Gadget Grub

An Airfryer and a Crock Pot are two indispensable cooking gadgets that you can do without, but the culinary world is a whole lot richer with them in it.  Once, the same could be said about a microwave, but the microwave oven became elevated way beyond gadget status in the '80s to where there are few households today without one, and aisles upon aisles of products at your neighborhood grocer are dedicated to foodstuffs cooked in virtually no other fashion.  Does anyone make Jiffy-Pop popcorn anymore?  Only around a campfire.

Classic Cheese Fondue

It seems fondue is having something of a resurgence in popularity these days and like everything else over which the Internet food bloggers become aflutter, there are tons of variations, many of which seem to originate from over-zealous, would-be culinarians vying online for a few more revenue-producing website click-throughs to Amazon links. And while there are a few who get it right, inspiration for my recipe comes straight from the marketing department of Cuisinart, maker of the electric fondue pot I was given for Christmas by My Number One Fan.

Chicken & Rice Casserole (No Labor Version)

What good family recipe blog wouldn't have a basic can-o-dis chicken & rice casserole recipe? In fact, this one does, since 2016.  Looking for a way to prepare leftovers from my Easy Breezy Roast Chicken and Rice, posted in 2015 and found here, I created a recipe that reminded me of the potluck suppers I would go to with my mom as a kid in the late '50s and early '60s that were either church or Cub Scout related. In fact, I called that recipe Potluck Chicken and Rice Casserole, found here. It's a good, basic casserole recipe, but it requires preparation time that includes cooking the rice in advance and sautéing the onions and celery before anything is assembled as a casserole or put in the oven.

Baked Acorn Squash with Dried Cranberry Brandy Sauce

I cannot think of a dish the screams autumn like this one does, and it really hits on all cylinders.  It's easy, elegant, visually appealing and delicious.  I found this recipe after searching for fall/autumn dinner side dishes and made few modifications if any, but I didn't make note of its original creator.  This accompanied a dinner that included my Mini Meatloaf Rings, found here, and Scalloped Potatoes au Gratin, found here, in a menu created for a family dinner right after the Autumnal Equinox and titled, "Fall is in the Air." This recipe provides four portions, but you'll have sauce leftover and so you can easily prepare more squash if needed.  If you have particularly large acorn squash, cut them into quarters.

Smothered Crock Pot Cube Steaks in Brown Gravy

I've previously written about Swiss Steak, which uses tough cuts of top round or top sirloin beef that have been put through a butcher shop's meat tenderizer and sold as "cube steaks" or "minute steaks." My recipe for Swiss Steak can be found here. Tenderizing in this manner means that the meat is pierced and punctured to make it less tough, which becomes still more tender when braised over a long period of time, the way Swiss Steak should be made.

Grilled Cheese Hot Dog Sandwiches

Okay, allow me to go off the rails in terms of culinary art.  This is not culinary art.  This would more likely qualify as Waffle House fare (and I do not mean that in a derogatory sense - I happen to like Waffle House fare a great deal).  But this blog is as much of a family recipe cookbook as it is a public recipe source and I feel like this absolutely delicious sandwich deserves a mention because my family loves 'em.  It started as a simple grilled cheese sandwich, and if you omit the hot dogs, that's what you'll have - a simple grilled cheese sandwich and the absolutely perfect way to construct it.  Add the hot dogs and you have something akin to, well, carnival eats.  I shan't apologize any further.  Here it is for posterity's sake.

Summer Shrimp Salad or Shrimp Po'Boy

This is a revision of a shrimp salad recipe I created in 2010. While originally it was meant to be made with jumbo shrimp (U-15s) and served on a bed of cold, crisp greens, it also makes a wonderful filling for a shrimp po'boy when using small bay shrimp.

Bacon Lattice Wrapped Meatloaf

This will be the fourth meatloaf recipe that I've posted.  They're all a little different in terms of ingredients and complexity.  This recipe has less of a tomato profile and is a variation on a recipe for bacon-wrapped meatloaf found on the Whitney Bond website.  It pairs well with brown gravy, the recipe for which can be found here.  My other meatloaf recipes can be found here:

Airfried Boneless Chicken Thighs

Here is a very simple, basic recipe for cooking boneless/skinless chicken thighs in an airfryer.  There are many variations on this recipe that you can make by altering the seasonings or spice mixtures.  But this is a start.  This was a serendipitous discovery as I was planning on making my Low Carb Airfryer  Fried Chicken recipe, found here, but we had taken boneless/skinless chicken thighs out of the freezer to thaw by mistake and so, I had to improvise.

Shrimp Santorini

This is an update to a recipe I originally posted in 2010. One of my former co-workers is a chow-hound like I am.  She and her sister made this dish and knowing I would probably like it, brought me the recipe, originally found on allrecipes.com.  It was posted there by a Chicago denizen after she made this dish with her sister.

It is an easy dish to make ahead of time, throwing everything together at the last minute in a casserole dish, and baking for an hour.  For convenience, buy frozen, peeled, de-veined shrimp and thaw at the last minute in a colander under cold, running water, tossing occasionally until all the shrimp have thawed, about twenty minutes.

