HotApp – Page 3 – Rosemary and the Goat

Hot Spinach Dip with Tomatoes

Not your ordinary spinach dip. No Artichokes in this one and one of my favorites.

How many dips can you name from your years of cooking. Onion dip was on top of my list and way back when I used Lipton Onion Soup mix to make it. I can only imagine what a homemade version would taste like; will have to give that a try. Mexican Cheese Dip was always a favorite also. Adventurous wasn’t in my vocabulary back then. I knew onion and cheese dip, that’s about it.

Then one day someone tried putting spinach and artichokes together; who would have ever thought of that back in the day. Aren’t you tired of spinach artichoke dip? You will see it on just about every restaurant menu, but my Hot Spinach Dip with Tomatoes has a little different twist to it with jalapenos and some fresh chopped tomatoes; and I love the homemade pita chips made with butter, lemon pepper and cumin, baked until nice and crunchy.

January 31, 2017 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ HotApp

Sugar Cane Skewered Shrimp with Bacon and Pineapple

I finally found some sugar cane and wanted to use it.

I’ve always wanted to make something on a sugar cane skewer and now I have. And now that I have I may just save it for drink skewers. This recipe would have been much faster using ordinary wooden skewers. That said, don’t worry about looking for sugar cane, just get out those long pics.

Many years ago before using the internet, I use to look up newspaper food pages (usually on a Wednesday or Thursday) to see what foods were popular (I guess now we would say “trending”) in that area. The Courier-Journal in Louisville’s food pages can still be accessed. If you have time, try typing in some of your favorite city’s newspapers. The Citizen-Times in Asheville offers a 30 day free look. The Post and Courier from Charleston has free access to their recipes. If you want to see what’s happening on the other side of the US (from me anyway) Napa Valley Register offers free access too.

I just read an article about what was the favorite foods from each state. Results were crazy. In almost all states, by far, the winning type of food was pizza. Of course, Texas had Mexican food winning out as did Colorado and California. Hawaii’s favorite food was bakery items.

August 26, 2016 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp/ Salads/ Side dish

BLT Stacked Tomatoes

One of my favorite foods from Savannah.

Do you find it hard to pass up a fried green tomato? Well I do and while visiting in Savannah back in April I saw them on every menu I looked at along with shrimp and grits and pimento cheese .

I grew up eating fried green tomatoes. My dad had the best garden ever and “organic” before most people even though of growing anything without a lot of pesticides. He made his own garlic spray that he would spray on his plants for bugs and he even hooked up a pump in the lake they lived on (after retirement) and use that water to water his garden.

Over the years of our gardening we would grow all types of tomatoes and I could not wait to see the first green tomatoes get big enough to pick and fry and believe me it was hard to pick them knowing in just a few days we would have beautiful vine ripen tomatoes. But, that was never a hard decision for me to make — pick or not pick.

Have you ever had fried green tomatoes with pimento cheese on top? I haven’t either but saw it on some menus in Savannah. I have posted a Fried Green Tomato with Black Eyed Pea Vinaigrette and a Fried Green Tomato with Ravigote Sauce.

July 7, 2016 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Elote Dip

If you like Mexican corn on the cob, you’ll love this dip.

Coming up blank for an idea for your next cookout? Sometimes I have problems putting together a menu; don’t know why because I have an endless supply of recipes I want to try or to recreate from places I have been or ideas that friends have told me about. Corn of some type is almost always on our menu as a side dish when we bbq.

Corn isn’t actually a vegetable, it’s a grain but I always called it a vegetable because it was one of the few so-called vegetables my kids would eat when they were young; green beans – sometimes, fried okra – of course, no on salads, no on broccoli, spinach etc. So I had to call corn a vegetable so I would feel like I was half-way getting my kids to eat healthy. Of course, now, they eat everything.

Elote Cafe in Sedona is famous for their Elote (corn) appetizer. A friend of mine went there a few years ago and loved the cafe so much they ate there three times.

Elote corn is sold by street food vendors in Mexico. Usually it will be cook in the husk, the husk will be pulled back and used for a handle to hold on to the corn and the corn will be smeared with butter, mayonnaise, lime juice, chili powder (I add some cayenne too when I make it this way), and sprinkled with some cojita cheese. It is delicious for any summer cookout and if you like that then make some Elote dip. All the same ingredients but cut off the cob and put in a bowl and baked for you to enjoy with some really good tortilla chips.

