Fried Green Tomatoes for Lunch

We went eat breakfast at the 59 Diner in Houston. It just was not as good as what we remember. We have not been in several months, so maybe the place is going down hill or it just could have been an off morning in the kitchen. The funny part was when the waiter was taking our order, I was explaining that I wanted a double order of HUGO sauce and he looked at me and said I KNOW..I remember you. I guess I am the only one who can handle the hot sauce. I ordered my hashbrowns cooked a little more than they normanly cook them cause sometimes if find them to be too soft. WELL, When they brought the food, my looked YUMMY !! Danny's was not what he ordered. He said sausage & bacon and they only had sausage ( it was cooked so hard he could not eat it ) and not toast. Too funny cause i asked the waiter for the toast and he finally brought some. It was burnt and had been scrap'ed with a serated knife. Too funny.. I do that at my house but you would think that they would just make some fresh toast ?? Well, my hashbrows were hard as rocks and the tasted like old grease. And so did the country fried steak, like fried in old grease. When he came pick up Danny's plate, I said something about the burnt toast and he said the toaster was set too hight but he could bring some more and the bacon Danny ordered. It was not big deal, we just paid and left.
We went to Central Market..the BEST grocery store here. Danny wanted some green tomatoes to fry. The farmers market was not open on Sunday so we went there. He wants a burger for supper so we picked up some fresh buns and fresh ground chuck. Got some really fresh fruit and good cheese. Went to HEB to get a few other things. I love shopping with Danny.
Not too hungry for lunch so we fried some green tomatoes. I took some AP flour and seasoned it reall good with salt and a lot of black pepper. Mixed and egg with a little water and then took enriched yellow corn meal and seasoned it with salt and a lot of black pepper.

 Danny tasted the tomatoes and said they were not as good as home grown. Not enough acid for him. We sliced them kinda thick and put salt and pepper on them,.

 Heated up a little oil in a cast iron fry pan and put the tomatoes in. Make sure the oil is good hot. When good and bown on the bottom, flip them over and cook on the other side.

 Looking GOOD !!

 Put them on a cookie rack over a sheet pan to cool off. Yea right, we both burnt our mouths tasting them before they cooled off...LOL

 I think these were the best ones I ever cooked. Some of the ones I have fried in the past were kinds too red and were mushy when you fried them. These were very hard green ones. I did good..I only ate 3 slices. I'm thinking about the burgers we are gonna cook for supper.LOL

Danny said we are going to try and find some home grown ones at a farmers market. I guess the ones with more acid taste better. I had to laugh cause he said when we find some, he will ask them to cut one for him to taste to make sure they are home grown and have a lot of acid. He said really good ones will burn your hands because of the acid if you have a little cut on you finger. I told him we will go the the knife sharpner that they have there to get our knives done and he can cut his finger before we look for our tomatoes.LOL. We have an eletric one but have brough our good knives there for them to sharpen them real good. Good idea to do that once a year they say, who has time for that..LOL

My version of a restaurant favorite

Went eat at P.F.Chang's with Tammy and went shopping. The food was good and found a couple of cute shirts. It was SO hot. Only June 4 th and I can't believe its so hot already. We went make a lil groceries at HEB and then went to Spec's Liquor and bought out the store cause you can't buy liquor on Sunday's here in Houston. LOL..the place was packed !!
Came home and Danny had been working in the back yard all day and said he wanted something light for supper. I said great cause I want to go eat at 59 diner tomorrow morning. It is our FAVORITE place to go for Sunday breakfast. Being on the road so much, I realised we have not been in months !!
I decided to try and cook one of our favorite things we eat at Outback Steakhouse.
I took some Speckled Trout out the freezer. We have been catching fish for years and never eat it too much. We have had a few fish fry's but always give it away or hoard it in the freezer. Usually when we catch fish, we send them to our fish cleaner,John. He cleans,lables & seals them so they stay good forever. I put the pack in a bowl and run cold water, it thaws them out in just a few mins

I dried them off real good and then put some Paul Prudhomme Seafood Magic seasoning on them.

I put 1 TBS of unsalted butter in a pan and let get real hot. You want the pan hot so the fish does not stick whe you put it in the pan.

Let the fish cook over pretty high fire till the edges start to turn white and the fish looks wet on top. That means that the underside is cooking and pushing the moisture to the top.

Flip the fish and let cook a few more mins. Don't over cook or it will be dry and the fish will still cook once you tak it out of the pan.

I took the fish out and added another TBS of butter and a small shallot cut up fine. Let cook a few mins.

I added 3 TBS of white wine and let cook a few mins to get all the good drippings up off the bottom of the pan.

I added some can artichokes,sliced sun dried tomatoes,capers and 2 TBS lemon juice. Let cook to heat thru and put on top of the fish in the plate.

I had a little steamed broccoli with salt and pepper and a piece of toasted,buttered bread to eat with the fish.

