Salads – Rosemary and the Goat

Rainbow Cauliflower Salad

Cool salad for a hot summer day.

Life in a small town has really been nice. We moved to Round Top five years ago and I know some wonder what is there to do in a town of 87. Well there is mahjong twice a week; once at local library in the Rummel Haus (built in 1872), once at Busted Oak Cellars and sometimes a third time at our son and daughter-in-laws brewery (Round Top Brewing). There’s coffee shop with the ladies on Thursday mornings, RT Lunch Bunch, Sister Squad (out to lunch), and Herb Society of America. Throwing tea parties (Round Top Tea Time) is also something I like to host. We have the Fall and Spring Antique shows and a Winter and Summer one as well. Last year was our first Round Top Film Festival. Can’t forget the wine walk, art walks, chili cook-off and a lot of fundraisers.

There’s still time to jump in the pool to cool off before deciding what to do for dinner. I don’t really jump in but it’s a nice place to do some “cool” exercises.

When the temperatures start to get above 90° here in Texas I start looking for recipes that are easy and this salad is not only easy but beautiful. Papa G is always eager to throw something on the grill and I usually come up with the “extras”.

June 10, 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

Pasta/ Salads

Summertime Spaghetti Salad

Are you ready for a easy summertime salad?

This spaghetti salad is one of the easiest salads you can throw together on a hot summer day for a backyard bbq, pool party, lunch, or dinner with added protein (or not).

I made this salad decades ago when I catered in The Woodlands and I just rediscovered the recipe and took to our Round Top Lunch Bunch today. Several people ask for the recipe and since I always take pictures of food I make incase I want to blog it, here’s the recipe for anyone who use to make it and forgot how nice of a salad it is or someone just tasting it for the first time.

I was surprised McCormick still made their Salad Supreme seasoning and our local HEB carried it. You can add just about anything to this salad. I had spaghetti which I broke in half. Next time I would probably break the pasta into thirds. My add-ins were black olives, roma tomatoes, broccoli, the little miniature peppers that are different colors, sunflower seeds, red onion, cucumber and julienned carrots. If you don’t like cucumber zucchini is a good substitute. I’ve also used yellow squash and I think a good crumble of feta cheese would be great or some parmesan.

April 28, 2025 By Sherry

Morning Foods/ Salads

Melon Salad with Goat Cheese and Lime Mint Salad

Brunch or lunch, delicious!

The past three weekends the Round Top Antique Show has been going on and we’ve had company three times. I made this salad twice during that time and liked it better each time I made it.

Life has kind of gotten in the way of me posting lately. Back in the Fall I started playing mahjong and now play twice a week and have withdrawal if I don’t play. I’ve learned to play by myself for practice so that helps until I can play again.

When we first moved to Round Top almost 5 years ago it was hard to imagine what our lives would be like. RT is the smallest town we have ever lived in with population of 87. I knew my HUB (aka Papa G around the brewery) would be smokin’ meat but after our house was finished and I was no longer in the kitchen helping Paul then I started getting involved with all these other activities that were available for me to get involved in like RT Lunch Bunch, Coffee Shop morning, Herb Society once a month which also has a culinary group I attend, mahjong at Busted Oak Cellars and again at RT Family Library and then all the events that pop up throughout the year definitely keeps us as busy as we want to be.

April 4, 2025 By Sherry

Salads

Arugula Spinach Watermelon Salad

No feta with this watermelon!

Over the last umpteen years I’ve seen so many, like kazillion, watermelon and feta cheese recipes. I’ve never really been a feta cheese fan so why not trade out some good blue cheese; a little more tasty I think.

I would love to have watermelon growing out on our property but we haven’t really started planning where a garden will be. We have so much sun now we could put it anywhere. So, when I can buy a good watermelon in the middle of summer I buy it knowing that it will probably be really juicy and bright red on the inside.

July 16, 2024 By Sherry

Garnish/ Salad Dressing/ Salads/ Sauces

Basil Pecan Pesto

My first harvest of basil.

Moved in, unpacked, art hung. I just finished two big projects I’ve been putting off for 4 months and that is reorganizing/labelling my craft closet and relabelling my 40+ spice jars so they all match. Next up the outside. We have a temporary outdoor kitchen started and enough that PapaG can get his home bbqing done but not what he has planned out in his head.

We have started a few plants and herbs in pots so far. A bay leaf tree that I paid a small fortune for and it’s dying or at least half of it is dying (as of today it is almost gone). The herbs on the other hand are going crazy. We have so much basil and every week I take a cutting a start rooting in water so we have even more. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do with all of this but for right now I made pesto.

I love making pecan (or walnut) pesto because it is a lot less expensive than pine nuts and I have about 20 pounds of pecans in my freezer that my sister sent me.

