Appetizers – Page 12 – Rosemary and the Goat

Prosciutto Rolls with Fig Preserves

What delicious foods we have been eating here in France.

These are as delicious as they look and is one of the recipes I made before leaving for France.

I was hoping to post pictures of what we are eating in France each day but I’m not sure if I will be able to figure out my new iPad (got it the day we left for Paris and I was in line at the Apple store at 7:00 a.m.) before I get there.

So, here we are in France and this is our last day. We are back in Paris and will be leaving tomorrow. We have tried our best to try some of everything they had to offer.

In one of my Saveur magazines recently was a special supplement on The Wines of the Rhone Valley and my first thought was “hey, that’s where we are staying our second week in France” and one of our day trips will be to go check out the wineries in the Rhone Valley area. This recipe was in a supplement to the magazine and I’m not changing one thing about it. Why mess with perfection.

The wine that was paired with this appetizer was Cotes du Rhone Coup de Coeur: Domaine de la Janasse, 2010 (a white)

March 31, 2012 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ Game/ HotApp

Duck Confit

So you say, “what is duck confit” and what are you going to do with it.

I tried to anticipate what we might be eating and tried a few French recipes. I’m sure I will be taking a lot of food pictures and I will post some of our favorite places and meals when we return.

In just a few more hours and we will be boarding our plane for France. A week in Paris and a week in Provence I’m sure the trip is going to be wonderful with breathtaking scenery, new experiences and lots of wonderful food. I am sure that we will be seeing duck confit on all the menus; so I decided to make it before our trip then I can compare my version to theirs.

I tried to anticipate what we might be eating while there and tried a few French recipes before going. I’m sure I will be taking a lot of food pictures while there an

Duck confit is a French dish made with the leg/thigh of the duck and it is prepared in a century-old process that consists of salt curing the duck legs and then poaching slowly submerged in its own fat for hours.

The duck legs are rubbed with garlic, herbs (thyme) and salt (I love using thyme because my herb garden is full of it), then refrigerated 36-48 hours. After rinsing off the salt and herbs the meat is slowly poached for 6-8 hours and the meat and fat are removed from the bone. After the meat has cooled it can be put into a container and submerged in the fat. A sealed jar of duck confit can be refrigerated for up to six months or longer. You need to top the meat in the jar with at least 1″ of fat.

One weekend when we were in Austin visiting our kids, my son was chopping up some duck legs that he had confitted (if that is a word). Anyway, my grandson, Milo, who was only two at the time stood on his chair, watching his dad cook and ate a whole pile of chopped duck legs.

My duck legs were not easily found; I looked all over Houston for duck legs and finally found them at Central market (by phone) but at $6.99 lb. So, what I love most about the internet is that after searching just a little while, no driving, traffic, or gas involved, I found the duck legs at Maple Leaf Farms at $2.99 for 12 oz. leg/thigh. So I ordered six. Why not order more than I needed since I had to pay shipping anyway and on top of that I found a promo code for $5.00 off. So I ordered 6 legs for $25 and that included shipping. I search for promo codes on EVERYTHING I order off the internet. Usually one can be found for a percentage off, free shipping or at least $5.00 off. In this case I got $5.00 off so, what a deal; now I don’t have to drive into Houston. So if you need a promo code, just Google promo code for…. (whatever) and you may have to look through a couple of sites before you find one that works.

I did find whole duck at this Asian market in Houston ,BUT, the frozen and fresh ducks had their heads and feet still on and I just couldn’t bring myself to buying them; they kind of gave me the heebe geebies to look at them. I know I have eaten tripe, lamb fries, tongue and different organ meats that most people wouldn’t think of eating but there was just something about seeing the head and legs/feet still on the duck all curled up in the package made me shiver just to think of it.

March 16, 2012 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Mushroom Asparagus Tarts

Finally this recipe makes an appearance.

I can’t believe I had this recipe ready to post in March 2010 but never got around to trying it. What a mistake, it is a delicious appetizer or even a brunch or main dish item.

Yesterday, I had a guy from our local camera shop come to my house and give me tips for taking better food pictures. (These may not be BETTER yet, I’m a work in progress when it comes to learning new things.) Like this recipe, it took be a year and a half to get around to using a gift card my husband had given me from the camera shop. But, I finally set things up and it was definitely beneficial and I hope my pictures eventually improve.