My favorite corn is yellow corn or even the peaches and cream variety which is yellow and while. The weekend I made this Elote Dip I could only find white corn. If you have a choice go with the yellow variety because it makes a prettier dip and I personally like the taste better.

May 4, 2016 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Avocado Lime Shrimp Cups

Beautiful, spicy, crunchy little appetizer for your next get together OR just because you want to make something new.

If you look at my appetizer index you will see that appetizers are probably my favorite things to cook/bake/make. I love little tidbits of food. You can graze on a table of appetizer and not feel overly stuffed. Plus, they are usually cute and interesting little pieces of food. And, I love anything made with shrimp.

Cocktail parties were always my favorite type of party to cater and I always prepared some of my all-time favorites. My Parmesan Bacon Wraps (we always referred to as a “heart attack” on a cracker) were sooo good and everyone loved them. Once someone referred to my Parmesan Shrimp Toast as sex on a cracker (have no idea how he came up with that description). Over 11,000 people have looked at that recipe. This little Avocado Bacon Sandwich is one of my favorite tea sandwiches and is perfect with a pot of Walnut Green tea.

I feel like my taste have changed over the years. I haven’t done those bacon wraps in a couple of years and I love appetizers that are a little more on the fussy side rather than making a big batch of dip or something I just dump in a pan. Back in the 70’s I had a friend (still a friend – hi Sally) who said she didn’t like sharing a particular appetizer recipe because she didn’t want to see it at someone else’s dinner party. After we moved away from each other, she did share the recipe. I never shared recipes when I catered for the same reason; but when I quit catering that was the point of this blog and that was (is) to share some of my favorite old and new recipes.

April 24, 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

Appetizers/ HotApp

Pork Fries with White Bar-B-Q Sauce

You say “white” bar-b-q sauce!

How do you like your fries? I like mine with mustard instead of ketchup. Some people eat cheese fries, chili fries, loaded fries or even milk gravy on their fries. While in France a few years ago, every afternoon we stopped for frites and wine.

Now, these are not your normal fries. Far from it because they are not even made from potatoes; they are made from pork and I guess, in a way they look like chicken-fried anything — but I’m calling them fries.

If you grew up where we did, pork was the king of bar-b-q meats and just about the only type of bar-b-q you ate was some kind of pork.

I’m sure these days there’s some chicken, sausage, and brisket thrown in now and then but never beef until we moved to Texas; and Texans do love their beef brisket. The last few years I’ve been seeing more and more pulled pork showing up on menus and it must be the influx of southerners moving to Texas that caused Texans to start lovin their pulled pork.

In our home town (Caruthersville, MO) you know where to find the good bar-b-q (Carmean’s). If you live anywhere close to me there’s only one place for bar-b-q and that’s my house with my husband at the smoker.

When it comes to sauce red sauce (bbq sauce) was the only type of sauce to go on bar-b-q or so I thought until eating these “fries” with white bbq sauce.

I love telling you (if there’s anybody out there listening) about restaurants we visit. WELL, here’s another one. While in Nashville a couple of years ago with my sister, we visited the Urban Grub restaurant. We loved it from the minute we walked in, but, I will have to say my shrimp and grits were better than their’s.

December 11, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ HotApp

Spiced Glazed Nuts and Pretzel Mix

Looking for a new snack mix for the holidays?

Can you believe that Thanksgiving is just a week away. What’s happened the last few years that you blink and another year has gone by.

Thanksgiving happens to be my favorite holiday and if you’re like me, I’m always looking for new snack foods to serve during the T’day, Xmas or for that matter any time you have friends over OR just because you want a nice little munchy to go with that glass of wine in the evening.

I have been a follower of David Leibovitz Living the Sweet Life in Paris blog since before we went to France three years ago. As usual for that trip I was searching for places to eat while in Paris and then the week we were spending in Provence and I came across some recipes of David’s and have followed his site ever since. His cookbook My Paris Kitchen was voted best cookbook of the year in 2014 by Amazon.

Almonds, pecans and peanuts were already in my freezer so I decided to use a mix of all three. If you want a gluten free snack, substitute gluten free pretzels for the regular ones. I couldn’t wait to try this mix out on friends. I’m upping his 1 1/2 tablespoon of pure maple syrup to 2 tablespoons and changing the dark brown sugar the next time I make them to light brown sugar. Continue Reading…

November 20, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Spicy Potato Samosas

Chunchy, potatoy, spicy.

