HotApp – Rosemary and the Goat

Blue/Goat Cheese Bacon Date Dip

Yum, Yum, Yum—what more can I say?

The first time I tasted a stuffed date was at Mercat a la Planxa in Chicago. The appetizer was a Medjool date stuffed with a Marcona almond, wrapped in bacon, and served with a blue cheese fondue. The presentation —pouring a little pitcher of warm bleu cheese over a tray of stuffed wrapped dates—had our mouths watering before we even took the first bite.

After that first “date”, we traveled to Israel, and I came home with 25 pounds of Medjool dates. With those dates (after giving a good amount to my kids), I tried my first Amaretto Date Nut Shake (here on the blog), Bacon Wrapped Dates with Balsamic, dates wrapped in prosciutto instead of bacon, and of course, Green Beans and Brussels Sprouts with Dates. The prosciutto-wrapped dates are especially good because you don’t have to overcook the date just to get the bacon crispy.

My go-to date appetizer has always been some version of wrapped—often with an almond and blue cheese tucked inside—and I almost always overcook them. Until now.

January 7, 2026 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Oven Fried Mushrooms with Sriracha Dipping Sauce

“I helped! Shake ’n Bake, all grown up—and with mushrooms.”

That old-school shake-in-a-bag magic, updated for crispy baked mushrooms that are anything but retro and add a touch of Sriracha for a little zing.

“Baked, not fried” brings back a memory from the 60’s: a Shake ’n Bake commercial, a little girl with the most exaggerated Southern accent, and that unforgettable line—“It’s Shake ’n Bake… and I helped.”

I’m flashing back to 1969—bell bottoms, corduroy pants (snake skin print), oven-fried chicken. I didn’t even use Shake ’n Bake back then. Now the shake-and-bake idea has gone to culinary school (I did) and grown up into something better.

January 1, 2026 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Lobster and Shrimp and Snails Oh My!

Ooh la la! Until we meet again!

After my French dinner party last week I knew I had to post one of the recipes and the escargot was the easiest thing on the menu.

The first snail that I ever ate was on a cruise that started in Amsterdam and made it’s way to France, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, and Gibraltar. On this cruise I tasted my first escargot and my first really good paté (now, my son Paul’s paté is the best ever). And, at every stop we tried all the local cuisines. After that first taste of escargot and paté, we ordered both every night for the rest of the cruise.

Fast forward many years and I’ve made escargot several times. We made it once for a Michie French Family Feast and several other times when I could find the snails. Along the way, I have learned to buy my French snails from Amazon. Typically escargot is baked and served with French bread to sop up all the garlicky butter. (Papa G hates the word sop, but that is what you do if you want a good bite.)

October 18, 2025 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Food Stories/ Game/ HotApp/ Pork

Friday night fights!

Friday night fights!

(There isn’t a recipe today but just a little story about how we love frog legs and our fried fish and another look at a few of our family favorites.)

On any given Friday night when we were kids (my twin sister and brother) we would probably be in front of a black and white tv watching The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports (Boxing). I guess that was my dad’s favorite sport to watch. (I learned a lot about Gillette razor blades every Friday night.) Many of those Friday nights would involve a fish fry with family friends or if my dad had gone frog gigging then he would have taken out his boat that he made to float ditches and gigged us some frogs. This boat was made from welding two car hoods together and was perfect for going down some of the bayous like Black Island or Wolf Island or any of the ditches full of rain water and overflowing with croaking bull frogs ready to give it up for a delicious dinner for our family.

Our dad could pretty much do anything. I’ve called him a Renaissance Man in one of my post about his hushpuppy recipe (which is the best hushpuppy you will ever put in your mouth.) Even though a lot of our meals were things like fried pork chops, fish, meatloaf, duck and other game, delicious stews and soups; just simple good food, there was a lot of love and care that went into preparing all those meals. Our mother was a stay-at-home mom and had lunch ready for my dad every day and then a nice meal ready every night about the time he came home.

October 22, 2023 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Fish/Seafood/ HotApp

Scallops and Shrimp with Jalapeño Cream Sauce

All Shrimp or scallops or both and with or without pasta.

This recipe can be made as a first course appetizer or you could add some pasta for a main course.

The scallop shells I used to hold this recipe came from a friend who was cleaning out things she never used and I volunteered to take them off her hands. I will have a perfect place to put them when I get my very large pantry (top on my list for things I wanted in our new home); but for now they are in a under the bed box until I’m ready to use them again.

There are all kinds of cute little dishes hiding under my two beds right now (until we get out of this 800 sq ft house) that I want to use for dinner guest; especially my cute little glass espresso cups that will hold some kind of yummy decadent dessert and my tiny stemmed glasses that would be a great vessel for my date nut shake or mini chocolate martinis.

My first thought for these shells was to use them for a first course appetizer with one very large scallop with some kind of sauce poured over it. There are several other sauces I want to try once I can get larger scallops. Since I couldn’t find the extra large scallops, I had to settle for sea scallops so then decided to add shrimp to the recipe.

January 9, 2023 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Cambozola, Apple and Prosciutto App

Good and easy!

A tapa, pintxos, meze (platter), pupu, zakuska, Hors D’oeuvres, canapés, antipasto, amuse bouche, finger food, charcuterie, and even crudites are all words for appetizers from all over the world. Who doesn’t love munching on something while having a great vintage cocktail before dinner?

