Sherry – Page 27 – Rosemary and the Goat

Shrimp and Mango Pintxos

So what’s a pintxo anyway.

I don’t know if I have every told you this story, so if I have just skip over this part. Years ago (1997) when my oldest graduated from University of Texas he moved to Spain for 5 months to learn to speak Spanish a little better. Well while there, one night he called and said he was on his way to a tapas bar. I knew what a tapas was because I had read about them even though I had not gone to a tapas bar yet. Anyway, long story short, I thought he said “topless bar” but then once he started talking about it I knew what he meant.

Many years later when we went to Spain, we ate at nothing but tapas bars in Seville because small plate appetizers are one of our favorite ways to eat –I just want several. So recently my son and his wife Missy returned from San Sebastian, Spain (trip for her 40th birthday) and they ate at some wonderful places. I received pictures almost daily of some of the pintxos they were feasting on.

September 5, 2016 By Sherry

Egg Dishes/ Morning Foods

Eggs Baked in Cream Gravy with Bacon

Eggs, Bacon and Gravy, what more could you ask for.

Recently I was looking through a stack of food magazines tearing out recipes before the magazines got trashed. I saw a recipe in Southern Living magazine for Creamy Baked Eggs with herbs.

This particular recipe was baked in cream and herbs and got me thinking that wouldn’t gravy be a lot better tasting than just cream. I’m thinking a nice thin milk gravy made with bacon drippings, of course, would be so good with the eggs and then a good sprinkling of crumbled bacon and maybe some fresh chives and parsley. Then all this goodness could be scooped up and put on a big biscuit square.

August 31, 2016 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ HotApp

Sugar Cane Skewered Shrimp with Bacon and Pineapple

I finally found some sugar cane and wanted to use it.

I’ve always wanted to make something on a sugar cane skewer and now I have. And now that I have I may just save it for drink skewers. This recipe would have been much faster using ordinary wooden skewers. That said, don’t worry about looking for sugar cane, just get out those long pics.

Many years ago before using the internet, I use to look up newspaper food pages (usually on a Wednesday or Thursday) to see what foods were popular (I guess now we would say “trending”) in that area. The Courier-Journal in Louisville’s food pages can still be accessed. If you have time, try typing in some of your favorite city’s newspapers. The Citizen-Times in Asheville offers a 30 day free look. The Post and Courier from Charleston has free access to their recipes. If you want to see what’s happening on the other side of the US (from me anyway) Napa Valley Register offers free access too.

I just read an article about what was the favorite foods from each state. Results were crazy. In almost all states, by far, the winning type of food was pizza. Of course, Texas had Mexican food winning out as did Colorado and California. Hawaii’s favorite food was bakery items.

August 26, 2016 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Smoked Salmon with Boursin

What a delicious appetizer and they are so cute.

Either you are one of those people who like smoked salmon or you say no thank you.

I think smoked salmon is something you acquire a taste for; after you have prepared salmon just about every other way possible and are ready to venture out and try something new. I’m not sure when I had my first smoked salmon but I probably didn’t like it immediately and then I tried it again in a Smoked Salmon Martin Spread and loved it.

There’s a lot you can do with that little package of smoked salmon that is pre-sliced and ready to use. You could crumble it and put it in an omelette, top deviled eggs with a sliver, put it in some sushi, try it in a quiche, throw it into a hot bowl of pasta along with some lemon and capers and a little butter and of course put it on top of a bagel with cream cheese and capers and some finely chopped red onion.

If you don’t want to make the boursin from scratch, you can buy it in a container in the dairy section of your grocery.

August 21, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Pies/Tarts

Tropical Rum Cream Pie

A smooth and creamy pie with colorful fruits.

How is it possible to have a recipe that I have forgotten for 30 years. Years ago my sister and I put together a cookbook of our favorite recipes and then a few years later we did another one (Two Peas In A Pod). This recipe for Rum Pie was in our first book that we called “Double Delight” (after all we are twins, so a fitting name.)

Recently I was looking through one of our book for a particular recipe we both use to cook and decided to revisit our dessert section and when I saw this recipe I thought “ohhh, I forgot all about you” and how creamy and rummy you tasted; and how good you would be with some beautiful tropical fruits.

