We had five nice small eggplant to harvest and Cindy wanted to turn them into our skillet (not casserole) version of eggplant Parmesan (basically fried eggplant and we had some salmon in the fridge that needed to be used so we combined them into this meal. Since it turned out to be Italian night, I used a recipe for Salmon Baked In Foil from Giada DeLaurentis.
Gumbo
We had plenty of leftovers from a recent batch of stewed okra and tomatoes and Bev decided she could make it into gumbo, which I thought was a brilliant idea. She made up a dark roux from flour and butter and added it to the stewed okra along with some Creole seasoning to taste and some chopped rotisserie chicken.
After our recent successful trip to Chattanooga, we decided we would venture out again and make a day trip to Rugby TN, located on the Cumberland Plateau about a 2½ drive northwest from home. But rather than go straight there, we made a few stops along the way beginning with Frozen HeadState Park near Wartburg, TN.
A few days ago, we were discussing a desire to eat some of the shrimp we had in the freezer and I remembered the recently published recipe for this dish that I had saved form Chef Dennis on his Ask Chef Dennis blog. The red pepper sauce seemed like a very different way to serve seafood and Bev gave me a “I’m not sure about this” look but I wanted to give it a try as his recipes have always been good.
I generally followed the ingredients list but increased everything for the 36 oz of peppers I had to insure enough for five servings. You can click on the above link to check Dennis' site for the original recipe and several suggestions.
Bev saw this recipe on line from All Recipes and as lovers of both baked burritos and chili dogs we knew it was a must try. I grew up in an area of the country where a hot dog was a wiener in a bun and topped with sauce (special hot dog chili), mustard, and onion and if you ordered a dog with everything this is what you got, but in the spirit of broadening my horizons, I was willing to use chili with beans in the casserole.
As it turned out we had
everything we needed on hand with a bag of homemade chili and some type of
special wieners (bison we think) in the freezer, and the tortillas, onion, and
cheese in the fridge.
A while back, I bought a whole boneless pork loin and carved it into chops and a couple of two pound roasts to stuff or use on the spit or both. For this meal, I used the stuffed and grilled recipe from Marie on her Proud Italian Cook blog and I followed the ingredients list but changed the meat prep process a bit. You can click on the link for her original recipe.
Wende called and advised they would like to come down on Sunday of Labor Day weekend so that Eliza could go for her first actual swim in the lake and we said you bet. As soon as she got on the dock, Eliza began saying she wanted to go in the big water and we accommodated her by letting her swim with both Wende and Cindy so she could go between them.
After months of leaving the house to only make necessary trips to the store, doctors, etc, we decided it was time to get out and believed we could do it safely. Bev wanted to go to Chattanooga so along with Cindy and Pat, we got on the road at 9am. We have only been into downtown two times and the last one was several years ago for a fairly short time with friends. Bev had four things she wanted to do – visit a bakery, go to the Riverwalk, go to Lookout Mountain, and eat at the Acropolis so I made a travel plan to accomplish those plus drive around downtown, go to the north shore area, and go to Bluff View.
It was Cindy’s night to cook supper and she chose Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts using a recipe from ThatLow Carb Life . She followed the recipe as written and here is a shot from their site.
I believe that I’ve mentioned before that we grilled out most summer evenings when I was a kid and one of the dishes, served on occasion, was cheesy potatoes cooked in aluminum foil and it was a favorite of mine. Mom made them by just adding cheese (Velveeta and longhorn I think), butter, and canned milk over the potatoes and onions but I have updated the recipe based on what I have learned over the years.
September first was a special birthday for SIL, Pat, and we made her the meal of her choice - she picked Chicken Marsala. Several years ago, we had made the dish from an adapted Carrabba’s recipe and all loved it, so we used it again.
