Entree – Page 10 – Rosemary and the Goat

Spinach Dal (Dhal, Dhall)

I think this might actually be my first Indian dish to make (other than naan).

Halloween is gone but this is kind of a trick or treat recipe. Kind of looks like corn in above picture (trick) but the treat is if you like Indian flavors you will enjoy this dish of yellow lentils and spinach.

I can actually remember the first time I ever had Indian food and it was at an Austin restaurant, the Clay Pit and it was one Christmas and my daughter-in-law, Brooke was pregnant with our first grandson, Milo. Our kids have always encouraged us to try different types of food and Indian food was always one we resisted.

I think that day started with my daughter and daughter-in-law Missy massaging Brooke’s feet because they had read that was suppose to start labor. Everyone decided we should eat Indian and when we stepped inside the restaurant I knew what we would be eating was going to be delicious because of the spicy aromas that smacked us in the face when we walked through the doors.

When we have eaten Indian in Chicago, we usually rely on son and daughter-in-law there to help us in ordering. Of course the naan is always a favorite; how could any kind of bread be bad and after having naan for the first time I did made it with great success.

I really want to try some other Indian recipes so if you have any favorites, please leave a comment below.

November 5, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Asian Salmon with Avocado, Orange and Cucumber Salsa

This salsa good with any kind of fish.

Back in the summer (can you believe that is behind us now) we had friends over for dinner and we grilled salmon. I feel like “I” need to start cooking more because seems like my husband is always cooking the main course on one of the grills. My contributions recently have been the sides and desserts.

When it comes to “outdoor” cooking he’s been doing it for years, but three years ago when I had knees replaced, he started cooking inside and for a few weeks made me breakfast in bed, lunch and dinner. I’m feeling like he’s passing me in the culinary department so I need to step up my game to compete with him.

So, the night of the dinner party, he grilled the salmon which we sprinkled with Strawberry’s BBQ seasoning (doesn’t taste like bbq though) and I made a salsa with orange, avocado and cucumber along with some basmati rice with green onions and lemon. I love citrus salsas with fish and they are great with fish tacos too.

October 26, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ Poultry

Tandoori Chicken Thigh Kabobs

This isn’t a red tandoori and can be an appetizer or main dish.

I have been wanting to make an Indian dish for a long time. After a recent visit to Chicago to visit our son, daughter-in-law and two sweet grandsons we cooked Peruvian one night, ribs another night, out for Korean, then our last night there we prepared a wonderful very scentiful Indian meal consisting of Garlic Naan, Spinach Dahl, Samosas with mango chutney and my daughter-in-law, Missy made some Indian Chicken Skewers and we enjoyed the meal with some Indian music playing in the background. We like to coordinate our music to our meal. We also found some Peruvian music to go with the Peruvian chicken thanks to Google Play.

I think I tasted my first tripe in Chicago, my first Korean BBQ, cheeks, first Harissa fish dish, and probably some foods I didn’t know what I was eating while visiting. So, when it comes to Indian food, I rely on Scott and Missy to show us the way. I have made naan and samosas before but the Spinach Dahl was a first for me.

I only had one day after returning from Chicago to prepare something for our bunco meeting and killing time at the airport waiting for a delayed plane was the perfect time to come up with a recipe. Tandoori chicken kept popping up in some of my searches and after looking at a lot of recipes, I put together my own. Didn’t want it red since I had read that restaurants usually use red dye #40 to make their’s red and I realized that all tandooris do not have to be that bright red color. Anything that artificial looking quickly becomes unappetizing to me because I know that the color doesn’t come from a natural ingredient.

October 21, 2015 By Sherry

Beef/Veal/ Entree/ Pasta

Ribeye Fettuccini with Mushrooms and Goat Cheese

Love that goat cheese!

Why do we all want comfort food when it starts getting cold, damp and wintery? That is not Texas weather right now but it may be getting cooler in your area. Last year after trying for weeks to sell my Ethan Allen dining set that we had purchased back in the 70’s, I ended up donating it to a women’s organization then I ordered a French bakery style table to use for a dining table and I envisioned having this dish on my new table set with an Italian table cloth, some beautiful pasta bowls, flowers in some old olive oil cans and some good bottles of wine and couldn’t wait to try and put together this recipe.

Pasta always reminds me of eating our way around Italy several years ago. I can only think of one bad meal we had on that trip; all the rest were memorable to the point that I can shut my eyes and taste every dish. I can’t wait to go back some day.

