Sherry – Page 7 – Rosemary and the Goat

Thyme, Onion and Chive Muffins

I love making things from my herb garden and it is so beautiful this year.

There’s just nothing like going out to your own herb garden and cutting some fresh herbs to use in a dish you are preparing.

Our herb garden seems to grow bigger each year, and this year I have planted three kinds of mint, chocolate mint, grapefruit mint and peppermint. I have several kinds of oregano, rosemary, thymes, lavender, arugula (not an herb), bay leaf and some dill. They are absolutely beautiful growning in pots with some day lillies and other flowers stuck here and there around them.

Today was a beautiful sunny day and I was stuck in the house all day drinking nothing but broth and eating popsicles (yuck). So, with nothing better to do, I decided to make my husband some muffins for a special treat tonight. This is a savory muffin with lots of onion flavor and they are quick and easy to make with no rising needed. Since I couldn’t eat any food today and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to try these, I took one pan of muffins over to our neighbors and my husband is left with 6 which he will probably finish off tonight.

April 20, 2010 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Muffins

Mississippi Spice Muffins

M-I-SS-I-SS-I-PP-I, that is the way I learned to spell Mississippi!

Funny how some things stick in your head. I remember learning to spell Mississippi saying it kind of like a rhyme M-i-ss-i-ss-i-ppi and also h-i-p-po-pot-amus. Kind of like skipping rope to a tune, something that just sticks in your head and you don’t forget.

I grew up in a small town in Missouri that sat right on the Mississppi River. In fact, our first street is “Third Street”. I don’t really know what happened to First and Second Streets. Honestly, I don’t remember ever seeing them and this town is only about 6,000 in population. They may be there and I just overlooked them for 21 years. I was told the last time we visited family there that we do actually have a 1st and 2nd street. BUT, our first usable street that you can actually drive on is THIRD Street.

It was fun growing up in a small town and driving “the loop” was our entertainment on weekends. Having a levy that separated the town and the river was a fun place to go when it snowed to go sledding and also as teenagers and dating, seems like we drove down to the levy to look around. Back then, our pranks were (I should say this was my twin sister’s idea) was to make a dummy and have it’s arm hanging out of the trunk of our car while we drove “the loop”. We would also go out on the sand bars with our parents and brother. My dad actually make a speed boat that we would go out on and he would fish the Mississippi River and bring home lots of catfish that we enjoyed. Small towns are nice, you know everyone and everyone knows you.

April 17, 2010 By Sherry

ColdApp/ Garnish

Turnip Rose

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

(Juliet)

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo:
[Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet:
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy:
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose (turnip)
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
and for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Thank you William. I always think of this when I do a turnip rose. Why? I don’t know. I just always think “a rose by any other name” and then realized where that line comes.

April 15, 2010 By Sherry

Soup

Brunswick Stew

Cold evening? Soup’s on.

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

Since it is starting to get hot here in Texas (low 80’s 🙂 ) I chose to do the shorter version of the recipe challenge. I do not want to stand one minute longer in the kitchen when I can be out floating in our pool with a glass of wine in hand. Now, that is relaxing. I have made several things from the Lee Brothers cookbook. After returning from our mother/daughter trip to Charleston last fall, I got a copy of the Lee Brothers book from out local library. There were quite a few recipes I copied out to try. So, if you get a chance, get a copy from your library and if they don’t have it, they can get it on loan from another library.

April 14, 2010 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert

Orange and Almond Angel Food Cake

Simple but elegant. That’s what I think of this recipe.

With Spring here and everyone is thinking of getting into their bikinis, (not me!) lighter desserts are in order. I’m not sure how many people are like me, but I would like to have a bite of something sweet after a meal. Lately, it’s just been fruit, but for Easter I made this cake and it is delightful. I have made this recipe for almost 20 years and am always wondering what we would do without “the incredible edible egg”.

The angel food cake is believed to have originated back in the early 1800’s. The classic story behind the name “angel food cake” is that this dessert is so white, light, and fluffy it must be fit for angels. A traditional angel food cake pan is a tube pan with a removable bottom and when you take the baked cake out of the oven, you turn it upside down on a bottle so it will cool and not collapse. I also have a heart shaped angel food pan that makes a beautiful cake and you can buy individual angel food cake pans also for small individual cakes.

