Traditional Cottage Pie Ala Tricia

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Shepherd’s Pie was on Bev’s meal want list and we made extra mashed potatoes for it.  As I understand, it’s Shepherd’s Pie when made with mutton or lamb and it’s Cottage Pie when made with beef, however most folks seem to use the titles interchangeably.  Even though Bev said she wanted Shepherd’s Pie, I knew she wanted the other one, especially since she’s not a big ovine fan.

As it often happens, a recipe popped up on one of my blog reads just when I needed it and in this case it was for Traditional Cottage Pie from Tricia over at Saving Room For Dessert – a blog I only recently began reading.  Please check out her site for the complete recipe and some nice step-by-step photos.

Bev and I jointly did the cooking this day and followed the recipe for the meat mixture, which Tricia had adapted from Danny Boome of the Food Network.  After freezer diving, I found a one pound package each of ground bison and lean ground beef from our neighbors Belted Galloway cattle.  Since I used our homemade beef broth, rather than consumme, I simmered an additional 5 minutes to cook out some or the liquid. 

For the potato topping, we used the leftover potatoes made from the Pioneer Woman recipe and added a cup or so of shredded yellow cheddar - all we had - so our potatoes are a little orange and streaky.  I considered making individual bowls, but Bev talked me into the easier one pan version. 

 It took 15 minutes in our oven at 400* on the convection bake setting to get the potatoes lightly browned.

Ours had more liquid in the dish bottom than Trica's appeared to have, but we all thought it was delicious and will use the recipe again.  We didn't serve anything else so we could eat more of the pie - which I did.

The next day as I was typing this up, it dawned on me that I should have removed the meat mix with a slotted spoon, leaving the liquid, rather than pouring it from the skillet into the baking dish - thanks Tricia for a very good meal.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Bayou Bay – The Local Cajun Joint

Two years ago:  Birthday Dinner For Wende

Larry

01/21/2012 meal date

Country Ham And Biscuits

In our continuing, and barely making headway, effort to reduce our freezer inventory, Bev suggested having country ham and biscuits for breakfast, and she got a quick "you bet" from me. We had two fairly thick slices of ham and a 12 pack of Food Lion biscuits.

Since the fat is pretty salty I like to trim it off prior to cooking. There are many ways to cook ham in a skillet, but since it’s basically the same thing as prosciutto except aged 6 months less and usually sliced thicker, and since prosciutto is regularly eaten raw, I only try to get my country ham hot without really cooking it. 

Frying just seems to make it dryer and more chewy, especially if it’s thick, so I add just a little water to a pan, bring in to a simmer, drop in the ham, and add a lid. I cook it a few minutes on each side and it’s perfect - warm and as tender as it can be - this also removes some of the salt.

My plan was for ham biscuits with cheddar cheese and onion, but after baking this is what I had for biscuits - note the halved one. They were either too old or just lousy biscuits, but they were lousy biscuits.

So I went to plan B.

The sandwich was good, but there will be a next time for the biscuits. 

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Dirty Ole Man Joke

Two years ago: None

Larry

01/19/2012 meal date

Chicken fried Steak Ala Katherine

Lately, I’ve been coming up with most of the dinner menus and Bev often asked me “what’s for dinner tonight,” but on this morning she gave me a list of things she’d like to have in the near future all which sounded great to me.  However, two of them were also high on my list, helped reduce the freezer stock, and fit well together – chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes, then cottage pie using the potato leftovers.

So for this day it was the chicken fried steak and after some freezer diving, I found a package of cubed steak and a flat iron steak to use.  I didn’t do anything extra to the cubed steak and tenderized the flat iron with a spiked meat mallet.  We have several recipes for chicken fried steak including a jar of homemade rub that is normally used, but I wanted to try the one from Katherine over at Smoky Mountain Café, even though she’s from NOLA and not Texas.  But, since she said of hers – “Oh yeah baby, this will show Chicken Fried Steak who's boss!”, it had to be tried – especially since I know she’s a great cook.

