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Appetizers/ Fish/Seafood/ HotApp/ Sauces

Shrimp Corn Dogs with Blueberry Mustard

“Peanuts! Popcorn! Cotton Candy! Corndogs!, getum while they’re hot.”

Now that is what I use to hear at our county fair. Our small town in Southern Missouri (Caruthersville) was the county seat and we had a county fair every year. President Truman even went one year for the festivities. (I was a baby then, of course.).

We loved going to the fair for the rides, watching the beauty pageant where all the contestants were driven around the race track in convertibles, going to watch the harness races (horses) and quarter horse races. My boyfriend (now my husband) would meet me and we’d ride everything there. To make some spending money, my teenage to be husband worked on the town’s ferry boat during the fair collecting quarters from people who would park their cars on the Tennessee side of the Mississippi River and walk onto the ferry to cross over  to come to our fair.  The ferry and the county fair are now long lost to history but I have not forgotten the sounds of the carnival and the smell of cotton candy, taffy and corn dogs.

I first had these shrimp corndogs at the Moonshine Grill in Ausin at my son and daughter-in-law’s rehearsal dinner several years ago. I totally forgot about these little gems until I was looking at one of the restaurant’s menus the other day. Anyway, skewered shrimp dipped in my corndog batter, and fried and served with a honey mustard sauce with a blueberry swirl for dipping will make a hit at your next party.

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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.

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Appetizers/ Entree/ HotApp/ Pork/ Sauces

Pork Satay with Three Dipping Sauces

Satay’s make a great little appetizer or entree.

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

I know I have mentioned this before but in case you missed it — DC is the www.thedaringkitchen.com site that I belong to and they have a bakers and cooks challenge each month that members are challened to make certain dishes. The member has almost a month to complete the challenge and post to their site and to our own sites. Every one makes the same recipe but you can do your own variations on part of the recipe. There are only a few things that I have been intimadated by so far with these challenges — The French Meringues and the ginger bread houes (couldn’t do the houses because I was busy catering over Christmas). I would also like to see a challenge for peti fours. I’ve always wanted to make those but never have attempted to make the really pretty ones like I would want to do.

I have made chicken satay’s before for catering but for this challenge I decided to do the Pork Satay and make at least three dipping sauces. I just ordered some really fun looking skewers so I’m going for the appetizer portion but these can also be made with larger skewers.

Satay is a popular dish originating from Indonesia and Malaysia and is often served as “street fare” and accompanied by a dipping sauce. It can be made from cubed meats or strips of meat that are threaded on a skewer. Most of us think of kebabs when we think of skewered meat. To me, satay is strips of meat and served with a peanut dipping sauces. Usually kebabs have vegetables skewered along with the meat and I only do meat when making satays.

Hope you will try this challenge along with me and if you are interested in joining The Daring Kitchen, go to their website and check it out. It is really fun to see what others challenges look like.

Dmeat

I used a pork tenderloin and sliced it very thin. It turned out very tender.

Ding

These are all the ingredients for the marinade. It was really fast to throw together in the food processor.

dmar

Spread marinade all over the meat and marinate for 4-8 hours.

dgrill

I talked my husband into grilling these outside in 40° weather.

dsau

I did three different sauces, peanut sauce, taminand sauce and a soy green onion sauce.

dlast

Great little recipe and I was glad to take this challenge.

Pork Satay with Three Dipping Sauces

Ingredients

  • 1/2 small onion chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic crushed
  • 1 Tbsp. ginger root chopped
  • 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
  • 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
  • 1 tsp. ground coriander
  • 1 tsp. ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp. turmeric
  • 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
  • 1 pound pork

Instructions

  1. Cut pork in 1 " strips (I cut my thin).  For marinade put all ingredients xexcept for the meat in a food processor and process until smooth.  Put the pork in either a bowl or plastic zip-lock and cover the pork with the marinade. Chill for 4-8 hours.
  2. Soak your wooden skewers for about 20 minutes before preparing skewers.
  3. Gently and slowly slide the meat strips onto the skewers. Discard any leftover marinade.
  4. Grill or broil until the edges just start to char, 8-10 minutes.. Flip and cook another 8-10 minutes.
  5. If you are grilling you could definitely brush once with some of the left over marinade when you flip the skewers. Then discard any left over marinade.

