Meat pies can be traced back to 6000 B.C. and I like all forms of them whether they be pasties, dumplings, piroskis, turnovers, pierogis, empanadas, etc. and I've always wanted to make them so today was the day. I opted for empanadas because they can be made with refrigerator pie dough and I chose the recipe for Beef Empanadas from the “Handle The Heat” blog. I made the filling by the recipe and ignored the dough part to get the recipe below.
The plan was for Bev to have snow crab while Cindy and I had the tuna taste test but she opted for something else so we had the snow crab the next night and to go with it, Bev made focaccia bread. The snow crab came from our May trip to Joe Patties In Pensacola, FL and the package contained three clusters which were a good bit larger than what we see in our grocery store. I just steamed them and served with melted butter for Bev, Cindy, and me – Pat came over for the bread.
While Bev and Pat won’t eat fresh tuna (canned only), Cindy and I both enjoy the fresh version but we’ve never had a taste test. When I buy fresh tuna from Joe Patti’s in Pensacola, it looks like this:
But when I buy it at the local Food City, it looks like this:
I’m confident you remember that in April of 2023, I conducted a Spam (Hormel) vs. Treet (Armour) taste test and my conclusion was that they were both way too salty. Three months later Big Daddy Dave did a post about Spam Lite which contains 25% less salt so I bought a can of it to try.
It’s hard to believe that my first blog post was 15 years ago today and my first total post said “Well, I'm new to this blogging thing and this is my first - mostly to just see if I can do it. My next goal will be to learn to post pictures, then I'll worry about making the blog look cool.”
Most of the folks who have been my blogger buddies through
the years are no longer posting and I really appreciate those of you who still do
stop by and I love to hear from you via your comments. I’ve considered quitting a few
times until I realize how much I use my blog to research our lives and recipes
during those years so I guess I’ll continue until I run out of things to post
about.
Bev discovered four chicken thighs in the fridge that needed to be cooked and when I went on line looking for recipes, I came across a Pioneer Woman site titled 60 Best Chicken Thigh Recipes for an Easy Weeknight Meal - it's a compilation of recipes from other folks. After looking at all of them with the criteria of not making a trip to the store, I settled on the recipe for One Pan Spanish Chicken and Rice which came from the “Crème De La Crumb” blog. I generally followed the recipe but only made ¾ of the spice mix and and I used skin on thighs and Bev decided it needed some peas and carrots.
I’d been wanting to cook beer-can chicken for a while and we wanted Eliza to bring her family down so we married the two desires. I like the idea of adding butter and seasoning under the chicken skin so I looked around the web at several recipes and selected the herb butter recipe from food.com and tripled it to get the recipe below. This was my first time making compound butter.
We had tomatoes that needed to be used and Bev wanted to turn them into a tomato pie and use the recipe from The Pioneer Woman. Bev made three changes to the filling recipe by omitting the blue cheese (we had none), adding parmesan, and substituting basil for dill and she used refrigerated pie dough from the store.
We recently had a long-weekend visit from grandkids, Reese and Riley Walker, and three of their friends and Bev likes to make dishes that she knows they really like such as chicken and dumplings for college girl Riley. The dish had a great flavor but the chicken stuck to the pan bottom while the dumplings were cooking and since she had enough broth and chicken for another batch, we decided on a different cooking method for round two.
It’s Sockeye Salmon season in Alaska and once again our local Food City had them on sale for $9.99/lb. so we stocked up for the freezer and kept one out to eat along with another variety that we had in the freezer. I cooked them along with some asparagus for a side dish. The sockeye is the much redder filet and was never frozen.
My dear wife, who requires more sauce on her pasta than anyone I’ve ever seen, really surprised me by requesting pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil which is nearly sauceless. So, I whipped up a batch of Pasta al Pomodoro Crudo using the recipe below which I altered for the amount of pasta that I was cooking.
We had some pineapple spears in the fridge along with some chicken breasts and bell pepper and Bev suggested kebabs for supper which sounded great to me. I went on line in search of a recipe and settled on the recipe for Chicken and Pineapple Kabobs from “The Whole Cook” blog. I chose it because of the short list of ingredients, all of which I had on hand. I followed the recipe but added the extra step of reducing the leftover marinade in a pan and spooning it over the plated kebabs.
Well, it was the last day for the visit from the grandkids and their friends and we decided to send them off with a breakfast special. They all like French toast, they all like bananas, and Bev has been eager to make Bananas Foster so we decided to marry the two. I modified the French toast recipe from Ina Garten and increased it by 50%.
The grandkids had requested BBQ during their visit so I fired up the smoker and cooked a pork butt, two racks of spare ribs, chicken thighs, and wings. We ate the ribs and wings for supper then I used the pulled pork and chicken thighs for Hispanic dishes.
Eric’s kids, Matthew and Luca, wanted to come spend some time in East Tennessee and with us on the lake. Matthew brought his college girlfriend and Luca brought a friend from home for a nice eight-day visit. We’d seen Matthew recently but it’s been six years since we’ve seen Luca as our RV trips that included a visit with them kept getting canceled – covid, coach issues, etc.