I love appetizers and cocktail parties. I feel like I have master my cocktail making and I’ve been making appetizers all my married life and that’s 53 years now. I love a good “surprise” amuse bouche from the chef and I’ve never met a tapa or pintxos (I have a few of those on this blog I tried after returning from a Spain trip) I didn’t love. I remember one of my first amuse bouches was from Gramercy Tavern and the waiter brought out a tiny little dish filled with salt and it had a tater tot resting in the middle of the dish. Well, that tater tot was filled with a black tapenade and later after returning home the chef actually scaled down and sent the recipe to me. I still have not made that dish but I will one day soon.

August 23, 2022 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Bacon Jalapeno Cheddar Frico

Who doesn’t like a good Frico! (Cheese crisp)

Cheese, bacon, jalapeño — who could not like any appetizer with those ingredients and how could you make an easier appetizer than this recipe for a very thin and crisp bite to go with your favorite cocktail or glass of wine.

I don’t want to talk about the pandemic ( or the fact I have had my first shot) or the freezing temperatures or anything else that I don’t have any control. When things don’t go the way I would like them to I cook and I cook and I cook then I may make a cocktail or two.

Ya say “what’s a frico” ? Well it is a dish from Italy the consist mainly of heated cheese that melts and turns into a lacy crisp. There is a version that is thicker made with potatoes, onions and other vegetables but the one I’m making is another version that I think most Americans probably make and it is simply a thin layer of shredded cheese added on a hot frying pan and cooked until the cheese becomes slightly crispy. While warm, the frico can be molded into a bowl or little cup where you could add toppings etc. I’m going to have to try the other version sometimes because it looks like a thick potatoey pizza.

February 22, 2021 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ Game/ HotApp

Buttermilk Fried Quail Legs

Talk about pretty legs!

Pretty bird legs! No not those thin, little legs you might see on someone so skinny that if you were to put them on a flagpole they would wave in the wind. That certainly doesn’t describe me and probably never will. Although my sister (twin) and I did have little bird legs when we were young. I don’t think we ate much other than Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup. That changed, hence the current results.

So these pretty little legs were from a few quail that gave their lives for us to enjoy them as an appetizer on New Year’s Eve. (That sounds pretty sad – but they were delicious.) They were so good I have to say thank you little quails. Normally I’m not that great frying things and my husband does all that outside on the grill with his huge 13″ cast iron skillet. This particular New Year’s Eve it was rainy and cold, just us, and me not wanting to go all out making fancy appetizers for just two people, I decided to boil some shrimp and make a good cocktail sauce and then decided I’d better fry these little legs inside.

January 21, 2021 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp/ Side dish

Baby Eggplant with Pine Nut Salsa

Who would have thought coming into this new year that we would be going through anything like the pandemic we are now living through. The government all seems to be working together, finally, to do what our country needs. People and business have sacrificed so much to try and stop this virus. Closing restaurants, bars, now even parks are closed in our area quickly makes you realize how serious this is.

March 26, 2020 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ HotApp/ Poultry

Asian Chicken Skewers

Great for a bunco snack or even dinner.

I love food on a stick. Who doesn’t love a good corndog, ice cream on a stick or even a salad on a stick.

Looking around online I actually found some other “stick” foods I would like to try. Cheesecake pops, caramel apple slices, tater tot skewers and even a pesto shrimp skewer with cauliflower mash (now that sounds good and I better save that before I lose it.) I got distracted on that last recipe and decided to take a look at it; low carb if you use the cauliflower mash but I was thinking how delicious it would be with some good stone ground grits. I will try both ways soon for sure.

October 28, 2019 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ HotApp/ Pizza

Mushroom Fontina Kale Flatbread

Great little flatbread from not so good restaurant.

Normally I don’t complain about food I get in a restaurant. Well, maybe I do if it isn’t good; but I haven’t emailed this hotel yet and probably won’t because even though the service was kind of good and chef couldn’t really manage to get more than one order out at a time out, I came away this this idea for a flatbread pizza.

The night before we left for our Turks and Caicos vacation we decided to spend the night down in Houston since our flight was at 6:30 am. If we didn’t go down early that would have meant getting up like at 3:00 a.m. to get down there for our flight. We stayed at a hotel that didn’t have a restaurant and since we had Ubered down there we didn’t have a car and we ended up walking down the street to the Hilton Garden Inn for dinner. GA’s tuna bowl was well done instead of medium rare and arrived about 10 minutes before my Asian salad that tasted nothing like an Asian salad BUT we ordered a flatbread to share for an appetizer and it was the best thing I have tasted in a long time.

July 22, 2019 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Jalapeno Cocktail Pie Squares

How could I have forgotten this favorite recipe?

I use to make this recipe all the time for parties I catered because it could be made in advance and frozen and then taken out and rewarmed in the oven before serving.

If you like spicy and you like cheese and you want to get your veggie in for the day, give these a try. It’s also a great little appetizer you could freeze in small portions to go with your summer cocktails.

Recently we had a bar-b-q for our Israel travel group from last year. It was so nice getting together with the ones close enough to come and sharing a meal together that wasn’t Mediterranean food. I have to say that was the only part of the trip I didn’t care for — the food.

May 16, 2019 By Sherry

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