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Salads

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Salads

Georgia Cracker Salad

Thanks Paula!

Ever wonder what the saying Georgia Cracker meant? Well, I saw Paula Deen, during one of her quarantine shows, make this Georgia Cracker salad so I decided I had to find out where the salad got it’s name.

Georgia Cracker refers to the original American pioneer settlers of the Province of Georgia. The Georgia ranchers would drive their cattle down into the flatlands of central Florida to graze in the winter and would stop where the citrus groves began. In order to get the cattle’s attention they became very accomplished at cracking a bullwhip. There are a few other explanations but they aren’t as interesting.

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ColdApp/ Egg Dishes/ Morning Foods/ Salads

Oeuf Mayonnaise

Ei, veze, arrautza, oeuf, Muna, Uovo, Ubh! Or just EGG!

An egg by any other name would still be just an EGG. Just as Juliet once said “What’s in a name?”, That which we call an “egg” (sorry William) “by any other name would taste the same”. So whether you are saying Ei (Dutch), Veze (Albanian), Arrautza (Basque), Oeuf (French), Muna (Finnish( , Uovo (Italian), or Ubh (Irish) it’s still just an egg and for this recipe it’s a chicken egg.

I first saw oeuf mayonnaise on a food blog and to me looked like eggs sitting on top of grits. Not until I comment on David Lebovitz’s site did I know how wrong I was (and stupid) because I thought the stuff on the plate was “grits” (of course they had to be cheese grits) but the halved boiled eggs were sitting on top of homemade mayonnaise. 

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Salads

Roasted Pear and Raspberry Salad

The colors of Christmas.

There is nothing better than getting together with a bunch of friends and having dinner. Recently during such a dinner I made my Chicken in Phyllo (see index) which I have been making about 35 years. It’s an impressive dish but doesn’t take long to make and the results are beautiful. Layers of phyllo stuffed with chicken, celery, onion and a little nutmeg all rolled up into a bundle and covered with a Lemon Veloute Sauce is the perfect entree for your friends. I did practically everything a couple of days early so day of my party I just lounged around and watched a bunch of Hallmark Christmas movies.

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Salads

Massaged Kale Salad

Simple salad and so good for you.

The first time I ever heard of a “massage” salad was when Aarti Sequeira won The Next Food Network Star back in 2010 and I remember her massaging away at a bowl of kale to make it tender. My first thought was “who gives their salad that much attention”. Up until seeing this “spa treatment” for a salad I wasn’t really fond of the green; kind of tough and scratchy to the throat I though.

I took Aati’s recipe and instead of the mangos she used I substituted golden raisins and I added some shallots and macadamia nuts. This little, simple salad was delicious and I think the more you “massage” it the better it gets. The sweetness of the raisins and the saltiness of the macadamia nuts are a perfect combo. This salad can actually make it a couple of days in the refrigerator since the greens do not get soggy. Next time I may add some crispy prosciutto.

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Salads

Seaside Slaw

From the sea to your mouth, yum.

Cafeterias? Buffets? I guess the difference is a buffet you can eat as much as you want and a cafeteria you pay for each little morsel of food you put on your tray. As a kid I remember my grandparents taking us to Piccadilly Cafeteria in Memphis. They always use to say “your eyes are bigger than your stomach” because my sister and I tended to put so much on our trays we couldn’t possibly eat everything. And then along came the buffets.

Normally I don’t like buffets for several reasons. First of all I tend to eat too much; my “eyes are always bigger than my stomach” and I really do hate wasting food. Secondly, I feel like the food is sitting around a little too long and then I’m always thinking that it isn’t quite as good as something ordered off a menu.

On our trip to Beaches at Turks and Caicos this summer I did manage to eat at 20 out of the 21 restaurants on the property. Marios restaurant is probably one of the biggest there but I wasn’t really feeling “Italian” on a hot summer day or night. But, one day we were at the Italian pool on our way to the French pool (8 pools on the property so we had to hustle  to get to them all) and decided to stop in Mario’s and see what they had for their lunch buffet; the biggest antipasto bar I’ve ever seen and tiny little desserts awaited us and I couldn’t wait to dig in. I saw this slaw (and I do love all kinds of slaw/coleslaws) and couldn’t actual tell what was in it until I started picking it apart. Ok, so I’m one of those people that is going to sit and dissect a dish so I can make it once I get home.

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Salads

Asian Salad with Chicken

Thanks to BJ Brewhouse for this recipe.

I don’t know about you but I expect certain things in an Asian Salad; cabbage (red and savoy or Napa), Mandarin oranges, almonds, green onions just to name a few.

BJ Brewhouse use to have to best Asian salad but for some reason they changed their cabbages to lettuce and that does not work in an Asian salad for me so I no longer order it. Recently I ordered an Asian salad from Pei Wei (owned by Pf Changs). Not good and I told them about it (not in person of course; I do not have that much nerve). Their salad was made of lettuce, and tomatoes. I’ve never had an Asian salad with tomatoes and it didn’t even have an Asian salad tase. It was more like a “house” salad that they threw in some fried wonton strips and called it a day. No longer will we be going to that restaurant either. I’m really not that picky I don’t think.

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Salads

Avocado Bacon and Egg Pasta Salad

What’s not to like about ABE in anything?

Anything that has avocado, bacon and egg together has to be good. Can’t say why this recipe jumped off the page at me but my first thought was boy does that look like a good “potato” salad. And then after another look I thought it was tortellini pasta and then finally after looking at the recipe I realized it was a trottole (spinning top shape) pasta.

I love potato salad and I can’t tell you the last time I’ve made it. My Cauliflower Potato Salad kind of took the place of my traditional version. When I make the cauliflower version now I like to add just one potato to the recipe to give it a little more dimension in flavors. This recipe I think will be the best of both versions; potato and pasta but with more of a potato salad taste.

So, if you can’t find the trottole (Kroger sells it) I would probably use orecchiette (little ears), giggle (little flowers is beautiful), or even a rotelle (wagon wheels) to add some visual interest to the dish.

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Fruit Dishes/ Morning Foods/ Salads

Winter Fruit Salad & Spiced Yogurt Dressing

Just in time for a holiday meal.

We had some old friends (Jackie & Ron) visit from Colorado recently and it was so much fun catching up with each other lives. Ron said he still remembers hushpuppies I made them years ago and I told him my hushpuppies were much better these days.

For dinner one night I made some stuffed dates (dates I brought back from Israel) and my Prosciutto and Gruyere PalmiersRedfish Imperial, Fiery Angel Hair Pasta, Grilled Asparagus and for dessert was Julia’s Mixed Berry Clafoutis. 

So, how did it turn out? Well my stuffed dates were probably cooked a little too long, I put too much of the crab topping on the redfish and forgot to give it extra time under the broiler and my clafoutis which was suppose to be part custard/cake really turned out a little more solid than I wanted because I left it to warm in the oven too long. But, good friends are forgiving and they enjoyed the dinner and I kicked myself all night because my dessert wasn’t just right.

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