Sherry – Rosemary and the Goat

Chili Crisp Shrimp Scampi

Another pasta dish for the cooler months to come.

Nothing says you can’t eat pasta in hot weather but this was such a homey dish that I started thinking of the cooler days to come. I think this dish would also be great served cold or even room temperature. It would be great to have it made and in the refrigerator and just pull it out a couple of hours before you are ready for dinner.

So one morning when I’m sitting at my computer planning some upcoming menus which I have done for the last 55 years of married life and I received the link to this recipe from our son Scott (Chicago) and after reading through the recipe I had everything need to make it for dinner that night. I was at the bottom of my chili crisp jar but had just enough to make this dish.

October 4, 2024 By Sherry

Fruit Dishes/ Morning Foods

Fruit in Prosecco

Spanish influence!

On a narrow cobblestone street somewhere in Seville, Spain back in 2010 we were breakfasting in the courtyard of a cute little restaurant. I remember having tomato toast (a first for me) and the waiter brought us two glass (see picture below) of fruit, which I was sure was canned fruit cocktail topped with Prosecco. It was delicious and it just took me 14 years to get around to making it. I’m not sure why I waited. I almost always for fruit and Prosecco in my refrigerator and always looking for something a little different to serve company.

Every trip we have ever taken I have journaled all of our restaurants and the foods we had and everything we saw and bought while on vacation. There have always been a few ideas that I want to recreate when I get home and some of those ideas take years to get around to making.

September 15, 2024 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta/ Uncategorized

Lemon Ricotta Pasta & Spinach

Easy peazy meatless meal!

We love our meats. Whether it’s chicken, pork, beef, fish or or even game like quail, rabbit or venison we want it grilled, bbqd, or roasted as part of any delicious recipe we might find surfing online or something GA might find on YouTube. He watches a lot of grilling and bbqing shows so he is always coming up with something with a little different twist from the norm.

We do occasionally eat a meatless meal; sometimes it is all vegetables and sometimes it is a good pasta dish. Since I have pantry full of different shapes of pasta that I can’t seem to stop myself from buying, I always have the urge to look up a new pasta recipe. That’s when I came across this recipe from theclevermeal.com website and I just knew we would love it. This dish could always be served with some grilled or roasted meat but it’s great on its own and it is so quick and easy to make.

August 30, 2024 By Sherry

Pork/ Sauces

Tonkatsu Pork with Sauce

This recipe has been around awhile!

Back in our early married life (55 years ago now) I use to make a few Japanese dishes and not sure why I stopped but I did. I’m going to revisit some of those recipes soon and give them another chance.

I happened upon this recipe (and online they all seem to have the same ingredients) in my latest Cooks Illustrated magazine and then googled some online recipes, tried and really liked it. The CI version used flour to dredge the pork but several online used cornstarch, which I used and Cooks Illustrated did not include a sauce recipe with their recipe and that was one of the best parts of the dish.

August 28, 2024 By Sherry

Pasta/ Poultry

Chicken Fettuccini with Mushrooms and Asparagus

I love the creaminess of fettuccini!

Lately I’ve been focusing more on afternoon tea parties than the “what’s for dinner” question I get late every afternoon. I love making tea foods and planning the party and it is a lot more work than throwing something together for dinner. But while looking for some ingredients for making a new scone I realized the pantry needed a little TLC.

Seems like I reorganize my pantry every week. Before we moved into our new house and renting a little 850 square foot house, my pantry was a broom closet that my husband converted into a pantry. You wouldn’t believe what I could get into this tiny pantry. Now I have this huge pantry that holds not only food that would last me a year (not really) but every pan and gadget I own and believe me I have a pan for every need. You name it – madeline, donut, barquette molds, flower molds, cannoli forms, Charlotte pan; if you can think of it I probably have it and I have used probably 99% of them at one time. If you ever need a special pan and live close by, you can borrow one of mine.

August 21, 2024 By Sherry

Salads

Arugula Spinach Watermelon Salad

No feta with this watermelon!

Over the last umpteen years I’ve seen so many, like kazillion, watermelon and feta cheese recipes. I’ve never really been a feta cheese fan so why not trade out some good blue cheese; a little more tasty I think.

I would love to have watermelon growing out on our property but we haven’t really started planning where a garden will be. We have so much sun now we could put it anywhere. So, when I can buy a good watermelon in the middle of summer I buy it knowing that it will probably be really juicy and bright red on the inside.

July 16, 2024 By Sherry

Garnish/ Salad Dressing/ Salads/ Sauces

Basil Pecan Pesto

My first harvest of basil.

