Avery Island Deviled Shrimp
Rice
Thin Fresh Whole Green Beans, Steamed
Fresh Pineapple and Giant Red Raspberries
When I was in college I bought my first cookbook. It was a Betty Crocker picture cookbook, and one of the recipes was Avery Island Deviled Shrimp. I have not cooked every recipe in that cookbook, but I’m really glad I tried this one. The shrimp is lightly breaded and browned (part olive oil/part butter) while you make a sauce of onions and garlic sauteed in butter, consomme, steak sauce, mustard and lemon juice. The shrimp is served over a bed of rice, with the sauce ladled over the shrimp. It turns out this is one of my husband’s favorite meals. It seems it’s the sauce that does it for him, and we now make the sauce to serve on other meals. The fresh fruit was just the perfect ending to the meal.
Today was gorgeous! I spent the entire day at home in my quilt studio. The windows were washed yesterday and the view was of a perfect Fall day. I was working at the sewing machine, piecing blocks for a quilt top, mentally planning putting the gardens to bed in the next few weeks.
Dinner has put a nice cap to that day.

Well…not really. It just sounded like a good title. Frankie and I went to one of the classes offered by Sur La Table. This first class was on knife handling. Other than changing my grip on the knife, I have most of the technique down. I tend to put my index finger out over the tang of the knife as I cut. The instructor said that a pincher grip would be easier on my hand and arm.
It was fun to see how the chef handles basil leaves when making chiffonade. She rolls them up from left to right (or right to left….it doesn’t matter which direction) and then cuts narrow little slices crosswise to make thin ribbons. We used them in the bruschetta that the class ate at the end of the session.
The assistants brought us appetizer plates with three or four oven baked “French fries” and a dollop of aioli. Wowwwwwwwww, was that good, and what a simple appetizer to have ready when you plan to entertain. Cutting both potatoes and garlic were covered in the class. We practiced on potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic and basil last night. We had the start of a pretty good Minestrone, but almost everything was thrown out. Too bad they don’t save everything for a composting facility!
I have to admit that I am unable to work at that “Whack-whack-whack-whack-whack” speed that SOME people (rolling my eyes at Frankie) seem to enjoy. I value my fingers too much to mess around with a knife. Besides, it’s harder to control the size of the dice when you’re a speed demon, unless you have a lot of practice.
I bought some new cutting boards while I was there, and an inexpensive spring form pan. We both forgot the scrapers we wanted to get, so I may make another stop there tomorrow.
I can’t wait for the class on grilling in early August. I’m going to be sure to have my camera ready to go so that I can show you pictures of my oh-so studious sisters! *G*
It’s a LOT of fun to take classes with my sisters. I’m so glad that Frankie got us organized!

I can tell that spring needs to get here SOON! I’ve been searching magazines for new, tasty, healthy recipes to try, and I decided to make one from the most recent issue of “Real Simple.”
The ingredients are: sweet potatoes, beef chuck roast, whole peeled tomatoes, apricots, chickpeas, red onion, spinach, almonds, kosher salt, cayenne pepper, cumin, cinnamon, and ginger. Everything but the spinach, almonds and chick peas are cooked in a crock pot all day, and then those items are added at the last moment. What this amounts to is a Middle Eastern beef stew. It is served over couscous, and I chose to make a pan of cornbread to offer as a side dish.
Unfortunately, even though I’ve been married to him for eighteen years, I forgot that Dear Husband is a traditionalist. He was hoping for something more like plain old beef stew. He gave it a shot, ate the beef and sweet potatoes, and then got up to dump the rest off his plate.
(Sigh.)
Scratch that recipe from the books. For those of you who are more adventurous, I thought this was pretty tasty, but I’d cut back a little on the cayenne.

