We had pulled pork left from our Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole and decided to turn it into Posole which we hadn’t made in a long time. After looking around, I selected the recipe for Authentic Mexican Posole from Food.com because we had most of the ingredients on hand and it used canned chiles. I changed the instructions quite a bit as I was starting with cooked meat but the original can be found by clicking on the above link.
Bev had made arrangements for the neighbors to join us for happy hour to try her first attempt at making Angel Biscuits, which we had known about for some time. I assumed we would have biscuits with butter, jelly, and tomatoes but when I went into the kitchen to check on her, Bev was well into meat cooking. She used the biscuit recipe from Southern Living Magazine and made it as written with a yield of 19 good sized (about 3”) biscuits. What makes them different from other biscuits is that they contain yeast in addition to the normal baking powder/baking soda and the dough can be kept in the fridge for five days and used as needed.
I was planning to make stir-fry for our Friday get-together and when I saw this recipe for Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole on Tricia’s “Mom On Timeout” blog, I wished I had some pulled pork in the freezer. During our Thursday drive down to the Englewood Farmers Market, we passed an Englewood, TN BBQ restaurant that Bev said she had always wanted to try. So on our way home, we pulled into Navarro’s Smokehouse full parking lot and decided it must be good so the stir-fry was out and the casserole was in. After tasting the pulled pork, I knew why they were full.
Well, maybe not real Maryland crab cakes as Bev bought a couple cans of Chicken Of The Sea Crab Claw Meat on sale and we decided to turn one of them into crab cakes using our go-to recipe from the “Once Upon A Chef” blog. I realize that the great crab cakes are made with lump and jumbo lump crab meat, but I just refuse to pay the very high prices for them ($36 for a pound for Chicken Of The Sea Lump at Walmart).
We only had a few grape tomatoes but we had a bunch of small tomatoes from our garden and decided they should work in this recipe and we had a giant plant of fresh basil to use so we opted to make Chef Dennis’ Tomato Basil Pasta from his “Ask Chef Dennis” blog. Since I prefer shaped pasta with chunky sauces, I used the box of penne we had on hand.
Before we retired, we bought a 1976 red Corvette that was to be Bev’s retirement car but it mostly just sat in the garage until we sold it a few years ago. Now, she sure looks good in this 2004 Ferrari with 30,000 miles.
In Sep 2022, I posted about our meal of Pinto Beans and Hoe Cakes but this meal is different in that we used our recipe for Mexican Cornbread for the cakes. Johnny Cakes are made along the eastern seaboard from New England into the Caribbean Islands and are often called Hoe Cakes in the US South. For this meal, I cut our Mexican cornbread recipe in half to get the one below.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find a regular BLT hard to keep together when eating, especially if I set the sandwich down between bites so when I saw Kevin’s recipe for a Chopped BLT on his Closet Cooking Blog, I knew I wanted to try it. Then I decided it would be a good meal for our Friday get-together but I increased the ingredients for the six of us. After watching Kevin’s video and looking at his pics, I believed he used too much stuff for his two sandwiches so rather than just triple his, I used the ingredients below. While it looks very neat to stack them up and chop them like Kevin did, I cut each of them separately and mixed them together. You can click on the link above for the original recipe and Kevin's great pics.
I discovered a package of cubed steak in the freezer that needed to be used and our usual would have been to turn it into chicken fried steak or baked steak in gravy. But in an effort to reduce calories, I opted to go with Swiss steak which we haven’t had in years – since I had no blog post about this dish, it must have been pre 2009. I looked thru my saved recipes and finding nothing, I went to the web and selected the recipe for Easy Swiss Steak from the “Spend With Pennies” blog. Factoid - "One would think the name comes from Switzerland, but it actually comes from the technique of tenderizing the meat by pounding or rolling, which is called “swissing” in England." I adapted the recipe based on my larger meat amount.
