Fried Cajun Fish

                       I love fish!!!




The seasonings on this is enough to be different and is guaranteed to be on your weekly menu planner.  The recipe calls for firm white fish, which is usually a quick-cooking type fish.  This would include (but not limited to) tilapia, catfish, haddock, grouper, Alaska pollock, and snapper.




Ingredients:

2 tsp. paprika
2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp chili powder
4 firm white fish fillets
1 tbs oil

Directions:

Mix paprika, black pepper, coriander, cumin and chili powder in a bow. Toss fish in spice mixture. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add fish and cook for 2 minutes on each side or until cooked

Spiced Ham in Cider (Slow Cooker)

Great time-saver and convenient. A little bit different....but oh so good! This calls for canned ham, but I think any precooked boneless ham would do. Great to use Turkey ham also.

Ingredients:

1 (3 lb.) canned ham
whole cloves
1 pt. Of sweet apple cider
Dried apricots and dark raisins

Directions:

Preheat slow cooker on high setting.

Stud ham on each side with whole cloves. Place in slow cooker and add cider. Cook for 30 minutes. Add 10 dried apricots and a handful of raisins and cook 50 minutes longer. Remove from the cooker and drain on platter before slicing and serving with the cook fruit.

Recipe from my 1984 collection.

Homemade Sausage

 

 

This homemade recipe is from a 1986 book that I found. I usually add a little more sage to my sausage anyway. This seems to give it a more “homemade” taste. This recipe is easy to mix and can be frozen for easy future use. Enjoy

Ingredients:

2 lbs. fresh lean pork
¼ lb. fat salt pork
½ tsp. thyme
1 tsp. sage
½ tsp. celery seed
½ tsp. marjoram
½ tsp. allspice
½ tsp. cracked black pepper
½ tsp. salt

Directions:

Ask butcher to grind the lean pork and salt pork. Add spices, salt and mix thoroughly. Make into patties. These may be pre-cooked, cooled, packaged and frozen for later use. Can be rolled, wrapped well and used as desired. Fry patties in skillet for 8-19 minutes.

*If you like a hot/spicier sausage, I think you could probably add a little red pepper flakes to the batch.

Southern Style Chicken and Dumplings

There are many kinds of good dumpling recipes (round, made from canned biscuits or pie crust). But the true Southern style dumpling is the flat dumpling that can be thick, thin, short, long, square, oblong or all of the above. They are not necessarily uniform, but oh boy are they delicious.

This recipe is the Old School, made-from-scratch method with my quick alternates out to the side in italic.

Ingredients:

1 whole 4 lb chicken, cleaned and lightly rubbed with salt (I use bone in chicken thighs or breast)
2 onions, roughly chopped
2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
1 sm peeled sweet potato or carrot (I skip both of these, but they do add color)
1 clove garlic peeled (I use garlic powder or minced garlic)
½ tsp salt
2 tsp ground white pepper (I like black pepper...lots of it)
1 bay leaf

For Dumplings:

2 cups all purpose flour (I use self-rising and skip the salt and baking powder)
1 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup of milk.

Directions:

In a large pot combine the whole chicken, 3 quarts of water; and the onions, celery, sweet potato, garlic, salt, pepper and bay leaf. Cover and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce to low and simmer for about 2 hours until chick is very tender (falling off the bone). Remove chicken and drain well, setting the stock aside.

When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and bones and discard. Set aside meat.

Strain the stock and add water if necessary to make 3 quarts.

For the dumplings, in a large bowl sift together flour, salt and baking powder, Stir in milk until just blended. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until firm. Cover and allow to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. (This resting period can be while you are deboning and removing the skin from the chicken)

Roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1/8 inch and cut into about 1 x 3 inch strips. Allow them to sit about 45 minutes so that when cooked, they do not puff but stay flat like noodles.

Bring the strained stock to a boil over high heat. Add the dumplings a few at a time, bringing the stock back to a boil after each addition. Reduce heat to low and cover pot. Simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in the chicken meat and serve.

Creamed Sweetbreads

Found this recipe and thought it looked interesting.  Sweetbreads are the thymus (or pancreas) of  a calf or lamb, or sometimes made from beef or pork.  If you serve this, but do not want to call it sweetbread, another culinary name would be "ris de veau" or "ris d'agneau"

1 lb sweetbreads
3 hard-boiled eggs (chopped)
¼ lb blanched almonds
1 can mushrooms

Soak sweetbreads in cold water for 1 hour. Parboil with slice of lemon for 20 minutes. Plunge in cold water, cut into cube, add hard-boiled eggs chopped, ¼ pound almonds, 1 can mushrooms drained. Mix with a well seasoned cream sauce and serve on toast or patty shells. 4 servings