Once again this year, I gave our friend, Kathy, some free lunches as her Christmas present and this was our first chance to do one. We opted to go to the Patio Italian Restaurant in Madisonville, Tn and we always try to go when it won’t be crowded. The last time in Feb 2024, we went around 11:30am and discovered that many others had the same crowd-beating idea so we had to wait for a table but this time we got there about 1:15pm and had our choice of many empty tables.
If you like to cook, travel, BBQ, philosophize, or seriously lay around, then stop by and visit awhile.
Sunday, February 9, 2025
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Jumbo Shells Stuffed With Lemon Ricotta Filling
We’ve had a box of jumbo pasta shells for I don’t know how long and I’ve looked at many recipes to use them. Then along came the recipe for Easy Lemon Ricotta Stuffed Shells With Marinara Sauce from Velva on her “Evening With A Sandwich” blog and I decided it would be perfect for Friday now that buddy Joe has found he can eat gluten. I followed her recipe except for the hot honey and I made a couple of minor changes.
Monday, February 3, 2025
Sicilian-Style Swordfish For Supper And Breakfast
I posted about this dish four years ago and had it not been for a different cooking method, I wouldn’t have posted this time. We remodeled our kitchen close to 20 years ago and we put in a new technology microwave called a GE Monogram with Advantium Technology and I’ve always liked it even though we didn’t maximize it’s potential. So, when it came time for a new one, we again went with the GE Monogram except now it’s called a 5 in 1 oven and our goal is to make more use of the oven and not use it only as a microwave.
Friday, January 31, 2025
Machaca con Huevo
When I saw this recipe for Machaca Con Huevo (English: shredded beef with eggs) on “the Chef Mimi Blog,” I saw it as something different I could try for breakfast. Chef Mimi used some shredded beef from Amazon but I decided to see if I could make it with locally purchased beef jerky to see how it worked but I could not find any unflavored jerky so I decided the peppered beef might work. I just shredded it in the food processor until I had one cup.
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Delicious Steak Hash From Leftovers
We started MLK day with a temperature of 12F, which is cold for here, so I built a fire and puttered around doing odd jobs and watching recorded shows on TV (mostly DDD) as there was nothing on regular TV that I was interested in watching. But I had a plan for breakfast.
We had some leftover filet and ribeye steak from a recent supper meal and I did an online search for ways to use leftover steak and came across the recipe for Steak And Eggs Hash on the “Heavenly Home Cooking” blog and quickly decided hash was my best option for the meat.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
Sorta Chicken Cordon Bleu On The Grill Then Chicken Cordon Bleu Soup
We still had ham left from Christmas and some chicken breasts in the fridge that I decided to marry and Chicken Cordon Bleu came to mind but I didn’t want to make the traditional rolled and breaded version. I wanted to grill the chicken and not roll it up and Bev is not a fan of Swiss cheese so my dish became something very different but still using Chicken Cordon Bleu as the inspiration. I looked around the web for recipes and settled on the recipe for Chicken Cordon Bleu from Nagi on her “Recipe Tin Eats” blog to use as a guide. I used her recipe for the sauce but my own technique for the chicken.
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Chicken Stuffed Peppers And Cindy
Cindy has gone to California for a couple of weeks to visit a new great grandson and his big sister.
and before leaving, she left us with three nice sweet peppers.
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Misc. Breakfast Meals From Holiday Leftovers
Cindy brought me the leftovers from her New Years Day breakfast trip to First Watch so I could add an egg to them. The restaurant meal was an Italian Hash Brown Skillet and it looked tasty.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Home Grown (Restaurant), Bodie, And Snow
When Madison (granddaughter) lived with us the first time, she was in 8th grade and, even though we had two dogs, we decided to get her a dog of her own. After some looking around we ended up with a cute little Maltese puppy that Madison named Bodie and we all grew to love him so we were disappointed when she moved back home and opted to take Bodie with her – but of course we understood.
When Madison went off to college, Bodie ended up with Rhett
and Beth, which is the current situation but since they both retired in
October, they have been traveling extensively and Bodie ends up being boarded a
lot. Since they plan on more traveling,
we all thought it would be best for Bodie if he stayed with us for a while,
which of course we will also like.
To get him we each made the approximately three-hour drive
to Asheville, NC and met for lunch at an interesting little place called HomeGrown which is a converted old house. I borrowed some of the pics from the web.
Monday, January 13, 2025
Smoked Pork Chops With Sauerkraut, Bacon, Apples and Onions And First Fire
When Karen posted this recipe for Smoked Pork Chops With Sauerkraut, Bacon, Apples and Onions on her “Backroads Journal” blog, I knew I wanted to make it. We like kraut and pork anyway, but Karen’s treatment of the kraut especially appealed to me. I made it per the recipe except for mistakes.
Friday, January 10, 2025
4-Ingredient Spinach and White Bean Soup and Eggnog Taste Test
Bev had saved this recipe for 4-Ingredient Spinach and White Bean Soup from “Simply Recipes” and we decided to give it a try one day when we wanted a quick meal. I wasn’t optimistic that it would be blog worthy so I took no pics of it - this one is from their site and ours looked just like it. I followed the ingredients list but changed the instructions so as not to have to scoop out half the soup.
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Hoppin’ John’s And Spinach Artichoke Dip For New Year’s Day
Tradition has it here in the South that black-eyed peas should be eaten on New Year’s Day for good luck in the coming year. It’s hard to know if it really helps but we eat them and seem to enjoy good luck and no since tempting fate so we had them again this year. It’s been 13 years since we used this recipe so I decided a redo was in order but I made several changes to the recipe as shown with the strike thru's. Also, I tried to add as little heat as possible for Bev and Cindy although the Kielbasa had some.
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Eliza Christmas, Neighborhood Ham And Bean Soup
Eliza and family didn’t make it down until Saturday for us to celebrate Christmas with her and for a meal on a rainy day we opted for a soup to use more of the leftover ham from Christmas dinner. After looking around the web, I settled on the recipe for Neighborhood Ham And Bean Soup from Food.com. But before we get to the meal lets have a look at Eliza having her second Christmas with Bev’s help. As a seven year old, she walked in the door, gave me a hug, said Merry Christmas then asked "do you have presents for me." 😊
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Christmas Leftovers – Hot Turkey Sandwich And Cheesy Ham & Asparagus Bake
Now that we have made it thru the Christmas meal, we have plenty of leftovers to use up up as you will see on my next couple of posts.
Since I didn’t get to eat as much gravy on Christmas Day as I would have liked, the next evening I made an open-faced hot turkey sandwich. I added some gravy and sliced turkey to a bowl and nuked it then built the sandwich as follows: slice of homemade bread, turkey, gravy, and chopped bacon. It was delicious.