While visiting in Nashville a couple of years ago I had this dish at the Firefly Grille and it was delicious. As always, I’m thinking can I make this and I never know how it’s going to turn out. I love goat cheese either in an appetizer or breaded and baked to top a salad, so putting it in with some good steak and fettuccine was easy. After reading the menu and quizzing the waiter I found out all the ingredients; so who needs a recipe to recreate this dish, not me, it was fairly easy.

October 6, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta/ Poultry

Butterflies with Chicken, Asparagus and Snap Peas

Thanks Ferrari-Carano for your inspiration for this dish.

I’ve said before that some of my favorite places to look for new recipes are winery sites; and I found this recipe at Ferrari-Carano.com.

Even though I have made pasta many times, I wasn’t up to making the bowtie pasta this time around. You may not remember me talking about our pasta making experience in Italy several years ago; believe me, it was an I Love Lucy moment for sure. We did make bow tie pastas along with about 5 other varieties. I remember the strip of pasta for the bow ties and tortellinis getting bigger and bigger as we rolled through the machine and we were folding it over our arms to keep up.

But, when I found this recipe a couple of years ago, I remembered some beautiful striped pasta I had seen in my grocery and what better pasta to use to make a butterfly pasta dish. If you want to try and make your own butterflies, visit their website and give it a go. Of course, when I went looking for the colorful little pieces of pasta, they were no where to be found but on Amazon. My Amazon Prime membership has really paid off because I order food products from them all the time and with no shipping it is a lot easier than driving all over the place looking for something. So, if you want to try the pasta I used, you can order it here.

September 1, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta

Pasta Carbonara Primavera

Wow, a one pot meal.

I’ve always thought of one pot meals as being something you would throw in a crock pot and let cook all day or the way my mother use to make a pork or beef roast and put everything in one of those speckled dark blue roasters (I still have one and love it.) and put it in the oven and 3 hours later have a great dinner.

Tasting Table.com is a great site that sends out tips and chef recipes and lots of other information and when I saw their take on a Martha Stewart’s recipe for a one pot meal, I knew I was going to have to try it. Aren’t we all looking for ways to cut down on cooking time? I still like cooking and baking after almost (August 16) 46 years of marriage. Wow, that is a longggggg time but my cooking style, I think, has changed a lot over the years and I’m definitely more adventurous than I was as a newly wed who thought she had to do everything exactly by the book.

Still waiting on that outdoor kitchen to get started and as soon as it started, I will post some pictures along the way. Can’t wait to cook out there. Well, maybe when it starts to cool down a little; 96° doesn’t really make me want to even walk out the backdoor let alone cook out there but one day we will be out there cooking and entertaining.

August 17, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Grilled Salmon Tacos with Schirarch Cream

Believe it or not this recipe started out to be Cherry Kuchen Bars for Valentines Day.

Have you ever been in a maze and wondered if you would ever get out? I’ve always wanted to try to walk through a maze but it would be my luck I would get lost and as short as I am would not be able to jump up so someone would see me. Laying down a trail of popcorn would be an option to help find my way out but then I’ve got this thing about popcorn and might not actually drop any on the ground to mark my path; I might be lost but at least I would not be hungry.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a maze when I look around on the internet. An example would be how I found this recipe. I started out reading a foodblogging site on different ways to make your blog better. From that site, I clicked on a link, was taken to another link, I looked around there, found a lemon bar recipe which had my mouth-watering. Then I wanted to see where she got the recipe so I clicked on her link which took me to Dear Crissy’s website where she posted her version of Cherry Kuchen bars which is a recipe her mom clipped from Better Homes and Gardens Xmas issue. Whewwww….. I’m tired just thinking of all that clicking and my fingers are beginning to get sore.

Lucky for me I had the “back” button on the computer so I could work my way back through the maze of sites to the original post I was looking at. I’ve learned if I get to a site I like, I’d better bookmark it because I’m probably not going to find it again. But, guess what happened, on my way “backing” out of the maze I had gotten myself in, I came back to one of the original sites WillowBird Baking and her Salmon Tacos popped up. Now, they sounded a lot more interesting than a cherry bar.

July 22, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Pork

Pulled Pork Tacos

Another use for pulled pork from that summer bar-b-q.

Can you believe summer is here (and half over) and after all the nice spring weather and all that rain we had back in May, it is now hot as blazes here in Texas. We are into July and August is looking like a really hot month. We are building an outdoor kitchen (which has been a long process to even get started) and I know we are going to enjoy it; now I want some cooler weather so I even want to sit outside. With fans for the summer and heaters for the cooler months, we will be able to do even more cooking outdoors.

