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Sherry

Entree/ Poultry

Chicken with Blistered Tomatoes and Paprika Cream Sauce

A pasta dish to warm your belly on a cool Fall night.

I hope wherever you are living you are enjoying some cooler/colder weather. Even here in Texas we have cooled down considerably since all those 100° days of this past summer. Here in our area it may be cool/cold one week and warmer the next so you just never know what to expect. So as this recipe post it is in the 70’s but next weekend our highs are in the 50’s. Whatever the temperature, I think you will enjoy this dish.

Cooler temperatures have me wanting to make some good pasta dishes and since I have a pantry full of beautifully shaped pastas I will definitely be doing that. Usually, if I ask my husband what he wants on his pasta he says “olive oil” and cheese. BUT, I always convince him of a dish that is a little more interesting that pasta and oil. The pasta I used in this recipe just happened to be another one of my giant pastas I picked up and World Market.

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Soup

Winter Worthy Clam Chowder

The cold weather is here! Time for soup.

I love cold weather better than hot weather and the reason is I love making soups. After living in Texas for over 30 years now I decided long ago that you can’t wait for it to turn cold  to have a reason to make a good belly warming soup; you just have to go for it and if you have to, turn your AC really cold and you will think its one of those winter months that’s begging you to make soup.

There are almost thirty soup recipes posted to this blog so when you are wanting a one pot dinner, take a look at my archives. I’ve been making clam chowder for years. My sister, Terry, and I have always used the same recipe that was suppose to be from a Noah’s Ark restaurant in St. Charles, Missouri. We thought it was easy and a no-brainer of a recipe; all Cambell’s canned soups that we would add clams and a bottle of clam juice. We would use a can of clam chowder, cream of celery, cream of onion, and cream of potato soups and then add some milk and the clams and bottle of juice. Well, it was/is easy but you have all those “canned” not homemade soups. Try it sometime. If you have all these soups in your pantry and you are rushed for dinner some night you can throw this together in a matter of minutes. I also use to add half a stick of butter to the soup pot. It’s good but nothing like a nice homemade pot of soup.

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Entree/ Legumes/ Pork

Red Peas with Pork Belly and Cheesy Grits

P-P-P-P’s – Peas Please!

I’ve always loved peas (maybe not English peas when I was a kid); black eyed, purple hull, field, lady, cream, and of course snow and sugar snap. The first peas are legumes but still a pea in my book My dad use to grown black eyed, purple hull and field pieces and my mother would mix them all together when she cooked them. I don’t grow my own peas but sometimes I will buy a can of each, drain and rinse and mix them together; I love the different shapes and colors together

The red pea is a variety I’ve never tried and recently ordered a package of Sea Island Red Peas from Amazon and after looking at several recipes, I knew what I was going to serve with them. Some good barely cheesy grits, topped with the red peas/gravy and topped with some crispy pork belly chunks. I’m making Hoppin’ John this week using the remainder of my bag of peas. Hoppin’ John is a dish I’ve never made before so I’m anxious to make it and maybe have a good crusty bread instead of cornbread.

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Entree/ Poultry

Balsamic Chicken with Figs and Kale

Fall figs!

I spend a lot of my time off from cooking at the brewery looking at recipes. Can you believe that? After helping in the kitchen four days a week; I still want to look at food? Either I’m searching my favorite wineries for recipes or watching food shows or movies about food.

Cooking for company is something I love to do and hope to get back to doing that. I can spend hours trying to pick out the perfect menu; not to fussy (just yet) and not too very complicated (although I do like a challenge) just a perfect meal to enjoy with friends and family. I also think it is fun to get guest involved in the cooking, only if they are into that sort of entertainment. And, I can’t wait to have my first tea party. I should say “tea” because tea party makes me think of old ladies in hats and I’m definitely not a “hat” person. So, if you are ever invited to “tea” you know you do not have to wear a hat.

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Appetizers/ ColdApp

Pork Belly, Apple and Maple Glaze Crostini

Nice little app for your guest.

Don’t you just love using apples in recipes this time of the year? Fall weather is just begging for something homemade from apples whether it is something as simple as sautéed apples, an apple cake, apples cooked with your pork roast or as in this recipe a delicious appetizer made with pork and apple as two of the main ingredients.

Once I went on a field trip with one of my kids when we lived in Chicago (had to be one of the boys because my daughter was only about 3) and we went to an apple orchard somewhere in the north Chicago area.  All I remember about that trip was some kid getting hit on the head with a falling apple and we got to see cider/juice being made in the mill at the orchard.

My favorite apple use to be Jazz but I don’t see those in the market right now. I like just about any apple that is juicy and tart and especially crisp. Delicious apple has to be my least favorite of all apples; just don’t see how a mealy soft apple appeals to anyone.

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Salads

Frisee and Arugula Salad with a Bunch of Friends

Absolutely the best salad ever!

Roaming around some of my favorite sites from wineries I came across this salad and I have to say it has become one of my all time favorites. I couldn’t decide whether to post this or not but then decided I would hate for you to never taste the combination of all these ingredients.

Frisee which I have always called “scratchy throat lettuce” mixed with peppery arugula, some haricots verte, toasted almonds, some fresh peaches, and I added the avocado tossed with a wonderful dressing makes a salad that I won’t easily forget and it will be top of my list to prepare for dinner guest. If peaches are out of season I would try some apple, pear, or fresh figs.

The night I made this the kids came over for dinner and I actually had thirds on this salad. Usually I’m doing good to finish the salad I have on my plate.

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Entree/ Pasta

Giant Pasta with Baby Zucchini

A use for leftover Charcuterie meats.

