Pork – Rosemary and the Goat

Smoked Sausage with Roasted Vegetables

Lots of veggies in this dish!

One day I was thinking of my mother’s backbone or country style ribs with kraut and next thing I knew I had the idea of baking smoked sausage and instead of using kraut use cabbage and then as I dove deeper, getting lost in the internet, I came across a couple of sites that had sheet pan dinners and one that caught my eye was from Chelsea’s Messy Apron blog. I did change a few things when I added some of our garden ripe tomatoes and some purple kale to go along with the cabbage, carrots, onions and the Kielbasa sausage.

Back to my mother’s kraut and ribs. I’m sure all of you can envision certain things your mother (or dads) made and I think my memories or best when it comes to food. I can smell her kraut, ribs, mashed potatoes just thinking about them. And, I knew the cornbread going with that dinner was going to be the best cornbread I ever ate. I can think about foods we have on trips or dinner parties and all those menus trigger things about the trip/restaurant/dinners that I might not remember otherwise. I can tell you almost every restaurant we have eaten at on trips because I journal them and if it is from a restaurant, I guarantee you that I will try to get the recipe from the chef and several times I’ve succeeded. Continue Reading…

July 1, 2025 By Sherry

Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ Pork/ Poultry

Chicken Pad Thai

Fresh, spicy and somewhat easy!

I’ve been making Asian dishes since I’ve been married (56 years this August). Early marriage I made lo mein, chow mein (which is American recipe), Chop Suey (Chinese), Somasos (Indian), and Sushi (Japanese). I’m sure there are many others I have forgotten about.

Back when we were dating in high school, GA asked me to dinner at his house. His mother had made chicken chow mein, which I had never eaten before, and it was delicious. To this day everytime I make chow mein, I think of that dinner at his house and him filling my plate and saying “you are really going to like this”. I don’t know why she served rye bread, with butter, with the chow mein BUT I can’t have chow mein without having a loaf of rye bread and some really soft butter.

I made a few changes in this recipe I found somewhere on the internet (I can’t find exact site even though I printed off). Anyway, I had lo mein noodles (the long flat kind, not ramen, recipe called for rice noodles), I had bought ground chicken for another recipe and decided to use that instead of chicken breast. (See note if you want to use breast or thigh meat). The recipe called for 1/4 cup of brown sugar which we though a little sweet; next time I would use two tablespoons.

June 18, 2025 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Beef/ Beef/Veal/ Desserts/ Fish/Seafood/ Game/ Lamb/ Legumes/ Pork/ Poultry/ Salads/ Soup

Michie’s Family Feast

The history of our Michie Feast!

In case you aren’t familiar with my blog or our family who loves to cook, this post will show you a little of how it all started — our love for food and family. So take a minute to look at one or two of our “family feast” dinners and if you get a chance look under “stories” for some “it’s not always about the food” stories/dinners.

So, our Michie feast started one Thanksgiving (before all the grandsons (6) ). This was the first year my husband started frying our turkeys. After buying something like 3 gallon of oil, we wanted to use that oil again before the kids all went back home.

Our first Michie Feast would have, of course, been a fish fry with my dads famous hushpuppies (see blog for recipe). Then the next family feast came the oysters (fried, smoked, Rockafellow, and raw of course). After that it didn’t matter that we had all that oil to find a use for; we just wanted to make a special meal together where everyone cooked a dish, presented it to the group (whoever was in town for Thanksgiving), pairing it with wine/cocktail of their choice. Friends of ours would be there every other year and occasionally one of the kids brought some extra guests.

June 3, 2025 By Sherry

Pork/ Side dish

Crispy Rice Salad with Pork Belly

Another “saved” Instagram recipe!

How many “saved” recipes do you have on either Instagram or Pinterest? I have hundreds. I’ve probably tried more from Pinterest than Instagram. This Crispy Rice Salad was sent to me by my daughter and it sounded so good I had to give it a try AND with only a few additions.

I just happened to have some English cucumber, and frozen edamame in the refrigerator/freezer and had leftover rice from making some chicken chow mein the night before so why not make this for dinner tonight because with a UT football game on my HUB wasn’t going anywhere.

My additions were to add some crispy pork belly to top to go with the crispy rice. The pork belly came from Trader Joes and even though it is around $6 for a small 12 oz. package, it was already cooked so I just had to cube it and brown in a skillet. This recipe was posted as a salad but I didn’t want to make a main dish so the pork belly saved the day. I also added some sliced avocado to the finished bowl of crispy/crunchy goodness and a little squeeze of lime never hurt anything.

February 1, 2025 By Sherry

Beef/ Beef/Veal/ Pasta/ Pork

Mazetti AKA Johnny Marzetti

This recipe bring back memories of my adventure into cooking.

One of the first things I was looking for in our new home, (fast forward to 2024) was a special place to put all my cookbooks. The day I wanted to make some choux puffs (cream puff shells) to use for a tea sandwich I knew where to look; not on the internet but the same book I have gone back to for almost 55 years for making cream puffs or a savory shell to use for a tea party and that was my Good Housekeeping cookbook.

Now, the book. Upon opening it, I thought I would start sneezing, and I did. Not only had it been in storage for 4 years, it has been around my house for 55 so it has a really musty smell. There are so many recipes I want to revisit and try to update from this book and the Mazetti (aka Marietta) recipe is one of them. The GH version calls for canned tomato soup and that is something I never liked anyway so this version is a little old and a little new and perfect for a weekend dinner for the family.

