Side dish – Page 5 – Rosemary and the Goat

Grilled Asparagus with Egg and Bacon

Let’s hear it for St. Pat’s and a green vegetable recipe.

First day of Spring is March 20 but I couldn’t wait to make this recipe using one of Springtime’s favorite vegetables.

And, besides, it’s St. Pat’s Day and I had to do something green. Back in my husband’s college days at University of Missouri-Rolla St. Pat’s Day was a really big deal. Everyone started growing their beards months in advance for the big green holiday. At the time I would say the majority of the campus was engineers; so you imagine what their floats looked like, all mechanical with a different theme each year. I even remember one year stuffing tissue paper in the float to help. The fraternity he was in served up green milk, green mashed potatoes, green beer; you name it, it was colored green.

So, what would St. Patty’s Day be without a green vegetable.

I happened up on this recipe after I download a new app “Tasting Table”. On that site I read about bar food not to miss….. and Dirty Habit in San Francisco was one of them and I found this recipe from one of the chefs on the site. This is Chef David Bazirgan’s recipe and the sauce is his take on a gribiche sauce. A sauce gribiche is a mayonnaise-style cold egg sauce in the French cuisine. David did his version of a deconstructed gribiche and I really like the results which look much better than pictures I saw of a gribiche sauce which has pickles in it.

March 17, 2015 By Sherry

Side dish

White Mash with Crispy Shallots

White Mash, and you thought I was talking about white lightening I bet.

I wanted to make my Osso Buco again that we made for a dinner party a few months go, but without the potatoes. I still had stashed away in my refrigerator a rutabaga,turnip and half head of cauliflower that I picked up at the market last week.

Ina Garten was just on Sunday Morning news program and since I hadn’t looked at her blog in a while I scooted over to it and looked around for something that resembled potatoes. Ina has a recipe called Mashed Yellow Turnips with Shallots and I decided to hijack that recipe and use my turnip, cauliflower and rutabaga for a mash topped with crispy shallots.

March 12, 2015 By Sherry

Side dish

Bacon Cheddar Green Chili Grits

Braggadocio grits with bacon.

Last time we were back home my sister’s cousin-in-law, Kaye (McKaskle Family Farms) gave me some of their new products. I have tried their popcorn cornmeal and popcorn, and their rices, but now they have their very own mill to grind their polenta and grits. I’m always excited to try new products and products made by someone I know makes it even more special.

I didn’t get to see the mill on this visit but will the next time we are up that way.

I’m going to do another give away for a bag of their polenta, and popcorn corn meal (I used all my grits, so sorry about that). All you have to do is leave any kind of note below in the “comments” section and at the end of two weeks I will draw a name and will mail you the products to try. The first thing you have to try is to make my popcorn cornmeal muffins. They are great.

January 31, 2015 By Sherry

Side dish

Sauteed Cabbage and Kale

Start the New Year off with a lot of greens.

Did you start your New Year off with black eyed peas and cabbage? And, did you add in some hog jowl. I love Southern traditions and I would never think of NOT eating those foods on New Years day. I need all the luck I can get.

The black eyed peas are eaten for luck and I have read that if you want to have good luck every day, you must eat at least 365 peas. Not sure if I got that many peas into my mouth, but I tried. The cabbage greens represent money and who wouldn’t want more money in the new years. The truth about the cabbage or other greens is probably the fact that they are late garden crops and may have been the last thing left in the garden at the end of the year to put on the table.

Friends came over for New Years day and she brought the BEP and cabbage so I had some in the refrigerator that had not been cooked. I had the intentions on New Years day of adding in some baby kale and instead of boiling my cabbage I was going to sauté it. So, by Monday I was ready to cook my peas and cabbage and knew that we were going to the movie and even though we always eat popcorn, we are always hungry when we get home. What better to rewarm than a pot of peas and some sautéed cabbage.

My secret ingredient to this recipe is Bangkok Blend spice from Penzeys Spices that a friend gave me for Xmas. I did maybe 1/4 teaspoon of the blend and it really transformed the cabbage dish to something a little more special. Maybe that means I will get a little more money than normal this year. Oh, I forgot, I do get 1.5% increase on my social security check. I will try not to spend it all in one place.