We eat a lot of fruit and I’m always looking for different ones to try but always go back to my favorites which are raspberries, kiwi, pineapple, and mango just because the colors are so beautiful together. My first though on what fruits to garnish this pie with was to use tropical fruits but when I looked up the list of tropicals, raspberries didn’t show up and after making that salsa to go with my Spicy Tuna Bowl that had passion fruit and pepino melon (it was good) I didn’t want to go out on a limb again and try a “new” fruit. Some of those tropical fruits, in my opinion, have soft mushy taste that I don’t care for. Ya can’t go wrong with anything with raspberries, mango, pineapple and kiwi.

August 16, 2016 By Sherry

Garnish/ Salads/ Side dish/ Vegetables

Pickled Yellow Squash

Take advantage of your summer harvest.

I’ve been doing a lot of pickling lately; first my roasted yellow pickled beets and now this pickled yellow squash.

Even if you don’t have a garden you can take advantage of finding great deals on produce and then canning some to enjoy in the winter. I didn’t find a great deal at the farmer’s market; their yellow squash was $3.00/lb. I bought one pound of their squash and then went to my HEB and bought 6 lbs. at $.99/lb. Now that’s a deal.

My mother and dad both use to can things. It seemed like it was more my mother canning tomatoes and pickles from my dad’s garden and then after my dad retired they both tried their hand(s) at pickled okra, beets. When they moved over to Reelfoot Lake he even canned some fish he had caught then they would make fish cakes out of the canned fish. Now, I wasn’t too keen on trying that recipe but I’m sure if he made it, it was good.

I’ve canned some marmalade before and some fig jam and even some cognac raisins to serve with cheese. Oh, I forgot, one of my sister’s (Terry) best canned items is her chow chow. It is better than any chow chow you will ever find in a grocery store and when I can get tomatoes for 50 cents a lb. I make some. I have to go to Missouri to get tomatoes at that price.

August 11, 2016 By Sherry

Cookies/Bars/ Dessert

Coconut Chocolate Raspberry Squares

Nestles makes the very best choco-late.

For about 20 years after moving to Texas I catered; I had my first job about a month after moving here for our realtor, then our builder and then for a corporation and after that things picked up and I was most doing corporate work except at Christmas time where I was booked mostly for cocktail parties and I also did showers, weddings, and graduation parties. My favorite party to cater, by far, was a cocktail party because I love little food. It’s a lot more work doing all those little pieces of food but I have always loved to watch people try a lot of different items which you get with that type of party vs a dinner party.

When catering corporate luncheons I had to come up with different recipes for cookies/bars/finger desserts. I could whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies or brownies without even looking at a recipe because I did them so often. I can no longer do that since it has been about 6 years since I have catered anything. That part of my life is in the rear view mirror and was the reason I started food blogging; I missed cooking the food and sharing with others.

When my kids were younger, chocolate chip cookies were their most requested cookie for me to make. One year at one of the school book sales I bought this Nestles book and over the next few years of catering (like 20) I made several favorites from that book.

August 6, 2016 By Sherry

Salads

Tomato and Arugula Salad

All those fresh summer vegetables in one salad.

Don’t you just love the taste of arugula? The peppery taste is delicious mixed with tomatoes and I love it on sandwiches in place of lettuce or sautéed a little bit and put into an omelette.

This salad was another idea I had one night when faced with a refrigerator full of vegetables and a brand new package of arugula and after looking on the internet I found others had beaten me to the punch or should I say, recipe. I used Bobby Flay’s Vinaigrette recipe but my own farm truck list of ingredients for the salad.

There’s nothing better than summer tomatoes and over the 4th of July, my son Paul brought a ton (not actually a ton) of tomatoes to me; so many he made 6 pints of roasted salsa that we can enjoy through the summer. I’m thinking when my husband is in the pool and wants a snack I can go pop open a jar of salsa and serve it to him pool side with some chips (not homemade of course).

I’ve gotten where I only buy English cucumbers, that is unless I can get the small pickling type. I love the deep ridges in the English cucumbers and they don’t have as many seeds on the inside and they looked so pretty in this salad.

August 1, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts

Summer Fruit Shortcake

Shortcake doesn’t have to be just made with strawberries or spongy cakes.

