When I go out to eat, I often judge a restaurant by the quality of cole slaw it serves – especially a seafood restaurant or  BBQ joint. Cole slaw is the ideal complement to fried or broiled fish, and pork as well. It offers the palette a change of pace and enhances the entrée. Cole slaw is also a powerful side dish with a bucket of chicken. I have been searching and swapping cole slaw … [Read more...]

  I like Tacos. I like Meatloaf. So how about a Taco Meatloaf? Bingo! It’s fun, it’s good, it’s tasty and easy. Here’s how I made mine. For starters, I have been using Ground Sirloin – a 90/10 blend -  in my recent burger recipes. It has lots of flavor but not so much fat – barely enough to drain and in this case, no draining. Put 2 pounds of the sirloin in a bowl and add 1 1/2 C … [Read more...]

  Most anytime I have the opportunity to stop at a genuine BBQ joint, I’ll order a North Carolina-style pulled or chopped pork sandwich. But you know what? A pulled chicken BBQ is pretty darn good itself and has a fraction of the calories of a pork BBQ. Recently, I needed some meat for lunchtime sandwiches and thought I’d buy a pound of sliced chicken at the Deli. The Deli was busy with … [Read more...]

  We ordered a ten piece box of KFC for a picnic lunch last week and I held myself to two pieces and still gained a pound and a half the next day. Sometimes you’ve just got to say, “To hell with the diet, I’m eating fried chicken.” The chicken was good. It was worth it. But I found a recipe for oven fried chicken that – though it does not rival real fried chicken in flavor – it’s pretty … [Read more...]

  I’m not proud of it, but I made a Spinach Pie with a Filo Crust. If my Golf Buddies find out, I’m toast. They don’t like playing with Snowflakes. But even Manly Men like Popeye the Sailor like spinach and I had a spinach craving. Spinach is one of those rich vegetables that needs a little help, otherwise it can be too much of a good thing. I was shuffling through recipes and saw … [Read more...]

So what do you do with those bananas that didn’t get eaten when they were yellow? Those black and brown ones with the fruit flies circling? Personally, I eat them all. They just look a little gross on the outside, but they’re good. My wife Nancy won’t even eat one that gets the first black stripe. But I found one way to make great use of these over-ripe beauties – Banana Cinnamon Muffins. I … [Read more...]

This is Cinco de Mayo week. Cinco de Mayo (May 5) is a big deal in Mexico, commemorating a great victory in the Battle of Puebla during the Franco/Mexican War in 1862.  It is a day of great pride for the Mexican people and a day when Americans eat about 100 million avocados and pretend they know how to cook Mexican food. This includes yours truly. However, slowly but surely, I am able to cook … [Read more...]

  When I was growing up, it seemed we either had rice or potatoes every meal. Mom was a southern-style cook and we had lots of dishes with gravy, so naturally we needed one of those starches. When Mom cooked rice, she didn’t drop one of those Boil-in-Bags in the pot. She cooked a whole pack of rice. It was dirt cheap, like a quarter for a one-pound package and that makes a lot of rice. We … [Read more...]

I made a fun dish this week – Ravioli Lasagna. It turned out well, but how could it not?  If you put ground sirloin, pasta sauce, onions, garlic, Italian cheeses and seasonings and ricotta cheese in a casserole dish and then add cheese filled ravioli? Heck yes, it was good. The nice thing about this recipe is you don’t have to fool with the lasagna noodles. I know they make oven-ready lasagna … [Read more...]

  Not long ago I ran across some pork cube steaks. I fried them quickly with some seasoned flour. They were very good and I wanted to buy some more. But cubed pork steaks is not a cut you often run across. I was at Food Lion and they didn’t have any, then I thought maybe I would just get some thin pork loin chops and pound them like a cubed steak. I saw a package that said Boneless Pork … [Read more...]