If, you have not tried sautéing cabbage (instead of boiling it), give it a try, it’s quicker and retains more of the green color and for this recipe the kale just barely cooks.

Here is what is in the Penzey Spice Bangkok Blend in case you can’t find it –ancho chili pepper,garlic, ginger, Tellicherry black pepper, galangal, crushed red pepper, lemon grass, cayenne, paprika, basil and cilantro. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff in one little jar.

January 10, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Side dish

Israeli Couscous with Tarragon

With or without the seafood you should try this.

Tarragon is one of those herbs that I never use. Besides putting it in chicken salad for sandwiches (which I’m not crazy about) I don’t really know what to do with it. We did add it to our herb garden this year but I have to admit I just watered it and looked how pretty it was growing but never got out and snipped a little for a dish. (*NOTE– big confession below.)

One night in Vancouver CA (hub) had that wonderful Green Pea Risotto with pan seared Halibut; I had scallops and tiger prawns with a chili citrus butter sauce and it was perched on top of Israeli couscous. Normally I feel like I can pick out all flavors in a dish. Every bite I took of this dish got better and better, and I could never identify the flavor that I was loving in this pile of tiny pearl shaped pasta. The pancetta was easy (it was listed on the menu) but I could not come up with that mystery ingredient. Finally I flagged down the waiter and he said he would ask the chef. Surenuf, it was tarragon. Both our plates had roasted golden beets, baby carrots (with green tops) standing up on the plate and mine had broccolini, which all really went well with the couscous.

When I was buying the ingredients for this, I bought a container of tarragon, totally forgetting we had planted it this year. Well, maybe after the tarragon I bought withers and gets thrown away I can find a new use for what I have growing outside.

Blue Crab Restaurant in Victoria was where we had both of these wonderful meals and what made it even better is that we were perched right on the water where we could watch all the ships and cute little water taxis come and go. So, another toast to our 45th anniversary.

Some info on couscous. It was voted as the third-favorite dish of French people in 2011. It is known as a North African dish and is made from two different sizes of husked and crushed semolina and is normally cooked by steaming but can also be cooked in a liquid. You know when it is done when it is tender, not al dente and not mushy. The grains should be separate and taste moist, not wet or dry. So, now that you have that information, venture out and try this recipe.

October 17, 2014 By Sherry

Side dish/ Vegetables

Brussel Sprouts with Squash, Bacon and Raisins

And butternut squash too….

The beginnings of this recipe came from an old March 2012 Bon Appetit magazine. I upped the bacon, added more shallots and the butternut squash. I like the idea of what they did with the chicken broth and raisins so I used that part of the recipe.

I made brussel sprouts twice while cooking for my daughter and her husband after the baby came. (Wow, that means Thomas is already 5 months old.) One day I made a Brussel sprout salad and the next night I just winged it and sautéed some quartered BS’s, added some dried cranberries, almonds, shallots and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

So, for the ease of pronouncing this vegetable I will probably always call it Brussel sprouts instead of Brussels sprouts. That’s kind of hard to say isn’t it, two words side by side ending in an “s”. So, whether it’s correct or not, I’m doing what a lot of others do and calling them just Brussel sprouts. I will capitalize the Brussel since it is thought that Brussel sprouts came from Brussels, Belgium. Just try saying Brussels sprouts ten times and see if you don’t get tongue tied.

Seems like I was in speech class forever when I was younger. My sister and I had a problem with “r’s” and I think one of my most embarassing “pronouncing something wrong” moment was in class when I was suppose to say BRAZIL and it came out brassier. Maybe that’s why I never like hearing a bra called a b-r-a-s-s-i-e-r. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

It’s kind of like when I want a glass of Pino Noir and I can’t quite get that Noir part out right, I just say give me the such and such Pino and they usually know what I’m talking about.

September 22, 2014 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Side dish/ Vegetables

Green Pea Risotto (with Pan Seared Halibut)

Not only is this risotto beautiful, it’s delicious too.

Our 45th wedding anniversary was August 16th, followed the next day by my husband’s birthday. He married an older woman (by 9 months); I was 21 and he turned 21 the next day so his mom had to “sign” for him to be able to get married.

So, to celebrate our 45th we took off for Seattle/Vancouver/Victoria/Seattle. We called this our “planes, trains, and automobiles” trip (after the movie) but it turned out to be planes, trains, automobiles, water taxis, whale boat, ferry boat, tour bus (to Butchart Gardens), hop on hop off bus trip.