When Bev recently said she wanted to make tomato pie to use up some of our tomatoes, I searched my saved blog recipes and came across Lea Ann's recipe Fresh Tomato Tart with Dijon and Gruyere on her “Cooking On The Ranch” blog. After looking at Lea Ann’s tart version, we decided to go back to Ina Garten’s original recipe and make it on a sheet pan – much like a pizza. Then we decided to use Gouda cheese as we had it on hand and Bev is not a fan of Swiss cheeses. Then Bev decided to go all out and make the dough as well. And finally, rather than make one large one she split the dough and made two of them on different days.
Bev recently said she would like some sort of lemon chicken so I went to my file of meals we’ve made and rated highly. The one I came across was Greek Chicken with Lemon Vinaigrette that we had made about 13 months ago using the recipe from Pam on her “For The Love Of Cooking” blog. My blog comment about that meal was “OH WOW, this was one of the best chicken dishes we’ve ever had and we all oohed and aahed over it.” But rather than make the same dish, I decided to see if I could adapt it for a grilled version but keeping the sauce the same. Below is the recipe I came up with but this was the fried version.
Our Friday group loves hamburgers and when I saw Kevin’s recipe for chopped cheese sandwiches on his "Closet Cooking" blog, I knew it would be a hit although I haven’t a clue as to how he named it. It’s basically a cheese burger that is not formed into a patty – like a sloppy joe. I wanted some leftovers so I doubled the recipe to get the ingredients list below and I changed the cooking instructions by precooking the meat and onions then adding them back to the pan for the sandwiches. I've shown the original instructions below.
Two things happened this summer that resulted in this dish: 1. We made Pasta al Pomodoro Crudo and 2. Bev decided after all of these years that she liked pesto once she ate Ina Garten’s version at a friends house. So after I suggested we make pesto pasta, she suggested we combine the two dishes and below is the result.
Pasta al Pomodoro Crudo With Pesto
The Ingredients:
1¼ lb. grape and diced
tomatoes
3/8 cup extra-virgin
olive oil
3 medium cloves garlic,
finely minced by hand
18 fresh basil leaves,
torn into small pieces
1 cup pesto – Link above, we made a half recipe
Kosher salt
16 oz. thin spaghetti
The Directions:
1. Make the pesto per
the recipe below and set aside.
2. In a pot of salted
boiling water, cook pasta until al dente.
3. Drain pasta using a
colander and return to cooking pot.
4. Add pesto to the
pasta and stir well until the pesto is evenly distributed.
5. Add pasta to bowl
with tomatoes.
Bev makes lots of cucumber salad over the summer and she uses both a vinaigrette and a creamy dressing, making both to taste. Tonight she chose to go with a recipe for Balsamic Cucumber Salad that she found on "Taste Of Home." We sided it with a marinated sirloin steak from Food City that we will buy again. The salad called for a balsamic vinaigrette but it didn’t provide a recipe so I used the one for Balsamic Honey Vinaigrette, also, from "Taste Of Home."
Balsamic Cucumber Salad
Ingredients:
1 large English cucumber, halved and sliced (we
used cukes from our garden)
2 cups grape tomatoes, halved (we used grape
tomatoes from our garden)
1 medium red onion, halved and thinly sliced (we
used a Vidalia onion)
1/2 cup balsamic vinaigrette (recipe below)
3/4 cup crumbled reduced-fat feta cheese
Directions:
In a large bowl, combine cucumber, tomatoes and
onion. Add vinaigrette; toss to coat. Refrigerate, covered, until serving. Just
before serving, stir in cheese.
Bev has been wanting to have pork tenderloin medallions and I have been wanting to make Fondant Potatoes so we whipped them up for our Friday card group.
For the pork, I sliced the tenderloin into about 5/8“ thick
rounds then used the Jaccard to flatten them to 3/8“.
Simple Pizza At Home
After making the Pepperoni Pizza Quiche for
breakfast , we had leftover stuffing and Bev suggested a very simple pizza for
supper – flour tortilla coated with olive oil, then jack cheese, topped with
the Quiche stuffing and a little Parmesan & basil.
