Undine's Courtboullion

Mariner heard about a different way to prepare fish, Cajun/Creole style, and decided we should try it. It's called Courtboullion (pronounced kū-bĭ-yōn), and it is a kind of poached fish - usually catfish, but it can be made with pretty much any fish (some say, any kind of seafood!).

Hummus Fail - or - Why I Can Chickpeas

My sister lives some distance away, from both me, and the area in which we grew up, and she has ever since she married a sailor and moved away, at the ripe age of... well, never mind!   Just accept that it's been a long time. I visited her in her home for the first time, a few years ago, and in addition to entertaining us, she fed us some great home-made snacks.  I had never had hummus before, but I really enjoyed spreading her hummus on some sesame crackers.  In fact, both my Honey and I enjoyed it so much, we badgered Sis until she gave us the recipé!  We've been making it ever since. I won't publish the recipé here, because it's not mine to share, but until recently it seemed nearly foolproof.

Sauerkraut!

Saturday, April 22 2017

Everybody who knows me knows that, especially since I retired, I despise weekend traffic.  Too many people going too many places, too fast, and too rude!  Since I don't want to be seen on the 11:00 PM news, being hauled away by the police for a "road rage" incident,  I just stay home.  This may seem to have little to do with food and cooking, but it explains (at least in part) why I am able to put together this blog about making sauerkraut.

Mariner's Quasi-Csabai

I was 13 years old when John Kennedy faced down Nikita Khrushchev, during the Cuban Missle Crisis, and I lived about 12 miles north of the Florida State Line. For my entire life, up to that point, Emergency Preparedness - or as we called it then, Civil Defense - was a significant focus in the lives and education of school children in the American South, and those conditions shaped the minds and spirits of an entire generation of Southern children. We expected "The Bomb" to arrive any day, bringing with it TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it); and the fact of Soviet imperialism simply reinforced those expectations.

Mariner's Slow-Cooker "Baked" Beans

This time of year, many of us are looking forward to several, if not many, celebratory gatherings with family and friends. Quite often those gatherings are organized around a feast of some sort, which means food and cooking are on my mind... again.

Mariner's Quick and Easy Italian-Style Sausage

Let's be clear about this, right from the start. This recipe is not an Italian Sausage recipe. For one thing, there's no fennel in it. For another it has a lot of what Americans think of as traditional Italian seasonings, that do not appear in any of the "real" Italian Sausage recipes I have found. So, what we really have here, is a basic pork sausage that attempts to taste the way most Americans might think an Italian sausage should taste - hence the appellation, "Italian style".

Mariner's bologna

As a child I was never a great fan of bologna, but I could eat it without gagging. It wasn't that I disliked the flavor, or even that we had it so terribly often that I grew tired of it — in fact, although we had bologna more often than other cold cuts, we rarely ate cold cuts at all. It just never inspired any great desire in me, and this response continued pretty much into full adulthood. This all changed while I was visiting my sister this past summer.

Liver Pudding, Mariner's First Try

Not long ago, I posted my Grandma's recipe for Liver Pudding (as remembered by my Mother), and.early this week I decided to give it a try. I ran into several problems, however, the greatest of which was procuring the main ingredient: pork liver.

Fish Sausage

"Why fish sausage?" you might ask.  Well, more and more, so might I.

Olive Loaf

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Olive loaf has always been one of my favorite sandwich meats. While I was growing up, it was an expensive treat, only to be had once in a great while.

Tartar Sauce

For most of my childhood, ketchup was the only dressing I ever knew about for fried fish. During that time, my family didn't eat in restaurants very often, and when we did, we didn't usually order fish of any kind. Somewhere along about my freshman year of high school, I discovered fried fish sandwiches at some of the fast food establishments, and those sandwiches were dressed with tartar sauce - a new experience for me. Naturally, I wanted tartar sauce on my fried fish from that point on.

"Buttermilk" Biscuits

This morning I decided to try my hand at biscuits - specifically faux Hardiee's® buttermilk biscuits. Searching the Internet for existing recipés yielded quite a few hits, and many used some very strange ingredients (strange to me, anyway - like mayonnaise!); anyhow, the one that hit home with me was actually not in a published recipé, but in a comment made to one.

