Bread – Rosemary and the Goat

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme Focaccia

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme…a true love of mine.

Simon and Garfunkel had it right with these herbs. I have no idea why they used this in a song (read here for the symbolism of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme) but these are my favorite combinations of herbs. In fact, I use to work for a catering company in Kansas City while in culinary school and the chefs there use to make a beef tenderloin or prime rib and they would tie parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme to the meat. So, years later if I want to remember what herbs they used all I have to do is think of Simon and Garfunkel’s song.

I have made focaccia bread for years; mostly for catering jobs I use to do years ago. I loved it because I could make in advance, cut, freeze and then take it out and use to make sandwiches. I’ve made a fougasse a few years ago and think it is similar to focaccia. Maybe it is just the shape that makes fougasse what it is — leaf shaped bread.

September 30, 2024 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Scones

Blackberry Lime Scones with Blackberry Whip

Every scone I’ve made was the best until the next.

Every scone I’ve ever made I thought was the best until the next recipe. Every scone I have eaten out I tell myself I can do better. I don’t really care for just a plain cream scone; I like the fixins in them. Whether it is tiny currants, black walnut (one of my favorite), pistachio and blueberry, they are delicious hot out of the oven with some type of jam/cream/honey butter.

Blackberry is absolutely my favorite berry and fruit and I’m hoping when our house is underway enough that we can start our garden we can get some berries planted. I have an idea for putting some old split rail fencing someplace in the garden in a zig-zag pattern and have it loaded with blackberry and raspberry plants. I’m a big talker when it comes to gardening, I have the ideas and hub executes them. And when it gets really hot here in Texas I don’t want to be out in the heat. Now, there will be another thing to watch out for — snakes!!!

May 29, 2023 By Sherry

Bread/ Breads/Biscuits/ Morning Foods/ Scones

Macadamia Nut Scones with Blackberry Jam

My sister, my friend, my wingman (girl) 'till the end

A few lyrics from an old Diana Ross song "when we grow up"

When I grow up, I’m gonna be happy and do what I like to do,

Like making noise and making faces and making friends like you.

And when we grow up, do you think we’ll see

That I’m still like you and you’re still like me?

I might be pretty; you might grow tall.

But we don’t have to change at all.

So, my twin sister, Terry, just left from her visit to Round Top. It’s always great having her visit because we can catch up on what’s going on, play my new favorite game (Five Crowns) she taught me, shop or do nothing at all and we are still much on the same page of what’s going on in our lives. She loved visiting Round Top Brewing (Paul & Brooke) and trying their Duck Confit Taco (and his delicious gumbo) and we played many a game of FC on the porch at the brewery.

I cooked a few new things while she was here (new for her) like my Halal Cart Style Chicken (she liked) and we tried our hand at Crispy Fried Rice & Green Beans after sampling it at a local venue. I feel like we have the recipe spot on now and have to say ours was pretty darn good.

April 13, 2023 By Sherry

Bread/ Breads/Biscuits/ Pastries

Cinnamon Raisin Naan

Fry bread or naan, you decide.

(Note: by the time this recipe post we will have moved to Round Top, Texas. Luckily I planned a few post ahead not knowing where we were going to be living while building a house. Hope to continue my food journey in Round Top with old and new friends to have to dinner.)

There’s nothing better than some hot homemade bread and it seems like a lot of people started experimenting with bread baking during the pandemic. Whether it is a biscuit, a fruited quick bread, homemade French/Italian loaves, a pan of cornbread or hot naan right off the griddle, if it’s fresh out of the oven/griddle then you are in for a treat.

Indian fry bread is very similar to naan except it doesn’t have the yogurt in the ingredients. I decided to try and fry some of these just to see what I liked the best and the “fried” ones won. But, on the other hand, the griddle ones were brushed with melted butter on both sides and then shook in a bag of cinnamon sugar and were delicious too. Continue Reading…

July 25, 2020 By Sherry

Bread/ Breads/Biscuits

Parmesan Parsley Biscuits

Hot out of the oven Parmesan Parsley Biscuits!