Katherine’s spice blend is similar to mine but without cumin or S&P, but her gravy recipe is quite different and is the part that I really wanted to try.  Please stop by her site for the complete recipe and some great step-by-step photos.

I cooked the steak per her recipe except I seasoned the meat with S&P prior to breading:

I cooked the gravy per the recipe except I already had some precooked bacon so I started with bacon grease we had on hand. - then I forgot to use the bacon.

Bev made the mashed potatoes using my favorite recipe from Pioneer Woman - mashed them with our new potato masher – the old one was painful on the hands to use, but this one works great.

Mashed Potato Ingredients

■5 pounds Russet Or Yukon Gold Potatoes

■3/4 cups Butter

■1 package (8 Oz.) Cream Cheese, Softened

■1/2 cup (to 3/4 Cups) Half-and-Half

■1/2 teaspoon (to 1 Teaspoon) Lawry's Seasoned Salt

■1/2 teaspoon (to 1 Teaspoon) Black Pepper

Preparation Instructions

Peel and cut the potatoes into pieces that are generally the same size. Bring a large pot of water to a simmer and add the potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook for 30 to 35 minutes. When they’re cooked through, the fork should easily slide into the potatoes with no resistance, and the potatoes should almost, but not totally, fall apart.

Drain the potatoes in a large colander. When the potatoes have finished draining, place them back into the dry pot and put the pot on the stove. Mash the potatoes over low heat, allowing all the steam to escape, before adding in all the other ingredients. (I think this is an important step that we hadn't done before).

Turn off the stove and add 1 ½ sticks of butter, an 8-ounce package of cream cheese and about ½ cup of half-and-half. Mash, mash, mash!  Next, add about ½ teaspoon of Lawry’s Seasoning Salt and ½ a teaspoon of black pepper.

Stir well and place in a medium-sized baking dish. Throw a few pats of butter over the top of the potatoes and place them in a 350-degree oven and heat until butter is melted and potatoes are warmed through (we didn't do this).

We added some carrots and salad to get this:

As expected, Katherine's recipe did not disappoint - the breading produced a very nice crust on the meat and the thyme added a unique twist to the gravy – I’d definitely make it again.  With the thyme gravy, it wasn’t your typical chicken fried steak but it was way better than what we had in Texas the Hill Country Cupboard, who’s claim is “the world’s best chicken fried steak.”  After a side-by-side comparison, flat iron steak is the new meat for this dish around here.  Thanks Katherine for a delicious dinner.

Bev heading to the kitchen with her two favorite libations - diet coke and red wine.

Of course there was the requisite breakfast the next day - it wasn't as good as the supper but we'd used all of the gravy on the four meals.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Beef And Broccoli Stir Fry

Two years ago:  Scrambled Eggs Ala Lea Ann Ala George

Larry

01/20/2012 meal date

Saturday Humor

Hollywood Squares

These great questions and answers are from the days when ' Hollywood Squares' game show responses were spontaneous. Peter Marshall was the host asking the questions, of course.  

Q. According to Ann Landers, what are two things you should never do in bed?

A. Paul Lynde: Point and laugh

Q. According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?

A. Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army.

 Q. It is the most abused and neglected part of your body, what is it?

A. Paul Lynde: Mine may be abused, but it certainly isn't neglected.

Q. Can boys join the Camp Fire Girls?

A.. Marty Allen: Only after lights out.

Q. It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps.. One is politics, what is the other?

A. Paul Lynde: Tape measures.

Q. As you grow older, do you tend to gesture more or less with your hands while talking?

A. Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing old question Peter, and I'll give you a gesture you'll never forget.

Q. According to Cosmopolitan, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he's married?

A.. Rose Marie: No wait until morning.

Q. Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during the first year?

A. Charley Weaver: Of course not, I'm too busy growing strawberries.

Q. When you pat a dog on its head he will wag his tail. What will a goose do?

A. Paul Lynde: Make him bark?

Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be.

A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Q. True or False, a pea can last as long as 5,000 years...

A. George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes.

Q.. Paul, what is a good reason for pounding meat?

