by Sherry on August 13th, 2019

Summertime Pasta with Pea Pods and Lemon

Easy pasta dish for the summer.

Don’t you just love pasta dishes for the summer. Pasta cooks in under 10 minutes and everything else that goes into the dish takes a matter of minutes. So, in less than 30 minutes you can have this dish on the table and have time to open that bottle of wine.

This was a Michael Symon recipe that I saw on Food Network. I love buying different shapes of pasta and for this particular recipe I bought a casarecce pasta which is kind of twisted. His recipe called for a cup of mint leaves but I only used 1/2 cup since hub does not care for mint that much.

One other change I will do next time is the cooking of the snow peas and peas. I would not cook. I wanted them to stay bright green and have a little crunch to them so I would recommend maybe sautéing the green onions a couple of minutes then throwing in the peas and pasta and cook just long enough to heat the snow peas and English peas.

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by Sherry on August 6th, 2019

Vivian Howard’s Party Cheese Ball

Who doesn’t like cheese balls?

I’ve been thinking about cheese balls lately and how they have evolved from the 60’s when we use to make them. Seems like most recipes had grated cheddar cheese, green cheese and maybe some garlic. Remember that commercial for Ritz Crackers “everything sits better on a Ritz”. Well certain spreads, for me, still sit better on a Ritz.

Almost all cheese balls then and now were/are rolled in some chopped nuts or herbs and most recipes probably had some Worcestershire sauce in the recipe some could have even had (hold your breath) Cheese Whiz.

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by Sherry on July 30th, 2019

Pink Lemonade Cake

What’s so special about pink lemonade?

What so special about pink lemonade? Well, it most certain isn’t made from pink lemons. I’ve never seen one. Have you? But you have to admit that an ice filled glass of the pink liquid seems a little more special than the yellow variety.

If you were making homemade pink lemonade you might crush (and strain) some raspberries, cranberries or strawberries and add just enough of the juice to give you the light pink color you want in a glass of pink lemonade.

Pink is a relaxing color. Studies have shown that people associate the color pink with sweetness. Maybe that’s why when I had a daughter (after two sons) I dressed her in a lot of pink; just because she was so sweet I’m sure.

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by Sherry on July 22nd, 2019

Mushroom Fontina Kale Flatbread

Great little flatbread from not so good restaurant.

Normally I don’t complain about food I get in a restaurant. Well, maybe I do if it isn’t good; but I haven’t emailed this hotel yet and probably won’t because even though the service was kind of good and chef couldn’t really manage to get more than one order out at a time out, I came away this this idea for a flatbread pizza.

The night before we left for our Turks and Caicos vacation we decided to spend the night down in Houston since our flight was at 6:30 am. If we didn’t go down early that would have meant getting up like at 3:00 a.m. to get down there for our flight. We stayed at a hotel that didn’t have a restaurant and since we had Ubered down there we didn’t have a car and we ended up walking down the street to the Hilton Garden Inn for dinner. GA’s tuna bowl was well done instead of medium rare and arrived about 10 minutes before my Asian salad that tasted nothing like an Asian salad BUT we ordered a flatbread to share for an appetizer and it was the best thing I have tasted in a long time.

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by Sherry on July 15th, 2019

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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