King Mackerel, Cobia and Friends

King Mackerel, Cobia and Friends...not in that particular order, it just made a better sounding title!

On a trip to Gulf Shores this past summer, we met up with some of the Bassman's long time friends.  And I do mean lonnnng time. 

Like his friend from middle school...yes, middle school.  They have kept in touch off and on over the years.

Then later we met up with lonnng time fishing buddies.  See the sunburns and tans?  Yep, they went deep sea fishing while the rest of us enjoyed the beach.

They managed to reel in a King Mackerel and a Cobia.  I had never tried either of those fish. 

Everyone said "Oh, the King Mackerel is strong, you'll want to cut it into nuggets and fry it." 

So we did.   We soaked them in buttermilk for a few minutes, sprinkled on plenty of cajun seasoning and covered them with meal before frying.

With all the "strong" comments, I was worried I would be throwing it in the trash.  But they weren't too strong, they were good along with some homemade tartar sauce.  

Having grown up eating catfish, I guess "strong" is relative!

We grilled the Cobia.  One seasoned with cajun seasoning and other with lemon pepper. 

Cobia is good, it has a milder taste.

I had to have some of both on my plate!

Have you cooked either of these fish?  If so, how did you cook them?

Nekked Jalapeno Poppers

If you want to make really good baked jalapeno poppers make these Emeril's jalapeno poppers. 

If all you really care about is the jalapeno and cheese, like me, make nekked jalapeno poppers like this:

Marlene at Isom's Orchard knew we were going to make jalapeno poppers so she gave us the freshest "just picked today" and BIGGEST jalapenos she had!  They were huge and yummy!

I piled the cheese mixture in the jalapeno.  Put them on the grill until the cheese is melted and the jalapeno is slightly softened.  Or just bake them like in the recipe link above. 

Forget the breading, who needs it anyway?   Who's playing?  It doesn't matter, I'm cheering for the tailgate!

Serve on the tailgate at game time.  Roll Tide.

PW Spinach and Mushroom Quesadillas

We're not big mushroom fans around here but I was looking forward to trying the Sweet as Pie Cooking Club selection the Pioneer Woman's Spinach and Mushroom Quesadillas. 

Cheese fans?  Yes, definitely.

Spinach fans?  Yes, definitely.

Spinach and Mushroom Quesadilla fan?

Yes, definitely!

Once in a blue moon

Yesterday was a blue moon day.  

I'm not an astronomy enthusiast or anything like that but I learned that the modern day definition of a Blue Moon is when there are 2 full moons in one month. 

I now have 3 years to learn how to get the best picture I can of the moon.  Or maybe I'll just learn how to Photoshop a picture of the moon!

Either way, see you on July 31, 2015.

Have a great weekend!

Anthro or industrial? magnet board

Seems like these days, a lot of our pictures never make it off the computer.  They remain on the disk drive, cell phone, blogs, Facebook, Instagram, wherever.   So make sure you're backing up your computer or at least the My Pictures folder (or wherever you're storing yours)!

My daughters needed some place to display the Zapps pictures from the events they attended.   A nice big bulletin board or something like that to also add some decoration or interest to the almost bare walls of the house would be great!

I thought those cabinet doors from the Habitat Restore would be perfect for a magnet board for pictures.   There's not a lot of pictures of my DIY here, but hopefully you get the "picture" :).

Just give them a coat of primer first thing. 

Then I painted on the color that I want the trim to be.  The color gray is so popular now and I thought the college crowd would like it.  This is called Elephant Gray. 

Sheet metal can be found at Lowe's in a 2'x3' piece for less than $10.  I took it to a local sheet metal shop and they cut it to the sizes I needed.  The cuts were crisp with no crinkles or bends, nice!

The one on the right has the primer/trim painted.  The one on the left has the metal inside the frame, attached with Gorilla glue.

I sanded the edges of the frame to give them a distressed look.  With the gray color from the trim and the gray/silver sheet metal, it kind of has an industrial look which I wasn't crazy about. 

