Appetizers – Page 8 – Rosemary and the Goat

Bacon Wrapped Brussels Sprouts

Sprouts with a surprise.

As I’ve said in past post, it’s just been in recent years that I even tried Brussels Sprouts. I always thought it was too much trouble chasing these little balls of cabbage like vegetable around a plate before spearing it and trying to eat the whole thing in one bite.

Then along came my Brussels Sprouts Salad and my Fried Brussels Sprout leaves with raisins that changed my mine about this little golf ball like vegetable.

I happened upon Rick Souder’s website while looking for some food photography pictures and found the best of both worlds, food pictures and recipes all in one location. What a gold mine. His recipe for the sprouts looked interesting and the fact that they were wrapped in bacon made them even more appealing. I decided to add a little sweetness to his recipe though and added dried figs hiding under the bacon and they also got a drizzle of a good balsamic vinegar to finish them off.

If you are looking for a new appetizer to try out this Spring or Summer for a party, please give this a try and if you do leave a comment below and let me know what you think or if you have any changes. (The comment section is at the bottom of the recipe below the Facebook and Pinterest logos.) You can also use those buttons to post my recipes to Facebook or Pinterest.

April 1, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Shrimp Cocktail Sauce

And you thought you knew everything about cocktail Sauce!

I had been planning foot surgery for a few months. No big deal, just a bone spur taken off. So, I decided for dinner the night of my surgery I wanted a g bowl of shrimp with cocktail sauce of course. (Update: boot finally off after 4 weeks and my left shoe welcomes back its mate.)

Six shrimp teetering on the edge of a glass filled with cocktail sauce is not my idea of shrimp cocktail. I want a lot of shrimp because that is probably all I’m going to be eating other than something to dip them in.

This recipe is from Rick Souders and I happened upon his site looking for food photography. If you have a minute, look around his website and he also has two blogs which have some beautiful recipes.

Normally when I make a cocktail sauce, nothing gets measured; goes something like this — bowl of ketchup, horseradish, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce and a little hot sauce, stir it up and serve. I though Rick’s recipe sounded interesting because of the sweet chili sauce (which I use all the time in other things) and also the balsamic ketchup which I just happened to find at the grocery. The ketchup was about $5 a bottle and if I had not found that I was going to add a tablespoon of balsamic to regular ketchup. So, you know what you can do now if you don’t want to spend the money or cannot find the balsamic ketchup.

February 20, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Bread/ HotApp

Hushpuppies My Dad’s Way

My Dad — The Renaissance Man.

Maybe I should have saved this story for Father’s Day but after doing my Savory Pecan post, I started thinking about all the things I remember about my dad and his life. Growing up, my mother did most of the cooking unless it was bbq, fish or game and then that was my dad’s department. But, as they got older and retired, and my mother’s health declined, our dad started sharing the kitchen with our mother. He would experiment with all sorts of cooking and gardening techniques. At one point he came up with this hushpuppy recipe on his own and that’s the recipe I have decided to share.

Long before my parents got into cooking up their own recipes, they would buy frozen hushpuppies; the ones that looked like hard little football shaped things that seemed even harder once they were fried. Then my mother started making homemade hushpuppies which I always thought were the most delicious ones ever, especially with a little butter smeared on them. Then in my dad’s later years, he added some yeast to the recipe and the rest is history. Sometimes I might add a little corn or even jalapeño to the puppy mix but they stand alone without any of the extras as the best hushpuppies I’ve eaten.

I don’t know about you but I can shut my eyes (I really don’t have to do that) I can hear my dad laugh, picture my mother’s smile which she had for everyone, hear my grandfather clearing his throat when he came in the door for lunch (they lived next door to us) and hear my grandmother saying “you need to put t-shirts on those babies”; we never forget those who meant so much to us do we.

Hope you will enjoy reading some of my memories about my dad, The Renaissance Man. And, if you are not tired of reading, there are a few pictures of him at the bottom of this post.

THE RENAISSANCE MAN

Gardening and Cooking: He would try to grow just about anything; one year he grew Jerusalem artichokes just to see how he could use them. They pickled everything, made his own dry rub for years, grew, dried and ground his own peppers and he loved to talk about his garden. He dehydrated all kinds of fruits, veggies and made his own jerky. When it came to canning he even canned some fish once and used to make fish cakes (I never tried those).

February 5, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ HotApp

Savory Pecans

Great with cocktails and a few other things.