I spend a lot of time on my computer looking around at recipes and other crafty things I might want to make in my spare time. I do have a lot of spare time and sometimes think I need to get out and get a job but then I pinch myself and say “are you nuts, what are you thinking”.

The day I sat down to write this post, I had checked about 6 errands off my list before noon and then I got this message from my husband saying our new warming drawer unit isn’t fitting into our outdoor kitchen. I was determined not to go home until they had the problem fixed but no such luck. I arrive home and they were still working on it and I’m determined to not even look at it until it is completed. It seems like an eternity since the project was started back in August.

So to get myself out of this mood I was getting myself into I started looking at some of the food pictures from our Indian dinner we cooked while in Chicago. This appetizer was part of our meal that night which consisted of Indian Chicken Kabobs, Spinach Dahl, garlic naan and these Spicy Potato Samosas we served with a mango chutney.

November 15, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus with Parmesan and Lemon

This was a nice little appetizer for night out at winery concert.

Summer is officially over but we’re still having warm (hot) days here in Texas. On an evening out at a local winery to hear a 60’s/70’s group play I made some homemade White Bean Hummus to go with vegetables and some Naan I picked up at the market. (I’ve made before but didn’t want to go to the trouble.). I packed a bunch of cheeses from Trader Joe’s, some crackers and we bought wine there. I thought these little (or big fat) asparagus spears would make the perfect finger food to go with the cheese.

I’m always looking for different recipes that pack easy for eating outside or on the go. Do you have any favorites? I remember vacations with our grandparents and how my grandmother would always fry the chicken and pack it in a shoe box lined with aluminum foil then put it in an old red Coke cooler for our trip and we would always stop at a road side table to eat. I can’t say I’ve seen anyone do that in quite a few years. Maybe, I’m just not looking.

October 11, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp/ Side dish

Grilled Shishito Peppers with Garlic Aioli

These are very tasty little peppers.

Several years ago we stopped in Vigo, Spain on a cruise. It was a very rainy day. How do I remember that? Well, I write down everything from trips we have taken, especially the food and restaurants. So, when we had the day to kill in Vigo, we walked, with our umbrellas and ponchos up and down the streets where all the restaurants and food vendors were located. I remember stopping at this particular place and we ordered frites and these fried green peppers. I never found out what peppers they were but I’m sure it was these shishito peppers. (Found out they are Padron peppers). The Shishito pepper is a Japanese pepper and a close relation to padrone.

Right before the 4th of July I saw were our “Veggie Lady” had some of these peppers, so I scooted up there to buy a bunch to do for the 4th. What would the 4th of July be without something hot and spicy. The Veggie Lady sold these for $12.00 a pound then I found at Whole Foods for $3.99 a pound. (So, I know where I will be buying these from now on.)

August 2, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Shrimp Wontons

Crispy and good!

My sister and I have always thought our “The Best Egg Rolls” are the best ever and are even by far better than any we have had out in a Chinese restaurant. Now that I feel I have “mastered” egg rolls, I’ve been wanting to try a different recipe using wonton and since there were some shrimp in my freezer and most of the other ingredients I needed to do this little wonton “kiss”, thought I would give it a try.

We were away from our pool for a couple of weeks back in May and when we arrived home it was just begging us to jump in. We had been heating it for a couple of months so get a head start on the swimming, floating, hanging out in the pool time. I love trying out new appetizers for when we hang out in the pool, float on a noodle and have a glass of wine and some munchies. Now, if I could just invent a floating table that would hold drinks and some food.

While in Chicago recently we went to a Japanese Izakaya bar. A Izakaya bar is like a pub or tavern with low tables and lots of small plate options to share. The menu is normally on the table, wall or in our case table and on a blackboard that the waitress brought to the table for us to choose from. You typically get a clean wet towel to clean your hands and we removed our shoes before sitting down. It was so much fun. Oliver and Charlie (our Chicago grandsons’s almost 5 and 3) love this place because they can sit on the floor. I loved all the small plates of food we had from pig cheeks to sweet potato fries to dumplings and it got me thinking that I want to do more of this type of food. I will definitely be trying the pancakes and a couple of dishes we tried that night and when I do I will be sure to share them with you. So dinner that night got me to thinking about making something Asian.

July 12, 2015 By Sherry

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