Who doesn’t love tacos? Fish tacos have become one of my favorites and I have a salmon belly taco recipe I’m wanting to try this summer using some salmon my husband caught in Alaska. This pulled pork taco is just another recipe to use up some leftover pulled pork you might have leftover from the 4th of July.

July 7, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Poultry

Peruvian Grilled Chicken

The best rotisserie chicken you will ever eat!

This is my second time making this recipe and couldn’t wait to try it out for Memorial Day and I loved it even more.

I’ve never been to Peru but I know if we were there we would be eating this Peruvian Pollo a la Brasa (blackened chicken) probably at some little cafe in the heart of the city. Maybe we will have to go there and try this dish first hand.

This recipe comes from Great Lakes Better Food website. I have no idea how I happened upon it; maybe when I was looking for chicken recipes to do in our new outdoor kitchen that is in the process of being built.

The spices in this recipe took a little tracking down; I found the Aji Amarillo paste at Whole Foods, the achiote seasoning at a small Mexican grocery (although I later found at our HEB) and the huacatay paste (black mint) on Amazon. (All of these can be bought on Amazon.) Believe me, this recipe is worth all that trouble. And besides, my husband did the hard work of cooking the chickens.

June 7, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Lemon Spaghetti with Shrimp

I love the look of this pasta blend…..

Isn’t everyone looking for quick recipes now that summer is here (may not be summer where you live but to me May in Texas is summer). Who has time to cook anyway? (Honestly, I still enjoy it.) I’m probably the only person that looks for hard recipe with lots of ingredients. This isn’t one of those and you can do it with or without the carrots and zucchini. If you want all pasta go for it.

I love Giada De Liuentiis’ shows on Food Network and when I saw this recipe in my old issue of Food and Wine I knew I was going to have to try it with a different twist for the pasta part of this dish. I would love to be part of that Italian family when they get together for their meals and it’s always so interesting to hear about her family stories. And this dish deserves a four finger kiss and a big “mama mia”. (Don’t know what that means but I picture them doing this when they like something.)

May 7, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ HotApp

Crispy Salt and Pepper Shrimp

And you can even eat the shells!

When I first saw this recipe I thought of my sister. She loves to eat the tails of fried shrimp and I thought she would love to try this recipe. We also love (maybe most people do) to eat the fried fins of fish when they are fried whole; that would be Crappie fish, of course, but I don’t get that anymore.

I have a closet full (not really) of Szechuan peppercorns that I ordered years ago and never really know what to use them in. Well this recipe calls for them and what better way to use some of them up.

While recovery from foot surgery I decided to spend some time at the computer before the pain finally set in (wow, it never did) and I found a blog with this recipe. The recipe looked so good and I loved the fried jalapeño pepper rings for garnish.

We can get all kinds of fresh shrimp all times of the year here in Texas so I can go tiny or all the way up to Tiger shrimp and I think there is even one bigger that I used to make Shrimp Kiev one time. Now that was really good.

Seems like I have more shrimp recipes than just about anything I cook. Here are some of my favorites (they all really are so good, look under “entrees”- “seafood” to see them all) Bang Bang Shrimp, New Orleans style BBQ Shrimp (a must try), Shrimp Corndogs with Blueberry Mustard Sauce (from Moonshine Grill in Austin), and Honey Walnut Shrimp that I also had at a restaurant in Austin and definitely worth a try.

April 11, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Poultry

Chinese Orange Chicken

AND THE WINNER IS…. (see below for “giveaway” winner.

I made cauliflower rice with this dish but any kind of rice would be wonderful.

Chungah at Damdelicious.net blog uses simple fresh ingredients to make elegant easy meals. She had two chicken recipes I found interesting so I merged them into one. I love eating Chinese food and I use to make it more often. I have been wanting to use some of the beautiful chop sticks (washable ones, of course) that I ordered for a friend’s ‘China Going Away Party’ a year ago and I thought this recipe with its larger cuts of chicken would work great with my little sticks of art.

One of Chungah’s recipe is fried and the other is baked. I made the chicken nuggets as suggested in Baked Honey Garlic Chicken but liked the ingredients in the Chinese Orange Chicken. So, I took pieces of each recipes and changed the technique to suit what I wanted the outcome to be — a non-fried Chinese Orange Chicken.

Dam Delicious has some beautiful recipe and you should spend a little time over at her site looking at some of her things. She definitely inspired me to cook up some Asian flavors.

Update: So, I’m hoping this new recipe card format is working out. Looks like you can leave a comment for the blog (which is at the bottom of the post) or if you try the recipe you can leave a comment or review about the recipe. Hope you will try both.

February 15, 2015 By Sherry

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