve been making Asian dishes since I’ve been married (56 years this August). Early marriage I made lo mein, chow mein (which is American recipe), Chop Suey (Chinese), Somasos (Indian), and Sushi (Japanese). I’m sure there are many others I have forgotten about.

Back when we were dating in high school, GA asked me to dinner at his house. His mother had made chicken chow mein, which I had never eaten before, and it was delicious. To this day everytime I make chow mein, I think of that dinner at his house and him filling my plate and saying “you are really going to like this”. I don’t know why she served rye bread, with butter, with the chow mein BUT I can’t have chow mein without having a loaf of rye bread and some really soft butter.

I made a few changes in this recipe I found somewhere on the internet (I can’t find exact site even though I printed off). Anyway, I had lo mein noodles (the long flat kind, not ramen, recipe called for rice noodles), I had bought ground chicken for another recipe and decided to use that instead of chicken breast. (See note if you want to use breast or thigh meat). The recipe called for 1/4 cup of brown sugar which we though a little sweet; next time I would use two tablespoons.

June 18, 2025 By Sherry

Older Posts