Zucchini & Chicken Parmesan

Like a man on a mission my goal it seems lately is to use every zucchini out of our garden no matter what I have to come up with recipe wise to do it. Eggplant and not zucchini was suppose to be in this recipe but I'm satisfied how the little switch turned out. Let's see here, it has a large zuke that I sliced in 1/4 inch rounds and oiled both side and seasoned with salt and pepper then baked on a sheet pan till browned, turning once. Single layer of the baked zukes in bottom of baking dish, layer of tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, parmesan, fresh whole basil leaves, and boneless skinless breast that had been browned on each side and sliced. A second layer of the same and then ending with a third layer without the chicken. I was out of garlic but this recipe did not call for garlic and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't miss it at all - this dish taste great. I did have one little glitch making this - I thought it would be a good idea to take the stick blender to a jar of tomatoes and that stick got away from me and made tomato juice before I knew what happened and I went ahead and made the dish with the juice and wound up having to dip some out at the end.

Too Much Learning To Do

When I bought my Blackberry I thought about the 30-year business I ran
with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes
videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed
up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their
spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me
in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as
Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree,
Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and
something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other
program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything
except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not
ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf
bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get
lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I
keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red]
phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was
standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in
the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid
out to use it, and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady
inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into
in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say,
"Re-calc-ul-ating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was
like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh
and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a
right turn instead…well, it was not a good relationship.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the
cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as
Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the
cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still
haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have
run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the
dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up
every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle
on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time
I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth
reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take
them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I
just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their
turn to stare at me with a blank look.

I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do toot a lot."

PS I know some of you are not over 50. I sent it to you to allow you
to forward it to those who are.
PPS This is not entirely factual as pertaining to me personally but is pretty dang funny.

Herb Omelet

Not a big omelet fan but I guess they will do in a pinch. Fresh thyme, basil, cilantro, onions, garlic makes it better. Thick sliced Wrights bacon don't hurt either. Add a piece of hard toast and I ain't complaining.

Rip Tips

Taking advantage of the fresh garden veggies and still getting BBQ in there is very NICE (no sauce though). You know the old timers didn't have a problem with boiling these and having them just like you see here - these were boiled (in the bag after they were smoked). Gotta think these are a leg up on the other way.

Hot Link & Veggie Pasta

This was one of those "whatever you got in the kitchen goes in the pan" deals. I had stew in mind when I started and planned to serve it with a timbale of rice but someone came along and got a pot of pasta to cooking so I had to switch gears. Sauteed the homemade Texas Hot Links and removed from pan and sauteed the bell pepper, yellow squash, onion, garlic, fresh basil, and tomatoes. After cooking those down just a lil bit I added 1/2 cup white wine. Added the sausage back to the pan and simmered 20 min, mixed this in a big bowl with the pasta and added parmesean.

BLT's Jack Up A Lil

What??? You never baked your bacon? And you never put brown sugar and red pepper flakes on it either? Our Walmart carries Wright Thick Sliced Bacon and it's good bacon. Bacon will burn fast in the oven once it gets the fat rendered out of it, so you really have to watch it at the end.

Catfish Supper

After spending several hours working on the BBQ trailer trying to get ready for a couple 2 or 3 upcoming contest, I focused my attention on this fish supper yesterday. I knew I'd like this combo of sides and was glad I tried it and it was nice getting out of the slaw & fry thing to go with your fish. Seems like we seldom cook on weekends that we don't have to make that trip to the store for something to fill out the list of ingredients and yesterday was no different. I needed a bell pepper for the Okra and Corn Maque Choux and some Shrimp for the Shrimp Grits. Strange but not surprising to me was that Walmart did not have any shrimp of any kind that was not already cooked, so I went to the big mexican store and they had em with heads on. I don't think I like buying em like that as it's kinda gross taking the heads off and besides your paying for the heads and not using them unless maybe you made stock with em. All is well that ends well and everything turned our really good.

Tacos de Carne Asada

Steak Tacos with some of our prized Sirloin Tip Roast(machine sliced thin, chopped, and fried). Yellow Corn Tortillas and Garden Fresh Pico de Gallo topped with Homemade Salsa ROCKS. Breakfast with Sue's Biscuits, Gravy, and Country Ham ain't too shaby it's own self. Dinna is already in the works with Deep Fried Catfish Nuggets, Shrimp Grits, and an Okra and Corn Maque Choux. Proly some Hush Puppys.