I envision some pioneer woman with some sugar, flour and egg whites making this cake for the first time. I seem to imagine how I want things to be sometimes. Like going to the movie, if I don’t like the ending, I make up my own ending and I ALWAYS make a sequel. Same with this cake. Maybe SHE had made egg noodles for her family during the day and had all these egg whites left over and her family was whining for something sweet to eat. Of course she didn’t know how to make a souffle with those egg whites. After all, Julia hadn’t been born yet 🙂 — so she whips up a light and airy dessert for her family.

April 8, 2010 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ HotApp/ Sauces

Coconut Fried Shrimp with Zippy Orange Dipping Sauce

Like Bubba Gump, I love shrimp prepared just about any way.

I have boiled shrimp for shrimp cocktail, bar-b-qued it, ceveched it, grilled it, kebabed it, baked it, butterflied it, creoled it, scampied it, sweet and soured it, foo yunged it and Shrimp and Gritted it. So if there is a way out there I haven’t tried I would like to hear about it. Several days ago I decided to try a healthy version of Coconut Fried Shrimp trying to make it gluten free.

You see, several weeks ago (Fat Tuesday I think) my daughter, Alexis, gave me a challenge to give up grains along with potatoes and sugar. I have pretty much done that for the last 5-6 weeks with the occasional slip with the sugar.

I have tried many great cracker and scone recipes from the Almond Flour Gluten Free Cookbook by Elana Amsterdam and they are fabulous. I’m lucky I don’t have to eat gluten free, but if there is anyone out there that does, please take a look at her cookbook and she also has a website www.elanaspantry.com where you can find some fabulous recipes.

(Carb friendly — substitute a sugar free orange marmalade for the regular.

April 5, 2010 By Sherry

Dessert/ Pies/Tarts

Orange Tian

Uh oh, here comes another one of those challenges! and this one I’m definitely doing again.

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

We have a neighbor who is always bringing us things to try. We get vension when he goes deer hunting, country ham when he goes back to Kentucky for a visit and this trip when they came back from South Texas we received a bowlful of oranges. Since this challenge involves oranges, I though I would put these fresh oranges to work and take them a big piece of this dessert.

I have to admit, I have never heard of an Orange Tian. If you have, then you are one step ahead of me. This challenge involved make a pate sable (crust), orange marmalade, segmenting oranges, making a caramel sauce, and doing a whipped cream where you mix in gelatin. I decided to do mine in these cute little tart pans that have been gathering dust in my pantry.

I am doing a technique class at Williams Sonoma tomorrow on pie crust. I’m not doing the pate sable crust but we are doing a pate brisee and pate sucre and a crust made with saltine crackers. I have never heard of the pate sable crust but after studying up on what I’m going to be making in class found out that the sable crust has a lot more sugar and the sucre crust. I makes it more like a cookie crust.

After making this dessert I knew I would be making it again. It was/is a beautiful dessert. It can defnitely be made in stages. The crust could be made days in advance and frozen. The orange marmalade can be done in advance and putting it together is a breeze.

March 27, 2010 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert

Whipped Cream Frosting

Time tested recipe from the 50’s!

This recipe is all about the frosting and not about the cake. This is best on chocolate or Red Velvet cake and you can make whatever recipe you want for the cake but please try this, it will become a favorite.

The dried pineapple flowers add a beautiful touch to this cake. Although I wouldn’t put pineapples on a chocolate cake (this cake) they would work really well on a Hummingbird cake or a pineapple cake. I will post the how to on the pineapple slices this coming week.

My mother was a wonderful baker and she made all sorts of things when we were growing up. She use to do this special cake around Thanksgiving called Amalgamation Cake. It had ground raisins, nuts, coconut, blackberry jam and almost a dozen eggs. What I remember most about this cake is she would make it a couple of weeks in advance, wrap it really well with plastic wrap and set it on the floor in the closet and over the next couple of weeks the flavors would all meld together into this wonderful tasting holiday cake. Over the years I have told myself I was going to enter that recipe in a contest because I have never seen a recipe with these ingredients.

March 26, 2010 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ Dessert/ Garnish

Dried Pineapple Flowers

I love Martha! and this recipe is from her Cupcake cookbook.

I think Martha is one of those names that you just have to say the first name and everyone just knows who you are talking about.

I taught a technique class on cakes and cupcakes the other day at Williams Sonoma. It was a fun class to teach and I love sharing recipes and ideas with everyone that comes to our classes. Even though I didn’t do any cake decorating, we made a Whipped Cream Frosting that my mother use to make way back in the 50’s. I like playing with food and making garnishes and platter decorations and everything but have never had the patience to learn to decorate cakes. So, these little pineapple flowers really did the trick to finish off a cake I had made for the class.

