In 2018, we decided to stray considerably from the traditional Thanksgiving meal and made Tex-Mex instead and we all loved it so this year we decided to give Cajun a try. In late summer, while okra was still available from the neighbor’s garden, we made up a gallon of gumbo and stuck it in the freezer for the holiday.
I may have posted about these before, but they were too good not to post again but let me digress first. My girls go to Marco Island once a year to lay around at our time-share and one of our favorite places to eat is Hoot’s in part because they make their own bread. I love their rye and if you order in advance, they will bake you a loaf for ten bucks – equivalent to two normal loaves and well worth it to me – so Bev always brings one home. We cut it in halves with one of them going in the freezer and the other always devoted to Reuban sandwiches.
I had never heard of Sablefish (Butterfish, Black Cod - they are all the same thing), likely because they come form the depths of the Northern Pacific Ocean and not likely to show up in our local supermarket here in the south. However, several pieces came in our recent shipment from Sitka Salmon Shares and I decided to give one a try using the suggested oriental recipe. They sent a recipe with the fish but I opted for a similar one from The Nourish Evolution as I had all of the ingredients. Their recipe is for four pieces of fish so I divided everything by three to get the one below for my single piece.
This shot is from her site to show how the fish flakes.
I’m a big fan of Italian beef but Bev is just so-so on it, so while she is in FL, I thought it would be a good Thursday night meal for our friends. I looked at several recipes on line and because it contained sliced pepperoncini peppers and giardiniera, I opted to use it. The recipe comes from Kristin on her Iowa Girl Eats blog and the original recipe can be found there along with more pics like this one.
After our very positive experience with her cheesy microwave cauliflower, I always look forward to trying Chef Lea Ann’s cauliflower recipes like this latest one on her Cooking On The Ranch blog. I followed the ingredients list with a couple of changes but changed the cooking method by using two cooking vessels. You can see the original recipe by clicking on the link and see more of her pics like this one.
My girls are now on their annual junket to Marco Island and once again I am animal sitting for two weeks – I would have flown down for one week had it not been for Covid-19 concerns. While they are gone, I’ve decided to try out some different fish dishes beginning with one I know Bev is not particularly fond of – baked haddock. I rarely see haddock in the local Food City and when I did, I had to buy a few filets and try to replicate the delicious baked fish dishes I’ve eaten in New England.
The first one I tried was Crispy Baked Haddock from Julie
on her Table For Two blog and
I decided to make one per the recipe and another with added shredded cheddar. I liked them both but the topping was a
little too powerful for my thin fish filets.
We had three final eggplant remaining in the garden and Cindy decided to turn them into skillet eggplant parmesan and, while not a natural pairing, fish is always a hit here so she fried up some catfish and made tartar sauce.