Are you looking for an easy light summer dessert? Look no further than this Summer Fruit Shortcake.

This isn’t make with those little round store-bought shortcakes you get next to the strawberry section of the grocery. Who really likes those anyway once covered with strawberries and the cake turns all mushy.

My daughter, Alexis, made a shortcake once that was like a biscuit and had hard boiled egg yolk as one of the ingredients. That was a very good shortcake and I just discovered that the recipe was first published by James Beard and was one of his mother’s recipes. The hard boiled yolk adds to the richness of the shortcake without making it tough.

This Summer Fruit Shortcake doesn’t have either a biscuit or cake type ingredient but is made the way my mother made shortcake and that is with a pie crust baked to golden crisp perfection and then broken into pieces and put beneath a bunch of summer fruit and topped with some REAL whipped cream.

July 27, 2016 By Sherry

Egg Dishes/ Morning Foods/ Sandwiches

Avocado Toast

Get up, it’s time for breakfast!

Did your mother ever tell you breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Maybe she was right but seems like there are a lot of studies out trying to prove it is not so. Well you can decide for yourself if you want to eat breakfast or not. In my opinion if you don’t eat breakfast you’re going to be even hungrier at lunch time.

We don’t always eat breakfast when we travel; sometimes we just take an early lunch. The day I had Avocado Toast at Willa Jean’s in New Orleans it was for a “late” lunch after visiting the WWII museum. Believe me, by the time I walked to Willa Jeans, I had no trouble eating the whole piece of toast. There are so many creative breakfast ideas I have picked up from restaurants and they have all seem to have changed my opinion on breakfast not being my favorite meal of the day; it still isn’t my favorite but I do have an arsenal of things I like making for breakfast/brunch when we have company.

July 22, 2016 By Sherry

Salads

Salad LÜKE

Loved John Besh’s Salad Luke.

We tried our best to eat as much as we could on a recent trip to New Orleans; and as usual I found several things I wanted to try and make once returning home.

My sister and I both were in speech classes until about 4th grade because we couldn’t pronounce our “r’s” correctly and I’m always flubbing up on pronouncing certain words. One night in New Orleans we had dinner at Luke, one of John Besh’s restaurants. So, all day I’m thinking “now how is this pronounced”. Is it like Lu-kay, or lu-kee or luck. When we were seated that night, the first thing I ask the waiter is how to pronounce Luke and he said “Luke, I don’t know what the two dots are doing over the “U” “. At least I won’t be pronouncing this one wrong again.

Their Salad Luke was such a simple salad but the appeal to me was all in the presentation. The plate had a little puddle of buttermilk dressing, topped with some celery root, golden beets and shreds of carrots, then one leaf of butter lettuce sitting on the plate like a little bowl, then drizzle of dressing then 3 or 4 more stacks of the leaves/dressing, making the stack about 4-5” tall but only about 4 – 5 leaves of lettuce. Very pretty and impressed me enough I couldn’t wait to make my own pickled yellow beets and my own buttermilk dressing.

July 17, 2016 By Sherry

Salads/ Side dish

Pickled Roasted Golden Beets

Love these golden beets!

My husband has always said he doesn’t like beets because they are red and he doesn’t like red food. Now that doesn’t make sense since he does eat catsup, tomatoes, etc. So I decided to make golden beets to use in a salad similar to one I had at Luke’s Restaurant in New Orleans. That recipe will come in a couple of days.

Usually the beets I eat are pickled. For years, that was the only thing I knew to do with a beet. And, of course, they were red beets that I pickled and they bled all over everything and if I wasn’t careful I would end up with a blood-splattered looking top.

After I started this blog I became more adventurous in trying new recipes. I’ve always liked cooking but never really went out on a limb to try different things. Then I tried fried beets once at East Side Kings in Austin and I made them almost immediately after returning home. My French Fried Beets with Japanese Mayonnaise is one of my favorite appetizers; I now cut them in slices and not chunks like ESK make their’s. Then my next adventure in beets was with my Roasted Beet Napoleon; stacks of deliciousness. And, who could pass up my Pink Heart Egg Finger Sandwiches where I used the beet juice to dye my hard-boiled eggs then cut tiny beet hearts as a garnish for the egg sandwich.

July 12, 2016 By Sherry

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