Recipes and Whatnot From Mike Summers

Tonight, we are going to have pork ribs in my wife's mother's homemade sauce. The ribs are the easy part of course. But the sauce is just about equal parts canned tomato sauce and water. A medium onion, lemon juice, vinegar, dry mustard, a bit of soy sauce, salt and pepper and about a handful of brown sugar.

We brown the ribs a bit in a pan then drop them into the crock pot which has the sauce already in it.

Later, I will steam some rice and veggies and we'll be enjoying a nice dinner when she gets home from work.

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Macaroni Salad:

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I had never had macaroni salad. The one I first tasted was made with a mixed dressing. I came home and tried to play with things and here's what I came up with.

2 or 3 cups of uncooked macaroni
2 or 3 cups of vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and carrots which I french sliced.

My sauce;
1-1 1/4 cups of mayo
1/4 cup of pickle juice
1/4 - 1/2 tsp of garlic powder and about the same amount of onion powder. I would start small. You can always add.

I never actually measured anything. I just do.

After cooking the macaroni, I would drain and rinse in cold water. Add the veggies and then the sauce to taste. Make it a bit liquid because the macaroni will continue to soak up fluid. And of course gently stir until everything has a coating.

The dressing seems to almost have a ranch flavor to me.

(other stuff to add: cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, cubed Velveeta cheese, left-over chicken, shrimp, raisins?, chopped hard-boiled eggs, celery, a wee bit of mustard and sugar, peas, ham)



Cucumber Sandwiches:

English Cucumber slices on buttered bread with a bit of black pepper and salt.

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I was at it again in the kitchen. I wanted one of the things that we eat all the time at a restaurant called the Keg.

Mushrooms Neptune.

Start with fresh mushrooms that you have stemmed leaving the cap hollowed out.

Mix crab meat and shrimp meat that you have chopped reasonably fine. Add in cream cheese, lemon juice and some chopped onion. Mix together until you get a sticky blob of meaty stuff and cheese.

Put it all into a piping bag and squirt it into the caps. Come on now... be generous.

Place the stuffed caps on a tray and place in a very hot oven ideally under a broiler.

Cooking for about 15 minutes or until the cheesy stuff is browned.

They were good, but they were missing something. What the heck am I missing.

Garlic maybe??? What am I missing. It's making me nuts. I like to figure out ingredients in the foods that I have from good restaurants. They obviously don't like you to have their secret recipes. But I have figured out how to make many different dishes by taste alone.

This one makes me nuts.

KEG'S STUFFED MUSHROOMS NEPTUNE (this was a response on MyLot to Mike’s question “what was he missing.”

fresh mushrooms
FOR THE STUFFING:
1 (8 ounce) pkg cream cheese, softened
1 (6 oz) can tiny shrimp, drained
1 (6 oz) can crabmeat, drained and flaked
1/4 cup grated Swiss cheese
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 clove garlic, crushed
green onion, finely chopped (to taste)
ground black pepper (to taste)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Clean mushrooms and remove stems; set aside. Combine all ingredients for the stuffing. Fill each mushroom cap with a portion of the stuffing. Bake at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes until cheese is melted. Makes about 36.



Chicken Caesar Pita

Yesterday I enjoyed, a chicken Caesar that I could eat with my hands. I used a pita bread. I browned a few slices of bacon, set it aside on paper towels to get as much grease off. Then, I browned chicken breasts in the bacon fat. Took them out of the pan and let them also cool on the paper towel.

After the meats were cool, I chopped the bacon into coarse bits and cubed the chicken breast. Did up the Romaine lettuce and added my meats. My wife doesn't care for croutons so I left them out. Add your Caesar dressing and toss gently.

Then, slicing the side of one of the pita breads I was able to have a hole about 3 inches or so in the top. Open the pita up so that there is a nice pocket and fill with the chicken Caesar salad you just made and serve.

This is of course a variant on a Caesar wrap except all of the fixin's stay put.

It's fresh. It's light and it's not messy like a wrap can be. I wish I had more now!