Entree – Page 9 – Rosemary and the Goat

Paella

My pan overfloweth!

If you are tired of doing BBQ for the 4th of July, why not try a big pan of paella.

My first experience with paella was many years ago in Mexico. After checking into our all-inclusive resort we had a cocktail in hand before even making it to our room. We settled in for a few days of sun, beach and beautiful water. This resort was where I first tasted a white vegetable soup that took me years of searching to come with something similar to what I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner while in Mexico

One day while we were on the beach, the chef prepared a paella. It wasn’t any ordinary pan of paella either. The fire for cooking this was a big oil drum with flames blazing from the top. The pan was maybe 5′ across and that they perched on top of the flaming barrel. They proceeded to cook the ingredients, and at the end adding in the green peas. As we sat in our chairs on the beach enjoying cocktails that were delivered before we even asked for them, we were salivating at the aroma coming from this gigantic pan and as they slowly picked up the pan to move it to the table to start serving all of us beach goers, THEY DROPPED IT and spilled paella all over the sand. So, we had to wait a little while to taste it since they had to start over from scratch. When we were finally served the dish of paella, it was delicious.

Years later we had some paella in Spain which was just ok (picture below); I thought it was too mushy. Then my son make it here one year for our Spainish feast we did after Thanksgiving and I was just his sous chef. So, I thought it was about time for me to try it on my own.

July 1, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Spicy Sesame Tuna Bowl

Not everything served in a bowl is soup.

A bowl serves a good purpose when you’re serving a food that you don’t want to chase all over the plate. I love pasta in a bowl because the rim of the bowl gives you a way to pin down your squirmy pasta pieces. Breakfast in a bowl makes sense too because you have layers of your favorite breakfast items all stacked up.

Now, I guess everything mingled in a bowl isn’t for everyone. I remember one of my kid’s friends not liking anything touching on a plate and all the food had to have its own space. I’m guilty of putting beans or peas in a small bowl on my plate because I don’t want all the juice running around the other foods and getting them soggy.

One Friday night we went to Bonefish Grill and as always I checked out their menu before going and I knew exactly what I was going to order because it looked so pretty in the picture I knew I would be making it because my mouth was watering just looking at the picture.

June 11, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Pasta

Shrimp and Crab Stuffed Pasta Shells

Stuffed shells perfect for summer get together.

Do you cook more shrimp in the summer or are you like me and cook it year round when you get them on sale. This dish would be great with some lobster thrown in to the mix.

I love shrimp in just about any recipe. I’ve pickled them, corn dogged them, skewered them, coconut fried them, Bang Banged them, and like Bubba Gump I could go on and on listing the ways I like shrimp.

This recipe just happens to have crab meat in it along with the shrimp. After making this dish I decided that maybe the next time around instead of stuffing the shells this would be great just mixed in with a penne or rigatoni pasta; saves some time stuffing and the taste is going to be just the same.

Sour cream was supposed to go in this dish but my carton container something other than that when I opened it and I was in luck since grandson Thomas had just been for a visit and left behind a carton of plain yogurt. I like the yogurt and would probably use that the next time instead of the sour cream.

May 27, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Fiesta Catfish with Guacamole

I had to convince my husband to try this combination.

Sometime back in May with Cinco de Mayo behind us I was thinking about Mexican flavors and how they would fit into a catfish recipe.

Growing up the only way we ate catfish was fried. In my opinion, that is the best way to eat catfish. Although, lately I have been coating it and baking it in the oven and I have to say it is almost as good as deep-fried. Still crunchy like fried but not nearly as many calories since it isn’t swimming in oil.

My first thoughts were to put in some Mexican seasonings like cumin and chili powder then I got carried away and added some garlic powder, cayenne and paprika. Very tasty. There were also a few avocados lying around just waiting to be made into some good guacamole so after it’s made and the fish is done I added some to the tops of the crunchy, out of the oven catfish filets along with a sliver of tomato.

May 21, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Pork/ Salads

Grilled Pork Chop and Roasted Apple Salad

Eat those greens!

Do you love your greens and vegetables? Did your parent always say “eat your vegetables”. I feel like I’m saying that to my husband these days as he just informed me, after almost 47 years of marriage, that he doesn’t really like most vegetables. He just eats them because I make them and if he doesn’t I guess there isn’t much left to eat other than meat. He does like salads though so I get to experiment a lot with recipes.