Simple but very good.
I came across a frozen pie crust during my latest freezer organizing effort and decided we hadn’t made quiche in quite awhile and Bev suggested a version starring pepperoni. I did a web search and found a recipe for Italian Quiche (With Pepperoni, Mushrooms, & Olives) which looked like a good place to start, especially since I had everything on hand. I changed the recipe by using more veggies and cooking them to remove most of their liquid. The original recipe can be found by clicking on the above link.
Bev found this recipe for Spaghetti al Pomodoro Crudo on line at "Serious Eats" and since we had fresh tomatoes from the garden and fresh pasta from the farmers market, we thought they would make for a good meal. Since Bev likes lots of marinara on her pasta, I was surprised she wanted to try this. I used shaped pasta as I don’t think chunky sauce works well with string pasta. For my 10 oz. of fresh pasta, I adjusted the sauce ingredients below but the original can be found by clicking on the above link.
When Pam recently posted the recipe for Cajun spices on her “For The Love Of Cooking” blog she commented about the delicious Cajun Salmon her brother-in-law had made. I immediately thought that we like Cajun and we have a salmon filet in the freezer so off I went in search of a recipe and there many on the web. The recipe I settled on came from “Cooktoria” because I liked the combo of spices and sauce. For the Cajun spice, I used my homemade Emeril’s Essence because I make it with no heat for Bev and Cindy then I just add it to mine. For my three servings, I increased the sauce ingredients to get the recipe below.
Actually, cow tails. When I’ve mentioned eating oxtails, some folks have said to me “not likely” and even when I pointed out that it was just another muscle on the cow, it didn’t seem to help much. So, I decided to do a taste test and you know I love taste tests. In addition to the cow tails, I cooked three beef shanks, which also can get the turned-up nose reaction, and a piece of chuck roast, which most everyone loves. I had made Southern Smothered Oxtails about a year and a half ago and they were a hit so I used the same recipe for this meal. Since I had a little over 8 lbs. of meat, I increased the other ingredients by 50%, but didn’t need to so I won’t reproduce it here. You can click on the above link for my blog post or go to I Heart Recipes for the original.
First, I checked to be sure the meat would all fit in the pan.
I found myself reading online about Ukrainian food and decided to make one of their dishes to honor their situation. It seems that Borscht and dumplings are two of their favorites but I opted to go with Guliash (Goulash) and it seems that there is very little differences between the goulashes eaten across Eastern Europe so I just picked a recipe that looked good to me – several used steak sauce (Heinz 57) and that didn’t appeal to me. The recipe I chose for Hungarian Goulash came from Taste Of Home and I amended it a little to use ripe peppers and I omitted the sugar then, rather than egg noodles, I served it over mashed potatoes using just a basic recipe to make them.
I am a big fan of salsa verde, an even bigger fan of pork chile verde (Oscar‘s in Durango, CO was my first), and Bev and I both want to lose some weight so when I saw this recipe for Salsa Verde Chicken from Kevin on his “Closet Cooking” blog, it moved to the top of my make-soon list. For plenty of how-to pics, check out Kevin’s blog by clicking on the above link.
When I saw Jenn’s recipe for Souvlaki on her “Once Upon A Chef” blog, I knew I wanted to give it a try. I thought it would be an easy company meal so I invited Eliza and her family down for Sunday supper. Since the recipe is for 4-6 servings, I increased it by 50% to get the recipe below.
I’m not sure how I came upon this but the recipe for baked salmon with asparagus from "Eatwell 101" looked very good to me – good enough that I was willing to even use store-bought asparagus. We had a 20 oz. piece of salmon in the freezer so I decided to make it into four meals and Bev opted to add some mushrooms to the packet. Per their website “This baked salmon in foil and its garlic butter sauce makes for an amazingly tasty dinner. The salmon recipe of your dreams!”