So, in anticipation for my visit I made these Mushroom Asparagus Tarts, a Sugar Plum Cake (will post that), some Rosemary Blue Cheese Wafers (coming soon), and a red cabbage and fennel salad (also to make an appearance). So I had all this food ready to take pictures of for my lesson and I just wanted to dig in and try some of it.

I could tell from the aroma of cooking the asparagus and mushrooms that this was going to be delicious, and how good they would taste with a glass of wine. I took this to our bunco group last night and everyone loved them. I can’t wait to make them again and may vary some of the ingredients and try tomato and caramelized onion for another time. I had four squares left and brought them home and it didn’t take long for my husband to gobble up a couple of them.

March 8, 2012 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Domaine Chandon Blue Cheese Spread

Quick little appetizer spread.

I made this appetizer last night when friends came over. It’s always a winner.

Don’t we all have those “go to” recipes when we want a quick tried and true lip smacking recipe? I know I do. I have to omit that I love making recipes that need a lot of ingredients, take a long time to make, and I’m complaining by the time I’m done because I’ve been in the kitchen all day, my legs hurt and I’m ready to go to bed before I even have a bite of what I have prepared. But, 99% of the time it is well worth all the trouble. This recipe will not keep you in the kitchen long and you will be sitting with your feet up relaxing before your guests arrive.

Don’t know why I haven’t posted this before now because I have been making this spread for about 15 years and with little change to the original recipe. Back on one of our birthday’s, my sister and I went to Napa to celebrate one of our “big ones”. We each took a friend instead of our husbands and had a great time in all the wineries. Not that it would not have been fun with our husbands, but it was a lot cheaper to not take them and we just needed some sister time.

February 18, 2012 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Smoked Salmon Stacks

What a quick little appetizer to make.

My only experience with salmon before I got married was with the canned variety being made into salmon patties (croquets) by my mother; and our favorite way of eating the crispy, pan-fried patties was with mushroom soup poured over them like a gravy and that would have been canned mushroom soup.

Then we moved to Texas where I discovered more varieties of fish than I could have ever imagined. We now have available all kinds of fresh fish and I’m constantly coming up with different ways of preparing it. Salmon is one of my favorites especially when my husband cooks it on the grill.

My friend, Peggy, can always come up with a little appetizer that can be throw together at a moments notice. We have been trading recipes for years and back in the summer she did a smoked salmon recipe where you put a softened whipped cream cheese with chives, parsley, lemon zest and lemon juice in processor until smooth. Then you simply squirt a small amount on one of the thick style potato chips, top with a small piece of smoked salmon and serve. Talk about quick!

January 29, 2012 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Layered Shrimp Pie

Great make-ahead appetizer for holiday parties.

Merry Christmas everyone and here’s a little appetizer you can plan for your New Year’s Eve celebration.

I remember my first shrimp appetizer I made as a newly wed. And, it wasn’t as delicious as this shrimp pie. My early years of marriage, I’m sure like most people’s, was full of quick little appetizers because most of us didn’t know how to cook and a fancy canapé might have been a Ritz cracker with some Cheese Whiz.

One of my first appetizers was taking a block of cream cheese and covering it with “gasp” canned shrimp and topping it with a bottle of chili sauce. Did you ever do the Pickapeppa sauce on cream cheese. Now, that’s still one I enjoy making.

Appetizers have always been one of my favorite things to make for myself and also for parties I cater. I love having a freezer full of leftover appetizers that I can pull out on a moment’s notice and come across as the perfect little wife. That’s funny because I’m so far from being perfect.

I decided to make this at the last minute for our bunco group in December. I had all the ingredients and this appetizer is fast to throw together with a lot of taste. It does have chili sauce in it but a lot of other tasty things. I hope you will add this to your collection of recipes to try out for your next party.

December 25, 2011 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Entree/ Fish/Seafood/ HotApp

Hawaiian Coconut Shrimp w/ Orange Marmalade Sauce

Delicious coconut shrimp from Hawaiian feast night.

I’ve blogged a coconut shrimp recipe before but this is a little different and one of the recipes from our Hawaiian feast on Thanksgiving weekend.

My first recipe was coated in an almond meal which can be pretty expensive to buy. This recipe has some Cajun seasoning (I used Tony’s) and hot sauce which spices it up a bit.