Fall does that. It brings out my interest in cooking. We are not big on grilling. It seems that we have not taken the time to get to the point where we have enough knowledge about grills to have them be user friendly. So, I’m always ready to leave the era of salads and hamburgers and get back to REAL FOOD! lol
Last night I made an Italian Sausage and Orzo soup that was to die for! You cook the sausage, crumbling it up into half-inch or smaller pieces. Remove the sausage from the pan and wilt carrots, onions, garlic, and celery, adding a tablespoon of olive oil if necessary. Add 28 ounces of diced tomatoes, six cups of low-sodium chicken broth and a quarter cup of fresh chopped Italian flat-leafed parsley, and simmer. At this point your kitchen should smell fabulous!
I went out to harvest basil and parsley from my herb garden for this soup, which may be part of the reason I enjoyed it so much. You add the sausage back into the broth, and season to taste with fresh ground pepper and sea salt. While the soup simmers, boil half a cup of orzo in a separate pan.
To serve, we put a little of the orzo into the bottom of a generous soup bowl, and then ladled soup over the orzo. I cut the basil into fine strips and sprinkled it over the soup just before serving. Dear Husband added fresh grated Parmesan and thin slices of three-cheese semolina bread to complete the meal. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, it smelled, and tasted, fantastic!
If my quilting bee wants to do a soup supper this coming February, I think this is one of the soups I’ll offer. My soup reputation will spread far and wide! *G*

Cop Car teased me for being a woman who roasts red peppers, but there’s a lot to be said about roasting your own peppers! It doesn’t take long to accomplish it, and the taste of the fresh peppers added to salad is amazing! I do occasionally use the commercially prepared peppers when I am pressed for time, but usually those go into soup where the appearance isn’t going to matter.
Dear Husband found a salad he loves that has romaine, roasted red peppers, chunks of tomatoes, diced feta cheese and cubes of crusty bread, tossed with a balsamic vinegar dressing. Today, at the Farmer’s Market, I bought locally grown ripe red tomatoes, orange tomatoes, tiny heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and miniature yellow pear tomatoes. I think the mix of tomato colors and textures, and sizes will make the salad more interesting. DH may opt for mozzarella cheese on his salad, but I like the salty nip of feta.
So, ya see, Cop Car, it’s WORTH roasting red peppers! *G*

I’m making a pot of minestrone in the middle of August. Why? Minestrone means comfort food to me. Besides, it’s a healthy meal that I can fix in a few minutes, that allows me to walk away and do something else while it finishes cooking.
Everyone has their own definition of “comfort food.” Usually it’s a food that we remember from our childhood, or a food that is usually excluded from today’s healthy diet. Minestrone doesn’t seem to fit into that definition, but while I was recuperating from childhood illnesses, my mother gave me tomato soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and ginger ale. I think that the idea of soup as a comfort meal began then. New England Clam Chowder, Golden Cheddar Chowder, Shrimp or Lobster Bisque, all speak of comfort to me. Luckily I like Manhattan Clam Chowder, Chili, Tortilla Soup, Bean Soup, Gumbo, and Cioppino, too, and some of those soups are lighter in calories than the cream-based soups.
I was talking with Elegante Mother’s caregiver at lunch, and described a family sandwich that my entire family ate as kids: peanut butter with sweet relish, grilled. We called it: peanut butter and piccalilli. I LOVE that sandwich. I try to keep it down to one a year, but it’s incredibly satisfying…finger-licking, even!
EM, given the chance to eat out, will ALWAYS go for Lobster. But, when it comes to home cooking, homemade macaroni and cheese does it for her. She doesn’t pig out, or overeat in the slightest, but she loves her macaroni and cheese. I can see it showing up on the menu next week.
What food comforts you? Is it a gallon of Rocky Road Ice Cream? A casserole with a rich sauce? (I could go for that….) Is it a complex meal, or one of those dinners Mom used to make with four ingredients?
All I can say, is, “Thank you, God, for comfort food!”

Spring has arrived. We’ve had our first potato salad for the season! I assume that potato salad is a warm weather dish because it’s served cold, and wouldn’t seem very comforting on a freezing, snowy night when the snow is reaching the window sills. We tend to eat hot German potato salad in the winter, and save the cold American potato salad for the Fourth of July.
I prefer potato salad made with yellow mustard. I add a little dried mustard, dill, salt and pepper, and a scant half teaspoon of white vinegar, to mayonnaise. I dice green onions, celery, boiled potatoes and hard boiled eggs, and blend them with the sauce. I tend to mix it by sight, rather than measuring amounts, so it’s never exactly the same. And I NEVER use Miracle Whip! NEVER!
I used to cook half a dozen eggs and perhaps 8 to 10 potatoes to make potato salad. I’ve discovered that three potatoes will give us enough salad to last three or four days. We simply don’t pack it away as we did when we were younger. That’s one of the reasons I like the mustard version. It packs a punch with flavor.
Yup, warm weather is just around the corner.

