Salads – Rosemary and the Goat

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

Salads

Frisee and Arugula Salad with a Bunch of Friends

Absolutely the best salad ever!

Roaming around some of my favorite sites from wineries I came across this salad and I have to say it has become one of my all time favorites. I couldn’t decide whether to post this or not but then decided I would hate for you to never taste the combination of all these ingredients.

Frisee which I have always called “scratchy throat lettuce” mixed with peppery arugula, some haricots verte, toasted almonds, some fresh peaches, and I added the avocado tossed with a wonderful dressing makes a salad that I won’t easily forget and it will be top of my list to prepare for dinner guest. If peaches are out of season I would try some apple, pear, or fresh figs.

The night I made this the kids came over for dinner and I actually had thirds on this salad. Usually I’m doing good to finish the salad I have on my plate.

September 26, 2022 By Sherry

Salads/ Side dish

Field Pea Salad with Tomatoes and Feta

Love those field peas!

How time flies. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything and that is because I’ve been baking/cooking at our son and DIL’s Lollitop Sweet Shop and now opened Round Top Brewing. I usually go in Thursday-Sunday and bake at sweet shop and help with breakfast tacos/biscuit sandwiches etc and when done walk a few steps and UP 20 steps to upstairs kitchen at the brewery. Both or fun but I have to say the “food” part of the brewery is my favorite. It’s nice to work with Paul on his ideas and creations and I do not mind one bit taking directions from him and doing things his way.

I’m always looking for new salad or cold side dishes to prepare because it takes the pressure off of having everything hot and ready to go at dinner time.

November 17, 2021 By Sherry

Entree/ Pork/ Salads

Grilled Pork and Peach Salad

Southern Living recipe with some tweaking.

I have always loved Southern Living’s recipes. Back in the 70’s I submitted and had accepted about 5 recipes for the SL magazine. For having a recipe published in the magazine I received the yearly annual SL cookbook and also 50 recipe cards with “my recipe that appeared in SL magazine”. I actually still have a few of those cards somewhere in boxes in storage.

When I first saw this recipe and made it I could still buy good “cling free” peaches. This salad would be just as delicious for a Fall dinner using roasted apples. Pork and apples make the perfect combo.

The recipe begged (I think) for some charred corn and definitely some avocado. Wished I’d had some cilantro and I would have given it a good sprinkling. The bread slices are so crusty and oily and when it mixes with the greens and pork make for the perfect bite of food.

September 18, 2021 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Salads

Sesame Avocado Boats

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted a recipe!

What’s new with us that has kept me from cooking (almost) or posting. Well, we moved from The Woodlands about three months ago; first into a short term temporary apartment (we loved the Dipples place and really miss their cows). and then (about 3 weeks ago) into our long term temporary until we build a house.

All my days for the last week has been showing up at Lollitop Sweet Shop that our son and daughter-in-law opened next to their soon to open Round Top Brewing. Yesterday morning was an early day 6:30 and did we ever bake. We had some Ham and Cheddar Biscuits, Sausage and Cheese Muffins, Cowgirl Cookies, Farmhouse Cookies, Raspberry Bars, a special order this morning for 60 muffins, a humongous Texas Sheet Cake waiting for customers tomorrow and all of this is surrounded by acres and acres of candy in this tiny 1800’s house that sits right next to the Brewery and just steps away from our “long term temporary” house.

October 29, 2020 By Sherry

Older Posts