We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and we had a nice, albeit warm, one that required opening up the house to avoid using the AC.
I love, and have made, smoked prime rib for Christmas dinner
several times but Bev does not like all of the fat in the ribeye so an idea hit
me. Her favorite beef cut is tenderloin
so I decided to try smoking a whole tenderloin roast for this year’s Christmas
meal.
Have A Very Merry Christmas
I’d like to dream of a White Christmas and a toasty fire but it’s predicted to be 70F here.
I’ve ordered carnitas in a restaurant a couple of times and was always disappointed with the dry overcooked meat so I’ve not made them at home. But when daughter, Wende, advised her great success making then, I had to give them a try and used the same recipe that she did. The recipe for Reverse Carnita’s comes from famous chef Rick Bayless – not sure why they all called Reverse Carnitas but I followed the recipe as written using all of the optional flavorings.
While I’ve previously used a couple of their recipes, I recently added “Serious Eats” as one of my regular blog reads and I’ve been learning a lot from the site such how to make the perfect beef stew. I normally would not make another beef stew blog post if it were not for what I learned from this one. The recipe along with a lot of how-to’s came from their All-American Beef Stew post and I’ll let you visit the site for the details but here are their 13 rules: Select your meat wisely, Sear your beef before cubing, Go easy on the flour, Separate your vegetables, Booze makes it better, Use chicken stock, not beef, Break out the umami bombs, Don’t waste flavor, Powdered gelatin FTW, Yukon golds make for cleaner stew, Use the oven, not the stove, Don’t overcook it, Don’t eat it today, eat it tomorrow, it doesn’t matter.
Cindy had a birthday while Bev was in Florida so we finally were able to take her out to lunch this day and as a seafood lover, we took her to Chesapeake’s Seafood House in West Knoxville. They are one of the Copper Cellar Family of Restaurants, which is a local chain that, in addition to Chesapeake’s, includes Calhoun’s, Copper Cellar, Cappuccino’s, Cherokee Grill, Corner 16, and Smoky Mountain Brewery with locations around the Knoxville area and in Gatlinburg.
I had purchased a whole pork loin and cut it into 6-7 inch roasts with the idea of using some of it for schnitzel-like dishes and I’d saved Pam’s recipe for Crispy Pork Medallions on her “For The Love Of Cooking” blog, which I had planned to use as written. But then I decided to use her recipe but substitute the loin cutlets for the tenderloin medallions.
For the past two years, Eliza has taken her family on the Christmas Lantern Express and this year we went along. The ride is put on by the Three Rivers Rambler- “The Three Rivers Rambler is an excursion train in Knoxville, Tennessee along the Tennessee River. The train is operated by the Knoxville and Holston River Railroad, a subsidiary of Gulf and Ohio Railways.”
After trying Pacific Cod a couple of times and not caring for the chewiness of it, I decided to do something different with my three remaining pieces and make them into fish cakes. I used a recipe that I got from Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives that was courtesy of a restaurant and since it was, I had to reduce it by a factor of four to get the one below.
Seafood Bisque
After eating the cioppino for Thanksgiving, there were five cups of super tasty, somewhat chunky broth remaining. As you likely know, I’m more of a recipe follower than a real cook, but I decided to give real cheffing a try and turn the cioppino leftovers into a seafood bisque. Per the web, “bisque is a smooth, creamy, highly seasoned soup of French origin, classically based on a strained broth of crustaceans.”
I HOPE YOU HAD A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS
As I continue to work through our supply of frozen fish while Bev is gone, we had two remaining pieces of Halibut and we opted to cook them using the recipe for Halibut In Prosciutto Herb Cream Sauce from the “La Bella Vita” blog. The two pieces of fish were very different which is one of the reasons I cancelled my subscription from Wild Alaska Seafood Co. as I believed I was just getting the leftovers for a very high price.
Bev and Pat (SIL) are off to Marco Island, FL for their annual three week visit and since others were visiting with them each week, Cindy and I stayed home to mind the farm and look after the dogs – I’m very happy I don’t have to tend the four dogs by myself especially since Cindy is a pro (she pet sits for a living). Pat eats very little fin fish and while Bev eats other seafood, she doesn’t eat many fin fish either so this provides an opportunity for Cindy and I to eat as much as we want.