I plan on making these little flowers to put on top of Hummingbird cupcakes for a party I’m catering before a Jimmy Buffet concert. I think these will look so tropical and will fit well with the theme of the party.

March 22, 2010 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert/ Morning Foods

Butter Scrumptious Coffee Cake

Believe me this is a very scrumptious coffee cake…with lots of memories.

In honor of my grandmother who will be 97 years old this May, I want to share with you her recipe for Butter Scrumptious Coffee Cake.

A little history on my grandmother. She was born in 1913 in Alabama. She really had a hard life growing up. When she was young she had scarlet fever and lost all of her hair and when it came back in it was jet black. And that’s the way I remember her most of my life until she turned silver. Her mother died when she was young and she helped to raise most of her brothers and sisters. And, she did literally walk to school barefooted. She remembers picking cotton and pulling her little brother on the cotton sack. That was a hard life. Unlike when my sister and I were in high school we decided we were going to try and pick cotton to make some extra money and to see if we could actually pick cotton like our grandmother did. We went to the cotton patch with a friend. There we were in shorts, tank tops ready to put in a hard day’s work and everyone else had on big hats and long sleeve shirts. — WELL, our cotton picking days were short lived, we were fired by lunch time. We quickly found out there were no fun and games going on in the cotton patch.

I would say my grandmother had a very good life in the time she and my grandfather were married. Our family lived next door to our grandparents all of our lives and my twin sister and I spent every Saturday night with them. They took us to Florida every summer from the time we were three years old and I remember staying at the same beach house every year. It had a screened in porch with an old wooden ice box. As we got older we liked going to this little store that the owners of the house and motel owned to check out their two cute Cuban sons who worked there. We thought of any excuse to go to the corner drugstore to see them!

Our grandmother did everything for us. I guess you could say we were spoiled — BUT — far from rotten. She use to make this cake for us for breakfast and I still make this cake from time to and will always think of her when I make this recipe. It’s another great recipe for the freezer and it’s good anytime, not just for breakfast. My grandmother is still living in her own house and still cooks up her pot of chili when she knows we are coming for a visit.

I hope this will become one of your family favorites.

March 18, 2010 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Pasta

Asparagus and Mushroom Risotto with Lobster & Proscuitto

Creamy Risotto made with Mushrooms, Champagne and topped with Lobster and Proscuitto – think of anything better!

I have made risotto several times before and one of my favorites is one of Giadas” for Champagne Risotto. I decided to add the mushrooms and lobster and use a seafood stock instead of chicken stock. Riscotto could possibly be my all time best comfort food. And while it is still cool here at nights here in Texas I thought we needed a little comforting tonight.

I first had risotto on our trip to Italy. I had a shrimp risotto that was so delicious but I always laugh thinking about it. If you have ever seen the movie “Big Night” you know the scene I’m talking about where this lady orders shrimp risotto but she can’t really see any shrimp in it and ask the chef to bring her another dish to go along with her risotto. The chef refuses to bring her what she wanted because he said “it did not go with HIS risotto”.

My son, Scott, made a risotto once when he was visiting us that had a grilled, then crumbled Monkfish on top. It was delicious and that’s where I got the idea for the lobster garnish. I had a hard time finding a 4 oz. lobster tail and I would have rather had a 2-3 oz. tail but couldn’t find one. I guess I could have gotten some crawfish since they kind of look like lobsters.

March 14, 2010 By Sherry

Candy/ Cookies/Bars/ Dessert

Bacon and Eggs

Bacon and Eggs – Sausage and Eggs, however you see it!

Ok, ok, so it isn’t really bacon and eggs. But, (my husband says I say BUTTTTT, way too much) it makes a cute breakfast/brunch amuse bouche.

Who doesn’t love bacon and eggs or sausage and eggs? Makes a great breakfast, lunch or dinner. If you are vegan then these little tidbits will satisfy you quickly. Meatless, egg less, but not sugarless!

I first saw this in a magazine at least 15 years ago. I cut the picture out, saved it for years, and have made it several times. This little “thing” (not really sure what to call it) makes a great little conversation piece for a brunch or breakfast.

I did a kids class one year at Williams Sonoma and showed the little ones how to make this along with my pear “rudolph”. They loved the bacon and egg snacks.

It’s simply pretzels, white chocolate and yellow M&M’s.

March 12, 2010 By Sherry

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