I love greens whether it is cooked cabbage, kale, chards, baby bok choy, spinach, lettuces, you name it I like greens. Have to admit, though, that I have never cooked collard greens. We have even grilled romaine lettuce and that’s delicious when you turn it into a chopped Caesar salad. I’ve mixed kale with mashed cauliflower, I’ve put it in turkey kale soup and I’m sure there are a lot of other recipes out there using greens in recipe that I haven’t even come across yet.

I love looking at menus and trying to recreate dishes. A friend of mine was in New Orleans last year and dined at K-Paul’s so I went to their website to see what she might be eating (weird huh). This salad sounded so interesting and there really isn’t a need for a recipe. After thinking about making this salad I decided to turn it into a main dish salad by adding the grilled pork chops that I glazed with some more of the red apple balsamic vinegar, then cut the chops into strips to put on top of the salad. I love pork and apples together and this way I did not have to come up with a meat to go with the salad. My daughter asked me if I had ever put pork on a salad and I thought “why not”, we put shrimp, chicken, steak, tuna, and even bbq on top of some shredded cabbage so why not a pork chop.

April 29, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Poultry

Chicken Chow Mein

Thanks Mema for teaching me how to make this.

I can’t tell you how many years I have been making this; oh, I guess I can, and that would be since I’ve been married which is going on 47 years.

I started dating my husband in high school when I was 15 and the rest is history. He use to hang around our house and ate many a meal there and I would go to his house for dinner. One night his mom was making chicken chow mein which I had never heard of let alone tried. So this one night that I had dinner at his house, I remember like it was yesterday, he put the chow mien on my plate and told me I would really like it. My initial thought was it looked like a lot of little worms. Maybe so, but it was delicious.

April 19, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood

Red Snapper with Citrus Gremolata

One fish that didn’t get away.

I’ve always loved fishing but not too much into baiting that hook. I remember as a kid my dad taking us fishing and we would always have him to bait the hook. Now, I don’t mind putting a minnow on the hook; after all, that is just a baby fish. But, I never wanted to put a squirmy worm or a hopping cricket on the hook. I remember my dad sometimes trying bread balls or even a piece of bologna to try to catch some kind of fish, and he usually caught something.

A couple of Februarys in the last several years I have gone fishing with my husband and one of his friends at River Ridge Fish Camp in Texas. The fish we are looking for were white bass (not my favorite) BUT we would catch our 25 limit each in less than two hours. Now, that was fun fishing. I wasn’t along on the Alaska fishing trip my husband went on but did get to eat the 75 lbs. of silver salmon, king salmon and halibut he brought home.

Several weekends ago we decided to take a road trip down to Port Aransas and on every menu there was some kind of red snapper listed and when we returned home I hopped on over to the store and bought some; $22/lb., ouch, (this week it was $16/lb.). While at Port A I had a Mahi Mahi with a butter sauce and it got me to thinking about making a gremolata and using it on red snapper.

April 9, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Poultry

Cruciferous Chicken Crunch

This is Cruiciferous!

Ok, you are probably not like me and thought that Cruiciferous is another word for delicious or stupendous or another word for boy is that delicious.

I’m always on the lookout for some new green veggie combination and when I first ran across this bag of veggies at Trader Joe’s I thought they were just salad ingredients but upon reading the bag I saw that the veggie blend could be used in sautés also. Here’s what I did one day for lunch then improved upon it the next time I used the bag of veggies.

So my first attempt was to throw it in a skillet with a tiny bit of oil, some garlic and onion powder and after it was cooked for a few minutes I added some chopped smoked chicken thighs I had left over in the refrigerator; it was so good that I told myself that I could easily eat this every day for lunch and what a great “green” thing to make for St. Patrick’s Day.

My second attempt was even better. I used about 1 teaspoon of sesame oil along with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, sautéed the veggies, added in the chicken as I did the first time along with about 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and then sprinkled in some sesame seeds at the end. I’m giving you the second version recipe but know if you just want to throw it in a skillet, sauté, add some chicken, it is still delicious. Continue Reading…

February 29, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Pasta

Red Chard, Shrimp and Artichoke Stir-fry

Beautiful and so easy and something red for Valentine’s Day.

These days when I’m trying to make things move a little slower I’m doing a stir-fry. Now does that make sense. A slow day but with a quick fast dish at the end of the day.