A. Paul Lynde: Loneliness!

(The audience laughed so long and so hard it took up almost 15 minutes of the show!) 

WE DON'T STOP LAUGHING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD,

WE GROW OLD BECAUSE WE STOP LAUGHING 

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Grilled Shrimp With Spinach And Strawberry Salad

Two years ago:  Breakfast On A Bun

Larry

Enchilada Casserole

On BBQ day, I’d ended up with two quart bags of pulled pork for us and we’ve been eating on it since then and we were down to a pound and I was ready for something Mexican.  I’d recently discovered a container in the freezer labeled Mexican Sauce and had no idea what that meant but hoped it would work for enchiladas. I was thinking along those lines because we had a big bag of the taco size corn tortillas on hand.

Ever notice when you buy corn tortillas that your choices are a very small bag with hardly enough for a meal or a big bag that would feed an army – this is the size we had.

I decided that rather than just mix together a bunch or ingredients I’d actually measure and create a recipe.  I started by sautéing one cup each of diced onion and sweet pepper and a Tbsp of finely diced jalapenos in a little olive oil and when they had softened some, I stirred in the pork.

When they were done, I nuked the corn tortillas under a damp paper towel to soften them up and began to stuff.  I quickly learned that their small size would not allow me to get as much stuffing in them as I wanted and after a couple of times having most of it fall out when I turned them seam side down, I went to plan B.  I had larger flour tortillas but using them would have created burritos and I wanted the corny flavor of the enchiladas.

So I decided to just make a casserole that came close to being just like a rolled enchilada.  I added a layer of tortillas to the pan bottom and topped with the meat mixture, cheddar cheese, and just a little of the sauce, which wasn’t exactly an enchilada sauce, but still very tasty.

Next was another layer of tortillas, about 1½ cups of sauce, cheddar and mozzarella cheese, and sliced black olives.  I covered with foil and baked at 400* for 25 minutes, then removed the cover and baked for another 7 minutes.  Upon removal from the oven, Bev added some sliced green onion and we rested it for about 5 minutes.

Then it was sliced and served.

I thought it was good but not outstanding in part because it needed more jalapeno heat and in part because the Mexican sauce and the flavor of the pulled pork could have been a better match - next time I’ll use less flavorful pork and add some Mexican spices.  However, I did think I achieved the goal of having it taste very close to rolled enchiladas and with a little tweaking, I’ll make it again using this recipe:

2 T oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup diced sweet pepper
1 T finely diced jalapeno
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound pulled smoked pork, without pork juice added. (can also use chicken or beef)
To taste, your favorite Mexican seasoning, salt and pepper
To taste, fresh chopped cilantroAbout 10 corn tortillas based upon size, halved
2 cups shredded cheddar, divided
2 cups shredded pepper jack, divided
2 cups enchilada sauce
15 black olives, sliced into thirds
Tops from 2 green onions, sliced

Preheat oven to 400*

Add oil to skillet over medium low heat and when hot add onion, peppers, garlic, pork, cilantro and seasonings and cook until pork is warmed thru and veggies are softened.  stir in 1/4 cup of sauce.Taste and adjust seasonings a couple of times while cooking.

Add 1/4 cup of sauce to a greased ?"x?" dish or pan and spread over bottom, then cover with a single layer of tortillas - can double if more is desired.

Cover tortillas with meat mixture, then 1cup of each cheese.

Add another layer of tortillas, then the remaining sauce and remaining cheeses.

Add the olives, cover with foil, and bake for 25 minutes, then remove foil and bake 5 or so minutes until cheese just starts to brown.

Remove from oven, top with green onions and rest 5-10 minutes before serving.

Next time I'll measure the herbs and spices for a complete recipe.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Smoked Salmon Spread

Two years ago:  Glad It Wasn’t Snow

Larry

01/19/2012 meal date

Shrimp & Spinach Omelet

We had a small bowl of the shrimp/spinach mixture left from our ravioli dinner and, as usual, I used it for other meals.  For the first one, I stirred it into potato soup and for the second it was scrambled eggs, both of which worked well.  For the last of it, I made the breakfast meal I’d envisioned originally – an omelet.