When my parents were still living I always knew when we visited in the fall I would be taking home pecans; 200# was the most I ever took home. I would have them cracked while there and knew it would take me a couple of months of shelling them before I was done for the year and we would have a freezer full to last me through all the catering events. One year, I waited a little too long to finish shelling and the pecans were in plastic bags and not a breathable mess bag so I had to dump them outside. There were so many pecans that it took the squirrels about 2 months to take them away. Guess by the time they were finished they claimed me as a friend for life. Now, why do I still like those pesky little critters.

I will always remember when we were visiting at the right time of the year, with a yard full of pecans (they had about 6 trees), we would walk around the yard with my mother or dad picking up pecans. Now, to me, that is the most relaxing times I can remember. Picking up pecans are like searching for those hidden Easter eggs we looked for as kids. Walk, talk, stoop, pick up, talk, walk and it was a great way of finding out things going on in their lives. Way before, I’m sure, someone invented a pecan picker-upper. My dad took a pole and attached a “slinky” to it and he would push it down on the pecan and the slinky would pick it up and when the slinky was full enough it would get dumped in a bucket. I really miss those moments and I cannot look at a pecan in a shell and not think of their place in Tennessee. We always thought our dad was a renaissance man and one day I’m posting all the remarkable things I remember about him.

I no longer get those pecans so when I do have some given to me by my sister, I hoard them and use sparingly.

There are a lot of savory nut recipes out there and one of my favorites is The Best Bar Nuts in NYC that was printed in a Union Square Cookbook. I love those but the recipe below I use only pecans when making it and they are so easy to make. These can be eaten as is or chop and put in a salad. The original recipe I started with did not have the sugar; I decided to add it to add a little sweetness to use in my salad.

January 15, 2015 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Bread/ HotApp

Cornbread Jalapeño Poppers

Great little poppers.

Only four days before Christmas and if you’re planning on doing a big pot of soup for Christmas Eve this will be a great little “go with” to serve.

Can you believe Christmas is here already. I’m so excited this year (excited every year) because all the kids will be together in Austin for Christmas and their Mema will be here with us too. And, I can’t imagine how exciting it is going to see all 5 little boys running around playing with each other. Of course, Thomas (almost 8 months old) will only be watching this year, but I know he will be wondering when he’s going to be chasing them around.

I made these little poppers a couple of years ago and took these pictures (which are not that great) and then forgot about posting about them. I found this recipe at Oh Bite It blog and one day when I was making my Mexican Cornbread recipe I decided to try filling some of the jalapeño peppers with the batter.

I have never been a fan of the Jiffy type cornbread mix because my mother always made homemade and for me to do anything but homemade seems like I’m cheating. After stuffing the peppers with my Mexican Cornbread mixture that has meat in it I decided that they would be much easier to follow her recipe and maybe the sweetness from her Honey variety of cornbread mix would counter the hotness from the peppers. You can really add whatever you want to these. You can throw in some cooked ground beef if you have it on hand.

My dad was always trying to figure out how to get the coating to stick to a jalapeño like the ones you get in a restaurant or from the frozen section of the grocery. He tried all sorts of things and then decided that maybe the peppers needed to be steamed to soften them up a little before doing the flour, egg, bread crumb coating that went on the outside of a traditional jalapeño popper. After researching this I found most popper recipes call for double dipping; do egg, crumbs, then egg, crumbs again to get a thick coating. I think he wold have liked these peppers for sure.

December 21, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ Salads

Roasted Beet Napoleons

Oh no, something red on the plate!

Beautiful except for the fact that the beets bled into my goat cheese.

My husband always says he doesn’t like beets because he doesn’t like red food on his place. Ya know, he does eat tomatoes, salsa, pasta sauces, red peppers etc. So, why is it he says he doesn’t like beets. Could it be because he hasn’t tried MY beets. Other than pickled beets I have to say I was never a fan. Never cared for borsht soup or even harvest beets. I have to admit I never tried harvest beets because i thought they would be too sweet.

Back in the summer I did dehydrate some thinly sliced beets and sprinkled them with some Herbs de Provence and they were delicious; just ask my friend, Linda, who has a really funny story about the after effects of eating too many beets.

This is the time of the year that really nice beets should start appearing in the markets. I can’t wait for my farmer’s market to have them because they promised the candy striped ones too along with the orange and red ones.

I found a couple of beet napoleon recipes; one on Pinterest from fifteenspatulas.com and I think she had gotten the idea from Saveur magazine and then saw a similar one on Foodnetworks website. I like the idea of cutting in wedges if you have really big beets. On Food Network they cut in wedges and and put three of the wedges together, pointed sides out and filled with micro greens or salad. For my salad I tried both ways, one in wedges with just one to a plate and then one of the stacks on a plate sprinkled with some greens and pistachios.