Danny LOVED the fish. He kept moaning the whole time he was eating. He could not believe how good it was, he asked if I can cook fish like this, why haven't we been eating the fish we catch.LOL

Funniest thing was when I was in the kitchen cleaning up, he said from the living room

"we aint giving no more fish away"

My hubby said it was better than the one we eat at Outback !!!

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Fun times with Tammy,Shrimp & Wine

Danny went to Charleston,WV on June 1st overnight for a meeting so it was a perfect time to catch up with Tammy, which always includes Wine & Food. I saw Barefoot Contessa make this recipe for Baked Shrimp Scampi several times and have been wanting to try it. We went shrimping at the camp a few weeks ago and brought some shrimp back with us to Houston so I knew it was the perfect time to try it.

You start off with some big shrimp. Peel and devein them and cut them open to butterfly them. I left the tails on but you don't have too. Mix with the marinade and arrange in a baking dish butterfly cut side down and let the tails curve back over the shrimp.

This is the stuffing mix. It was really easy to make. Just make sure the butter is at room temp so it mixes easy.

Barefoot Contessa just plopped the stuffing on top of the shrimp but Tammy is much more creative that that. Tammy lifted up the shrimp tail and put the stuffing on top of the shrimp and curled the shrimp tail on top of the stuffing. I don't usually drink while cooking but at this point, I started.LOL. I was starving and just wanted to eat but I think Tammy is tired of cleaning up after me when we cook so as she was putting her artist impression on the shrimp, I was forced to do the dishes. I will admit, it was a lot prettier than Barefoot Contessa's. Tammy may want to see if Ina needs an assisant to help her in her cooking show.
So we put the shrimp in the oven and finished off what was left of the wine we used for cooking and caught up on each other lives. Barefoot Contessa just served her on a plate by themselves but we decided we wanted to try it over some pasta. We put a pot of water on the stove and it was taking forever to come to a boil so we, being the smart women that we are, put a baking sheet on top of the the pot and it was boiling before we knew it. Threw in some thin spaghetti was done in know time. When the shrimp were cooked, we did not find they were browned enough so we put them under the broiler and opened another bottle and waited for them to get GBD..Golden Browned & Delicious.

The smell when they came out the oven was amazing. All the butter garlic & lemon..YUM. So we fixed a plate of the shrimp over the pasta and opened another bottle of wine...hehe. It was so good, I still can't belive it tasted so good. Tammy wanted the recipe so we looked it up so I could print it for her and we watched the video of Ina making the dish on the foodtv website. It was taking forever for the video to load up so we fixed us another plate while waiting. When we looked at the recipe, we both laugh cause it said "serves 6" ?!?! HUH...me and Tammy ate and they had just enough left over for her hubby. Ina must NOT be used to cooking for Cajuns nor Texans !!

Crystal is flying into Houston on Monday and we are going to cook this again for her. Tammy had the idea of putting a layer of asparagus at the bottom of the pan and the shrimp on top so I think we are going to try that. Come on, how bad could that be..asparagus cooking in butter,garlic,lemon & wine !!!

We may even try it on top of some fish too.

Ina said in her video that she never tries a new recipe out on company, well like Tammy said, she is family,not company. It was a fun night cooking,drinking and catching up.

This is the wine we used to cook with. Very good to cook and drink.I need to get a few bottles for Monday. I bet it's even better to drink the wine with the meal you cook it in. Too bad the shrimp took so long to cook. We finished off the bottle and had to drink a different one with supper..LOL
 Baked Shrimp Scampi
2 LBS Large Shrimp
3 TBS Good Olive Oil
2 TBS Dry White Wine
1 TS Salt
1 TS Black Pepper

12 TBS ( 1/12 blocks) unsalted butter-room temp
5 TSP Minced Garlic
1/4 Cup Minced Shallot or Onion
4 TBS Minced Flat Parsley
1 TBS Grated Lemon
3 TBS Lemon Juice
1 Egg Yolk
2/3 Cup Panko Bread Crumbs

Mix the olive oil,salt & pepper and add to the cleaned shrimp. Arrange in baking dish. Mix the butter,garlic,shallot,parsley,lemon juice,grated lemon,egg yolk together and add bread crumbs and mix well. Put on top of shrimp. Bake at 425  tfor 10 mins and them put close under broiler till browned.

I guess I have to start writtin in this thing again...LOL

My Daughter, Rebekah, set this blog up for me 6 months ago and I put a few post up and then kinda forgot about it. The last few weeks, she had been telling me I need to start posting stuff in it again. Well, since she set it up, I forgot the email address and password. I'm old and forget things. I saw she posted the link to the blog on her facebook wall, I figured I better start writting in it again. I had the pleasure of calling her at 6:00 AM to get the account info. LOL. She forgot the password too so we had to go thru the whole process of re setting the password. Email after email and 30 mins later we finally have access to the blog !!!
Lets see if I can keep up with this blog this time !!