Peanut Sauce

Ingredients

  • 3/4 c. coconut milk
  • 4 Tbsp. peanut butter
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
  • 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
  • 1 tsp. brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
  • 1-2 dried red chilies chopped (keep the seeds for heat)

Instructions

  1. Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and lemon, mix well. Over low heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter and your soy-lemon-seasoning mix. Mix well, stir often.
  2. All you are doing is melting the peanut butter, so make your peanut sauce after you have made everything else in your meal or make ahead of time and reheat.

Pepper Dip

Ingredients

  • 4 Tbsp. soy sauce
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
  • 1 tsp. brown sugar
  • 1-2 dried chilies chopped, keep seeds for heat
  • 1 finely chopped green onio

Instructions

  1. Mix well. Serve chilled or room temperature.

Tamarind Dip

Ingredients

  • 4 Tbsp. tamarind paste I used tamarind chutney
  • 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
  • 1 clove garlic minced
  • 1 finely chopped green onion
  • 1 tsp. brown or white sugar

Instructions

  1. Mix well. Serve chilled or room temperature.

 

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Sauces

Salmon En croute

Another www.daringkitchen.com challenges and I’m pleased with the results.

The 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Simone of Junglefrog Cooking. Simone chose Salmon en Croute (or alternative recipes for Beef Wellington or Vegetable en Croute) from Good Food Online.

I’m really getting into these challenges. This one is the “cook’s” challenge and they are posted on the 27th of each month and the “baking” challenge is revealed on the 14th of each month. 

I have made en croute once in my life and that was individual beef wellingtons I made for a Valentines dinner for two I catered about 18 years ago. I don’t know why I haven’t tried salmon en croute before. The crust is very simple and is has a wonderful flaky texture.

I really thought that the filling for this recipe would be too rich. We had the option of cream cheese or mascarpone. I had the cream cheese so decided to use it. Next time I will probably try the mascarpone. I also used a mixture of arugula and spinach. Next time a little more on the spinach. I did add some dill to the mixture and I made a lemon butter paprika sauce to go with it.

I got to pick one of my Meyer lemons from my tree. I wait all year for fall to get here so I can start using them. I only had 18 this year but better than the 8 I got last year. My husband is going to plan it in the ground after this crop has been picked so we may get a bigger tree with more fruit next year.

I hope you will try this recipe. You could use puffed pastry but you should really try this shortcrust recipe first. I really thought this fish would be an individual serving but as I cut my template, I had to keep making it bigger and bigger to accommodate the fish I was going to put inside.  Kind of like my dad’s fish stories. I think hearing about some of his catches, the fish kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger each time he told the story.

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Appetizers/ Entree/ HotApp/ Pasta/ Sauces

Duck Confit Ravioli with Port and Sun-dried Cherry Sauce

Michie Feast – Pasta Course

The idea for this cours started as gnocchi, then changed to ravioli with duck bolognese, and finally settled on a duck confit ravioli with a port sauce.  I have never made my own pasta, or duck confit so I’m not sure what I was thinking!

I shopped for the duck in Austin before I headed to the parent’s house.  I was surprised that duck was $16/lb, I guess I am cheap but I decided right there to cut the duck in the recipe from four pounds down to one pound.  Since the idea was to serve very small portions, like a tasting menu, I knew I would only use a fraction of what the recipe would yield anyways.

Thanks to Paul, my duck confit was cooked to perfection.  Starting almost 48 hours in advance, the duck was first brined for 24 hours, then cooked for 10 hours on a very low temperature.  When it was finished the duck fell apart, it was fall off the bone tender and moist.  This eventually got mixed in with the ricotta and parmesan to create the filling for the ravioli.

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Appetizers/ ColdApp/ Sauces

Green and Yellow Tomato Salsa

Good friends, good wine, good food, what more could you want…

We had the perfect dinner a couple of weeks ago.   A good friend came over while her husband was out of town in Colorado.    We swam, cooked, ate, drank a lot of wine and had a deliciously good time.  We love cooking together and trying out new recipes.  I don’t think we have ever cooked anything together that we didn’t think was fabulous.  When we do our day after Thanksgiving feast, we always come up with some great things to try.

This was the first time to use our new teak dining table and  my new hanging lanterns and it all made for a perfect evening.

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