"Casino" Salad Dressing

I took a stab at making Casino salad dressing today - not because I need something new on my salad, but because of something my father-in-law used to do - so this is another recipe inspired by him. My Honey used to brag about his grilled shrimp all the time, and I've always felt short-changed about never actually having had any. Trust me. There IS a relationship!

One Thousand Island Dressing

My Honey and I are quite fond of grilled Reuben sandwiches, but that's pretty much the only dish in which we use One Thousand Island Dressing. Since we rarely have Reuben's more than every couple of months, we end up with a partial bottle of dressing sitting in the refrigerator much longer than we should. We usually end up throwing it out.

Salmon Cracker Spread

I like fish. I like it fried, baked, and broiled. I also like it in certain dishes. One of the fishes I like is salmon, and one of the ways I like salmon is as part of a spread, served with crackers, as a snack.

Simple Flautas

I really like shredded beef flautas, and I used to be able to get them locally. Things change, however, and the regional chain restaurant that I used to frequent, closed: apparently along with all of the chain's other stores in the state. In defense of my own appetites, I found a need to make them myself... or at least a close approximation.

Taco Seasoning Mix...

Central to the Tex-Mex cooking to which I have been exposed, is that mixture of herbs and spices commonly known as "Taco Seasoning". For simplicity's sake I usually use the store-brand, pre-packaged taco seasoning mix available at our nearby German-owned, low-cost, chain grocery. Sometimes, though, I don't happen to have any on hand; and, of course some folks just have to mix things up for themselves. In either case the following mix should do nicely.

Irish Coffee

In the late 1970's I was given an assignment to meet with a consultant, to learn their take on modelling water quality in natural systems. The person was an older gentleman named Phil, and with his red hair, beard, and pale skin, could likely have passed for Irish. Indeed Phil may have had some ethnic Irish in his blood, because it was he who introduced me to Irish Coffee.

Chewy Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies

I thought I would share with everyone one of my favorite desserts from childhood.

When I was growing up, the schools I attended actually had kitchens and cooks, and healthy, nutritious food was prepared on-site. A large chunk of the ingredients used by these kitchens was in the form of commodities, distributed by the US Department of Agriculture - which also provided recipes for best use of those commodities. One of those recipes was for peanut butter cookies!

Uncle Billy's Breakfast Tonic

My Honey's Uncle Billy was a very affable man. I don't think he ever met anyone that he couldn't turn into a buddy. This was a very good thing in a salesman, and a salesman he was!

Grandma Sallie's Brunswick Stew

As the firstborn grandchild, I was the apple of my maternal grandmother's eye, and I've been told all my life that she spoiled me outrageously. I don't really know about that, but I do know that she often went to great lengths to prepare my favorite foods; even inventing new recipes to approximate unfamiliar dishes that she thought I'd like.

Brown Gravy

Sometimes a Southern boy just wants comfort food - something like Grandma used to make - and sometimes that's something covered with a rich, brown gravy.

Mushroom-Swiss Hamburger

In March of 2019 I posted the story of our discovery of the Low-Country Boil, and our ill-fated attempt to have a "spontaneous" weekend in Savannah, Georgia. In retelling the tale of my irritation with what we found in that fair city, I neglected to mention one really positive thing we took from there: to wit, Mushroom and Swiss Cheese Hamburgers.

Aioli Sauce (Garlic Mayonnaise)

My first exposure to aioli sauce occurred in March of 2019, in Savannah, Georgia, when I experienced my first Mushroom and Swiss Cheese Hamburger. The reason why I was there at that time is a tale of minor disaster, and can be found as part of my Low Country Boil recipe.

"Buttermilk" Ranch Dressing

Ranch dressing is the "go-to" dressing for a lot of people - and deservedly so. It goes well with most salads, and is frequently used as a dipping sauce as well. Any search of the internet will reveal many hundreds of recipes for making it in your own kitchen, and reading those recipes will have you humming

Bacon Cheddar Salad Dressing

I once had a simple garden salad with dressing that featured bacon and cheddar cheese. Having remembered this, I had to try and make one. Recipes for bacon-cheddar dressings are widely available on the Internet, but most of them were too fancy (complicated) for my tastes (or my zeal), so I decided to come up with one of my own.

Blender Mayonnaise

Sometime back, in another recipe, I made note of my opinion (paraphrased) that everyone should make home-made mayonnaise once, but that the process is too tedious to repeat on any regular basis. With the advent of blender-based recipes, and the availability of inexpensive "stick" (immersion) blenders, however, I've had to revise my position.

Basic Caesar Salad

Unless you just want to eat lettuce all by itself and without any dressing, you can't get much simpler than your basic Caesar salad.

Sort-of Caesar dressing

In the summertime we eat a lot of salads, and often those are Caesar salads, which means that we go through a lot of Caesar dressing. Now, for health reasons, I've been forced to cut back on my sugar intake, and most commercial salad dressings - including Caesar dressings - contain significant amounts of sugar; ergo, if I want to continue eating lots of salads, I have to find alternatives to commercially-produced dressings.

Blue cheese salad dressing

This recipe is inspired by Bill's Blue Cheese Dressing at allrecipes.com. The main differences are minor variations in the amounts of ingredients, as well as a difference the preparation method. I suspect that Bill's dressing tastes pretty good; mine does!

Creamy Italian Dressing

I decided a few days ago to make my own creamy Italian dressing. It's one of my favorites, but I'd never before tried to make it at home. A quick search on Yahoo yielded between 758,000 and 6,820,000 returns, depending on how you phrase the question. Obviously, I'm not going to review every possible recipe, or even all of the minimum number offered, but I do examine the top dozen or so for common elements.

Gumbo!

Never having lived in or near Louisiana, I can’t claim a heritage with, or even long familiarity with the defining Cajun dish, to wit: gumbo. Like most denizens of the Southern East Coast, my early experience with anything called gumbo came from a commercial soup can, and while it could be considered marginally edible, it was nowhere near the top of my list of favorite foods.

Greek-style (gyro) meat loaf

In a city about 30 miles West of our home there is a locally-famous Greek restaurant. The restaurant prepares and serves fine examples of the kinds of Greek dishes you might expect, but the best things on their menu - in my humble opinion - are their specialty Greek pizzas.

Smoked Gouda/Pimento Spread

We buy a lot of our staple goods from a well-known warehouse-style big box store; but occasionally, we also find oddities there, and we often try them out. We found a tasty smoked Gouda cheese and pimento spread there a couple of years back, and liked it well enough to have repeated the purchase several times since then. There is a problem, however: the packaging.

Copycat "D's sauce"

I like fish. Fried, baked, blackened, or broiled. Never had any just plain boiled or grilled. I also like some of the sauces that go with fish. One of the sauces I like comes from a certain well-known fast-food fish restaurant.

Uncle Henry's Hot Legs

Now, I'm pretty sure that everybody has been exposed at one time or another to hot wings, sometimes known as Buffalo wings, and most have probably enjoyed their spicy heat. I'm just as sure that everyone who prepares these... er... delicacies on any regular basis has a favorite recipé, which may or may not diverge from either the traditional one - or even common sense...

Parmesan Pepper Salad Dressing

A long time ago (more than 20 years, anyhow) in a land far away (not really, but it makes a good intro), one could find a very special salad dressing in local grocery stores, to wit: Parmesan-Pepper!