I whipped up two eggs with a little cream and cooked them in a pan with a lid until set – I wish I could do that flip in the pan thing like the pros do.  Then I added the shrimp mix to one side, slide it out of the skillet and folded it as I did – I can at least do that part.

I topped it with some reheated Vodka Sauce left from the same meal and sided it with a slice of toasted homemade bread.

Like pizza dough and pasta, I think of eggs as a canvas to build on – as if you didn’t know – and this was as good or better than the original ravioli and a whole lot easier.

News comes to me via my Yahoo web page and this headline cracked me up - "Secret Service: Man detained at Bush home had gun" - because is there anyone in Texas who doesn't have a gun in their car.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Chicken Saltimbocca

Two years ago: Burger Buns For Bread Day At Almost Heaven South

Larry

01/19/2012 meal date

Lemon Night

I’ve been wanting to make risotto for some time (I think I bought the arborio rice 6 months ago), had found a package of scallops in the freezer, and along came Pam’s recipe for Seared Scallops on Lemon and Spinach Risotto from over at Sidewalk Shoes.  Then we had some raw sliced and steamed whole Brussels sprouts left from our hash dish a couple of nights earlier and our favorite way to eat them is steamed and tossed in a lemon, butter, garlic sauce.  So we decided to just make it a lemon night.

Check out Pam’s site for some good shots and the risotto recipe, which we followed as written (except I added 1/2 tsp of granulated garlic with the oil) and like her, I used chicken broth (homemade from the freezer). 

As an aside, for those of you who buy chicken broth but eat chicken regularly, if you have time, you might want to consider making your own - I'm not talking stock here with veggies and stuff that require more prep time.  For me it's simple, for boneless breast dishes, just buy bone-in breasts, cut off the meat (5 minute job), toss the bones and skin in a pan, cover with water and simmer several hours.  Then strain, de-fat, and freeze the broth then we grind up the bones, fat, etc. in the Vitamixer for dog food.  I'd guess we get a quart of broth for a time committment of 15-20 minutes and it's so much better and richer than the store bought - it can be thinned at time of use as desired, but we rarely do.

I made up the rice part of the risotto ahead of time and covered it while we did other things - this is just before startig the rice.

I'd read several other risotto recipes and ended up adding the broth two ladles full at a time.  Here's some shots through the process and our flat sided wooden spoon that worked very well to prevent sticking.

We had way too many scallops for just Bev, Pat and I, so we invited neighbors, Pat and Steve, down to help us eat them. Pat brought a nice salad which, as is our dinner tradition, we ate prior to cooking the main course - except for the risotto this time.

I gave the scallops a light dusting of Emeril's Essense and cooked them in a mixture of olive oil and butter.

For the sprouts, I usually just wing it on the sauce, but I decided to come up with a repeatable recipe and I believe this is it:

½ stick butter

2 garlic cloves, finely knife minced

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Cook everything over medium low heat until garlic is fragrant, but not browned, then add the room temperature sprouts and toss until the sliced ones are done and the whole ones are warmed thru.  When about done add some crumbled crispy bacon.

About half way thru entree cooking, I stirred the spinach and lemon zest into the risotto.

We plated first with the risotto, then some scallops, and the brussels sprouts and topped everything with some grated parmesan, added a hot roll (it was bread day) and a lemon wedge, which I used on my risotto.

All we needed was some lemon meringue pie to finish off lemon night, but we opted for no dessert.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Breakfast Po Boy

Two years ago:  I Love Good Italian Food

Larry

01/18/2012 meal date

Breakfast Ala Bev

I know I get lots of comments on my breakfast meals, but if you are a regular, you know I’m kinda of lazy and won’t often go the extra mile in the morning to go from a good to a great dish.  But Beverly will and she’d said the previous night that she would be making a special breakfast, which is my cue to not get up and eat an early meal before she gets up.