My only recommendation would be to have everything ready early but put together right before serving. I had mine all ready the night before I took the picture and thought if I refrigerated them overnight then the cheese would set up; not thinking that the red beets were going to turn the cheese purple. Oh well, I learned a lesson and won’t make that mistake again.

November 21, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Italian Stuffed Mushrooms

Award winning mushroom!

A Top Chef winner I am not, neither am I a Chopped Champion, Cutthroat Kitchen, MasterChef or even Worst Cook in American winner. BUT, I did win two recipe contest with my recipe for Italian Stuffed Mushrooms. This was way, way back in the 70’s; I can’t believe I have never posted this recipe before.

I put together this recipe back in the 70’s when we lived in Louisville. It all started with a contest (I love contest and I love competition) and me trying to come up with something original to enter; I didn’t want the usual sausage stuffed or crab stuffed mushroom so I just started putting together some ingredients and came up with this and 40 years later still use the same recipe.

After winning these contests and these was the only ones I ever won, I started sending recipes to Southern Living Magazine. For every recipe they printed (and I think they printed 5 of mine), they sent me 50 recipe cards that said “my recipe printed in Southern Living magazine” and then at the end of the year, they sent me the annual cookbook which also had my recipes printed in it. This was one recipe they printed. I started this recipe with some chopped up onion, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese and italian season and some garlic powder, I also added some Italian seasoned bread crumbs. I don’t know why anyone would bother counting carbs in this recipe; the bread crumbs are only 25 carbs for all the filling. So put them in if you want to.

I’m sitting here typing up the recipe still in disbelief that I never shared this with you. I never really made this for any of my catering jobs (maybe once or twice) because I like to serve these right out of the oven and never cared for the way mushrooms looked when they sat in the oven too long. If you make these, and I hope you will, you can make the filling the day before, fill the mushroom caps and cook right as your guest arrive.

A funny thing happened the first time I made these and I’m almost ashamed to tell you but ya know the little package of preservative stuff that comes in with the already cut pepperoni; well, when I was putting the slices into my food processor to chop up I was in a hurry and forgot to look for that little package and it was shredded with it’s contents into my pepperoni. I had to start all over with the chopping and I have never made that mistake again.

September 17, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp

Watermelon Feta Squares

Little bites of watermelon.

All summer I tried to find a good watermelon. Why is it I can eat watermelon at someone else’s home and it is red, sweet and everything I want from a watermelon. Then I buy one and it’s more pink than red, barely sweet and even the sprinkling of salt I always give it does not improve the taste.

This watermelon I bought for Labor Day but it never got cut so I needed to find a use for it other than throwing it in my food dehydrator. Don’t get me wrong dehydrated watermelon is delicious and I will probably be making some with my leftover watermelon. (This melon still didn’t meet my expectations for a summer watermelon.)

Pink Avocado Catering in Austin catered my daughter and son-in-law’s wedding three years ago. They do some really unique bites of food and this idea came from their blog my daughter sent me last week. Of course they didn’t give a recipe so I had to just make up one. I hope you will give it a try and if you do please leave comments below and I hope you can find a good watermelon.

September 12, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp/ Morning Foods

Fried Avocado with Spicy Dipping Sauce

Crunchy wedges of avocado!

Labor Day has come and gone and I hope everyone had a happy one. Avocados, I’m sure made an appearance at probably 80% of the gatherings yesterday.

I never ate avocados as a kid, or even as a young adult; and it probably wasn’t until we moved to Texas that I really started buying and eating them and then it was just guacamole for a long time. Finally I started venturing out and trying different ways to use it.

While in Vancouver/Victoria/Seattle last month I didn’t really see avocado on a lot of menus. While we were doing our food tour in Seattle (Savor Seattle Walking Food Tour) and walking up and down those VERY steep streets our guide, Samatha (she was great), asked if we could swim in a sea of food what would our favorite food be; I said guacamole and everyone (including a family from Germany) said ohhhh yeahhhhh!

We have done three food tours now and this one is the first where everyone had headphones to wear. They were great because as we hiked up and down all those steep streets getting to our next destination, everyone could hear Samatha over all the street traffic; and once we got to the location we didn’t need them as either one of the chefs or restaurant managers would explain to us about their restaurant and the foods we were eating.

September 2, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ Salads

Avocado Melon Salsa

Love those summer melons!

I came across this recipe when I was looking for a side dish for some Mahi Mahi my husband caught back in June. (His fisherman’s tale to come soon.)

I turned to the internet and with just a few seconds came up with this from Epicurous’ website. I love cantaloupe, especially in the summer when smell of the fresh melons catch you when passing them in the market; and there’s nothing better than a juicy sweet watermelon.

