A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Copycat Recipe: Joe's Crab Shack Harvest Bay Mahi Mahi

 

 One of the great things about things about cooking restaurant-style food at home is being able to customize it.  I love this entree, Harvest Bay Mahi Mahi, a firm-fleshed white fish covered in rich Alfredo sauce mixed with sauteed shrimp and mushrooms,  from Joe's Crab Shack but I've always wanted more: more sauce, more shrimp, more mushrooms!!!!!  Viva la shrimp and shrooms!  Since I don't have a district manager looking over my food cost reports, that's easy to do without sacrificing any of the integrity of the original dish, not to mention, being able to shave a few butter and Alfredo sauce calories here and there without sacrificing that luscious mouth feel and rich taste.

Here's How I did it, step by step, and with photos:

Easy Peasy Pulled Pork in the Slow Cooker for a Crowd

 When it comes to cooking for a crowd, the slow cooker or Crock-pot is my best friend and favorite kitchen appliance.  Nothing is easier to cook in as long as you plan ahead of time and have everything ready to go that morning.  Even better, many dishes can be made a day or two ahead of time so that when I'm entertaining I can finish up cooking the day of the party without spending all day long and all of my energy just cooking.  I've spent too many years being exhausted before company even got to my house to even enjoy them but years ago I figured out I could still cook nice home-made meals without making myself tired, cranky, and crazy.

This recipe for slow cooker pulled pork is great for a crowd of 12-16, depending on how hearty the appetites are, and it goes together in a snap, can be made ahead, and leaves one less thing to have to think about before company shows up. 

Baked Mostaccioli w/ All Day Slow Cooker/Crockpot Meat Sauce

 

 There's nothing like pasta, the ultimate comfort food, to feed a small army of company at the holidays.  It's tasty, it's easy, and it can usually be made ahead, all pluses in my book so that I can serve a delicious meal to my friends and family but also be able to relax on the day of and during the party instead of running myself ragged, cooking. 

Traditionally at New Year's Eve, I make a big lasagna, but this year I went to the same song, different verse, choosing to created a Baked Mostaccili dish instead. 

Several of my guests plus friends on Facebook asked for the recipe, so this is it:  Glenna's Baked Mostaccioli for a Crowd.  Even though the recipe easily serves 8-10, it can easily be cut in half for a family dinner or can be made as a whole and split into two separate baking dishes, freezing one for later. 

   

Gene's Christmas Eve All Favorites Thank You Dinner

2012 has been a long year at our house. While we've had our share of blessings in many ways, my health was not one of them.  After a year or more of not feeling well, constant fatigue, and intermittent chest pain, palpitations, high blood pressure, and vomitting, we found out this fall after numerous trips to several doctors, an ER visit with overnight observation, and a full cardiac work up that all of that chest stuff was caused by, drumroll please, gall bladder dysfunction.

Say what?  Yup, you read that right. All that false path heart fear was really just my silly ole gall bladder acting up. I never had abdominal pain at all! Crazy, I know.

So an operation, pneumonia, and several weeks off work to recupe my stamina, I'm back in the groove and can remember who that energetic fun Glenna used to be and is again!

As a small thank you to my wonderful hubby, Gene, who waited on me hand and foot, took over all of the house chores, and did everything to take care of me while I was depressed, shaky, and pukey all the time, I didn't volunteer to work Christmas Eve like I often do, but instead stayed home for a cozy Christmas Eve dinner of all of his favorite foods as a small token of thanks for his help, his sense of humor, and his patience helping me through this awful year health-wise. Thank you, Honey!

Gene's Christmas Eve Thank You Dinner Menu

Oven Fried Chicken

Mashed Potatoes

Corn

Creamed Spinach (Okay, that one's my favorite)

Dinner Rolls

Nannie's From Scratch Banana Pudding

(chicken and creamed spinach recipes follow, banana pudding tomorrow!)

Baked Ham & Provolone Roll-up

 Ham & Provolone roll up is one of my favorite weekend night meals.  Even though it takes a couple of hours to make, there's relatively little hands-on time so I can lay the dough out to defrost in the early afternoon, run errands, make the roll-up, and then do laundry or other household chores for the next hour while it raises again.  After that, it's only a matter of baking. By the time we eat, usually serving only a simple salad on the side, I barely feel like I've spent any time at all in the kitchen.  Magic!

It, and its pepperoni cousin, also make great party appetizers, almost always found on my family holiday menu list.

 

Cod (White Fish) Patties with Home-made Tartar Sauce

A couple of weeks ago, my cousin, Colleen, made salmon patties for her family for dinner and let me blog them. They were so inviting in the photo I suddenly had a craving.  Fish patties is one of those things that are quick, easy, and tasty, but I usually I forget to make them unless something reminds me. 