For my course on feast night I did three coconut shrimp per plate and then a little puddle of the orange marmalade dipping sauce. I have made orange marmalade before so I knew that part of my course was going to be easy. In fact, I did the orange marmalade a week before. The recipe for the orange marmalade just called for one orange but I used four because I wanted some extra jars of marmalade in my pantry for this winter.

One thing about making the orange marmalade though is it will only be as good as your oranges. I used Texas oranges when I made mine and they had a lot of seeds to pick out and they were not as orange color on the inside as I would have liked them to be. Look for naval oranges and I don’t think you can go wrong. I have been wanting to try blood oranges for this recipe; the color would be beautiful for a sauce or on your toast, scones or morning bagel. OR, even easier, just buy a good orange marmalade.

I think this would be a nice little appetizer to do during the Christmas holidays.

December 16, 2011 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Beverages/ ColdApp/ Fish/Seafood

Poke, Masubi, and MaiTais

Two dishes from the newlyweds! (from Alexis)

While in Kauai we first discovered poke (pronounced “po-keh”) at the Hanalei Dolphin restaurant in Hanalei Bay. Poke means to “to slice or cut” and is a popular appetizer or snack throughout the islands. I renamed the dish “deconstructed sushi” as it is essentially all of the familiar sushi ingredients: raw, fresh fish (usually tuna or whatever fresh fish is available) and sticky rice and sometimes avocado, Maui onions, seaweed and nut relish, seasoned with sesame oil and soy sauce. After I had my first first taste, I think I ordered this dish every time I saw it on a menu.

One of my favorite places to have poke was at the local Kilauea Fish Market in Kilauea, Kauai. We popped in here to grab some poke and macaroni salad to bring on the road. The fish market was barely large enough for a few people to stand in line inside and there were a few scattered picnic tables outside for people to hang out. It was BYOB too, which helps makes eating out in Kauai much more affordable! I’d have to say my least favorite place for poke was poolside at the Westin in Maui. A few hours later I had a pretty bad stomach ache and I figured I should probably have been a bit more discriminating in my restaurant choices..

December 6, 2011 By Alexis

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ Food Stories/ Salads

Michie Feast Day — Hawaiian Style

Aloha, Komo Mai, E komo mai, Mahalo!

Hello (friends and family), Come in, Welcome, Thank you (for coming and participating in our feast).

Menu:

Sushi Musubi (Spam Sushi)

Corn Crab Bisque

Poke

Hawaiian Coconut Crusted Shrimp with Orange Horseradish Lime Sauce

Bitter Greens with Yuzu Dressing

Pork Belly on Steam buns with Hoisin, scallions and cucumber

Porcini Dusted Sea Scallops with Tomato relish and pea sprouts/micro greens

Kona Pale Ale Basted Suckling Pig served with

Hawaiian Coconut Rice Salad (recipe below) and Papaya Chipotle Salsa

Drunkened Pineapple Upside Down Cake Macadamia Coconut Ice Cream

MaiTai Cocktail

Hawaiian Beer

Wine (lots of it)

This was a night of cocktails, food (lots of it), wine, (no hula) lots of fun with family and friends.

We have been doing our Michie Feast Day for about 9 years now. We have done everything from frog legs, sushi, tapas, French Country, Italian, Mexican, oysters 7 ways, New Orleans and this year Hawaiian. This all started when my husband fried our turkey for the first time. After using 3 gallons of oil to fry the turkey, we decided we needed to use the oil again before throwing it away so we bought some frog legs and the rest is history. After that first year we moved on to other themes.

My daughter and her newly wed husband just returned from their honeymoon in Hawaii in November. So, a Hawaiian theme was quite fitting for this year’s feast. We got to hear all about their 27 mile bike ride down a volcano and all about the beautiful waterfalls and the food they sampled while there. My daughter-in-law, Brooke and her friend, Heather, made all our beautiful tissue paper flowers and decorated the tables. We even had a kid’s table with decorations (see pictures below). Our table always looks great when Brooke is put in charge.