I’ve always got some shrimp in my freezer. In fact, when the x-large goes on sale here, I will buy 2-3 bags and put in my freezer for last-minute dishes like this or a quick shrimp cocktail. So, I can have a slow and relaxing day doing whatever I want and wait until the last-minute and do a quick dinner to feed the hungry.

I’ve been busy trying to catch up on all these new movies that I’ve missed out for the last few weeks, getting back into craft circle and trying to come up with a couple of projects I would like to make for the year, and still working on getting the outdoor kitchen finished up. I bought a cool copper vessel type sink to use but still have not had the granite cut or picked out a faucet to match the sink. Gotta get this done because before you know it we are going to want to be outside again.

February 14, 2016 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Beef/Veal/ Entree/ HotApp

Mini Corn Dogs with Mustard Dipping Sauce

Get them while they’re hot.

So, what’s so special about a corn dog? Nothing really but I’ve never been able to pass one up once that smell of a frying dog is in the wind and my hose catches the drift.

Use to be, back in the day, (maybe even before my day) one would go to a carnival or state fair and would be confronted with things like the Bearded Lady, the wolf man, person with two heads (ok, maybe that one was in an old movie I saw when I was a kid), the snake woman, sword swallower, little person, very big person, and probably things your mother would have never let you go in to take even a peek.

I would have been more concerned with what are they going to feed us. There are so many things that are fried at state fairs and I’m sure depending on where you live, there may even be some I haven’t heard of. Here are just a few I have seen and come across looking for the next “big” fried things on a stick. Chicken Fried Lobster with champagne gravy (sounds pretty good), Fried Butter, Fried Snicker Bars, Funnel Cakes, Fried Cheese Curds, Frog Legs (Now I would like that one.), Batter Dipped Deep Fried Twinkies (and I thought those were gone.), Fried Jalapeños, of course, and the list goes on and on for those artery clogging treats.

Personally, I don’t think you can beat a good hot dog turned into a corn dog. I’ve made these with plain yellow mustard but I have also made the dipping sauce recipe below to go with these. Cutting the dogs into thirds make such a cute little appetizer and ya don’t have to feel guilty about eating a couple. Ok, so who could stop at just a couple. And, these are the perfect size for the kids, that is if you let them have hot dogs.

February 4, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Poultry

Bourbon Teriyaki Chicken

No bourbon in this bourbon chicken.

So, what do you do in the winter months to pass the time, all that shopping for the holidays is past and even if you resolved to get in the gym more often, that still leaves a lot of time on your hands; that is if you are not working or taking care of the kids. I would like to go back a few (a bunch) years and still have the kids at home, cooking and taking care of them, running them all over the place. OUCH, I just pinched myself to see if I was dreaming. I love being a mother for three of the best kids I know, but its fun watching them be parents and watching the five little grandsons grow up.

There are probably eight million ways to do chicken and this is just one of them. (Hey, recognize that line — “There are eight million stories in the naked city; this has been one of them.” (The Naked City TV series from 50’s/60’s). Who doesn’t love chicken and like I said, there are a kazillion ways to prepare it.

January 30, 2016 By Sherry

Entree/ Soup

Slow-cooked Chicken Tortilla Soup

Slow down your moving too fast…..

Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Ba da-da da-da da-da, feeling groovy…..

–Simon and Garfunkel’s “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling’ Groovy)

I woke up one morning before Christmas thinking “why does time seem to go by so fast”. After a little internet search (I knew there had to be an answer there) I came up with two article from Huffington Post.

It’s always bothered me that with a wink of an eye the day is gone, then the week, month, and before you know it, it’s Christmas again. At my age I want to put the brakes on things and enjoy and remember all the things that tend to flash by the window while we are driving/sailing/flying through life.

My goals this year are to slow things down, read a little each day (I don’t read nearly enough) and make a point to not just watch the days drift by. Read these two articles (Why Life Goes By Faster As We Get Older and Simple Mental Trick Can Slow Down Time) and I think it may help you to slow things down a bit.

My word for the year is going to be “slow” or in two words “slow down”. Cooking in a crockpot isn’t exactly what Slow Food Movement had in mind but if you have something simmering away in a crockpot/slow cooker, you will definitely be enjoying those smells and the excitement of anticipating what’s coming out of that pot at the end of the day.

January 25, 2016 By Sherry

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