This is a pic from their site and it’s easy to see why I
wanted to make it.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA
When I saw this recipe for Taco Sloppy Joes on Kevin’s “Closet Cooking” blog, I knew I wanted to try it and thought it would be perfect for our Friday card group. Since Kevin’s recipe is only for four servings, I doubled it to get the recipe below but you can click on the above link for the original and his good pics like the second one here - how could you look at the pic and not want to make this.
BLT With A Twist
Who doesn’t like a good BLT? I sure do and I like it even better when an egg is included so I guess it’s really an egg sandwich with bacon, lettuce, and tomato – whatever. This one included some good sourdough bread, good bacon, and vine ripened tomatoes and the twist. I have always broken the yolk and fried it hard for any egg sandwich but Bev suggested I try it with a runny yolk. So it was two slices of bread, each with a spread of mayo, a few lettuce leaves, cheddar cheese, bacon and the egg. I was afraid too much of the egg would end up on the plate or my chin if I just bit into it so I spread it all over the top of the egg before the first bite.
I’m always on the lookout for fish recipes and especially those where we can use the crappie that is generously given to us by our fishing friends. When I saw Chef Dennis’ recipe for Flounder Francaise on his “Ask Chef Dennis” blog, I knew it would fit-the-bill. This dish is more complicated than our normal crappie in lemon, butter, caper sauce but I had to give it a try.
Thanks to our gardener neighbor and a visit to the Mennonite market, we had lots of leaf and bib lettuce and Bev wanted to turn them into a salad and Nicoise popped into my mind – it’s been years since we made one. So, I went on the web in search of recipes and ideas and came up with the ingredients I wanted to use plus a dressing recipe from “The Modern Proper” blog. Nicoise means "In the style of Nice" - a French city - and I even looked up how to pronounce it (nee·swaaz).
HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO ALL US DADS
We had
steak for Mother’s Day and I had cooked half of a prime strip steak
for me and I cooked the other half for breakfast.
I cut the meat in half to make two thinner steaks then I seasoned mine
with Tiger Seasoning and pan fried it along with a couple of scrambled eggs in the same pan.
It made for a great breakfast and the steak was very good seasoned and cooked like this and the eggs picked up some of the delicious meat flavor from the pan.
Bev and I made a trip down to the Englewood Mennonite Market this week and picked up several goodies and decided to turn some of them into a nice summer meal for our Friday group. Nearly the entire meal came from the market and it consisted of:
Malibu stringless pole beans cooked our normal way
Chef Lea Ann recently posted her recipe for Easy Pollo Asado (Mexican Grilled Chicken) on her “Cooking On The Ranch” blog, and since she is a go-to source for southwestern recipes, I knew it had to be tried. She describes it as “Citrus juice and Mexican spices join forces to create bright and complex flavors for this easy Pollo Asado recipe. A juicy grilled chicken dinner with sheer pizzaz.”
Since I had 4½ lbs. if thighs, I upped the marinade ingredient amounts as shown below and I subbed green pepper for jalapenos. While we have a Mexican store about 25 miles away, I just ordered the Naranja Agria and the Achiote paste from Amazon. Be sure to check out Lea Ann's site, ( link above) for the original recipe and her good pics.
I had some frozen shrimp in the freezer that really needed to be used so I decided to turn them into a dish with lots of other flavors. The recipe for shrimp burgers came from the “Well Plated by Erin” blog and is described – “This shrimp burger recipe has a perfect texture with no binders. Add Southern or Cajun spices for a fresh, healthy change to summer grilling!” I followed the recipe except I peeled the shrimp and soaked them in salted milk overnight and I made them slider sized – 3oz.
Our rally was held at Bluewater RV Resort And Marina which sits on the Richland Creek embayment of Chickamauga Lake and a couple miles east of Dayton, TN.
After getting Eliza her first bike and a big wheel in early April, we have finally gotten together to give them to her. She’s getting them now so she can use them this summer since her BD and Christmas are Nov & Dec – but you knew that.