It was good, I tell you! The Boozey Beef turned out just fine. Cop Car, I was right to use that bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. It made a wonderful sauce.
I skipped one step that would have made a more complex tasting sauce. I was supposed to add half a cup of cognac, and then torch it to burn off the alcohol. I passed on it this time, but I’ll try it another, just to see what happens to that wonderful sauce!
I used the “steak cut” mushrooms, the ones you can get at the store that are thick cut, and they held up well to the heat of the stew. I think visually they balance better with the other ingredients than the thinner sliced mushrooms. Their texture is firmer, where the thin-sliced mushroom become too soft.
I think next time I might add the chunks of carrot later. This time around they were VERY soft. I’d like just a bit more “tooth” to their texture.
I learned one fun technique for thickening the sauce. The instructions called for three tablespoons of flour and two tablespoons of soft butter. You mix the two together to make a wet paste, and add it to the liquid in the pot. It almost instantly thickened the sauce without any stray bits of flour floating on the top. It’s the same concept as making a kettle gravy with water and flour, but by coating the flour with butter, it’s absorbed more evenly, and the butter adds a sheen to the sauce.
In all, it was well worth my time to play in the kitchen with this recipe. I added egg noodles, bread, coleslaw and strawberries to round out the meal. As I said…..Yummmmmm!!

When I was a kid, my mother occasionally made what she affectionately called “Boozy Beef.” It is basically a beef stew made with red wine, and is more famously known as “Beef Bourguignon.”
The recipe is simple. I had it in mind as I went to the grocery store, but, alas, it’s been easily 20 years since I made it last, and I forgot that I would need pearl onions. It’s not really a problem. My family will adjust to yellow onions, if necessary.
I tried to find a bottle of Burgundy. My grocery store has a pretty amazing wine section, and I browsed through it, looking for a Burgundy. Unfortunately, it seems that Burgundy has lost its cache. Not a bottle was to be found.
I came home to look at Elegante Mother’s recipe, and it actually says “red wine.”
I surfed on-line to see what other kind of wine might be used, and found chianti, Côtes du Rhône, Bordeaux, zinfandel, or Pinot Noir were all suggested. I have a Cabernet Sauvigon that I hope will work.
So, it’s French peasant food, elevated to French cuisine, for dinner tomorrow.
If you’re interested in a simple, elegant, hearty beef stew, here’s a link to what looks to be a great recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_25938,00.html

Actually, it’s an embarrassment of veggies. We’re having flank steak for dinner tonight. Dear Husband broils a great flank steak. The three of us (including Elegante Mother) enjoy our beef medium rare. DH sprinkles it with garlic salt, lemon pepper and broiled steak seasoning before he broils it, and it’s a perennial favorite.
Usually when we have flank steak, we also have baked potatoes, sautéed mushrooms and a big salad. This evening I decided I wanted to try my hand at a coleslaw made with purple and green cabbage, and bits of julienned carrots. I discovered right away that my mandolin was not going to do a good job with the cabbage, so I shifted over to a Wusthoff wide-bladed knife, and things went better. I washed baking potatoes, gave them a light coating of Crisco and sprinkled them with kosher salt. I use aluminum baking stakes to make sure the potatoes are cooked all the way through.
Dear Husband prepared asparagus for roasting. I started ‘shrooms sautéing, and then I reached for a head of cauliflower. I steamed half a head of cauliflower, and then made a cup of cheese sauce for those who might want it.
Whew……it’s made my fingers tired to write all this. Dear Husband has broiled the steak and it’s time for dinner. By the way….there’s also slices of three cheese semolina bread…..
Just WHO did I think I was cooking for!!!??? I have enough food here for an army. I’m not sure what made me think we needed all this. I’m going to try a taste of everything, and try very hard not to overdo.
I guess it’s a sign of the season that veggies were calling to me. Maybe tonight I’ll spend a little time with the seed catalogs! *S*