Pass the butter please. You can’t possibly not have some butter with a hot biscuit right out of the oven.

I made these biscuits one craft circle morning for my table ladies. There are about 12-14 of us at the “projects” table. Normally, I take something to share with the whole group of 60-80 ladies but this day I made my Pumpkin Tomato Soup for my group’s lunch and these biscuits all came our way. I wished they could have been hot out of the oven (the best way to eat any biscuit) but I had to bake them right before I left that morning; still good though.

November 18, 2019 By Sherry

Bread/ Egg Dishes/ Morning Foods

Quiche with Bacon and Peas

Moo moo here, moo moo there, moo moo everywhere.

We were in Warrenton (Texas) in October visiting our son and his family who just moved there from Austin to open a Nano Brewery in Roundtop sometime in the spring 2020.

They moved an old farmhouse on their property and have been renovating it for months now. We (mostly my hub) has been going over to help some. This week’s project was to put a gate up at the front of their property. My job was to make some drapes for the dining area along with cooking some homemade goodies to have in their freezer.

One day I decided to walk up and check the progress on the gate. The house is half a mile back from the road so I’m walking, walking, looking around, walking, eyeing the cows and bulls to see if they were going to “charge” me. I imagine me laid out on the road crushed by a big cow when the guys come back from working on the gate. I think I need to get use to those cows and country life.

November 4, 2019 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Scones

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Scones

Peanut butter and chocolate!

Don’t you just love a good scone to go with a cup of tea. I’ve been experimenting with different flavors of scones over the years. Some of my favorites are still my Black Walnut Scone and I absolutely love the Orange and Golden Raisin scones I just posted about a couple of weeks ago.

What is it about a scone anyway that seems to take you away to foreign places? Maybe it’s the hot pot of tea you made to go along with it or maybe its the Devonshire cream and the strawberry jam (fresh made even better) that you are going to slather on the scone that takes you to that place. When I’m having a pot of tea I usually think of tea at the Fairmont in Victoria, afternoon tea once in Jamaica at our resort, tea at the St. Regis in Houston or even my own house with some nice scones coming right out of the oven.

April 16, 2019 By Sherry

Bread/ Morning Foods/ Scones

Orange and Golden Raisin Scones

What would a tea party be without some good scones!

I love parties, especially tea parties. I love tea, I love tea sandwiches, and most of all I love a good scone, slathered with devonshire cream (or clotted) and some strawberry jam.

These were recently served at a tea party that was auctioned off by our craft circle. Twenty ladies for the afternoon enjoying tea, sandwiches, savories, desserts and these delicious scones.

Over the years I have experimented with so many different recipes for scones; Black Walnut, Almond Coconut, Chocolate Cherry, Pumpkin Chocolate and one of my favorite has been my Walnut Lavender Scones. I’m sure I’ve made orange scones before maybe with raisins but for this one I decided to use golden raisins and then brush the tops with cream and add some of my hail sugar.

March 29, 2019 By Sherry

Bread/ Dessert/ Morning Foods/ Muffins

Peanut Butter and Toffee Muffins

Want a good muffin to go with your pot of tea?

I love baking and I don’t care what it is. There’s nothing better than a hot loaf of Italian or French bread right out of the oven slathered with some room temperature butter. That makes me want to get out my yeast and start some bread. Sweet breads and muffins are another one of my favorite things to bake.

Several years ago I made this Lemon Scented Pull Apart Bread. In fact it was back in 2011 when my daughter was home her wedding shower and her future mother-in-law and my sister were here; and everyone loved the bread. But, I was on some kind of diet at the time and I didn’t even eat it. This bread is on the top of my list to make again.

