I make a dish called Blueberry Stuff – basically a blueberry cobbler but laced with extra butter for yummy goodness. I needed a dessert recently and had 4 Granny Smith apples staring me down, so I decided to make a batch of Apple Stuff. It was as good as the Blueberry Stuff. This is a great dessert option if you don’t have a lot of time and want to “Wow” your guests. Here’s … [Read more...]

  Beef, chicken, fish, and pork. Pick one. Chance are it wasn’t pork. Yet, lean pork is as healthy as chicken and fish. But because it’s lean, though, it tends not to have as much flavor, and it often turns out tough and dry – at least mine did. Until… I figured out how to make Perfect Pork Loin Chops. Tender, juicy, flavorful, easy. Boneless pork loins are a staple in the meat … [Read more...]

  Hams are among those things we don’t eat enough of. They are lean (comparable even to chicken), inexpensive per pound and delicious. Since it’s just Nancy and me, the Brewer’s eat hams only every so often, but when we do, we wonder why we don’t serve them more frequently. I suppose the determining factor in not serving ham is the sheer size. They can weigh 20 pounds and more, though … [Read more...]

Gourmet Vegetable Beef Soup? It is if you use steak, and why not use steak? Every grocery store offers stew meat and that’s what most home chefs use in their soups and stews. This cut, however, is at the low end of the spectrum, quality wise. It is usually tough, chewy, and lacking in flavor. Steak, however, is a different story – tender and packed with flavor, and if you’re a frugal shopper, … [Read more...]

  I was in Sam’s Club, poking around, and found a package of 6 leg quarters salvaged from their Rotisserie Chicken from the day before. I prefer the dark meat anyway and it was less than $4, so I bought it. I decided I would make a Chicken Pie out of just the leg quarters. I call this Easy Goodness. Here’s how. Since the chicken was cold, it was easy to pull off the skin and tear the … [Read more...]

  Nancy and I were headed to Urbanna for the Oyster Festival and passed through West Point about 1:30. It was perfect timing for a little lunch, and I pulled into Diggs Seafood located just east of West Point. I ordered Deviled Crab and Nancy got a Crab Muffin. Both were out of sight delicious. My first experience with Diggs Seafood came years ago on a croaker fishing trip to the … [Read more...]

  I was tired of baking the same-old, same-old cookies for the kids in the family I cook for: though the young’uns never seem to tire of fresh baked cookies. But for a change of pace, I found a recipe and for Raspberry Crumble Bars, perfect for desserts or healthy snacks. Sometimes raspberries are a little pricey, so I stopped by Sam’s Club and bought two containers for about eight bucks … [Read more...]

I’ve printed this recipe before, but some things are worth repeating and this is one of them. We were considering which dessert to serve company recently, and Nancy suggested my “Blueberry Stuff.” I had forgotten about it. So I made it and was great as usual. Everybody loves it. We call it Blueberry Stuff because that’s the name some lady friends of Nancy called it when I fixed it for … [Read more...]

  Spaghetti is hard to beat. It’s easy to cook and everybody loves it. My only gripe with spaghetti is that every time I eat it, I gain weight. But how can you have just a little portion of spaghetti? I saw a recipe recently that looked interesting. They called it Million Dollar Spaghetti. I don’t know if it’s worth a million dollars, but it is both easy and delicious – almost a cross … [Read more...]

  My late friend Bev Kokatos loved Venison BBQ. Back when I owned Jim’s Fly & Tackle, we would occasionally put a venison roast in a crock pot and dish out sandwiches for our customers. One day, Bev stopped by for something and smelled the BBQ and asked what I was cooking. I gave her a sandwich and she was smitten. She said anytime I ever cooked BBQ to call her, she was quite taken … [Read more...]