It was a 20 degree morning following a 60 degree day with a predicted high of 40, so I’d gone to the basement den and built a fire to read the paper, drink coffee, and blog by.  I was reading blogs and came to Pam’s post about some perfect looking biscuits over at For The Love Of Cooking.  Since I usually eat by 8am and it was then about 9:30, I felt like Pavlov’s dog and had to be sure I wasn’t druelling on my keyboard.  These were the third bunch of great looking biscuits I’d seen in a few days and I was then really hungry.

Fortunately, Bev came thru a few minutes later with this:

½ lb of breakfast sausage

½ bag frozen Ore Ida hash browns

A big handful each of diced onion and sweet pepper

2 garlic cloves, minced

Toss it all in a skillet and cook until done.  Plate it up and top with shredded cheddar and a couple of over easy fried eggs to get this.  Maybe I should let her cook every breakfast.

I usually don't show it, but to eat, I cut the eggs up and mix well to get everything coated with the yolk.  It doesn't make for a pretty shot, but it was outstanding and certainly took care of the hunger.  But, in the very near future, I can still see some of these great biscuits with the rest of the sausage made into sawmill gravy.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Pasta with Feta and Kalamata Olives Ala Kevin

Two years ago: Green Chile Cheeseburgers

Larry

01/17/2012 meal date

Brussels Sprouts Hash

Bev likes to watch the Today Show and especially the cooking segments, often saving the recipes and recently, she liked the hash part of this recipe:  Filet mignon with sweet potato and brussels sprout hash and fine herb yogurt by Chef Eric Gabrynowicz - click the link to see what he did with it.

We like Brussels sprouts steamed, then sautéed in a garlic, lemon, butter sauce and topped with crispy bacon and parmesan cheese and we had some leftover Alfredo sauce (garlic, butter, and parmesan), so this was our hash recipe:

1 large sweet potato, sliced in ½“ pieces, steamed to almost done, then ½” dice

1 lb brussels sprouts, trimmed and sliced thinly lengthwise

3 slices crispy fried smoked bacon, diced, Benton’s of course

Almost ½ cup alfredo sauce from ravioli night

2 wedges juicy lemon, squeezed, or to taste

Preheat pan, add 2 tbsp olive oil, and diced sweet potato. 

When potatoes have browned for a few minutes, add the sprouts and bacon and cook until they’ve browned a little. 

Then add the Alfredo and lemon juice and continue cooking to desired level of doneness for the sprouts.

We served this with some smoked bone-in chicken breasts from BBQ day, which were nuked for 1 ½ minutes and put under the broiler skin side up until crisp – 7-8 minutes.

Bev’s comment – “Wow darlin, that was a five star meal.”  I love to please my honey and this may become the new brussels sprout dish.  I have no idea how the recipe would be as written, but it will have to go a long way to beat this and trust me, as weird as it sounds, brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes are very complimentary to one another.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Bean And Sausage Soup

Two years ago:  Two Outstanding Breakfast Meals

Larry

01/16/2012 meal date

Shrimp and Spinach Ravioli Three Ways

If you’ve been reading this blog for very long, you likely know we love to do taste tests here at Almost Heaven South and this meal presented a great opportunity.  When we made our first pasta dough a couple of weeks ago, we put half of it in the freezer with the idea of using it for our first ever homemade ravioli.  This is a long post, so if you don't want to read it all, please read the verdict at the bottom.

My plan was to have Cajun and make crawfish ravioli from a recipe I’d discovered, but alas, the crawfish tails could not be found, so I decided to just substitute shrimp.  Then the chief cook around here decided she’d rather have something else, did a little search on the web, and found a recipe she wanted to use, but she also wanted spinach in it.  I’ve learned that when she’s happy, I’m happy, so the plan sounded great to me.

So we agreed (read last sentence above) on a recipe from Epicurious for Shrimp Ravioli With Rosa Vodka Sauce, especially since it was simple and had the vodka sauce I’d been wanting to try since seeing a similar one on Kathy’s blog over at Spoonful Of Thyme.

We used these ingredients for the filling and it is per the original except we substituted spinach for the parsley.

