Bloggers Get Together

Thanks Chris for the great graphic.

Back in late February, we posted regarding a blogger get together and several fellow bloggers have expressed interest. We have now selected June 5 as the date and are just letting you know so you can pencil it on your calendar. We'll post again in late April with the details and ask for RSVP's.

Here is the original message in case you missed it:
"Katherine from Smoky Mountain Cafe, Chris from Nibble Me This, and I, would like to host a little get together for the local bloggers – you’re considered local if you’re willing to make the drive. We’re thinking in terms of a Saturday afternoon sometime from mid May through mid June at Larry’s place near Greenback Tn. There are many details to work out, but at this point, we’re just trying to determine interest level and find a good date. We’re not looking for a firm commitment now, but if you think you would be interested in participating, please email one of us with the Saturdays beginning with May 15 and ending with June 19 for which you are NOT, repeat NOT, able to come. We can then see which dates can accommodate the most people. We’d like to hear back from you by March 10."

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Our Belated St Paddy’s Meal

The women got back from the beach Wednesday all tanned and relaxed, and I’d planned to have a traditional Irish meal on Thursday, but for a variety of reasons, we didn’t get to it until Saturday. The menu was:

Homemade corned beef cooked with carrots
Colcannon using the recipe from A Spoon Full Of Thyme
Irish soda bread using a recipe from The Society For The Preservation Of Irish Soda Bread.

For the corned beef, we just covered it in water, added some additional spices, and cooked it in the crockpot all day, adding the carrots mid afternoon. We ended up getting it a little over done but it was still delicious. Bev always likes her roast type meat falling apart tender so it was perfect for her.

I just followed Kate’s recipe for the colcannon. The local Irish TV chef put some kale in his, which made it much greener. I would have done likewise had I had some. We’ve eaten boiled potatoes and cabbage over the years, but the addition of the bacon, garlic and onions gave this a flavor I really like and we have plenty of leftovers.

Our plan was to have traditional Irish soda bread, but Bev had a stick of butter laying out to soften for the mashed potatoes, but she put it in the bread by mistake. The bread did not get as airy as we expected and I assume it was the butter – kinda like a cross between bread and a heavy biscuit. So if you're considering making this bread and wondering how it would be with a stick of butter added to it - I can say don't do that :). While it was pretty dense, I liked the flavor and since it’s so easy to make, we’ll have to try it again soon. Bev said the flavor reminded her of cornbread.


Her's a shot of my plate and it was plenty good.


Have a great day.

Larry

Not Quite Bangers And Mash

Even though we planned to have our St. Patricks Day meal on Thursday, so the beach goers could participate, I intended to cook an Irish meal on Wednesday as well - my plan was for bangers and mash. However, I was pretty well cooked out and had the kitchen in decent shape, so I didn’t want to do many dishes – basically, I didn’t want to do the mashed potatoes. I had bought brats for the sausage – not a lot of choices here in small town East Tennessee – so I decided to proceed with them, but rather than mashed potatoes, I baked them. Another goal was to have no leftovers, except perhaps a brat.

I cooked the brats using a pretty traditional beer and onion method link and sided it with the baked potatoes and peas and carrots – they just got S&P and a knob of butter. I’ll call it bangers and bake and for my potato, I mashed it a little, added a knob of butter and some of the cooked onions. While I have two sausages for the pic, I could only eat one of them.


The local Irish TV cook uses the knob of butter term and I think I like it. I wish we used butter by the knob rather than tablespoon or stick here in the USA – of course it would wreck many recipes, as all knobs are not created equal :).

While it wasn't exactly bangers and mash, the MIL and I both thought it went down real easy.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

The Final Mushroom Meal

Well, I did it – consumed the whole pound of sliced mushrooms in less than a week. In hindsight, I could have eaten them faster by having more salads and including them, but I’ve enjoyed how I used them. Here's a reminder of meal 1.



Reminder of meal 2.


Reminder of meal 3.



For the final meal, you guessed it, breakfast. I had two small pieces of chicken fried pork tenderloin left from dinner, some mushrooms and the recent discovery that I like gravy on eggs – I may like gravy on everything now that I ponder it. I’m thinking my daughter, Wende, who doesn’t even like gravy may belong to the mailman :).

So for this meal, I nuked the tenderloins for 30 seconds to warm them inside a little, them put them in the toaster over at 350* to continue heating and re-crisp the coating. Then, I cut the mushrooms slices in half and sautéed them in enough olive oil to have fat for the gravy. When they were about done, I sprinkled in about ¾ tbsp of flour and stirred & cooked for a couple of minutes. I slowly stirred in about a cup of milk, added a little Kitchen Bouquet for color, and cooked to the thickness I wanted. (I was proud of my anal self – didn’t measure anything).