July 5, 2024 By Sherry

Fish/Seafood/ Salads

Black Rice Salad with Soy Glazed Salmon

Forbidden rice meant for the emperors

I was looking for another recipe to use my black rice and came across several black rice salads and got me thinking to try and put an Asian spin on it with some glazed salmon. It was delicious and we ate the leftovers of the salad for a couple of days.

Black rice or forbidden rice was once reserved for the emperors and used in Chinese medicine to ensure their health and long life. Everyone else was forbidden to eat it.

June 8, 2024 By Sherry

Salad Dressing/ Salads

Spinach, Chicken and Blueberry Salad with a Touch of BBQ

And a touch of BBQ!

We are 100% unpacked in our new house and everything has a place either hung, in a drawer/closet/on a shelf. I love this house and having everything on one level is great and having a big kitchen makes me want to start experimenting with new recipes

. One of my last boxes I unpacked had a collection of menus from restaurants we had visited over the years. Some from Italy, one from Spain, (Casa Botin which is suppose to be oldest restaurant in the world dating back to 1725), even an old Elvis menu from a restaurant in Memphis. This recipe was inspired by a menu item from a Houston restaurant.

When we lived in The Woodlands a friend and I would shop and eat in Houston often and one of my favorite lunch places back then was the Empire Cafe on Westheimer and I absolutely loved one of their salads that had a bbq dressing. So this is my version of a salad that holds a lot of fond memories.

April 13, 2024 By Sherry

Salad Dressing/ Salads

Fig, Prosciutto and Burrata Salad

Oh yeah, some spicy arugula too!

Who doesn’t love fruit of any kind on a salad! Whether it’s summer fruits like berries and peaches or fall fruits like apples, pears, dates, cranberries and of course figs, all these fruits add a little sweetness to your salad and ups the wow factor for your guests. I like salads that make me anxious to make them or come up with additions that may make them even better and I like to think of people eating them and loving them (ok that is a little weird.)

This salad happened to come about when friends came to Round Top for the Fall Antique Show. We spent the day shopping, lunch at Round Top Brewing, blackberry lime scones and champagne at my house to celebrate all the help they have been to me with building our new house. Believe me, I had a ton of questions. (Also, Brooke’s mom and sister received tons of questions from me -thanks for your help too.) So, after a long day shopping they returned to The Woodlands and the next day they shopped the day in Houston and had lunch at a restaurant where they had this salad. They recreated the salad for their dinner the next night. I’m recreating it from their version.

November 13, 2023 By Sherry

Salad Dressing/ Salads

Fall Slaw, Ya’ll

Fall Slaw Y’all!

I actually made this slaw for Labor Day and I was thinking summer slaw. But, now it is Fall I’m calling it a Fall slaw. Even though it is still very hot in our part of Texas it’s still Fall. When I was a kid I always associated Fall with going back to school and little plaid dresses with ties in the back or in high school with long plaid skirts and “bobby socks”.

The more I thought of this recipe I thought of Fall fruits. Cranberries and apples are Fall fruits, so this should be my go-to FALL SLAW recipe. The pistachios along with the apples add a tasty little crunch to a sometimes boring cabbage slaw. The hot honey adds a little hotness to balance out the sweetness of the fruits.

September 28, 2023 By Sherry

Salads/ Side dish

Corn and Tomatillo Relish

Summer time corn!

For the last few months I have been driving by this field of corn outside Roundtop. Watching it grow from tiny stalks to larger stalks, then with ears of corn and wanting to find out who owns this field so I can go beggin’ for a few ears to make my mother’s fried corn.

Well the corn kept growing and growing and then started turning brown and my chance of finding the owner was gone. Of course this corn didn’t die before it got into the markets, it was a field of “field corn” or “cow corn” that is grown especially for cow feed. But this kind of corn makes the best fried corn but better than the sweet corn sold in the groceries.

July 22, 2023 By Sherry

Salads

Summer Coleslaw with Apple and Peanuts

Coleslaw? Slaw? What’s the difference?

I’ve had this debate with myself for years because I love all kinds of slaws/coleslaws. In my mind a coleslaw is a salad made of cabbage and other ingredients and with a mayonnaise based dressing. Slaw on the other hand (to me) is a cabbage and other ingredient salad but with no mayonnaise and usually an oil vinegar and even sugar (plus other ingredients) type dressing. Both will make the salad limp, I think, if left over so I always let the slaws refrigerate along with the dressing in a separate bottle and dress right before serving.

While doing our country morning drive here in Round Top on Memorial Day I was trying to decide what type of dressing to go with our bbqued chicken legs. I love legs and since it was going to be just the two of us (can’t wait to get that new home and kitchen because all holidays will always be celebrated with lots of food and people to enjoy it.) I knew I was making the cheese grits that I seem to make anytime there is bbq involved. I thought the coleslaw with apples, green onions, cabbage and a few other ingredients sounded perfect and why not throw in some candied peanuts. After making these candied peanuts I’ve decided to always just buy them already sweetened.

June 26, 2023 By Sherry

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