Grandma's Liver Pudding

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Anyone who ever knew much about my father, knew also that he was very fond of dishes containing liver; including the sausages known as liverwurst, braunschweiger, and in particular, homemade liver pudding.

Breakfast Sausage

It can be difficult to consistently eat on the low-carbohydrate plan without seriously overdoing one's fat intake, and breakfast is one of the most difficult meals at which to avoid those fats.

Hot/Sweet BBQ sauce

Yesterday I decided to do barbecued ribs for Sunday dinner. I had everything I needed on hand, except the barbecue sauce. Now those who know me, know that I purely despise shopping, and if there is any way to avoid it, I'll try to do it - so I decided to try my hand at a homemade barbecue sauce. I started out as I always do, searching the internet for the perfect recipé, and as usual, I didn't find it.

Shrimp Po-Boy Sandwich!

Fried shrimp is one of my favorite foods, and this sandwich is one of my favorite ways to eat fried shrimp! Like many of my recipés, This one doesn't start from scratch. If you opened it up to learn how to fry shrimp, you're out of luck: we start with fried shrimp!

Elmer's Eggnog

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Well, last night was the pre-Christmas gathering for our extended family. It was held at Shana's place - which seems to have become a tradition by now - and both of the brothers who live nearby. and most of their offspring and grandchildren, were in attendance. My own kids and grand kids didn't make it. They had further to come, and had other commitments.

Black Bean Soup

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We've been thinking a lot lately about food. Of course, we always think a lot about food. The difference is, we've been thinking about how we'll eat when we're spending lots of time on the boat - at anchor, underway, or at a dock - because we still anticipate getting our cruising boat (soon) and spending a couple of years trying out the cruising lifestyle.

Cornbread

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One sad fact of life is that each of us is going to live a little longer than someone close to us. Another is that sometimes we will, for one reason or another think about the dearly departed, and eventually we'll realize that even though many years have passed, we still miss them.

Chunky Tomato Soup

One of my favorite comfort foods is tomato soup, and this is an easy, quick and tasty variant on ordinary tomato soup. I came up with this recipe while trying to duplicate a similar soup I had tasted in one of those soup-and-salad-bar restaurants.

Meatloaf

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For those of you who don't know, my Honey started out married life as a real, honest-to-goodness, college-educated scientist. Yep, she got a job right out of college as a part-time hydrologic field assistant. If you don't know what that is, you're in good - well, at least acceptable - company.

Salmon Croquettes

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Like many others, my Honey and I are trying to put more fish into our diets. Seems that fish are one of the better sources of omega-3 fatty acids, which are apparently good for you in a lot of different ways. The best fish for getting these little wonders are the oily, marine, cold-water fishes, like tuna and salmon.

Deviled Eggs

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We were in the mood for a light, easy meal at suppertime Friday night, so I scrounged up a can of Campbell's won ton soup and some chopped asparagus spears. Kind of light on the animal protein, so I cast my mind about and decided "Hey! I'll just make some deviled eggs!" No problem right? We always keep boiled eggs in the 'fridge for quick easy meals. Thinking about it though, I realized that I had no idea where to begin. It couldn't be as simple as just mixing the yolks up with some mayo, could it?

Cream of Asparagus Soup

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My Honey and I really like asparagus. We like it whether it's right from the garden, or fresh frozen, or even from a can, but we like it best fresh. The problem is, if you buy it fresh (or even frozen, in most cases) you get really long spears, of which only a short section, near the top, is tender enough to cook and eat as spears. The rest of the stalk may still be edible (technically), and even tasty, but is very fibrous and thus much less pleasant to eat.

Salmon Chowder

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My Honey decided last week that she wanted some salmon chowder. Normally, she makes it herself, but I'm at home more now, and she's working, so I got the job of figuring out how to make it. I looked at all of her cookbooks, and couldn't find a single chowder recipe that called for salmon. Some of the ingredients for the other chowders didn't strike me as going well with salmon, either. Anyway, I improvised, and it turned out very well. I decided to put it out here, in case any of you might like to try it.