When the gravy was about done, I scrambled the eggs to a fluffy, moist consistency, and plated as shown below.


I loved it and look forward to the next time I have to use up mushrooms.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Pork Tenderloin Parmesan

For those of you who flogged me unmercibly the other day :), I fixed a SALAD with this meal and it was delicious - the usual stuff plus green and black olives, anchovies and Italian dressing. Sorry it’s a little blurry.


Just before I began cooking the meal, the MIL suggested we go out for dinner, and she’d buy, to which I said, I’d rather cook at home unless she didn’t like my cooking. She was trying to give me a break – so nice of her – but admitted she’d really rather stay home. I think I made her glad we stayed home and I know I sure was.

When you buy pork tenderloin, it generally comes in a 2-pack. We had the first one the other night with mushroom gravy, and ate the second one breaded and fried tonight. I guess I could call it chicken fried, but since it’s topped with cheese and served with pasta, it will have to be pork tenderloin parmesan.

I cut it into ½” slices and pounded it to about 1/8” pieces, then, just used the basics to cook it - flour seasoned with Italian spices, egg wash, flour again, then fried in olive oil. After flipping, I added a slice of white cheese (farmers was all I had but it worked fine).

For a side, besides the SALAD, I cooked up the rest of the pound of linguini from the other night and used jarred sauce. I didn’t have enough of the primary sauce so I added some pizza sauce that I had on hand and a little cream. I’d seen the cream thing done several times on TV lately and it looked great. I then mixed all of the sauce with the pasta, plated it up, added a little grated parmesan and called it a meal.


It was outstanding, if I do say so myself, and I was pleased at being able to kind of wing it – not a single recipe for the whole meal. The pork was crispy, tender and still a little juicy and the marinara was deliciously creamy. The picture doesn’t do it justice – maybe I should have put the pasta on top.

Have a great day and thanks for reading.

Larry

Smoked Paprika Potatoes

Have I told you, I like breakfast food, well I do, and for any meal. The other day we had baked potatoes for dinner and I baked a few extras to have as home fries. As it happened, the very next day Bobby Flay cooked smoky home fries as part of an Argentinean meal, and, since I had all of the ingredients, I decided to try them. My plan was to have them for breakfast, but I couldn’t get myself motivated to cook more than a piece of cheese toast, so Jo and I had them for lunch.

I followed the basic recipe, except I had some sweet peppers in the frig that needed to be used and, remember the mushrooms from the last two posts – still had some. I did use the garlic, parsley and smoked paprika per the recipe (I may use a little less paprika next time). I added the peppers, onion, and mushrooms to a skillet with some olive oil, covered with a lid and let them sweat until softened. I then added the garlic, parsley and potatoes and cooked uncovered until the taters were warmed through. I only had two garlic cloves, so I used some garlic salt in addition to S&P.


I sided Jo’s (the MIL) with some warmed up pork tenderloin from last nights dinner and here’s my plate before and after the topping – you knew I had to top this with a couple of sunny side up.



Since these were Latino potatoes and I had an avocado in the frig that needed to be eaten, I had half of it as well. I just sliced it and added a little salt as I’d seen my daughter-in-law do and I guess I need some advice from you westerners. After eating it this way, I can see why guacamole was invented, as it didn’t have much flavor, especially along side the potatoes. I love guacamole and we eat it often, but I could easily go the rest of my life without eating another plain avocado – so all suggestions welcomed.

I’m doing well on the mushrooms and should polish them off with one more meal. I had enough potato leftovers from lunch for one more meal, hum, what could I possibly do with them, hum.

Have a great St Patrick's Day

Larry

Mushroom Pork Tenderloin

As I mentioned in the mushroom omelet post, I have shrooms that need to be used and this is meal two. I went on line and found this recipe that sounded good, was easy, and met the two main criteria of containing mushrooms and pork tenderloin. I followed the recipe as written, except I doubled the mushroom and gravy amounts so I’d be sure to have enough for the noodles.

Browning in butter and I added a little olive oil.


The gravy's done.


I had planned to side it with a salad and egg noodles, but decided the salad would be too much and I had no egg noodles, but fettuccini worked fine. My plate pre gravy.


And post gravy.


I thought it was good but think it needed a little more flavor - perhaps some additional herbage would have moved it up a notch or two.

Have a great day.

Larry