We got the Big Wheel for her to use when she comes here to ride on our driveway and the bike to take home and use in a park on grass to start – less skinned up body parts that way.
On day four, most of the group went to Huddle House for breakfast then for a tour of Bryan College. William Jennings Bryan obviously made an impact on Dayton during the Scopes Monkey Trial as they named the college after him and believe it or not, one of our club members went there (even though he lived in Ohio) and he arranged for a tour. Bryan is a small private Christian college with about 800 students and an academic staff of 200 full and part time. Their endowment is $6 million vs Harvard’s $51 billion.
HOW CAN WE
POSSIBLY THANK THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES SO WE CAN LIVE AS WE DO.
Once again, day 3 began with a breakfast of turkey salad and our morning was devoted to organizing some things in the coach.
Ten members of our group rented a pontoon boat for a tour
of the lake while Steve (our neighbor) took folks for rides on our jet ski
which he had pulled to the rally. Since
I wanted no part of the sun and I get to ride a pontoon boat whenever I want,
Bev and I passed on the boat ride but we went down to see them off.
As you may know, Blogger no longer sends out notices when I post so I am putting together an email list and I'll let you know when I put up a new post. If you'd like to be on the list, just send me your email address.
Cindy has a client and friend, Glennie, that she has been wanting to have over for dinner and we finally got it scheduled. Cindy advised that Glennie likes salmon so when our neighbors ask what they could bring us back from Joe Patti’s Seafood Market during their recent trip to Florida, I requested Norwegian salmon.
As you may know, Blogger no longer sends out notices when I post so I am putting together an email list and I'll let you know when I put up a new post. If you'd like to be on the list, just send me your email address.
Day two of our RV rally began with a breakfast of turkey salad for me and a trip to a Van Go professional knife sharpener to work on our (including neighbors) 33 knives, 10 scissors, and 5 garden pruners. He charged $5 for most knives and scissors then one item was $15 - it sure is nice to have them all very sharp again and he told me how to keep them that way - give the knife a couple of licks on a steel every time you pick it up, not just each time you use it.
After a group lunch at the pavilion of leftovers from last nights supper, we headed over to the old courthouse for presentation in the Scopes Monkey Trial Museum then we went upstairs to the very warm courtroom. This is the old courthouse outside and a statue of William Jennings Bryan.
Happy Belated Mother’s Day To All Of You Moms
Bev decided she wanted a steak for her Mother’s Day
supper and for her that means a filet.
We also invited our friends Pat and Kathy (and their fellows) to join us
as their kids live out of town. For our
steaks we had two rib eyes provided by our neighbors for themselves, four
filets, and half of a prime strip steak for me.
It never ceases to amaze me how often issues will crop up a day or two before we plan to leave on a vacation trip and it’s been happening for years. Before Monday’s departure on this trip, the house water heater quit working on Saturday and then when I turned the water on to the dock for the season so Karen could clean it while we were gone, I discovered that the main pipe was broken.
So, Monday morning, the plumber took care of the water
heater and I decided not to worry about the water line until we got home on Friday, so we were able to get
all packed and hit the road for the hour and a half drive to Blue Water Resort and
Marina in Dayton, TN, pulling in about 4pm.
We were preparing for our first RV trip since last October and I always like to have something made up for a quick bite such as pimento cheese, or in this case turkey salad. I use turkey breast because its so easy to just roast the breast, remove it from the bones and chop it up. While bigger cubes of meat make for a nicer pic, I prefer mine smaller so I used the food processor for my chopping of the turkey and the celery. The recipe for Turkey Salad with DriedCranberries, Pecans, and Grapes came from “Add A Pinch” and it called for four cups of chicken but, by weight, I had twice as much so I doubled everything to get the recipe below.
You may know this, but the tops of the asparagus spears are the lateral branches and ferns before they have opened up.