December 21, 2024 By Sherry

Entree/ Pork

Smoked Ham with Spiced Apricot Glaze

So delicious you will not want to wait until Easter to make it.

I have to give all the credit of this recipe to my husband, (Papa G, GA, or papagsmokinroundtop (instagram). He has honed his bar-b-quing skills since he was a teenager and he watched my dad bbq. Along the way of our 55 years of marriage he has picked up many skills in the culinary world.

Growing up, and that has taken a very long time, we always had ham for Easter dinner (or lunch). The ham was always baked the same way. My mother would cut criss crosses in the fat of ham and insert whole cloves and then toothpick pineapple slices all over the ham. The glaze was pineapple juice mixed with brown sugar and some mustard. Always delicious not matter who made it for Easter. And, of course we had to have deviled eggs and usually potato salad and I knew just about anything my mother made would be delicious.

October 19, 2024 By Sherry

Pork/ Sauces

Tonkatsu Pork with Sauce

This recipe has been around awhile!

Back in our early married life (55 years ago now) I use to make a few Japanese dishes and not sure why I stopped but I did. I’m going to revisit some of those recipes soon and give them another chance.

I happened upon this recipe (and online they all seem to have the same ingredients) in my latest Cooks Illustrated magazine and then googled some online recipes, tried and really liked it. The CI version used flour to dredge the pork but several online used cornstarch, which I used and Cooks Illustrated did not include a sauce recipe with their recipe and that was one of the best parts of the dish.

August 28, 2024 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

Entree/ Pork

Baby Back Finger Chops

I want my baby back, baby back!

Remember that old jingle from chilis about their baby back ribs? I never had those and no way could they be as good as any bbq someone would/could smoke/grill at home.

These little loin back finger chops caught my eye one day at the grocery. I first thought they were un-frenched lamb chops but the closer I got to them I realized they were pork so I was interested enough I bought a package. They were somewhere over $5 a lb.. They were good the first time we grilled and we just used some Montreal Steak seasoning (one of my favorite seasoning). The second time I bought them I bought a package and also bought a rack of baby back ribs thinking I could cut them up and they would be half the price of the little loin baby back loin chopsl, after I got home with them and inspected before tossing in the freezer I did notice they they didn’t have the large chunk of meat on the end. So my theory didn’t hold up BUT the slab will live another day and show up on our grill one night.

August 7, 2023 By Sherry

Pork

Papa G’s Herbed Pork Chops

🎼Anything you can do I can do better,

I can do anything better than you!🎼

No you can’t, Yes, I can, Yes I can — Well that’s not true when it comes to the outdoor cooking in this family. Whether it’s grillin’, fryin’, or smoking. GA (the person I have shared most of my life with and 53 years of marriage) has been taught by the best — my dad. Even back when we were dating in high school he was learning things that would stay with him and add to his cooking skills.

I’ve always done most of the cooking in the kitchen but over the last 10 years that’s changed. When I had both knees replaced years ago, he was preparing me wonderful “eats”. And, always for the family feast we had the day after Thanksgiving he had his own item he would prepare and present to the group. (These were the best dinners ever! See blast from the past below to get an idea of what went on at a MFF).

January 20, 2023 By Sherry

Entree/ Legumes/ Pork

Hoppin’ John

This could be your New Year’s Eve good luck meal!

Hoppin’ John is a Carolina rice and pea dish made with either red peas or cowpeas. The recipe can be traced back to roots in West Africa. There are a lot of variations but basically peas and rice are the main ingredients. I’ve add some bell pepper, onion and garlic; a little ham hock and fried/crispy pork belly never hurt a recipe.

Most recipes call for Carolina gold rice but I could not find that; maybe I’ll have to check out Amazon or put it on my list of things to look for when we go to “the city”.

Awhile back I used these red peas to do a pea and grits recipe which was quite good also. I think the next time I make Hoppin’ John I will saute’ some fresh jalapeno in with the onions and bell peppers for a little added heat. I think the recipe can also benefit from some sliced celery. Really, you can add just about anything. Maybe a sliced smoked sausage in place of the pork belly would add more spice.

December 28, 2022 By Sherry

Entree/ Legumes/ Pork

Red Peas with Pork Belly and Cheesy Grits

P-P-P-P’s – Peas Please!

I’ve always loved peas (maybe not English peas when I was a kid); black eyed, purple hull, field, lady, cream, and of course snow and sugar snap. The first peas are legumes but still a pea in my book My dad use to grown black eyed, purple hull and field pieces and my mother would mix them all together when she cooked them. I don’t grow my own peas but sometimes I will buy a can of each, drain and rinse and mix them together; I love the different shapes and colors together

The red pea is a variety I’ve never tried and recently ordered a package of Sea Island Red Peas from Amazon and after looking at several recipes, I knew what I was going to serve with them. Some good barely cheesy grits, topped with the red peas/gravy and topped with some crispy pork belly chunks. I’m making Hoppin’ John this week using the remainder of my bag of peas. Hoppin’ John is a dish I’ve never made before so I’m anxious to make it and maybe have a good crusty bread instead of cornbread.

November 14, 2022 By Sherry

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