Father Feeds Flock!!!

The Dutchess and I took Zachary to Galveston for some beach and  memory making with good friends. We had a nice and relaxing time at the bay.  We naturally gravitated towards the  abundance of fresh seafood.  Boiled shrimp, red snapper, oyster po boys and seafood gumbo were quite anticipated and enjoyed. I decided to take advantage of the fresh seafood shops on the seawall.   I bought a whole flounder and 2 lbs of stone crab claws.  I was VERY  close to coming home with a LARGE red snapper, but I didn't press my luck. I was 6 hours from home, but I had a cooler and a whole lotta ice! I cheated a bit...culinarily speaking, by having the fishmonger clean, filet and skin the flounder for me.  I was actually looking forward to attempting it, but after seeing them all, I decided to leave that to the pros. Checking the largest cook book ever known, the internet, I found a recipe for saffron, flounder and white bean...

I was craving enchiladas so chicken was the obvious choice. My mother always made the best chicken enchiladas, but  I didn't use her recipe.  I just made this up on the fly. I cheated a bit and used a prepared sauce, but everything else was all me baby! First up I cooked some pinto beans simply with some bay leaves. I held it in the fridge until ready to refry. I choose thighs to keep the meat juicy and flavorful.  I pan fried them till almost done with some green chilies. Once it was almost cooked, but not quite as it would still cook a bit when rolled up with cheese. I sliced the thighs pretty thin to somewhat resemble pulled chicken.  I then chopped up the chilies and some scallions and I mixed it all together. I dipped the corn tortillas into the sauce to make them pliable and add some moisture, then rolled up the filling and arranged them in a casserole dish. I poured the rest of the sauce ...

I havent posted in quite a while, but I felt that I just had to for this one. This is something I saw on Jamie Oliver's tv show 15 minute meals. My family loves crab and fennel, so this was a  no brainer. First off...$15 worth of lump crab meat!!! I mixed this with cilantro, lemon zest & juice and a little sweet chili  sauce.  JLiver used preserved lemons and harrisa.   I couldn't find either.   Take 3 or 4 sheets of filo dough and wrap up the crab mixture so that it looks kind of like a deck of cards. Here is a close up of what the crab mixture looked like. A few glugs of olive oil and lightly pan fry the briks. Make sure that you do not burn them, or you may  spontaneously burst into tears. Lump crab is expensive! The sides are tomato couscous with pine nuts and shredded  fennel, caraway seeds and mint salad.  Jamie used pomegranate seeds, but I couldn't find those e...

My friend, Stacey Harvey Pross, posted a version of this recipe on Facebook. It sounded so good that I had to try it. Starting with her recipe, I added a few Todd Touches and here is what came from it. Her recipe called for a can a cream of chicken soup.  I'm not a big fan of condensed soups, so I made cream of mushroom soup and used that instead.  I had some left over roasted chicken, so that's where I started.   Adding green chilies, black olives, tomatillas and cheese completed the filing. One of Staceys suggestions was to use flour tortillas. I wasn't too sure about this, as I would tend to use corn for enchiladas. Showing trust in her, I stuck with the flour. This is such a departure from traditional enchiladas, that I started to  get a little nervous.  Which was unfounded.   These were AWESOME! The mushroom soup added some rich, creamy mushroomy flavor  that was unexpected, but very welcome. ...

I was at Costco a few days ago and saw a package of persimmons. I've never tried them, but been curious.  I bought them and then had to come up with something to do with them. In addition, my rosemary bush is totally out of control and needed some heavy duty trimming.  I plan to make christmas gifts out of the huge rosemary bounty that I now have in my kitchen.  But I digress.... I used my googleskill, and found that there are many recipes that utilize both persimmons and rosemary. Most online searches came back with a bread, cookie or cake. I took that as a sign and started with a cake.  The recipe I used did not include rosemary, but I simply just added rosemary to persimmon pulp. I peeled and seeded 6 persimmons and then put that into  the food processor and blitzed it up a bit.  I purposefully didn't scrape the sides until the end.  I wanted to have some variety in the size of the pulp pieces.  Af...

For the Dutchess' birthday this year (back in October) I got tickets to Michael Buble'.   This was our 3rd time to see him so I wanted to go to a very nice restaurant to add to the experience. I decided to go to John Tesar's Spoon. We had never been, but John was on Top Chef and Spoon came highly recommended from fellow foodie, Brad Murano. Check him out at:  http://www.thebradsblog.com/ We made a reservation and when we showed up they asked us if we wanted to sit at the chef's table overlooking the kitchen....yes, please! The menu was on an iPad, but we knew that we were going to forego that and elect for the tasting menu, at Brad's suggestion. The first thing that came out was King Salmon with Summer Truffle. This was melt in your mouth awesome.  My first taste of truffle and it was extremely tasty. The next course was a Sea Scallop, brown butter, dashi and burgundy truffle.   The unami in this dish was phenomena...