This is Maw Maw Gertie’s smothered okra and tomatoes. It’s a country Cajun dish that I loved so much as a child. Continue reading Smothered Okra and Tomatoes
Category Archives: main dish
Zucchini Pasta and Vegetables with Sun-dried Tomatoes
When this recipe posts, I will have spent almost four weeks traveling through Italy, from Venice to Sicily. I will have had several stops and cooking classes in Tuscany: Cinque Terre, Pisa, Florence, and Siena. I will have had a cooking class in Rome, traveled down the Amalfi Coast, spent time in Sorrento, frollicking two days on the island of Capri and stopping in the beach town of Cephalu. Along the way, I will have experienced all sorts of Italian cuisine, and I may just cringe when I look back at this little creation of Mediterranean veggies and fake pasta. For starters, the pasta isn’t really pasta…it’s zucchini made with my new contraption found in the “as seen on TV” section of some random store in Huntsville, Alabama.
Continue reading Zucchini Pasta and Vegetables with Sun-dried Tomatoes
Asparagus Pizza on a Pita
This is another one of those little pita pizzas I promised a few weeks ago. This one has no pizza sauce on it, but it’s really good and a nice change from ordinary pizza. Aside from asparagus, it has onions and radishes. I stumbled on using radishes for this one. This is how it went: I only had a small amount of onion left in the kitchen that day so I remembered that, like onions, radishes have sort of a tender, sweet taste when they are cooked. I compensated by using three radishes for the missing onion, and it turned out great. I may try adding artichokes to this pizza next time. That will surprise those taste buds!
Margherita Eggplant Stacks
I just love basil, tomato and cheese on anything: bread, mushrooms, eggs, zucchini and even eggplants. These little snacks are so delicious and so easy and so quick to make that I’ve made them at least a half a dozen times in the last few months. For a family that doesn’t care much for eggplants, they sure eat these up.
Spinach and Mushroom Pizza on a Pita
Before I learn to “really” make pizzas in Italy, I must share my adorable little pita pizzas that are requested on a daily basis by my family. They may snub up their noses when I make broccoli salad or smothered kale, but not when I pull out the pitas, pizza sauce, and veggies. It is absolutely delicious and tastes better than any take-out pizza you’ll ever eat. I have all sorts of variations to this recipe that I’ll have to share while I’m gone this month learning to cook like an Italian. I may return and be embarrassed to call this a pizza, but for now it’s my version of what a pizza should be.
Grilled Portobella with Basil, Tomatoes, and Goat Cheese
Here they are Mitch! Mitch is a really good friend of mine from Louisiana, and he loves these mushrooms. It was his request that reminded me to post them to my blog; however, I would have eventually remembered to share them because they are mouth-watering delicious!
Continue reading Grilled Portobella with Basil, Tomatoes, and Goat Cheese
Noodle-less Vegetable Lasagna
“No noodles and no meat! It’s super healthy and packed with lots of veggies and quinoa for an extra boost of protein.” That was my selling pitch to the family. At first it didn’t work, until the smell drifted from the oven and down the halls. Well, it smells like lasagna was their reply. I managed to get a husband and a son or two to give it a try. The hubby even had seconds. There wasn’t even a complaint regarding the eggplant-noodles (eggplants are not popular in the family). I have found them to be easily disguised by covering them in pasta sauce.