December 3, 2011 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Oyster BLT Amuse

How about another Amuse Bouche (a two bite Amuse)

Back when my daughter and I were shopping for her wedding dress, we had dinner one night at the Parkside Restaurant on 6th street in Austin. If you have never been to sixth street in Austin it is a street full of restaurants, bars, bars and more bars. And tucked into all these college kid hangouts is this trendy restaurant, Parkside. I love their bar foods and also their mixed drinks. Their raw bar is the freshest around, their fried okra with ranch dip awesome.

We had several appetizers that night before moving on to another place for dinner. I was amused by this BLT Oyster on their menu and decided I wanted to recreate it.

I have never been an oyster fan, in fact, I have eaten raw oysters only once and cooked oysters several ways a few other times. But like I have said before; what isn’t good fried. Put the oyster on top of a slice of really good French baguette along with a couple of sauces, some arugula leaves, bacon and tomato and you have yourself one enticing little bite. So, I’m calling this an Amuse Bouche. I would probably make just one per person, serve it in the middle of a small plate with some sauce smeared on the plate and garnish with a few arugula leaves.

November 25, 2011 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Bacon Wrapped Dates with Balsamic

Sweet and salty — Who doesn’t like that combination?

I’m always looking for new tapas recipes or quick bites of food that will be easy to make yet very tasty to the palate. This would be a great little Thanksgiving appetizer to tease everyone’s taste buds before sitting down to your fantastic Thanksgiving dinner.

I love eating tapas. What is a tapas you say? Well, it isn’t a particular kind of food. Anything can be a tapas as long as it is a small serving of just about anything served with a drink. While in Spain last year we had Pork in Whiskey Sauce which could have been a meal but it was served as a very small course with our drinks — so tapas. Or, like some cheese and breads served with a little paté — tapas. A tapas is just a small dish of a snack, appetizer or food.

I think I first had bacon wrapped dates at Mercat, a tapas restaurant, in Chicago. We ordered several tapas that night and what I remember about their dates is that they bought them out on a long skinny white tray. They also bought out a tiny little white porcelain pitcher that had my interest; now what was in that pitcher and what were they going to do with it’s contents. As it turned out, it was full of the smoothest, cheesiest Stilton sauce I have tasted and they proceeded to pour the sauce over the plate of dates.

This tapas was so wonderful, the sweetest of dates pared with the almond and blue cheese that it was stuffed with, then wrapped in a salty bacon to boot, was great. And then if that wasn’t enough to put a person over the edge, it was drizzled with a sauce that just made you want more than the one bite you knew you were going to get because you were sharing this tapas course with three other people and one of those people was your husband and the other your son and daughter-in-law. So, this was no time to be hoggish and ask for more.

November 12, 2011 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Side dish/ Vegetables

Bacon Wrapped Sweet Potatoes

The Good, The Bad and The Delicious!

I have to say The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was one of my husband’s favorite movies. He loves Clint Eastwood and actually wanted to name our first son, Clint. I vetoed that right away because I imaged seeing a baby walking around in cowboy boots, hat and a stick horse saying yee haw.

Come fall, and I start thinking sweet potatoes sound pretty good on any menu. How many ways have you done sweet potatoes? I have mashed, of course, and have folded the mashed sweet potatoes into mashed white potatoes, very pretty and good. Who hasn’t made sweet potatoes with marshmallows all toasted on top or a nut crumb topping. Other than those recipes, I have baked sweet potato wedges with olive oil and rosemary and that’s about it.

These sweet potato fries are “Good, Bad and Delicious”. Of course, everyone knows that sweet potatoes are good for you. They are full of Vitamin C, B6, complex carbs, fiber and beta carotene. The bad part is the bacon. BUT, it’s so little bacon and unless you eat the whole pan of potatoes, I think you’ll will be ok.

This recipe actually came from one of my daughter’s paelo websites. I can’t say I have a paelo lifestyle (far from it) but these potatoes are delicious. I made a few adjustments and added a sage leaf out of my herb garden and some maple syrup on the plate for dipping. And, when I put one in one of my Asian soup spoons with a syrup for dipping, I thought — Wow, another Amuse Bouche recipe. Or, just make a big pan full and pile them on a platter and watch them disappear.

Some of these I used a toothpick to hold the bacon on and some I just used more bacon so it would cover more of the sweet potato. Hope you will try some of these for your next party. Everyone knows that bacon in/on anything makes it taste oh so good.

October 1, 2011 By Sherry

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