Our first fish meal was the day after Bev and Pat left and it used a simple puttanesca sauce that we have made a few times before and it made good use of the Pacific Cod that we had in the freezer. Cindy cooked and she sided the fish with baked acorn squash. Both dishes were very good and it was a healthy me to boot.
With Bev in Florida, Cindy and me are trying to have leftover soup in the fridge for ready lunches and since the last of our vegetable soup is now gone it was time for another soup. When Cindy made the Creamy Chicken Stew a short while ago, I posted that the broth would be our go-to for future chicken broth dishes and this chicken noodle soup is the first one. The following recipe is a combination of the chicken stew and my dad’s chicken noodle soup which are similar except for chicken preparation.
Our neighbors house is at the top of a hill and even though it's only 110 feet above our place I like to call it Mount Lafon and her is a shot of the Smokies from there in the early morning.
Cindy likes to take her turn cooking suppers and for this meal she chose chicken stew then kicked it up by adding drop dumplings to it. As it turned out, we had a recent recipe for Creamy Chicken Stew from Cathy on her “Noble Pig” blog and Cindy found the recipe for Fluffy Dumplings on the “Just A Pinch” blog. Unfortunately she was too busy cooking to take many pics but this is my bowl.
Bev had been wanting to go to Hot Rods and we had an errand to run in town so it made sense to combine the trips. I borrowed these pics of the diner from the web.
Since most of the trees around here are oak, hickory, and poplar, we don't get much bright color but our burning bushes and providing us with some late fall beauty.
When I was growing up, my mom would get at least three meals from a Sunday pot roast and I’m having some similar results with my brisket. You’ve seen my first two brisket meals (brisket and burnt ends), then my neighbors and Eliza’s dad each got a meals worth of it and then I got a couple more final meals. Following the burnt ends and burnt ends hash, we had brisket sandwiches where the sliced brisket was reheated in the broth then I had mine open faced on a burger bun with each half topped with broth, then a slice of smoked gouda, the brisket, more broth, and pickled red onions - it was delicious.
We had a couple of big basil plants at the end of the season so before they got frost bit, we opted to turn them into pesto just as we did last year. After stripping the leaves from the plants, I packed them into large measuring cups and ended up with 12 cups. Then I adjusted Ina Garten’s recipe for the other ingredients to match them.
One of the things I was looking forward to from the brisket cook was making burnt ends for the first time. Normally they are made as soon as the brisket is done cooking but since that happened at 7:30pm, I was not inclined to make them for a 11pm meal, so I waited until the next day.
I’d had a Choice Angus brisket in the fridge for a little while and have been looking forward to cooking it on my nearly year-old RecTec Smoker and it was now time. At 18 pounds, this thing must have come from an elephant steer and it is the biggest one I’ve ever cooked. I used Chris Lilly’s recipe from the Kingsford University as found on the “Grill Girl” blog. I followed the ingredients list but I amended the directions quite a bit - the original recipe can be by clicking on the above link.
Ming Tree
Our Kia was due for it's annual service so we drove both cars to town, dropped off the Kia at the dealership, and went to lunch at the Ming Tree Chinese Restaurant in Alcoa.
When Bev came home from Sam’s Club recently with a corned beef brisket flat, I went to my saved recipes to see if I could find something different to do with it and I discovered the recipe for Savory Reuben Bake on the “Mia Recipes” blog. I cooked the corned beef in a crockpot with potatoes and carrots the previous day then used the remaining for the Savory Reuben Bake.
When I saw this recipe for Creamy Chicken Fajita Pasta on Chef Dennis’ “Ask Chef Dennis” blog, I thought it would work well for our Friday get together so on the menu it went. To increase the number of servings, I increased the ingredients by 50% except for the pasta amount but the original recipe along with excellent how-to pics can be found by clicking on the link. Dennis’ son, Chef Ryan Littley, says “This creamy chicken fajita pasta brings together juicy chicken, sizzling peppers, and bold Tex-Mex flavors in one easy skillet dinner. Ready in about 35 minutes, it's a family favorite that's as quick as it is delicious.”
