Category — Recipes

For Sunday appetizers, Dave wanted to serve shrimp cocktails. He had the shrimp and assumed that I’d have cocktail sauce among the dozens upon dozens of bottles and jars of condiments, olives, pickles, sauces, and relishes I have in that fridge!

He was wrong. I told him he could easily make his own cocktail sauce, just go online and find a recipe.

He did, and then he zipped it up and called it his own!

The secret ingredient? Heinz chili sauce. Instead of all ketchup, like you’ll find in most cocktail sauce recipes, it was an equal combination of each.

Attaboy! I’ve trained my family well.

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This recipe combines parts of two recipes already posted here; the mac & cheese part is of this recipe. Plus roasted cauliflower from this recipe, which I posted nearly three years ago.

I’ve made a few tweaks to the original recipes and combined them.

One problem, I did not read my recipe and made the mac & cheese pictured below with a full pound of macaroni instead of the 8 ounces called for.  It was still delicious in flavor, just dry instead of creamy, as it should be.

If you don’t make the same mistake, your family will love this version of good old mac & cheese!

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If you love jalapeño poppers. And who doesn’t?

And if you love soup … I can’t imagine not loving soup …

Then you’ll love this jalapeño popper soup!

It has everything there is to love about poppers; bacon, cream cheese and, of course, jalapeño.

I have a jalapeño bush and I like to let my peppers turn red before picking. You may use green or red peppers for this and any recipe calling for jalapeño peppers.

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Cooking teacher extraordinaire, Joanne Weir, is teaching classes at Les Gourmettes this week.

One of her recipes really spoke to me.

Now, we’ve all had hummus with chips. And we’ve all enjoyed hummus with crudités.  But none of that compares to Joanne’s hummus with fresh vegetable chips. It is outstanding!

The vegetable chips are crispy and crunchy like a tortilla or pita chips and they are healthy like crudités.  Oh right, because they ARE crudités, just cut and treated a little “out of the box.”

An added bonus – it is a gorgeous presentation!

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This soup is a lifesaver. It has single-handily helped ease the pain from my head cold!

The recipe comes from Barbara Fenzl’s Les Gourmettes cooking class. I enjoyed it after the class on Wednesday night and then again for breakfast yesterday morning. I also brought home some leftover asparagus, so I chopped that up and added it to the soup. Soup may not be your typical breakfast, but it works for me!

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I may have mentioned once or twice before that Connor does not like berries. Not raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, or blackberries. He won’t eat berries or anything berry flavored.  It blows my mind!

To add insult to injury, Dave doesn’t like citrus! He won’t eat an orange, a grapefruit or even the sweet candy-like clementines. The saving grace is that he will eat foods and dishes with citrus in them.

I know, they are strange men!

For Sunday supper, I made pork chops with strawberry salsa. Being the thoughtful mom that I am, taking Connor’s tastes into account, I also made chimichurri sauce to accompany the chops.

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Yesterday, I came home after a morning at Sweet Salvage and asked Connor what he wanted for dinner. It was his only night off this week, so he could pick whatever he wanted. He didn’t know but told me he’d think about it while I went off to a lunch appointment.

I had lunch with Marissa’s future mother-in-law, Amy, to go over some wedding details.

After lunch, I sent Connor a text, “Any dinner thoughts yet?”

He replied, “Roast pheasant with buffalo sausage and sparkling cider sauerkraut.”

I said, “So helpful.”

He sent back a text, “Was it not specific enough?”

I thought, “He’s egging me on” … so I said, “Sure sounds good.”

I headed towards the grocery store, fully intent on just picking up some tortillas and making chicken enchiladas. I mean, if he wasn’t going to say what he wanted, I certainly wasn’t going to ask again.

A few minutes later, I get another text, this time with the website for his pheasant recipe!

OK, I’ll take the bait. I sent back a text, “Any idea where I can get pheasant and buffalo sausage, Mr. Smarty Pants?”

His reply, “Costco?”

“Nope!”

As I drove, I thought, “What the heck! I’m going to take his dare and make a version of his darn recipe.”

I picked up Cornish game hens in place of the pheasant…

…and hot Italian sausage in place of buffalo sausage.

I checked out the recipe and it called for 6 pounds of prepared sauerkraut. Six pounds! A one-pound package costs $3.49, I’m not about to spend $21 on sauerkraut! So, I bought just one package. I mean, I was going to have to alter this silly recipe drastically anyhow.

Turns out Connor went on Google and typed in “What should I make for dinner?”  A few sites came up and from that he picked out-

Roast Pheasants with Buffalo Sausages and Sparkling Cider Sauerkraut

This recipe calls for juniper berries. I used them since I have them on hand, but if you don’t – there is no reason to go buy a jar – they honestly don’t add much flavor at all.

Here is my recipe for…

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For Valentine’s dinner, Dave requested a version of these potatoes, which he had seen in the food section of the Arizona Republic.

The original recipe did not call for the half-and-half or thyme, but I felt it needed both for extra creaminess and flavor.

They were divine!

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Dave’s brother, Roger, has been visiting all week and was here on Valentine’s Day.

Roger’s specialty is grilled bacon-wrapped beef tenderloin. Dave’s specialty is perfect garlic bread.

Roger also wanted to grill salmon, so I came up with this spice rub. The potato recipe will be shared in tomorrow’s post.

Fennel-Orange Spice Rub for Salmon

• 1 tablespoon fennel seed
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• Zest from 1 orange

• Salmon
• Olive oil
• Red wine vinegar

Place the fennel seeds, salt, and peppercorns in a spice grinder and grind.

Stir in the smoked paprika and orange zest.

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Today is the last day of “Cocktails & Cupcakes” bridal shower details and recipes.

What better note to end a week on than cocktails!?!

We’ll start with the recipes and end with a fun decor item that the mother of the bride, Laura, her sister, Mary, and I created.

These following two cocktails come from The Bar Book Elements of Cocktail Techniques by Jeffery Morgenthaler with Martha Holmberg. Martha taught a modern sauces class at Les Gourmettes last month and I was the happy recipient of this bar book.

Tom Collins

• 2 ounces (1/4 cup) gin
• 3/4 ounce (1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons) fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 ounces (1 tablespoon) simple syrup*
• Ice cubes
• 2 ounces (1/4 cup) chilled soda water
• 1 lemon peel for garnish

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