My mom occasionally made creamed chip beef on toast when I was a kid and Dad always complained because, while serving during WWII, he said they ate it about every day – I can’t recall if he would eat Mom’s or not. But, like most things gravy, I still really enjoy it.
We had made a version of this broccoli casserole several years ago but I updated it for a larger dish and a different assembly method as shown in the recipe below. It's different than the usual holiday version of broccoli in that it contains rice. I topped this one with cheese but the traditional crumb topping can also be used. The original recipe calls for boiling the chicken then using the water for the rice but I hate to boil the flavor from the chicken so I baked it and added some Chicken Better Than Bullion to the rice cooking water.
I really like eating fresh, local, summer garden vegetables and we plan many meals around them. Bev, the pups, and I made a trip to Maryville (about 18 miles) for stops at the Coning Farm Market and another market in town to get a loaf of Tellico Grains Bakery Olive Bread. As a result, my supper plan for the day changed to boiled corn and a unique tomato sandwich.
Let’s deal with the second part of the title first. We had planned a little hot dog cookout on the dock for Independence Day. But when I saw the weather forecast predicting 96F (actual was 97F and thank heaven for A/C), I suggested we celebrate on July 5 when it would be overcast and 88F. Even though it’s cooler down at the lake and we have great ceiling fans, I didn’t want to eat down there that bad. So, we opted to cook a summertime meal in the air conditioned kitchen. The highlight of the day was when friend and house cleaner, Karen, showed up to work on the holiday.
Happy Birthday America
We decided for our next seafood meal that it would be blackened grouper using the Caribbean Grouper that we bought at Joe Patti’s Seafood in Pensacola. I believe we bought eight pieces the same size as these two.
We are trying to take advantage of our ability to buy real vine ripened (not picked partially green), local tomatoes and after many, many taste tests over the years of growing tomatoes, we try to get Cherokee Purples when we can.
During Madison’s recent visit, I made a pan-fried seafood meal and I was anxious to make a deep-fried seafood platter. I used the shrimp and scallops from our Joe Pattie Seafood haul and crappie from our normal source and our go-to breading recipe from Food Network – I made half a breading recipe shown below.
I had been wanting to make some ravioli from wonton wrappers for a while and finally decided to take the plunge for supper with Eliza and her parents. I looked around the web and found the recipe for Homemade Italian Sausage and Cheese Ravioli on the Ashlee Marie blog. Since I wanted to ensure plenty of filling, I increased the filling ingredients by 50% otherwise, I followed the filling recipe. Since I'd never done this before, I bought both wonton and egg roll wrappers to experiment with. I made a few then Wende made the bulk of them.
I’ve had this pork dish on my list to make for quite a while and it finally made it to the top. The recipe for Grilled Bourbon and Cherry Pork Chops comes from famous pitmaster and Big Bob Gibson’s Bar-B-Q chef Chris Lilly by way of the “Nibble Me This” blog. As you can see, the recipe is for pork chops but when I checked the freezer, I couldn’t find those that I thought I had but I did find a couple of pork tenderloins and used them instead. I increased the sauce ingredients by 50% and didn’t dunk the meat in it while cooking because I wanted plenty to spoon over the meat after slicing and I used a gas grill.
Many people love asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and baked so I decided to adopt the recipe for breakfast using what we had on hand. While we enjoy asparagus baked, sauteed, and grilled, I prefer it steamed so it stays nice and plump – the other methods cook the water out. We had some from-our-garden asparagus in the fridge along with some eggs and country ham – prosciutto is just Italian country ham that has been aged longer and usually sliced thin.
So I steamed the asparagus, chopped and sauteed the ham,
and poached some eggs to get this delicious breakfast which Bev called five
star. 5/21/24
Even though it was cool and rainy during their visit, Madison and boyfriend, Zach, managed to get in some jet ski riding, a couple of walks around the area, and some time with her Meme.
If you’ve read my blog for a while, you likely recall that Madison lived with us for a few years spread over two visits but she hasn’t been here in quite a while so we were excited when she arranged a visit with her boyfriend Zach. Since she had several food requests, it appears this was primarily a culinary visit and of course we were happy to oblige. The only challenge was that Zach is gluten intolerant but we are used to cooking for good buddy Joe who has the same issue.
One of the reasons we did not want to miss the Pensacola RV rally was so we could go to Joe Patti’s Seafood and buy good, fresh fish at wholesale prices ($9.99/lb. for 16-20 size shrimp for example). We’ve had this large 20 gallon cooler for many years and have only used it a time or two but it was perfect for this use.
Maybe you didn't know this but I eat a lot of fried eggs for breakfast and very few poached ones – don’t worry, I’m not starting a series on poached eggs. I don’t do poached eggs very often for a few reasons:
1. They take longer while waiting for the water to boil.
2. I don’t like losing the egg that turns into the wispy whites.
3. I haven’t had much luck cooking them correctly and without sticking.
On day three of the rally, we were invited over to our Rally Master’s (Barb & Bill) home for a cookout and visit to their treehouse (nice to have members who live in Pensacola). The tree house is hanging from the branches with only one bolt in the tree and it has already survived a couple of hurricanes.