You have probably made mango salsa many times and if you have tried a fruit salsa with cinnamon tortilla chips, that should be on your list of easy summer sweet endings to your meal. I’ve never really thought of using watermelon or cantaloupe in a salsa but why not; and I think avocado goes well with any fruit salsas. At first I was going to just try the cantaloupe but I had some beautiful watermelon left from the 4th so I thought the more the merrier and decided to use both the melons in this fruity salsa.

This Salsa makes a great side dish with fish or just about anything you might want to do on the grill. I mentioned fruit salsa above and I think this salsa would also be good with a bowlful of chips, but maybe a salty tortilla chips because who doesn’t salt their melons?

Hope you enjoy this.

July 19, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Jalapeño Popper Spread

Hot and spicy and good with a cracker or a chip!

We all love looking at Pinterest and the beautiful foods that people post there. Before I was hooked on Pinterest I was hooked on trying to get a picture of a recipe posted at Foodgawker and Tastespotting. I was lucky enough to get 3 out of 80+ (pitiful) posted there. And having a picture posted on Foodgawker or Tastespotting almost guaranteed a blog a lot of traffic from people wanting to find the recipe behind such a beautiful picture. I guess I didn’t take that many “beautiful” pictures. (My husband even has a Pinterest account now.)

Looking at my recipes that were on Foodgawker, Coconut Oatmeal Pie (3,244 view), Salted Caramel Ice Cream (3,983 views) and Quick and Easy Banana Pudding (10,607 views) it seemed like I got more traffic but then I take my old stand by favorite cookie, Peanut Butter Shadow cookies, and it has had 29,416 views. That’s a ridiculous number of view and I really don’t know how that many people found the recipe without knowing the name and searching for “peanut butter shadow cookies“. I’ve had that recipe since the 70’s and has always been my favorite peanut butter cookie.

Long story short is I finally realized that I don’t have to keep trying to get my pictures posted at those two sites when I can simply “pin it” at Pinterest and eventually a lot of people get around to looking at it. Now if I can just figure out how to make money on the blog, then I’d be satisfied but until I do, it’s fun to make and blog new recipes.

I gave up also on trying to make a Jalapeño Popper like you get in restaurants. Never could figure out how to get the breading to stick to the outside for a fresh jalapeño. This recipe for Jalapeño Popper Spread literally popped off the page the day I was looking at Pinterest. It reminds me of a cold dip that a friend always finds at Sam’s around the holidays. Sam’s is kind of a cold version of this recipe but with some artichokes thrown in; so I did a little changing around of some of the ingredients and thank you to All Recipes for giving me the start of something wonderful and lip smacking good.

June 29, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp/ Side dish

Cheesy Mashed Potato Pancakes

These are fantastic!

Why is it that when we are served something made by a man that it taste so special? I don’t mean a male chef but someone in your family. My son Paul is a wonderful chef and I know anything he serves me will be wonderful and most likely something he grew in his garden or even eggs from his chickens. My son, Scott makes the best “24 hour no knead bread” and you would think it came from some artisinal bakery.

When we were in Austin a while back staying with my daughter and her husband after the birth of little Thomas I did a lot of cooking. But, one night Toby (new dad) had some left over garlic mashed potatoes that he had made over the weekend and he turned them into the most delicious potato pancakes. We sitting and watching the baby and he presented us each with a plate with one large potato pancake with a dollop of sour cream; crisp to perfection; and one night I was doing a Tortilla soup and he prepped the extra vegetables and I have to say they were a perfect 1/4″ dice. I could not have done better myself.

I remember my mother and grandmother both making potato pancakes but they never tasted like these pancakes. Maybe it was the roasted garlic or the green onions, or the cheese that make them so mouth watering good. He fried them just right; crisp on the outside, soft and smooth on the inside; and the best part of all was the dollop of sour cream on the side. There was just something about the hot crispy potato pancake with the cold sour cream that had me thinking when I was going to make them for someone.

Our friends Peggy and Gordon were getting ready to go to Hawaii to celebrate their 30th anniversary and we had them over for dinner one Sunday night. I served these just as my son-in-law did, on a small plate with a big dollop of sour cream on the side sprinkled with some freshly snipped chives. The rest of the meal was a grilled pork tenderloin steak which I will be posting soon and some baby bok choy and also a “raw” corn salad.

This recipe came from justataste.com blog. A note about frying them — I fried about 30 minutes in advance and put on cooling rack and put in oven. I should have fried after they arrived and served them right from the skillet. Mine got a little soft but were still delicious, just not as delicious as Toby’s.

June 9, 2014 By Sherry

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