Entree – Page 11 – Rosemary and the Goat

Pork Tenderloin with Shiitake Mushroom Sauce

My Open Table Experience at Kona Grill

I received an invitation from Open Table to do a post for their blog. I have been using Open Table for years to make restaurant reservations both locally and while traveling. I love it.

Many restaurants use Open Table. Go to their website or put their app on your phone then you simply put in the date you want to eat at the restaurant (or it will give you a list of restaurants that have open tables) and the approximate time and you will get a choice of 3-4 different times. Pick the one you want and reserve. You will be sent an email and if you have the app you can go to it and check any upcoming reservations. If you need to cancel for any reason, do it on the app. Looking back at my account, it looks like I used Open Table when we were at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville last summer and also at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC (for tea), and again while in Vancouver last summer.

So, we had planned to go to Kona Grill on a Saturday night. I went to Open Table’s site, put in the date and 3 or 4 times came up; I chose the 6:45 slot and that was it! No getting to the restaurant and wondering if we would get a table.

We started with drinks and potstickers. My husband ordered the sea bass with pan-asian ratatouille, which he said was delicious. I’m glad we didn’t order a salad because the entrees were so large that I could not finish what was on my plate. I chose the almond crusted pork tenderloin with shiitake mushroom sauce. That, I knew I could recreate in my own kitchen.

Pork tenderloin is one of my favorite cuts of pork to cook; it is tender and cooks very fast. I cut my tenderloin into three pieces to cook and then sliced after removing from the oven.

I’ve included a picture of my dish from that night so you can see how they compare. I made my mashed potatoes much thinner than they did and I plated the bok choy a little different. The restaurant mounded the mashed potatoes on the plate (the thickest potatoes I have ever been served) and laid the steamed (or sautéed) bok choy over the potatoes to cover them; it kind of looked like a green igloo. I decided to use a ring mold to mold my potatoes and set them on top of the baby bok choy, which I think giving the dish a much prettier presentation.

February 10, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Poultry

Zucchini White Chicken Lasagna

I love anything with a creamy béchamel sauce.

Fifteen Spatulas gets all the credit for this recipe and if it weren’t for all the hours I spend looking around on the computer I would have never come across this blog. This is a blog that I bookmarked a couple of years ago because I liked her recipes and food pictures.

No pasta noodles in this lasagna; it’s full of grilled zucchini strips. I upped the garlic (of course) and added some nutmeg to the sauce.

I have to say it seems like it took me a long time to make this dish but in reality probably not. I had just come in from the store with a car full of groceries and my greens and fresh carrots I had bought at the farmer’s market. I didn’t even get the groceries put away before I started cleaning the carrots, then the beet greens and then I made the sautéed beet greens and at the same time started the sauce for this recipe, and trying to grill the zucchini at the same time. Sometimes, I do cause my own problems.

I would say if you want to try this recipe, start with a clean kitchen, maybe slice and grill the zucchini the day before; I did have my chicken already baked and thawing from when I froze it last month. The recipe seems to be quick to throw together if you have everything done in stages.

January 20, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta

Southwest Pasta with Black Beans and Cotija Cheese

You can never have too many pasta recipes.

Doesn’t it seem like when we are invited to a dinner or potluck it’s hard to come up with something different to make. I know I have a problem and I’ve been cooking for a very long time. I’m always in search for something unusual that someone else might not show up with. And, when it comes to pasta dishes it seems like you see the same ingredients — tomatoes, peppers, onions etc. I really like the idea of the enchilada sauce in this recipe mixed with the yogurt or sour cream and then the addition of the Cotija cheese and green olives.

This is a great room temperature pasta main dish, side dish, or I guess it could pass for a pasta salad. Either way, it’s delicious.

The colors from this pasta blend from Pappardelle’s come from blue corn flour, red chili peppers, green jalapeño, dried spinach, paprika, grape skins extract and some turmeric. I really wanted the pasta to retain the beautiful colors even though it might be covered up with the enchilada sauce mixture; but it did not.

In our area this pasta is sold at Berings hardware in Houston, but they also sell in farmer’s markets across the US. So check out your state to see if you have one of their vendors close to you selling in a farmer’s market or store.

January 5, 2015 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Salmon with Mustard Sauce

And an extra mustard sauce recipe to boot!

If you are looking for something quick and delicious to make during this busy Christmas season, this should definitely be on your list of “must” try recipes.

There are still a few packages of Alaskan salmon in our freezer that my husband caught a year ago and I am getting a little reluctant to cook it because once I do it will be gone and I will be back to buying it from the grocery.

While in Austin after the birth of number 5 grandson last May, (wow that was 8 months ago) his Grandmommy took GA and I to lunch downtown. We had a great lunch at a little Italian restaurant close to her work. I, of course, had eggplant parmesan which is hard for me to ever pass up. She had a salmon topped with a mustard sauce which looked so good. I could just taste the tartness of the mustard with little twinges in my cheeks. After being offered a taste a couple of times I finally did taste it and the sauce was bold and creamy. They called the sauce a Mostarda sauce but a Mostarda sauce has fruit and mustard; and this had no fruit so I turned to the Internet for a mustard sauce for salmon.