I’ve mentioned this in previous post but due to scheduling issues, it took nine months for me to give good friend, Kathy, her Christmas present of five free lunches but we final made it to the last one – I hope to do better next year. At the suggestion of neighbor, Steve, I decided to make this outing more special than just driving to a local restaurant, so we picked the date and rode the pontoon boat down the lake to the Tellico Village Yacht Club. Tellico Village is a large 5000 acre retirement community stretching several miles along the west side of Tellico Lake.
SIL, Pat also joined us for our lunch excursion and here we
are starting out of our cove.
I had been ordering fish from two different Alaskan seafood stores to see which I preferred and one of them kept sending cubed pollock which I had little use for (I would have liked filets but assume they all went to Long John Silvers and these were the leftovers) so I went with the other supplier, but I still had the pollock in the freezer.
My desire to cook seems to be waning and both of us have long since pasted the desire to clean up the kitchen so we have decided to eat more meals out and we started with a Sunday visit to the Dockside Grill at Tellico Marina which is less than a 10 minute drive from home. After a 10am BLT for breakfast, we made it to the restaurant a little before 3pm to find just a small crowd, which was perfect. This is the view of the main dining area and the harbor from our table with lots of boats going in and out to just look around.
I had some basil pesto in the freezer and leftover chicken in the fridge and decided Kevin’s recipe for Basil Pesto Chicken Pasta from his “Closet Cooking” blog would work well for them. I made several changes to the recipe but the original can be found by clicking on the link.
I bought a whole pork loin on sale recently and couldn’t resist using part of it to make Country Fried Pork Loin With Bacon Gravy using the recipe from the “Recipe BY Me” blog. I changed the cooking method a lot a shown in the recipe below.
I saw this recipe for Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes on Kevin’s “Closet Cooking” blog and decided it would work well for our Friday get-together. I especially like that it is a one pan meal and know that I always like Kevin’s recipes. Since the recipe only made four servings, I tripled it to get the recipe below.
If you have been reading this blog much at all, you know that we are not “Spring Chickens” here in this family so I’ll let you do the ciphering for yourself and not disclose any numbers but SIL, Pat W, just had a very major milestone birthday (which I’ll hopefully be here to have next year). Since we didn’t want to go out for lunch on the crowded Labor Day (her actual birthday), we waited until this day to go to her requested restaurant for lunch – Tapoco Lodge. Since I posted about the lodge a few years ago , I won’t do that again and will confine this post to this visit. Our neighbors Pat L and Steve joined Pat W, Bev, and I for the always adventurous drive up the 11 miles and 318 curves of The Dragon (US-129).
Our ole friend, Kathy, has long enjoyed exchanging Christmas gifts with us and not knowing what to get her and not being a shopper, but knowing she likes to eat out, I came up with a solution. For the past two years, I have been giving her five free lunches at the restaurants of her choice, which she almost never wants to pick, and I get a twofer as I’ve committed to Bev to take her out more often as well. So, for this meal, we went to Windy City Grille where Kathy and I have both been but Bev had not. For a variety of reasons we have been having trouble getting together with Kathy this year and I believe this was only lunch number three of five clear up here in late August.
Over the years, I’ve gone on several campaigns to clean out our longer term freezer but I’ve never been as successful as this time and it’s partly due to a new philosophy for freezer use. This is about as empty as it will get as all of the old items are now out and I was amazed at the stuff that I discovered over the last few months - it’s organized by shelf such as pork and chicken on a shelf or beef and precooked items on a shelf.
These next two pics are from the web but they look just like Teddy Bear & Bodie's normal look.
On Friday Morning we again ate breakfast in the main dining room as our final meal at the Greenbrier and again we ordered from the menu (link above). This is a shot about 2/3 of the room, the drapes and a chandelier.
Since we are now harvesting plenty of cherry tomatoes, I’m on the lookout for ways to use them and this recipe for Marinated Tomatoes from the Two Peas And Their Pod blog seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Since Cindy just got home from her knee replacement surgery, I thought I would treat her to salmon as she is a fish lover and I served the marinated tomatoes as bruschetta.
On Thursday, my back was hurting me bad (from the bed I think) so I skipped breakfast, the croquet game, and exterior history tour done by the others. Here are some pics from Bev and Steve.
