Father Feeds Flock!!!

GUEST CHEF....SUZY MILLER! Our BFF's and fellow foodies, the Millers, are the guest chef's for the Memorial Edition of Father Feeds Flock!!!!  The Millers are my son's godparents, and the "better half" Suzy is a fellow food nerd and we bounce ideas off each other now and again.  Their garden expands through their whole yard quite impressively.   They whipped up a paella spread for us that was unique and TD4  (To Die For, if you've never met my mother).  They called it Asian Paella, and it had chicken, snow peas, baby corns and many yummy-ness-es.  forgive the sun, as it has blown our this iPhone photo  For dessert we had Reid-made vanilla ice cream with lavender/mint shortbread cookies crumbled over it!  I have to say that I did NOT think this would taste as good as it did!!!!  It complemented the ice cream very well, and added a crunch that took it too another level!!! Oh wait.... I almost forgot the best part.............. The Miller'...

I was inspired from surfing several food photography sites, where I saw a vegetable turin that looked so awesome.  Later that day, a recipe popped into my head while driving.  Combine the veggie technique, and then pour something over it to make it savory.  Eggs, cheese...wait thats a quiche. So I got a pie crust, sliced some zucchini, yellow squash and onions, and gave them a quick broil with olive oil, garden rosemary and s/p.  Then I lined the bottom of the pie crust with them and poured in my egg/milk/ground mustard mixture and topped with cheddar cheese and the left over veggies. This turned out great.  Simple and delicious!

Thought process was rock solid.  New take on a crab boil...do it on the grill with similar ingredients you would see in a traditional crab boil.  corn, potatoes, shrimp, catfish & imitation crab added broccoli, onion and orange slices (we forgot to get lemons).  I put garden rosemary and chives along with some old bay seasoning. then put it on the grill in my cool new mesh grill pot. catfish, shrimp and lump imitation crab meat marinated in crab boil seasoning. Here is where I went wrong.  Both those spices are pretty high on the spice scale.  Whole dish got thumbs down and we won't eat it, its too spicy.  I LOVED it!!!!  I agree that it was very spicy, the heat eventually got to me towards the end. cooked separately on the grill, seafood was cooked in a little butter and rosemary infused olive oil. catfish had just began to break apart when I served it, so next time I will add that a little after the others. Dumped it all on this big pasta plate ...

I bought some chicken breasts, acorn squash, asparagus with little other thought than, this will be dinner. The free form process of coming up with what eventually became this, what pretty cool. I put the squash into the oven first, with a little butter, salt and paprika. I noticed that we had some beets and radishes left over, so I spontaneously added roasted veggies when I combined carrots, onions and broccollini.  The beets and the radishes gave this such a great flavor, I could have put anything else with it.  The broccollini crisped up and gave a nice texture and crunch. Our Chef Pipin Steamer (leftover from a long ago product shoot) did not disappoint again, cooking the asparagus to perfection. I had let the chicken sit with some lemon zest to marinate, so I thought that a nice light sauce would go great.  Garden dill, juice of 2 lemons, half/half, butter and a pinch of sugar and corn starch, turned this inot a sauce that then turned the meal into something to ...

I used 2 kinds of chocolate chips and a little half and half for our chocolate fondue last night. It has wonderfully morphed into the best tasting frosting I've ever tasted. It didn't harden back up, but has a soft, spreadable quality. I had to do some scientific testing, so I spread some on a slice of poundcake.  It passed the test!

So I took the family to Taste of Addison this weekend.  Basically a bunch of local restaurants get together and sell 3 or 4 items cheap so you can sample new things.  I had a few new things and some tasty classics.  Started off with mudbugs!  boiled crawfish, napkins were scare, so this was dangerous.  Wet naps to the rescue a few minutes later. Also sampled some chicken curry, stuffed meatball sandwich, cuban tamale, chicken empenada,  steak and guiness pie, Korean BBQ - bulgogi sub, chocolate fondue.  Also got a couple of free samples of sake  ;) We were so stuffed, even at small sample size portions. They also have a midway and so carnival type rides and games.  Zachary won this tiger popping balloons with darts. We purchased a cool Himalayan salt lamp that claims to help with migraines and snoring.  I'm skeptical, but its cool to look at so if it doesn't work, its still art.  If it even helps my snoring a microscopic amount.....

So my next step in my foodventure is going to be to enter some cooking/recipe competitions. We had mentioned a want for taco salad, so I set out to create a unique taco salad recipe. I created a basic taco meat with ground beef and chicken, browned with tomato paste, salsa, onions and garlic, cumin and a bit of cayenne pepper.  shredded lettuce, alfalfa sprouts and cabbage mixture provide the ruffage.  chopped tomatoes and onion and cheddar cheese are sprinkled around the taco meat, which is placed in a ball on top. I took some ranch caesar dressing and added some salsa, half and half, cilantro and crumbled gorgonzola cheese, this was drizzled over as a dressing.  Garnished with a lightly fried tortilla shell and some avocado slices. This is NOT the recipe I would enter into a contest, but what we wanted to eat.  for the award, I would alter in this way... I made one, but didn't photograph it.  The initial test was positive. Taco Salad Sandwich- using ...