Adding a few smiling faces using some pretty magnets should perk these right up!

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Unfortunately, when I'm visiting Tuscaloosa, I can never remember to take a picture of them hanging on the wall!

This year my neices have moved to T-town and I had one more cabinet door with sheet metal to fit.  So I finished it as a little house warming gift for them.

After the primer, I spray painted it with "cherry red".  Whoa, was it bright!   Now, I wasn't going for a "crimson" color here.   I'm sure if I wanted crimson, all I have to do is look on the shelves for that color.  And if crimson is not one of the color choices, they're definitely missing out on some sales!  This color was just too bright.

So I started trying to tone it down a bit and washed on some of the elephant gray. 

I took a damp cloth and dipped it in the gray paint and rubbed it on.   I kept dipping and rubbing and letting it dry until I was satisfied that it wasn't too "cherry".

For the magnets, I used some gems from Michael's.  Not the irredescent ones, they need to be clear.  Using Modge Podge, I attached decorative paper or scrapbook paper to the flat side of the gem.

I got a tip from one of my crafty friends about using an old magazine as a work surface for glue projects.  This works great if the project is smaller than the magazine page size.   When you're done, you just tear off that page and have a clean page to work on.

This works great for glue stick projects such as cardmaking or scrapbooking.  When using a glue stick, the glue WILL get off the card and then the card ends up sticking to the work surface.  So you constantly need a "clean" surface.  With a magazine as a work surface, you just flip to the next page to continue with the card or scrapbook project.

Anyway, that was my crafty tip for the day!  

Glue magnet discs to the back of the gems once the paper has dried.

The magnets are ready to go!

Now ready to hang on the wall, here's the cherry-gray-distressed version. 

Hopefully, it has a little more "Anthropologie" look than industrial!

Now just add pictures! 

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PW Steakhouse Pizza

This Sweet As Pie Cooking Club selection for August seemed like a lot of steps for some reason, but boy was it worth it in the end!!

At some point in life if you don't already wear glasses, you will have a pair of readers in every room on every table and on every countertop.  I should have put mine on because I read 1/4 cup of water instead of 3/4 cup to go with the yeast!

I realized that I had an issue when the dough was REALLY dry.  I added in more warm water so we'll see how it goes.  Off it goes into the sunroom where things sit to get warm (or to take a nap).

I chose the skirt steak.  Another first since I've never cooked with this cut of meat before.

LOTS of onions, yum!

Saute them in oil and balsamic vinegar.

Enter that homemade marinara that I shared the other day!  It's probably a little thinner than that in the jar but it didn't make any difference.

The pizza pan doesn't get used very often since I rarely fix pizza at home.   I like this pan though because it has the air holes in the bottom that make the crust nice and "crusty".

Oops!  The down side is that I pushed on the dough and it ended up...well...on the down side!  Oh well, this pizza will just have little crusty nubs on the bottom.

I do like lots of cheese on my pizza.

Pink and red steak is ok, but no red juice thank you.  Here it needed a couple more minutes on the grill.

This pizza has so much flavor going on.  A very tasty variation to our typical steak or pizza dinner. 

The Pioneer Woman said the "dudes" in your life will love it and mine did!

Many tomatoes = marinara

My father's garden always has a row of tomatoes.  I don't know how many plants, 20 maybe 30.  I always have a bucket full of them available as long as they are growing.  So I'm always looking to do something with them! 

One of the food blogs I follow is Southern Bite where I saw this simple recipe for marinara.  Pin that!  It calls for big cans of tomatoes.  I wanted to substitute those big cans of tomatoes for fresh tomatoes.

I plopped them in the food processor, peeling included.

Keep processing them until there's about the same amount of fresh tomatoes as canned.

Now on the stove, onions smell so good!

Add the chopped garlic.  Mmm, smellin' even better!

Following the recipe, let it simmer.

I'm wondering how well it will freeze because there's a few cups of marinara there.  More than I will use right away.

I see some Pioneer Woman Steakhouse Pizza in my future and I have the perfect marinara for it now!