Deep Fried Cod & Veggie Cassarole

Here's another good way to use some of those fresh garden veggies - a "Roasted Veggie Casserole". You start with a layer of thin sliced potatoes, add a layer of thin sliced bell pepper and onion along with a clove or two of minced garlic that has been tossed in EVOO, add a layer of zuchinni, then a layer of thin sliced tomatoes, and finish with layer of the onion & pepper mixture. Top with parmesean and bake covered for 40 min at 350 and uncover and bake another 20 min at 450. Great flavors with this dish and I think you'll love em - should go with about anything, we had deep fried Cod. Here's a link to the recipe:
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/summer-vegetable-casserole

Pasta Premivera

This seemed like a good idea with all the fresh veggies on hand and it sure turned out great. I used my gal Giada's recipe for a guide but grilled the veggies in one of them holey grill / stir fry pans for about 20 min first and added squash blossoms and anchovies when reheating on the stove as I added the pasta. Found this lil hunk of Bottom Round and injected it with Kosmos and marinaded in Moore's with some dried herbs for 24 hours before a hot sear and then a hot braise to finish. We had Ms Aubrey visiting and eating with us or I'd have added some garden peppers and more anchovies to the Pasta although I'm not sure she would have turned it down with those since she wolfed down some onion with her pasta like it was better than the pasta.

Jerky Quesadillas

Mexican food has always been a favorite of mine and I am very fortunate to have enjoyed authentic dishes right here in Dalton, Ga that are as good as they come. One dish that I always like was Machaca con Huevos (Jerky and Eggs). The meat market always keeps a pan of their store made jerky on top of the counter, so when I picked up some chorizo the other day I remembered this dish and immediately thought if jerky is good in eggs it's bound to make some really good Quesadillas. You can try breaking it in pieces and whirling it in a blender or food processor to shred it but the best way is to break it in pieces and then pound it till it shreds and you can then pull it apart. I didn't do either, I just used a heavy cleaver and cut it in match stick pieces. That's about all there is to quesadillas but boy are they good.

Brisket Stuffed Peppers, Chorizo Quesadillas, & Chorizo Burritos

I'm gonna cook regardless I reckon and ya gotta eat something anyhow, and she that "thinks" she must be obeyed was doing a fine job on putting up corn all by herself so I fixed Dinna last night and Breakfast this morning for us while she was cutting, scrapping, and freezing all that corn. For the Dinna I had some really good brisket I cooked and food savered in March and used it to stuff some BELL PEPPERS the boys gave us from their garden. I used the chopped BRISKET, along with some sauteed ONION, GARLIC, TOMATOES, RICE, then layered that mixture in the peppers with cheese ever so often and cooked in the same pan of broth that I precooked the peppers in to soften them up a bit before stuffing. Ever now and then I would ladle some of that broth over the peppers as they cooked on my smoker with apple and cherry wood. I thought it would be nice to have QUESADILLAS with the peppers and I used flour tortillas and some local store made CHORIZO and shredded mozzerella and a few of them fresh mozzerella balls and cooked them on the grill and boy did that work good. Dinna was good but breakfast did not suk either. I had enough CHORIZO left to make BURRITOS and I love SOFT SCRAMBLED EGG AND CHORIZO BURRITOS, but you know you gotta have it all the way (I'm not a PURO BURRITO fan) so I heated some black beans along with some chopped onion and that herb that I can never remember the name of and had some rice left over from last night and chopped some onion and cilantro. These were small flour tortillas so they were more like tacos and I had the fresh made from scratch salsa verde from last night that I forgot to mention (did I mention we have more peppers than you can shake a stick at) so, definitely this breakfast was as good as any of our friends from south of the border have ever made.

Putting Food By

Well I helped a lil bit and we / she cut off the cob, scrapped, and cooked it a lil bit before putting in freezer bags about 36 years of corn three different times, about 120 years. Should be enough - got any corn recipes to share? Interesting story about this is the man that grew the corn. I won't give the name but he is one of the largest if not the largest land owners in Murray Co and he does good things for folks like donations of different types, etc. Each year he grows and harvests a LOT of corn and purposely leaves plenty for folks that want to come pick it. A pretty good fella I'd say.