The trip started in Seattle, one night there and then caught Amtrak for a beautiful 5 hour ride to Vancouver which was almost totally overlooking the water. Once in Vancouver we walked the Calpilano Suspension bridge, tree top adventure and cliff walk along the edge of the park.

A whale watching boat took us on a 4 hour trip across to Victoria where we saw lots of whales. While there we saw Butchart Gardens and of course had to have tea at the Empress Hotel where we were staying.

One night we had dinner at the Blue Crab Restaurant and took a water taxi over to the restaurant since the walk was a little long with the sore foot I developed while hiking through the Cilpilano Park (:() ) It seems like ever dinner we had (they were all great) we called our anniversary dinner.

That night at the Blue Crab, GA (hub) had a pan seared halibut with summer green pea risotto and tarragon butter sauce. It was so beautiful I almost wanted to trade but I had Sea Scallops and Tiger Prawn with pancetta and garden pea couscous and chili citrus butter sauce which I did not want to share. (We did share a bite.)

This was definitely one of our favorite trips and ranks right up there with trips to France, Spain and Italy.

August 18, 2014 By Sherry

Side dish

Savory Cabbage with Caraway

Beautiful cabbage to go with your dogs!

So, what do you do on a day you don’t want to cook? I had a busy morning shopping at a second hand kid’s store (twice). Then after getting home I couldn’t wait to mail the things off, so my third trip out for the day was to the post office so get the new purchases in the mail.

I emptied my refrigerator of all the 4th of July leftovers; I can only take looking at old food for so many days and then I feel like the refrigerator needs to be purged of it’s contents.

I just happened to have some Italian “hot” sausages in the freezer so I threw them on my magic defrosting tray which is a Wilton Armetale grill tray. When I was working at Williams Sonoma we sold these trays and one day I decided to look up what else to use the tray on other than grilling. One suggestion was to thaw your frozen foods on it. Don’t ask me how this works but it does. Put a piece of frozen food on it and in less than two hours it will be thawed. If you have ANY Armetale, try it, it make work with all their pieces and it may be because it is made up of many kinds of metals and it absorbs the cold. Believe me, it works.

After getting the sausages thawed on my tray I knew I had some red and green cabbage left from the 4th so I found some recipes from Rachael Ray, Ina Garten, and Martha Stewart and I came up with this variation.

August 8, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp/ Side dish

Cheesy Mashed Potato Pancakes

These are fantastic!

Why is it that when we are served something made by a man that it taste so special? I don’t mean a male chef but someone in your family. My son Paul is a wonderful chef and I know anything he serves me will be wonderful and most likely something he grew in his garden or even eggs from his chickens. My son, Scott makes the best “24 hour no knead bread” and you would think it came from some artisinal bakery.

When we were in Austin a while back staying with my daughter and her husband after the birth of little Thomas I did a lot of cooking. But, one night Toby (new dad) had some left over garlic mashed potatoes that he had made over the weekend and he turned them into the most delicious potato pancakes. We sitting and watching the baby and he presented us each with a plate with one large potato pancake with a dollop of sour cream; crisp to perfection; and one night I was doing a Tortilla soup and he prepped the extra vegetables and I have to say they were a perfect 1/4″ dice. I could not have done better myself.

I remember my mother and grandmother both making potato pancakes but they never tasted like these pancakes. Maybe it was the roasted garlic or the green onions, or the cheese that make them so mouth watering good. He fried them just right; crisp on the outside, soft and smooth on the inside; and the best part of all was the dollop of sour cream on the side. There was just something about the hot crispy potato pancake with the cold sour cream that had me thinking when I was going to make them for someone.

Our friends Peggy and Gordon were getting ready to go to Hawaii to celebrate their 30th anniversary and we had them over for dinner one Sunday night. I served these just as my son-in-law did, on a small plate with a big dollop of sour cream on the side sprinkled with some freshly snipped chives. The rest of the meal was a grilled pork tenderloin steak which I will be posting soon and some baby bok choy and also a “raw” corn salad.