Thanks, Colleen!

I do have a can of salmon in the cupboard, along with a few cans of tuna and crab, but I also had some cod fillets in the freezer that sounded yummy too.  This is my recipe for fish patties or fish cakes as they're also called. Mine has a few more bells and whistles than Colleen's but only because I was playing with a much milder fish that needed a little kick in the gill to rev the flavor up.

Lazy Sunday Morning: Classic Quiche Lorraine for Breakfast

After all the rain and thunderstorms last night followed by a late night of movie-watching and gloriously sleeping in to a chilly fall morning, eggs seemed to fill the bill of fare this morning.  Not just any eggs, not plain scrambled or even the richness of dipping toast into the rich yolks of fried eggs over easy, but the cheesy, bacony goodness of the classic Quiche Lorraine.  With pre-cooked bacon and previously rolled pie crust in the freezer, shredded parmesan in the fridge, and a couple of green onions in the crisper, it took less than five minutes to beat the eggs along with the other ingredients and pour them into the pie shell--so worth it this morning! 

Folks Who Use My Recipes: No Work Crockpot/ Slow Cooker Chili

My sister, Suzanne, posted this photo to Facebook tonight after posting this morning that she'd come home from a great night's work and decided it was chilly enough for...well...chili!

Yummy.  My recipe, the result of an experiement several years ago, makes a chili with a texture where the meat and beans become very harmonious.  It sounds like an odd thing but by putting the extra lean ground beef difectly into the pot instead of browning it and addit last, the resulting texture is one that even people like me who aren't huge meat texture fans can love.

Excuse me, I have to make a trip across town to see if there are leftovers.

Good & Good For You: Colleen's Salmon Patties

 
Thanks to my cousin, Colleen for this recipe and great food pic.  I love cod/haddock/tuna/salmon patties. Don't know why I don't make them more. I think it's easy, at least in mind, to get stuck in the beef/pork/chicken-centered dinner mode.  But fish patties are a great alternative meal.  These can be baked or fried. To me, Colleen's method of baking them is easier, less calories, and they all come out done at the same time, no frying and trying to keep warm while waiting for the rest to finish. 

Such a lovely meal--thanks, Collleen!

Book & Cook: Murder in the Rue Dumas & French Bistro Croque Monsieur

 

Gene's Croque Monsieur and Arugula Salald from The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado.

Murder in the Rue Dumas by M. L. (Mary Lou) Longworth

There are some books that start off with a character so over the top that you immediately either love or hate him or her.  Refreshingly, this is not one of those books.  Second in the series, I enjoyed this softer, quieter, more gentle book and its hero, Judge (Detective) Antoine Verlaque.  Please don't read that as insult to the author.  I'm being honest here in that even though I am a fan of fast-pased high profile thrillers and mysteries, I'm also a fan of quieter books as well.  Let me explain.

At first, Detective Verlaque reads a bit cool and removed, definitely not a hot-headed maverick of a detective but throughout the book bits and pieces of his background come out, his love of food and cigars, his loyalty to his opera-loving partner Bruno Paulik, and well as, his depth of emotion for his girlfriend, Marine Bonnet.  And that's not even mentioning his dogged persistence, intuitiveness, and compassion in solving the mystery of who murdered Dr. Moutte, director of the theology department at the University d'Aix. (Aix-en-Provencer in southern France) where Marine's mother is also a professor.

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For foodies and "mental travelers who have no need for luggage" (Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen) the book inspires smile after smile with descriptions of food and towns so unlike my small midwestern American city that I feel that I'm vicariously traveling.  Even the sound of the beef and chicken roasts with potatoes and carrots that Antoine and Marine make, that we eat often for Sunday dinners here at home, seem exotic in the setting of southern France.  One of my favorite of the book's meals was the Croque Monsieur Antoine treats his friend and crime-solving partner, Bruno, to in a small family-owned restaurant while they're out tracking down leads in the case.

I first wrote about Croque Monsieur after seeing the movie "it's Complicated".  The "Crispy Mister", fried ham and cheese sandwiches or what we would call grilled ham and cheese,  first appeared on Paris menus around 1910 and has variations as plentiful as there are chefs:  plain, with mornay sauce, with a fried egg or fresh tomato slices on top, etc.  My favorite version is with thick cut ham slices and mornay sauce, which I've included a recipe for here..

To cut to the chase, did I like the book and its characters?  So  much I've already ordered its predecessor, Death at the Chateau Bremont, and am eager for the summer 2013 release of the next in the series, Death in the Vines.