December 11, 2014 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Pasta

Shrimp, Mussels, Clams, and Linguini

A fond food memory of Italy.

What is it about remembering names and other things, like where did I put my phone, give me such a problem sometimes and then on the other hand I can think of a dish I had someplace and remember all the circumstances surrounding it.

For instance, it has been about eight years since we went to Italy but I will not forget one rainy night in Chinque la Terra going to dinner at Ristorante Miky (pronounced Mickey like my Michie). I started saving menus like my sister (she has some beautiful ones) and that rainy night there was one menu outside on a table and it was getting wet so I decided to rescue it from the rain and it now occupies a place along with my other menus. So I went back and took a look at the dish I had that night.

So, that rainy night the six of us were seated outside in a tented area and we had one of the nicest waiters and he talked us through everything on the menu and promised us a meal we would not soon forget. He even told us about his cousin who was a waiter over in Montecino and told us we should check out his restaurant while we were in that area the next week.

This was the first time I had ever had clams and mussels and I was a little hesitate in ordering it. It was delicious and will always be one of my fond food memories. I decided to add some shrimp to the dish the night I made this recipe.

I love looking back at old menus I have picked up during travels and recreating dishes that helped to make a great vacation. I have a journal full of great dinners from travels and love reading about what I thought of the meal.

When we were in Seattle for our anniversary trip back in August we had eaten so much fish in Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle that one night we just wanted some simple Italian food. I ended up ordering a dish similar to this Mussel, clams, linguine dish but it had the addition of tomatoes. So delicious and that brought up all the memories of our trip to Italy and the great food we had while there.

November 26, 2014 By Sherry

Beef/Veal/ Entree

Osso Buco

What a great Fall dinner.

Are you ready to bid farewell to those long hot summer days? Well, I am and there’s nothing nicer than a cool fall day to get me thinking about a more comforting menu to serve to a group of friends who love good food and love to cook.

Nothing screams a Fall recipe, to me, more than a piece of meat with a bone in the middle and that recipe would be Osso Buco. I love cooking any kind of meat with bones and these veal shanks had a small bone in the middle filled with bone marrow and once it was braised and fall off the bone tender, that same bone marrow was delicious smeared on a piece of crusty bread. I knew I wanted to do this recipe since it was the time of the year for our “Fall” dinner and we are even having some cool temperatures to cooperate for the evening.

The evening started with a fig appetizer which was a halved fig topped with shaved parmesan and wrapped in a strip of proscuitto and put in the oven long enough to crisp up the proscuitto and then a drizzle of my Fish Creek, Wisconsin balsamic vinegar (they were on Shark Tank last week), a cocktail which consisted of gin, prosecco, orange juice, rosemary and basil. Next up were plates topped with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and those topped with saucy veal shank pieces that, after hours of cooking, turned into the most wonderful savory dish. Some sauteed haricot vert with peppers finished off the plate and of course some crusty bread to sop up all the juices from the veal and that delicious bone marrow.

We ended the meal with dessert which was this fantastic looking wine poached pear dessert with almond cream (will post soon) and some little wine jelly leaves for a garnish.

November 11, 2014 By Sherry

Entree/ Sandwiches

The Ultimate Patty Melt

A Diner special…..

I feel like I have led a very sheltered life when it comes to sandwiches; bologna – yes, ham and cheese – yes, some great pulled pork – yes, reuben – yes, pimento cheese, tuna and the usual sandwich spreads; but I have never had a patty melt. So, it’s just a hamburger you say, well this so called burger wanna be was great. Every bite crunchy from the toasted rye bread and the cheese gooey because it was browned very slowly.

The Patty Melt is a sandwich that is probably on every diner’s menu and I read it originated in the 40’s-50’s from California restaurateur Tiny Naylor. He had, I think, one of the first drive-in diners. The sandwich isn’t a grilled cheese, it isn’t a burger or a reuben; it’s a mixture of all of those. American, cheddar or Swiss can be used or in this case, I’m using white cheddar and Swiss so I get a little more goo. You want an oval shaped patty also so it will fill all corners of your rye bread.

From everything I have read on the subject of Patty Melts a good light colored rye bread is a must and you want to have a big heaping pile of caramelized onions ready to top the patty. Some other tips I read about are make sure your patty is thin and “oval” in shape (mine wasn’t because I had this big pile of meat and wanted to use it), use mayonnaise instead of butter to spread on the “outside” of the bread before toasting because it has a higher smoke point (I’m using both), and the sandwich bread is grilled (not toasted).

I’m breaking with tradition and adding two strips of bacon. What more can I say about a hamburger crossing over to become this delicious sandwich. Serve this with some french fries (I did a salad) and sit back and enjoy this fantastic sandwich.