Breakfast Enchiladas and Hash Brown Casserole

This is a terrific breakfast casserole idea - if I could just get the cheese sauce right!  I think I made it too thick and it wasn't a very good recipe to begin with, thanks to the Southern Living website.  On a re-heat, I zapped some jarred salsa con queso (the Tostitos brand, to be exact) and sauced-up the leftovers. The dish was enhanced significantly!  I'll post the recipe as I made it with the exception of the cheese sauce.

Chicken Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Enlightened by the culinary excellence and deliciousness of stuffed chili peppers, I embarked on a quest that began with cheese stuffed Anaheim peppers, which I called Pimientos de Anaheim con Queso, found here, and Barbecued Brisket Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Mexican Cole Slaw, found here.  Both are great recipes to be sure, but this one might be the best yet.  Preparing stuffed chili peppers for dinner is something of a recent evolution for me. I've eaten them all my life but until now, I'm embarrassed to say, I never actually made them.

Garden Turkey Burgers

There is only one way to cook these, and that's on an outdoor grill: charcoal grill, gas grill, hibachi....doesn't matter.  In fact, I've cooked these on both a charcoal and gas grill; but don't attempt to skillet-fry them.  It just doesn't work well. The original recipe called for them to be broiled.  That doesn't work nearly as well nor do they taste as good as rendering them over an open flame.

My Number One Fan found this recipe in the mid-'90s and made a copy of it directly from the recipe book or magazine it came from.  The recipe has survived but there is no identifying text that indicates from where it originated; but we've made this recipe dozens of times and they are a delicious alternative to beef burgers on the grill.

Bangers & Mash with Onion Gravy

I was in London in the mid-1990s for a business-turned-leisure trip and even though I worked for a UK-based company at the time, I somehow didn't know about Bangers & Mash.  If I had, I definitely would and absolutely could have ordered it in virtually any pub in the city.  Considered basic, if not mandatory menu fare, or "Pub Grub," at any public house, Bangers & Mash is considered the national dish of the UK along side Fish & Chips and Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding.  But it took the creativity of a local butcher shop that makes their own in-house sausages to spark my curiosity about this dish, including the origin of its name.

Cauliflower & Cheese Casserole

Ah, the lowly cauliflower, a member of an unusual vegetable species known as Brassica Oleracea which also includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collard greens, and kale. I hate it. And actually, a lot of people do, which is why the cauliflower has undergone something of a Renaissance in recent years being used as something other than the de facto vegetable it is.  In fact, cauliflower products have increased 71% in the U.S. since 2017 and cauliflower production since 2013 is up by over 63%. Cauliflower mashed "potatoes" came about more than a decade ago during the low carb craze, a recipe for which I have posted here and have made countless times.  But more recently in the Keto and gluten-free hysteria, all manner of cauliflower dishes as a substitution for something else have come to market, like, cauliflower pizza crusts, cauliflower breadsticks, cauliflower fried rice and cauliflower bread substitute.

Keto Cheddar Biscuits

Readers of Kitchen Tapestry, both of them, may recall me promoting cheddar biscuits as an accompaniment to such dishes as Shrimp Étouffée Over Cheesy Biscuits, found here, and Crock Pot Beef Stew, located here.  Specifically, I touted a commercially prepared product by a national restaurant chain, Red Lobster.  The last time I ate at a Red Lobster was in the mid 1990s and then, only because a hotel I supervised in Beaumont, Texas had leased out space to one and I felt politically obliged to dine there. 

Homemade Croutons

My Number One Fan used to make homemade croutons by the bucketful years ago, and then stopped making them and then, we both forgot about them. Recently having two loaves of bread that we were not going to eat, one whole wheat and another Jewish rye, I announced that I'd reclaim them as croutons.  She remembered the Pioneer Woman website recipe that she had used years ago.  It's a fine recipe, but I found it - as well as nearly every other recipe I researched online - to be finite about the measurement of ingredients.  I don't think that model works very well.

Cloud Eggs

Apparently, this is or was all the rage within the food blogosphere recently.  It came to my attention when I was on the Spruce Eats website looking for some inspiration on a completely different recipe.  I saw this during my search and thought I would give it a try.  While there is nothing better than a couple of fried eggs in butter, be it sunny-side-up or over-easy, this was a departure from the usual and made for a delicious breakfast with a lot of visual appeal.  It's also a bit easier on clean-up and fat calories because nothing is fried; your oven does all the cooking.

Braised Lamb Shoulder Roast with Sun Dried Tomatoes and Onion Gravy

The inspiration for this dish came first because I happened to have a lamb shoulder roast in the freezer. A local tradesman with whom we do business from time to time, butchers and sells lambs that he raises locally on a farm.  Because he raises them naturally and on a natural diet, he guarantees that his lamb won't have that "gamey" flavor that some people find off-putting.  I don't happen to be one of those people - I love the taste of lamb - but nevertheless, one doesn't see lamb shoulder roasts very often in these parts, so I was happy to find my second inspiration for this dish on the Diethood website.

Jambalaya

 

Today is Fat Tuesday, the last day of Mardi Gras in New Orleans and the final day of enjoying excess and debauchery before one is supposed to atone for one's sins during the onset of Lent and Ash Wednesday.  Or so the Roman Catholics believe.  Be that as it may, it seems totally in character to enjoy a good, hearty Jambalaya for dinner tonight regardless of whatever you do tomorrow.  Personally, I'll go with debauchery over atonement any day, and this recipe guarantees leftovers.