We’re having another cold spell here in Texas this week. Just a few days ago I was complaining it was hot again when it got up to 80’s. But like always, wait around a few days and the weather will change. So, when it drops back down in the 60’s (my kind of weather) I’m thinking about what I can bake. Don’t you just love the aroma of something baking in the oven whether it is a sweet or savory item.

March 17, 2019 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Bread/ Breads/Biscuits

Rosemary Goat Cheese Biscuits

Another yummy biscuit right out of the oven.

Happy New Year to everyone! I have a short list of New Year’s Resolutions and that is to keep mall walking 5-6 times a week and hopefully add going to the gym a couple of days on top of that. Also and to try new biscuit recipes.

How many different ways can you possibly make a biscuit? Probably a lot more than I have baked. I love making biscuits and I can almost make them as fast as cracking open one of those tubes from the grocery. I always cringe when I pop those things open. I seldom buy canned biscuits but when I do and you take that wrapper off and you whack it on the counter I’m always jumping like I’d just exploded a M80 firecracker or something.

My mother use to make the best biscuits and her’s were thin. I’m sure I said this before but we liked the tops and bottoms because they were crunchy so she would hit them on the counter a few times so they would fall and then not rise as much. These days I like big biscuits but still like a crispy bottom and I finally learned how she got them that way. My mother always used melted bacon fat on the sheet pan and she would take the biscuit and put it on the pan (before baking) and let it touch the fat then flip it over leaving the tops of the biscuits with bacon fat on top too; no brushing with milk/cream/butter. So if you save your bacon fat like I do, use that instead of the milk or butter for brushing the tops of the unbaked biscuits. If you want you can always brush the baked biscuits with some melted butter when they come out of the oven. I brushed these with butter before baking because I didn’t want bacon taste to the biscuit since I was filling with country ham.

January 3, 2019 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Bread/ ColdApp

Rosemary Lafa Bread and Hummus

Homemade Lafa to go with my homemade hummus!

So, one day while touring Tiberius, Israel we stopped at Pagoda restaurant for lunch; and it turned out to be our St. Peter’s fish meal. The lunch that I had been warned about by several people to “not eat the St. Peter’s fish”. However, we found it delicious. The waiters first brought out (family style) platters of hummus (with the hummus swoosh), fresh warm bread, big blocks of onion rings, bowls of slaw and after that came the platters of the St. Peter’s fish (heads and fins on) and chicken schnitzel for those who did not want fish.

While we were eating the owner came out to talk to us. She told us how much the Israeli people love America and what we do to support them and then she sang us a song which definitely brought tears to my eyes. It was the most memorable lunch; one I will long remember.

One of the first things I wanted to make when I returned home was hummus and bread. I chose to make lafa bread to go with my homemade hummus. Lafa bread is a Middle Eastern flatbread; and known in other countries as pita/Greece/Middle East; Roti/India; Tortilla/Mexico; Pizza/Italy; Naan/Iran, India; Lefse/Norway, and Goraasa/Sudan just to name a few.

November 10, 2018 By Sherry

Bread/ Muffins

Savory Zucchini Muffin

Savory muffin loaded with zucchini and cheese.

I’ve never tried so hard to get a recipe right.

Our garden club May luncheon is coming up and I’m doing the food. Tortellini Salad, Strawberry Dill Spinach Salad, and a Chicken Salad with orange maralade/mayo dressing. So, I wanted a savory muffin to go in the center of the plate in one of those cute little flower petal type muffin papers.

Finding a savory muffin was harder than I thought. My first zucchini muffin was awful and then I realized it was a “healthy” version of what should have been a good muffin – lo-fat cheese, no fat in the batter etc. My second attempt was a Bisquick version and even though it had 1 cup of Bisquick it had four eggs. I don’t know why that didn’t ring a bell in my head or in my ears anyway that are constantly ringing. Anyway, long story short that turned out more like one of those egg cups people make and mine was way too salty and that was probably because I added salt not thinking that the Bisquick had salt in it and then the cheese had a good amount of salty taste too.

May 13, 2018 By Sherry

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