Filling

1 lb of shrimp, after cleaning

2 gloves of garlic minced

3 T of salted butter

1/2 lb of ricotta

3 eggs

3 T parmesean cheese

1 lb fresh spinach, sautéed in butter to remove the water (I cooked it pretty dry) 

Cook the shrimp in butter until pink, drain and chop very fine in a food processor (original recipe called for pureed).  The original said to stir into the remaining filling ingredients in a medium bowl, but I decided to add the garlic to the food processor with the shrimp and when it was almost the size I wanted, I added the spinach.

Then I mixed with the other ingredients.

Now this is where the taste test came in.  Since we didn’t know what sauce our guests would want, we decided to make the Rosa Vodka Sauce, an Alfredo Sauce, and a Lemon Butter Garlic Sauce.  Here are the sauce recipes.

Rosa Vodka Sauce

2 cloves of garlic minced

1/4 t red pepper flakes

5 T unsalted butter

1/4 C chopped fresh parsley

2/3 C Vodka

3/4 C heavy cream

1 large can (28 oz) pureed or crushed tomatoes (I used a qt of our home canned tomatoes, drained off some of the water, and the immersion blender to chop them up). 

In a sauce pan, add butter, garlic cloves and pepper flakes and saute until garlic is cooked. Be careful not to burn the garlic or it will be bitter. Add vodka and simmer 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, parsley and cream and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Add salt for taste and serve with ravioli. 

Alfredo Sauce - from Allrecipies

1/4 cup butter

1 cup heavy cream

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley 

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium low heat. Add cream and simmer for 5 minutes, then add garlic and cheese and whisk quickly, heating through. Stir in parsley and serve. 

Lemon Butter Garlic Sauce - adapted from Cooks.com

1 stick salted butter

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

2 cloves garlic ran thru the garlic press 

Melt butter and add juice and garlic, cook on low heat about 5 minutes. 

We made the vodka sauce and the ravioli filling before the guests (SIL Pat and buddies Joe and Carol) and had everything ready for the other sauces.  After they arrived we made up the ravioli.  We used the dough we'd frozen from our first pasta experience, allowed it to come to room temperature and rolled it to #4 in the pasta machime.

Then we turned on the pasta water and set down to a nice Beverly tossed salad.

We decided for the taste test we would cook some ravioli and try with one sauce before moving to the next one and we started with the Alfredo, as it was the mildest. We cooked and plated the ravioli then topped with the sauce and some parsley.

Then it was the Lemon Butter where we cooked the ravioli and tossed them with the sauce in the skillet then plated and topped with grated parmesan and parsley.

And finally the Vodka Sauce, again plated, sauced, and topped with cheese and parsley.  Unfortunately I only took one bad shot, but here is the sauce in the pan.

The Verdict:  The dough ended up being much tougher and more rubbery than the original and from now on we'll make just enough to cook and not try freezing it.  This half dough recipe made 20 nice sized ravioli although I crowed them in and made 30.  Our one tablespoon mellon baller worked perfectly for adding the filling.  The spinach and shrimp worked well together, and the filling was very shrimpy.

The Alfredo sauce had a good flavor but it was too thin - perhaps I should have packed the cheese tightly when I measured it, but next time I may start with a half strength roux to make sure it thickens.  The lemon sauce was not quite lemony enough so next time I'll add another tablespoon of lemon juice.  The vodka sauce had a good flavor but it was also too thin - it was my favorite with the shrimp though. 

And for dessert, Bev had made a batch of Death By Chocolate Cookies.

A great thing about this meal was we got to experience several firsts – homemade ravioli, using frozen homemade dough, the filling, and the three sauce recipes, but the very best part was the visiting and Carol walking around the kitchen, using a tablespoon as a microphone and doing a play-by-play of the cooking, ala Alton Brown from Kitchen Stadium.  I only wish we'd gotten a video of it - I don't think she realizes how funny she can be.  While the food was just okay, it was a great evening.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Crappie And Rotel

Two years ago:  Special Breakfasts For Alex

Larry

01/14/2012 meal date