Moved in, unpacked, art hung. I just finished two big projects I’ve been putting off for 4 months and that is reorganizing/labelling my craft closet and relabelling my 40+ spice jars so they all match. Next up the outside. We have a temporary outdoor kitchen started and enough that PapaG can get his home bbqing done but not what he has planned out in his head.

We have started a few plants and herbs in pots so far. A bay leaf tree that I paid a small fortune for and it’s dying or at least half of it is dying (as of today it is almost gone). The herbs on the other hand are going crazy. We have so much basil and every week I take a cutting a start rooting in water so we have even more. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do with all of this but for right now I made pesto.

I love making pecan (or walnut) pesto because it is a lot less expensive than pine nuts and I have about 20 pounds of pecans in my freezer that my sister sent me.

July 5, 2024 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Egg Dishes/ Morning Foods

Avocado Toast #2

Take 2!

Back in 2016 I made an avocado toast after having something similar at Willa Jean’s restaurant in New Orleans. Well this is take 2.

I love boiled eggs in/on just about anything. Who doesn’t love a good egg salad, deviled eggs, or boiled eggs and cottage cheese (my favorite lunch)? Potato salad would not be the same without chopped boiled eggs. And what would a good ham salad be without some chopped egg?

This avocado toast is done with a baguette and with the grated boiled egg it is easier to eat with your hands than a knife and fork. I love the other version with the toasted French bread and perfectly poached egg but you will want to eat that one with a knife and this new favorite version of mine is a little messy, so you will want to lean into your plate while eating it. I love a squeeze of lime over the finished toast and I didn’t have any red onion or I would have added some finely chopped to the layers.

June 20, 2024 By Sherry

Fish/Seafood/ Salads

Black Rice Salad with Soy Glazed Salmon

Forbidden rice meant for the emperors

I was looking for another recipe to use my black rice and came across several black rice salads and got me thinking to try and put an Asian spin on it with some glazed salmon. It was delicious and we ate the leftovers of the salad for a couple of days.

Black rice or forbidden rice was once reserved for the emperors and used in Chinese medicine to ensure their health and long life. Everyone else was forbidden to eat it.

June 8, 2024 By Sherry

Fish/Seafood

Blackened Red Fish and Cheese Grits

Grits aren’t made just for Shrimp!

I’ve made Shrimp and Grits for decades now and I have never attempted to try another recipe. My recipe came from an RSVP article in a 1990’s Bon Appetite magazine and is one from Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and is so good I’ve just never searched for any other variations.

I found this recipe for Fish and Grits from Southern Living and had to try it. With red fish and Carolina stone ground yellow/white mixed grits in the freezer I had everything I needed for dinner. I made my recipe for grits instead of the one in their recipe. My grits never disappoint so I’m not taking any chances.

If you have any late 70’s or early 80’s Southern Living cookbooks, you may see a few of my recipes. Back then (not sure if they still do this) a person could submit a recipe and if chosen they would print it in the cookbook, send you a copy of the annual book and also send 50 recipe cards with your recipe that said “my recipe printed in Southern Living”. I’m thinking maybe I’ll start going through some of my old cookbooks and revisiting some old favorites to see if I can do an updated version.

May 20, 2024 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts

Blackberry Creme Brûlée with Sugared Berries

I need my MOJO back

I’m out of my groove or lost my mojo or something has to explain why I messed up so many desserts a few weeks ago (all in one day and this was in my new kitchen). First, I tried to make three key lime pies for the brewery. I don’t know where my brain was that morning but I used the recipe amounts for the condensed milk from our macaroon recipe instead of pie. Then for our Fluff cake I added the pudding into the cake instead of the frosting so those desserts got remade and I did turn the corner on the Ding Dong cake and the Blackberry Creme Brûlée.

I haven’t baked in a few weeks so maybe that a good enough excuse or I didn’t go to sleep until 1:30 the night before, or we had been moving into new house and unpacking a kazillion boxes.

May 5, 2024 By Sherry

Salad Dressing/ Salads

Spinach, Chicken and Blueberry Salad with a Touch of BBQ

And a touch of BBQ!

We are 100% unpacked in our new house and everything has a place either hung, in a drawer/closet/on a shelf. I love this house and having everything on one level is great and having a big kitchen makes me want to start experimenting with new recipes

. One of my last boxes I unpacked had a collection of menus from restaurants we had visited over the years. Some from Italy, one from Spain, (Casa Botin which is suppose to be oldest restaurant in the world dating back to 1725), even an old Elvis menu from a restaurant in Memphis. This recipe was inspired by a menu item from a Houston restaurant.

When we lived in The Woodlands a friend and I would shop and eat in Houston often and one of my favorite lunch places back then was the Empire Cafe on Westheimer and I absolutely loved one of their salads that had a bbq dressing. So this is my version of a salad that holds a lot of fond memories.

April 13, 2024 By Sherry

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