This is a very eclectic meal as the three dishes don’t necessarily go together but I wanted to make the pork and the potatoes, and Bev decided we needed something green so she added slaw.
I love pulled pork, Mojo Sauce is one of my favorite parts of a Cuban sandwich and I love my slow
cooker so when Claudia posted the recipe for Slow Cooker Mojo Pork on her
“What’s Cooking Italian” blog, I was all in.
Then I decided that with no gluten and having it cook while we do happy
hour, it would be perfect for Friday cards.
Bev ended up with an 8¾ lb. pork butt so I doubled the marinade
ingredients, I changed some of the ingredients a little, and made it as a
pulled vs. sliced pork dish but the original recipe plus Claudia’s pics can be found by
clicking on the above link.
Finally something besides food to post about.
For this second day of the rally (not much happened on day 1), a visit to the Pensacola Naval Air Station was planned including a tour of the Naval Air Museum and watching the Blue Angels practice but the whole thing fell through when the base was closed to visitors. So, for a fill in activity, we went on a two-hour dolphin cruise on Pensacola Bay.
Have you wondered why I'm including two dishes on most posts - even by doing this I already have posts lined up thru Jun 16. I could post more often but like the three day interval.
I’m getting toward the end of my series on scrambled eggs (2 more) using recipes from the “The Taste Of Home’s” 30 New Ways To Eat Scrambled Eggs and now is a good time for this one as we have some country ham on hand. Prosciutto is basically country ham (in Italian) that has been cured for a longer period (a year or so) than our normal country ham and it is normally sliced very thin. For this meal, I used the recipe for Prosciutto & Cheddar Breakfast Biscuits from Taste Of Home, as the previous dishes have been but I omitted the biscuits.
We recently attended a rally for our RV travel club (even though we stayed in a motel) in Pensacola, FL and a pot luck supper was on tap for the arrival day meal. Since we would be driving down in the car and arriving shortly before the meal, I planned our contribution to be something I could make at home and heat up after we got to the rally. The dish I chose was Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole from the “Mom On Time Out” blog and I followed the recipe as shown below.
This post was supposed to come out around Apr 25 but somehow, I totally forgot it - perhaps I was excited because Bev had just gotten home from St. Maarten.
I was going to take a short break from scrambles until I had a dozen eggs in a supermarket plastic bag that fell out of the car when I opened the door. I ended up with four undamaged, two slightly cracked, and six broken, so just enough for two scrambles and I picked recipes that included my avocados that needed to be eaten. The scrambles are still coming from “The Taste Of Home’s” 30 New Ways To Eat Scrambled Eggs. The first recipe is Salsa & Scrambled Egg Sandwiches and I adjusted it down for two servings and I added no salsa to the eggs fearing it would make them watery.
Boy, have we been hoo-dood into thinking we need to spend a lot of money on pans to make good meals at home. Many, many years ago, Bev & I were considering what pans to buy for the kitchen in our new home and we had the opportunity to attend a cooking demonstration put on by the restaurant chef where we were staying on vacation. After the demonstration we asked him what kind of pans he uses and his answer surprised me – “whatever the restaurant furnishes”.
This is a set of All-Clad and note the copper disk in the bottom to insure even heat distribution - $1299 on Amazon.
Our neighbor, Steve, got this shot of the Northern Lights last week.
I have always enjoyed potato skins and would have thought I'd made them before but if so, I can’t remember it and there is no post on my blog, so this may well be my maiden voyage. I’ve been wanting to make them for a while so rather than cook a meal for our Friday card night, I asked everyone to bring an appetizer and I made potato skins using the recipe for Baked Potato Skins from the “Small Town Woman” blog. I increased the amounts by 50% to get the recipe below but you can see the original plus pics by clicking on the link.
It’s been a long time since we’ve made this soup but while organizing the pantry recently, I discovered several cans of clams that had been on hand for awhile so I decided it was time to make it again. I had planned a different meal for this day as Bev’s birthday meal but when Eliza called to wish her Meme a happy birthday, she also invited herself down so I switched to the much easier chowder for the meal, plus it was a fifties overcast day so still pretty good for soup. This is the Ina Garten’s recipe and I followed the recipe for 6-8 servings. I sure prefer recipes that use measurable amounts (I used one onion, 7 celery stalks, and 5 carrots) plus I chopped my veggies smaller than she did on her video – larger makes for a better presentation but smaller is easier to eat.
We have had some really good scrambles from 30 New Ways To Eat Scrambled Eggs from "Taste Of Home" and the latest dish is simply called Avocado Scrambled Eggs and I adjusted the recipe down from four to two servings.
If you like fast food breakfast biscuits and don’t pass by the restaurants very often just buy a dozen of your favorite biscuits (Hardees, McDonalds, Bojangles, etc.), freeze them individually and store in a bag in the freezer. Then, when you need a biscuit sandwich fix you are ready as I was with this meal. I had ham, Swiss cheese, and egg on hand to make this one. I just nuked the biscuit a little to warm it then the cheese and ham then cooked the egg.
