December 2011 – Rosemary and the Goat

Drunkened Pineapple Upside Down Cake with Coconut Macadamia Nut Ice Cream

Full of wine and food but enough room for this dessert.

This is the last (thank goodness, I’m sure you are saying to yourself) of our recipes from our feast over Thanksgiving weekend.

For our Hawaiian feast my part was to make the Hawaiian Coconut Shrimp with Orange Lime Dipping Sauce and I also helped with the Corn and Crab Bisque. The dessert recipe was orphaned so I decided to take that on too.

We had so much to eat and drink that night but believe me most of us cleaned our plates of this dessert. Always wanting to prepare as much as possible early, I made these pineapple upside down cakes in individual ramekins and frozen them about 5 days before our dinner. I was not sure if I would be able to turn them out onto the dish and have the gooey caramel sauce release from the dish. BUT, after rewarming in a low oven for about 30 minutes, they flipped out beautifully. The ice cream was made the day before and at the last minute I decided to make them a little more drunkened and I made the rum glaze that goes with a rum cake recipe I have been doing for years. — WINNER.

December 30, 2011 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

Salads

Bitter Greens with Yuzu Dressing

Greens for feast day. Bitter, but oh so good.

Hawaiian Feast Day — An all day rain did not dampen our Hawaiian get together. Rigging up a method for cooking our pig and organized chaos in the kitchen ended about 11 p.m. and all the food, drinks, and wine being enjoyed by all.

We Americans seem to always want to put our salad at the beginning of the meal or even right along with the main course. If you are like me, and I love salad, I tend to fill up on that course before the main event even makes its appearance. In Europe salad is often served after dinner and is a refreshing finish to the meal before dessert arrives. (I will not be turning down dessert in France)

This is a simple looking salad that had a pleasing punch of flavor and definitely did it’s job as a bridge between courses.

A salad does not have to have a hundred ingredients to be delicious and this recipe proves just that. Don’t get me wrong, I like lots of ingredients in a salad, but this salad was perfect for this meal.

We were looking for a palate cleanings salad and my friend Peggy’s nephew, Pal, came up with this recipe he was going to make. He ended up having dog problems and had to return to Austin and missed our feast. But, we did not miss his salad because his Aunt had all the fixings and recipe to produce this wonderful salad. This salad will freshen your tastebuds and leave you wanting more of what’s to come next to your table.

December 13, 2011 By Sherry

Food Stories/ Soup

Corn and Crab Bisque

Creamy awesome bisque!

For our feast night meals usually everyone is responsible for a course (or two) My husband was suppose to be doing this bisque but he was out in the rain with the pig most of the day with our son; so, Paul with my help (he did most of it) made this deliciously creamy bisque.

Paul, never follows a recipe exactly, if he follows one at all. So we started with a basic recipe which is below and he added the poblano pepper and tweaked it somewhat. So, when you start this recipe, just know that you can make whatever changes you want. Originally we had pureed all the soup with all the corn in it already. Luckily I had some frozen (fresh) corn that I had bought back in the summer and we added that at the end for some texture. It turned out wonderful. I think we all would have liked to have more than the little espresso cup portion that we were given; but we knew we had much more food to come.

Paul was also responsible for putting together the menu, buying the pig, rigging the cooking equipment with his dad, doing the pork belly, brining and cooking the pig (with dad’s help) and making the sauces to go with the pig. So we depend on him a lot for our feast meals. He whipped the bisque together (with my gophering help) in no time.

December 10, 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