Well I was supposed to talk about Square Foot Gardening, but alas had a storm last night and not had power for most of the day. So I got no pics nor the time I needed to actually formulate a Diary on that topic. But alas I didn't want to leave the group "hanging" and I can always, I mean always talk about food. So below the fold a story or two and some things you might think about cooking sometime, from my mom.
I've always loved to eat. Heck I was blessed my mother was a stay-at-home mother. She cooked three meals a day. No microwave or fast-food in my household. Things like meatloaf, chili, tacos, sweet and sour pork, well I think of all of them the way my mother cooked them.
But I never cooked ..... that was what mom was for.
Then I went to LSU for grad school. As a "Yankee" (yes I was called that daily) I met this guy named Burt. He was from Vermont. A fellow "Yankee" :). As he liked to tell the story his mother was a state Senator and his father a well known doctor. They were never home. If he wanted to eat, well he had to cook. So he learned to cook. Funny how necessitate works isn't it.
As faith would have it, his girlfriend was from Midland, TX. Her father, a super senior executive at Exxon. As best we could tell he just seemed to fly around the world killing animals. Animals Burt would get the chance to cook. Factor that food source into the fact we were in Louisiana, and had access to just about every fresh seafood known to the world, although dirt poor college students, I ate better at that time then any in my life.
I also learned to cook.
See when I say Burt could cook, I mean he could cook. Most meals took hours to make. I mean hours. Epic meals. A recipe was never used. He just made it up as he went along. I wasn't just allowed to sit on the couch and smoke pot (this was a long, long time ago). I had to help. It was amazing how much you can pick up just chopping vegetables and watching .....
That brings me to my first recipe, which I came up with one day. We'd often be "tooling" around small towns in Southern Louisiana and come across some guy selling shrimp the size of your hand out of the back of a truck. Shrimp just a few hours ago that had been in the Gulf. We found many uses for them. Burt would often take some shrimp and crawfish and make a white pasta with them. WOW!
But this is something I came up with one day.
Go buy the largest shrimp you can afford. Clean and devein them. Where you've deveined them, place a sliver of jalapeno pepper running the length of the shrimp, wrap in bacon and secure with a toothpick. Throw it in some barbecue sauce. Place on a grill.
I've cooked these at least a hundred times. It is one of those things that get eaten faster then they hit the plate. Oh, and stupid simple to cook.
But I digress .... for the "meat" of this Diary I want to pass along a few of my mom's best dishes.
After LSU I moved to DC. Learned to cook even better and started to make more money then I ever thought I'd make. I started to become something of a food snob. I am not embarrassed to say I've paid a few thousand dollars for a meal. It is a long story that isn't that interesting (insert I am an asshole) I didn't talk to my parents for months at a time. Didn't see them for years at a time. Well now I see them at least once a month and talk to them almost daily. I like my current situation better.
As I got back into contact with my parents they would come see me and I'd cook for them. That is kind of how I show I like you, I cook you something to eat.
Now my kind of cooking at first was different then my mom. I'd often served them food they had never heard of before. See my mom is a down to earth kind of person. She cooks food she'd been taught to cook by her mother and grandmother. Often based on the things they could grow on their own land. But she doesn't mind something out of a can. For me that just wasn't acceptable.
The first Thanksgiving I moved back "home" we had it at my house. I was doing all this stuff. Crazy stuff. My mom had the three best dishes. They included:
Kansas Corn Scallop
Yield: Unknown
Ingredients:
• 1 can whole corn
• 1 can cream corn
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 can evaporated milk (small)
• 4 tablespoon minced onion
• 2 cups crackers
• 8 oz. Swiss cheese
• Salt & pepper to taste
Instructions:
Drain corn, beat eggs, stir in corn and 1/2 cup of the liquid. Add everything else. Fold in cheese and crackers. Bake at 325 for one hour.
I swear to you the above is about the best thing. If you ever have to attend and event and bring a "dish" bring this. You'll be a rock star.
Hash Brown Casserole
Yield: Unknown
Ingredients:
• 1 bag of frozen hash browns
• 8 oz. of sour cream
• 8 oz of Cheddar cheese
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup
• Minced onions
• 1/2 cup of butter (soft)
Instructions:
Mix everything together and bake for one hour at 350.
Just about the same comments as the last dish. It might not sound good, but trust me :).
Basic Noodles
Yield: Unknown
Ingredients:
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 cup flour
Instructions:
Combine egg, salt and milk. Mix in flour. Roll until they are thin on a floured surface. Let stand 20 minutes. Cut. Let dry 2 hours.
Those are three "family" dishes that I strongly suggest.
Now in a somewhat disjointed manner I want to introduce you to a new site I've found. I am something of a "metro sexual" dude. If I had a dollar for every time somebody asked if I was gay, well I'd be rich. I spend a lot of time thinking about what cloths I wear and how my house looks.
So for years I've been a fan of this site called Apartment Therapy. I can't really explain it, but it might be the "coolest" link you've seen in days. Well they have started to expand and launched some "sister" sites. One is called The Kitchn. At its core it is about the design of kitchens, but of course they also talk about food. A few weeks ago I found this recipe there, I've made it multiple times.
Spring Recipe: Lemony Spring Soup with Peas & Rice
You can visit the site for how to make it, so they get the traffic. Check it out.
Note: To the admin of this group sorry I didn't submit this Diary for approval. I know I broke every rule in the book (yes I read them). Today was just a day without power in my house for most of it and I wanted to put something up so you were not left hanging.