October 27, 2014 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

Entree/ Poultry

Chicken Cacciatore

You don’t have to save this for a cold winter’s night.

This was one of the first classic Italian dishes I use to cook as a newlywed and that’s been over 45 years ago. The recipe I originally used came from my Betty Crocker Cook Book For Two and I use to serve it over some type of pasta. The other night when I made this for friends I did a whipped cauliflower dish that had some cream cheese, butter, parsnips and Parmesan cheese all mixed up to a delicious goodness.

Normally, I think of chicken cacciatore as a comforting winter dish but it IS Fall so why not cook something that fits the season. Here in Texas I can’t wait for a breathtaking cold day to make a dish like this because it may never come. When I think of comfort food I think of dishes like this that are slow braised and cooks leisurely in my purple Le Crueset Dutch oven. I decided to do some of the initial cooking on the stove top but wanted to finish it off slowly in the oven so the house fills with Italian aromas so good you think some Italian grandmother was standing right beside you making the dish telling you to add a pinch of this or that; and the biggest reason for finishing in the oven was I wanted to get my stovetop cleaned back up before company arrived.

The mushrooms in this dish are a new addition and I chose to use bone-in chicken thighs where I use to buy a whole cut-up chicken. I used half boneless thighs because of a friend who hates bones in anything even though I keep trying to convince him that anything cooked on a bone will have more flavor. So his thighs benefited from the bone-in thighs that cooked right along with all those boneless pieces of meat.

The rest of my meal consisted of my mashed cauliflower dish, Stephanie’s Magic Beans, and my Baby Blue Salad I posted a few days ago.

October 7, 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

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Ginger Glazed Mahi Mahi

A fisherman’s tale. (by George)

Since this dish would not be possible without the fish my husband caught I decided maybe he should be the one to write his fisherman’s tale.

NOTE: My Corn Dog Shrimp recipe just got picked up by Delish.com. They linked back to my website. Hopefully that will give me more traffic.

A fisherman’s tale — by George.

My recent fishing trip topped off a year of fishing than has run the gamut from remote wild river salmon fishing and off-shore halibut trips in Alaska to white bass fishing in Texas and now most recently going off-shore for yellow fin tuna near Venice as in Louisiana (not to be confused with Italy). Venice is about an hour or so south of New Orleans on the peninsula that forms the tip of the Louisiana boot and the mouth of the Mississippi river. It’s literally the last town at the very end of the last road that follows the western side of the river deep into the thick Louisiana marshland to the river’s end, the Mississippi River delta. It’s not a fancy resort type area like you would find along the Florida coast but it has world class fishing and it is a major staging area for off-shore drilling companies and on-shore natural gas processing (which I used to know a little about)

We were hoping to get into some yellow fin tuna as more are caught here than anywhere but after catching our live bait near a nat gas platform and then a 40 mile ride out to the deep blue gulf waters (around 1500 feet plus) and hours of very hard fishing we gave up and starting trolling for Mahi Mahi. The highlight was when 3 of them all hit at exactly the same time. The reels seemed to spin out of control and we learned first hand how fast and strong these fish really are. It’s hard to describe how vibrant their colors are in the water. Unfortunately for us that was all we would land for the rest of the day. We blamed it on the weather – what else?

Most people think you only catch them in Hawaii but Mahi Mahi is a type of saltwater fish commonly found in warm coastal waters around the world, including Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and even some parts of Australia and yes – the Gulf of Mexico.

July 24, 2014 By Sherry

Entree/ Pork

Garlic Lime Pork Tenderloin

I’ve made this four times now.

I’m sure you have all prepared pork tenderloin some way. We prefer pork tenderloin over a pork loin roast because it is so juicy and tender and quick to cook.

One of the easiest ways I have prepared it is to cut into about 1 1/2″ pieces, wrap with bacon, marinade and throw on a grill for a quick cook. But after trying this recipe when were in Austin for Thomas’ birth, I don’t think I will ever do pork tenderloin any other way. Since that weekend, I have made this 3 other times.

Cook’s Illustrated gave three versions of the marinade. I have tried two, this one and the orange garlic lime. I like them both and I will give you the orange marinade at the end of this post.

I don’t know if you have ever bought a Cook’s Illustrated magazine but if you haven’t you should. They try and try a recipe until they get it just right and they focus a lot on the techniques of cooking which makes it easier to cook great food with their detailed instructions. The paper copy of the magazine always has black and white sketches of the foods but my digital copy on my iPad starts black and white it it slowly changes to a beautiful colored photograph of the food they have just prepared.

According to CI the shape of the pork tenderloin does have much surface area for browning. Pounding the meat into a flat steaks gives more surfaces for the meat to touch the grill leave more flavor into every bite.

I hope you will try this recipe and if you have a favorite pork tenderloin recipe, please leave in “comment” section at the bottom of the post. That’s below the three little pictures at bottom.

July 9, 2014 By Sherry

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