After making my charcuterie board on our girl’s trip to Waco, there was quite a bit of meat left over and I just threw it in the freezer when I got home thinking I might use if for our snack one night while having our “front porch cocktails”. Then recently when I was at Cost Plus World Market I bought several of their pastas. Ya know, buying different pastas is my weakness. Well, they had a giant fussily pasta that I thought would go perfect with my baby (the size of your little finger) zucchini that I picked up at Trader Joe’s. And the results were amazing.

I’m only using the prosciutto and the pancetta out of the meats. I wasn’t sure how frying and browning salami would work and I knew I wouldn’t like the mortadella.  When I make this again I will have the pancetta sliced a little thicker so I can cube it and then cut the pancetta thin and in threads.

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Entree/ Pork

Tequila, Sausage and Vegetable Mixed Grill

Perfect for your Labor Day backyard party.

The night we made this there was only the two of us. As you can see in the picture, we could have feed at least 4 extra people. Where were you?

This isn’t actually a “mixed grill” but I didn’t know what to call it. I had saved the basic ingredients from a Food Network recipe I had seen but then decided to go off road and add a lot of other things to the recipe. Usually a mixed grill has several kinds of meats and I only had my Eckerman’s Smoked jalapeno Sausage with Cheese and besides we didn’t need any other meats.

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Appetizers/ HotApp

Cambozola, Apple and Prosciutto App

Good and easy!

A tapa, pintxos, meze (platter), pupu, zakuska, Hors D’oeuvres, canapés, antipasto, amuse bouche, finger food, charcuterie, and even crudites are all words for appetizers from all over the world. Who doesn’t love munching on something while having a great vintage cocktail before dinner?

I love appetizers and cocktail parties. I feel like I have master my cocktail making and I’ve been making appetizers all my married life and that’s 53 years now. I love a good “surprise” amuse bouche from the chef and I’ve never met a tapa or pintxos  (I have a few of those on this blog I tried after returning from a Spain trip) I didn’t love. I remember one of my first amuse bouches was from Gramercy Tavern and the waiter brought out a tiny little dish filled with salt and it had a tater tot resting in the middle of the dish. Well, that tater tot was filled with a black tapenade and later after returning home the chef actually scaled down and sent the recipe to me. I still have not made that dish but I will one day soon.

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Dessert/ Desserts

Chocolate Pecan Cobbler

Who says a cobbler has to have fruit in it!

I love cobblers and they are probably one of my favorite desserts especially in the summer when there are so many delicious fruits available; peach, blackberry, mixture of raspberry, blackberry and blueberry – you name it if it has fruit and a crust it will be on my list of favorite desserts.

My sister, Terry, told me about having a pecan cobbler that she liked so I had to start looking for a recipe and when I found one my first thought was “how could chocolate not make this taste even better”. Well, it did and it also made it a richer dessert and if you plan on serving it with ice cream start with a small serving since you can always go back for seconds. I ended up portioning my leftovers into small tin cups and freezing it so if we have a chocolate attack we can go get one and nuke it and add some vanilla ice cream.

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Side dish/ Vegetables

Charred Broccoli with Blue Cheese Dressing and Spicy Rice

What do you do after a hard day’s work?

I’ve always loved cooking, taking cooking classes, watching cooking competitions, talking food, recreating a dish that I have enjoyed from a restaurant and teaching someone how to make something special. So, even today, in my old age (ha) after helping out in the kitchen at our son and D-I-L’s brewery for 6-8 hours I’ll come home and watch a good “food movie” or some of my new favorite food shows on Magnolia network or even sit down and search the internet for some new recipes. 

One of my favorite things to do is to look at menus from restaurants where friends or family have dined. You can’t imagine how many ideas I have gotten from reading menus and unless it is an over the top restaurant with like super complicated foods and techniques, it’s pretty easy to come up with a recipe.

This particular recipe is from Stephanie Izard (The Girl and the Goat Restaurant in Chicago). She won Top Chef competition in their fourth season and now has four restaurants. (Her green bean recipe is still one of my all time favorite green bean recipes.) My son, Scott, is always sending me new things to try. I would have to say that he is a lot more adventurous than I am. I have not tried his tahini brownies and probably won’t but I will try almost anything else he recommends. When he showed me this recipe I think he had already made it twice so I knew it must be good.  

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Entree/ Pork/ Sandwiches

Pork Burger with Blue Cheese and Grilled Peaches

Who doesn’t love a good burger?

Back in my high school “burger days”  (the 60’s)the only place we would go for a good burger was Knox’s Drive-In. Whether it was with my now husband or my twin sister, Terry and a group of friends that was our go to place for a burger and hanging out. That might have been about the only place back then to get a burger. The Drive-In is now closed but to this day I can still remember the phone number and that is mainly because whenever we would go back home for a visit our three kids always wanted a “Knox’s Burger”. What a burger it was, a thin patty that you could actually get your mouth around topped with my favorite mustard, pickle, onion and slaw. Not any ordinary slaw either; simple finely chopped cabbage with maybe a little pickle juice and tiny bit of mustard.

Fast forward to current times and you’ll find burgers that could feed four people and have to be dissected to get it in your mouth. I’ve never had an egg on a burger and that’s one trend I hope is over. Those poor chickens have been working overtime to provide eggs for “put an egg on it” menu items.

This pork burger is a recipe I found in Erin French’s new cookbook The Lost Kitchen. The Lost Kitchen is one of my favorite Magnolia networks new shows. Erin has her Lost Kitchen restaurant in Freedom, Maine and the only way to get a reservation for the 6 months a year she is open is to send a postcard in sometime in April and hope they see it and you make it on their reservation list. I’m still looking for a Round Top post card that might catch her attention. Maybe I need one that says “90 population” and she’ll think “that girls needs a night out”.

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