Hey Camella! What's for Supper?

One of my favorite past-times is food, not eating but preparing it; whether it is for a Sunday dinner or a wedding reception for 200 the act of sitting down and deciding the menu, the practice and then the preparing is like a drug to me. When I am in the kitchen, it me and the food, nothing else matters and please don’t get in my way!

Recipe Folder passed down from my grandmother to my mom and to me.

Some of my favorite meals have of course been those wrapped around my childhood and every once in a while I pull the recipes out of my mind and get to work to create a feast for Sunday dinner which could include:

My husband's plate...

Fried Chicken with the Livers and Gizzards

Fresh Collards, braised with secret spices and a splash of vinegar

Stewed Yellow Squash with onions

Fresh Field Peas over White Rice

Fried Okra

Of course we don’t eat like that every Sunday, but once in a blue moon my roots call to me and I remember dinner at Aunt Hazel’s or at my Momma’s kitchen table and well I just give in.

Two of my very favorite cookbooks...

I also love to visit local restaurants while on vacation and of course if there’s a cookbook I have to buy it so I can recreate a meal and bring back the memory of good times… it has been 5 years since we took a trip to Saint Augustine and ate at the Columbia Restaurant but we keep the memory alive by having a salad based on their Ensalada 1905 and Spanish Bean Soup several times a year. I grew up eating Spanish Bean Soup and my grandfather would always bring back some from the Columbia in Tampa when we were younger and I just had to try it on our trip. I was not disappointed and my family loves this meal.

CUBAN SALAD
This salad is adapted from a wonderful meal Frank and I had while vacationing in Florida and are a favorite meal at our house. It goes great with the Spanish Bean Soup.



Salad
½ head iceberg or romaine lettuce

1 ripe tomato cut into eighths

½ cup Swiss cheese cut into strips

½ cup ham cut into strips

½ cup black olives (optional)

2 tsp grated Romano Cheese

Dressing

1/8 cup white wine vinegar

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic minced

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp oregano

2 tsp lemon or lime juice

Mix garlic, oregano and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl, beat until smooth with whisk add oil and beat to blend together, stir in vinegar and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper, add to salad and toss well.




I collect cookbooks of course, but recipes as well and some I have had been passed down for generations while others are new but will become old favorites soon enough like the Chicken with Penne in Vodka Sauce. My husband and daughter both fell in love with this dish and we’ve eaten it three times in the last couple of months. Even my 15 month old granddaughter loved it so it is surely a winner at my house.

Chicken with Penne in Vodka Sauce

Another new dish we loved: Italian Pot Roast with Herbed Polenta

Even a recent hotdog roast at our house was a chance to pull out cookbooks and scour the web for menu ideas and we ended up having 3 types of sausages along with the franks, homemade hotdog chili and 3 types of relishes along with sauerkraut, slaw and various types of mustard! And thanks to an email from a food site we tried BBQ Ribs with Dr. Pepper BBQ Sauce for Memorial Day... they were wonderful.

I wish I had more photos of my food but sometimes it smells so good and I’m so tired or distracted that I forget to take a photo!