Not everything I cook turns out as an award winning “Chopped Champion. In fact, I have experienced a number of disasters in and around the kitchen. It’s just that I don’t write about those very often. Today, however, is a confessional. This is a recipe for “How Not To” cook Blackened Quail. I had a few quail in the freezer from a prior hunt on a Virginia game preserve and I wanted to try a … [Read more...]

How in Sam Hill do you fry a turkey – or anything for that matter – without oil? I was about to find out. For Christmas, my daughter Angelin and her husband, Brent, gave me a Big Easy Oil-less Turkey Fryer from Char-Broil. They knew how much I love to deep-fry a turkey, Cajun style, and that was my main present from my generous Greensboro family. The day after Christmas, we decided to check it … [Read more...]

The more chicken you eat, the easier it ease to lose weight, so we eat a lot of chicken in our house. Trouble is, you soon run out of ways to prepare the tasty fowls, so I am always on the lookout for new and improved recipes. Not long ago, I was rummaging though the grocery aisles with the spices and flours and saw a breading called Mama’s Seasoned Coating Mix. I bought it not knowing exactly how … [Read more...]

One of the hardest parts of the daily duties of being a home chef is not preparing the main course or even the dessert. It’s what to do with the vegetables. We get in a rut, or at least I do: green beans, broccoli, brussel sprouts, tossed salad, zucchini, lima beans, and then repeat. My daughter Laura introduced me to one of her go-to veggies – roasted radishes. It’s a colorful, tasty and … [Read more...]

My wife and a group of her early morning exercise friends meet periodically for breakfast. Sometimes they go to a local restaurant and sometimes they meet at someone’s home. A couple years back, they came over to our house and I volunteered to cook for them. One of the dishes I served was a blueberry cobbler, sort of. The girls called it “blueberry stuff”, but they loved it and ate every morsel. … [Read more...]

Deer season is fully underway and hunters are reporting better results than last year, though the jury is still out on the final harvest numbers. Venison, of course, is especially healthy meat, leaner by far than commercial beef. It is delicious when cooked properly, but not so much when overcooked or under seasoned. Sherman T. Shiffllett, a CvilleBuzz contributor, offers this recipe as a … [Read more...]

Sometimes you have to eat stuff that’s good for you, otherwise it’s “Blimpsville” for your waistline. But sometimes, you want to eat stuff that’s good for you because it tastes terrific. I enjoyed such a dish recently called “Confetti Chili.” Sue Overton of Skyline Graphics rustled up a big batch and it was healthy and delicious. If you try this turkey-based chili, you may never want ground beef … [Read more...]

Virginia Saltwater Dr. Ken Neill, III   Small rockfish are pretty much everywhere. More fish over 30 inches are being caught. Some of the better catches are being made in the York River, at the James River crossings and at the CBBT. Larger fish are on their way with fish to over 50 pounds being caught a bit to our north this week. A little more of the cooler weather will have more of … [Read more...]

Sunday is often the night to chill out at the Brewer house. Many times we have entertained or have been entertained over the weekend and we want a simple, Sunday night meal. For Nancy and I, Sunday is a great night for pizza. But that presents a problem. Both of us are watching our weight and pizza is not a very accommodating dish when it comes to shedding calories. The opposite is true because … [Read more...]

Sometimes it’s not what you put in the pot that makes a terrific dish. Sometimes, it’s the pot you put the food in that makes all the difference. Cooking oysters, for example. It’s hard to screw up an oyster. They’re even good if you drop one on the floor and scoop it up quickly and eat it raw. They are not so good, however, if you try to fry them and you put too many in a pan, or if you don’t … [Read more...]