This recipe came from justataste.com blog. A note about frying them — I fried about 30 minutes in advance and put on cooling rack and put in oven. I should have fried after they arrived and served them right from the skillet. Mine got a little soft but were still delicious, just not as delicious as Toby’s.

June 9, 2014 By Sherry

Side dish

Cauliflower Steak and Onions

Steak and onions, simple and beautiful.

A while back I was saying I started getting a food magazine that I did not order and in fact quit taking it about 15 years ago. Come to find out I got the magazine because I ordered a few Xmas gifts from a company and it was a gift from them. So, I guess I shouldn’t complain about getting something unwanted in the mail except all that junk mail that makes up about 99% of what we get each day.

I was flipping through the magazine on a recent road trip and I came across a cauliflower recipe where they cut the cauliflower in florets and looking further I found a recipe at Jaxhouse.com where she cut her cauliflower into steaks for cauliflower-steak-au-poivre and knew where these recipes were going to lead me. I like the idea of the onions and thyme but then I really liked her idea of using the crushed black pepper and broth. So a new recipe emerged thanks to the two sites I came across in my internet search.

The internet still amazes me. We had our first Apple IIE computer in 1984 when we lived in Chicago, then after living five years in Kansas we still had a “green screen” and after moving to Texas in 1990 we still had that really big computer with that same screen and the internet was just kicking up for us commoners. I remember my husband telling me about the internet and that there wasn’t much out there yet. Wow, 25 years later and it is the first thing I turn to for information. In fact the other day I was searching for a friend who I use to cater for (C. Black if you are out there) and I couldn’t find her phone on the internet and was getting really frustrated and then my husband said “why don’t you just call information”. Now, why didn’t I think of that!

See note at bottom of recipe for how I will do this dish the next time.

May 30, 2014 By Sherry

Side dish

Creamy Kale au Gratin

Awwww gratin and it’s with kale.

Recently we went to a new restaurant in our area that has become very popular. I like their concept which is everything made fresh on site from sauces to breads and they even cure their own bacon, their beef comes from 44 different farms, and most of their ingredients are local, natural, hormone and antibiotic free.

This recipe came about from something I had there that I happened NOT to like although it had a great flavor.

They have a kale au gratin on the menu that they serve in cute little black iron skillets that has hardly any kale in it. Shouldn’t any dish that starts with KALE have that has the main ingredient. Well this kale au gratin was mostly beige with a few streaks of green through it. By a few I think maybe three small pieces of kale in the whole serving. The taste was good but the kale was MIA (missing in action).

What dish isn’t made better with some cream cheese and crunchy Panko bread crumbs on top and this can be made with any kind of greens like spinach, or Swiss chard.

I do want to give the restaurant another chance so I will probably order the kale the next time I’m there but I will probably say, “is there any kale in the dish”. Ok, I shouldn’t really say that because it kind of makes me a smart$$$. But I want some greens with my creamy au Gratin part of this dish.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Proscuitto Rolls is a very quick and easy appetizer that you can throw together in a moments notice.

April 25, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Fish/Seafood/ HotApp/ Side dish

Shrimp Foo Yung

Ugly duckling, but oh so good.

There are recipes that my sister and I have been making for a couple of decades maybe even three decades. Isn’t that a long time to use the same recipe. As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I’ve been saying I want to make more Chinese (Asian I guess is politically correct) food and this is a recipe that’s been in our collection for so long, we don’t even know where it came from.

Not the cutest kid on the block by far, but it is so tasty you will go back for another one and then maybe even one or two more and the sauce that you pour over it is just the right touch.

While visiting my sister a while back we were iced in for several days and all we did was make tamales and cook. One night we (she) made our Shrimp Foo Yung recipe and I remembered just how good it was and scold myself for not making it more often.

Hope you like this. It is delicious served with my Beef and Pea Pods (her recipe too) or my Chinese Fried Rice or if you have a hankering for some Asian style ribs, this would be a wonderful side dish.

My sister and I both want to try making these using egg rings so the end result will be a perfectly round circle of goodness. When I do, I will repost picture of what they look like.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Zucchini Pasta with Pine Nuts is a pretty carb friendly dish. It only has a tiny bit of whole wheat pasta and the remaining “pasta” is made from zucchini. Since I posted this 1/12 I’ve had almost 2000 views of the recipe. (Someone’s looking.)

March 16, 2014 By Sherry

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