We have seafood once a week, sometimes more often depending on multiple factors. We mostly grill although there are some stove top and oven dishes we do occasionally. I’ve posted before about the ham wrapped fillets and last night I did a variation of Flounder Imperial. An issue with any fish is of course the tricky part of not overlooking while still having it done. (I am not getting into the whole searing versus cooking here).

Flounder is not one of our local fish, but Hubby picks up the frozen type and to the best of my knowledge, there is no way to grill flounder as thin as it is. This leave stove and oven and again, timing is tricky. With our schedules, I did the grocery shopping last week and picked up an 8-ounce can of jumbo lump crab and one container of Publix lobster bisque. My intent was sort of a “deconstructed” Flounder Imperial. The “Imperial” part means a thin layer of mayonnaise is spread over the crab before baking. Since the point of paying extra for jumbo lump crab is to have the large chunks, that means they will take a little longer to cook than the thin fillets. To prevent the flounder from overcooking I used a two-part approach, although that does require messing up an extra dish.

Crab Imperial: 8 ounces crab meat; 1 Tbs Lea & Perrine’s; 1 Tbs any type mustard; 2 Tsp capers. Gently mix to coat the crab. Place 1 Tbs of butter in small baking dish to melt while preheating oven to 375 (can spray dish with butter spray instead). Put crab mixture in dish and gently spread a thin coat of mayonnaise over the crab (approximately 3 Tbs). Lightly sprinkle with paprika. Bake for 15-20 minutes until crab is hot and top is browned.

I lightly sprinkled the fillets on both sides with a chicken/fish seasoning mix (whatever brand you like or use Old Bay). Poured the lobster bisque into a 12-inch skillet, added some white wine to the container to get the rest of the bisque out and stirred that in. Heated the bisque over medium low to barely a boil. Reduced heat to medium low. Placed the fillets in and spooned bisque over them. Cooked for three minutes, gently turned, spooned more bisque over and cooked another two minutes.

The crab took 15 minutes. Try to time it so both dishes are done at the same time (I was off a little so moved the skillet to the back burner (no heat) while the crab finished. I spooned sauce on the plate, placed the fillets on the sauce and topped with the crab. There was some sauce left in the skillet and I poured that over the fish.

And no, this is not the kind of dish Hubby attempts.

I was interrupted in posting this, so let me get it done this time.

As I may have mentioned before, aside from grilling, Hubby has a few dishes that are “his” and I do not mess with them.One is chili and as with many such dishes, there are variations and often strong opinions, and that doesn’t count the numerous Chili Cook-Offs. Some are of course community-based often as fundraisers and others are serious with significant prizes involved.

I may also have mentioned Daddy did a lot of the cooking until I began at a fairly young age – like nine – because Mother was often ill. Chili for us was with ground beef, onions, tomatoes, beans, and few seasonings other than salt pepper (red and black) and chili powder. We usually served it over rice and also with tamales. Now, for those familiar with the range of debate it starts with two issues – first is the use of ground beef and second is with including beans. A separate point is use of meat other than beef and I’ll get to that in a minute. Hubby adheres to the practice of no ground beef. He generally gets 3-4 pounds of steak and cuts it up rather than buy packaged pre-cut “chili meat”. He also uses the Carroll Shelby seasoning mix and yes, that is the Carroll Shelby of race car and Mustang fame. If he’s remembered to get them, he picks up a couple different fresh chili peppers. If not, he adds a can of chopped green chilies and we often have dried anchos or another in the pantry. He does use tomatoes of course and beans; sometimes black, sometimes kidney. We go with a medium heat and he adds hot sauce later as his tolerance level is higher than mine.

Okay, a quick word about meats such as buffalo and venison – they do work, but not something Hubby has ever substituted or even blended in. That leads to the recent discussion at his work about “white” or “chicken/turkey” chili. As I understand it, the one proponent in the group was quickly told that while it does include chili flavorings, it did not qualify to be called chili. As you can imagine, the same holds true of his opinion of vegetarian chili. And there may be a chili cook-off occur sometime in the future at the dive shop.

Ah yes, my consistent concern for not having enough food for a group does always lead to leftovers after any gathering. Some can go to neighbors and friends and I’ve about exhausted those avenues. One item I was able to freeze and will use at a later time. Last night was risotto cakes as the side for lamb chops and the remaining shrimp to make it a Surf and Turf. The extra cheeses call for several adapted dishes. Tonight will be the leftover lemon chicken nestled in peppers and lemon sauce topped by Havarti with dill. At some point there is likely to be pork tenderloin flattened, stuffed with sun dried tomatoes and brie and either roasted or grilled. The smoked Gouda will go in sandwiches Hubby has as his default lunch. Hmm, now that I think of it, I need to find a recipe for cheese sauce that can be mixed with either vegetables or soup as the thickener. I have not been successful in just using cheese as a thickener because it has a tendency to clump instead. I know I am missing a fairly simple step because a couple of restaurants around do a roasted red pepper and Gouda soup that is delicious. Since New Year’s Day was on a Friday and we had the traditional meal to include black eye peas, we didn’t order pizza. That means Hubby will be short on breakfast of his usual leftover pizza and can do an egg dish instead loaded up with cheese.

Let’s see – I’ve about covered the bases for that and all the sweets – most of which were presents – have a long enough shelf life to be parceled out over time. It seems as though last year they lasted until about Easter. We won’t have leftovers Wed since it’s Three Kings Day and the spicy Mediterranean seafood stew is what is likely to be on the menu. We generally have that for either Christmas Eve or Three Kings Day. What kind of creativity does everyone else bring to the table during this time?

We have a great local DJ, Doug (Dougie) Hitchcock, on Thunder Country. He does the late afternoon into 7:00 p.m. show and always has tidbits to share as well as good music. Right before Thanksgiving, he said that yes, survey results were that the favorite holiday meal side dish was the green bean casserole. I wasn’t surprised and the friends who hosted this year did theirs with bacon added. That was a variation we certainly enjoyed.

Moving on though to the traditional sweet potato casserole also usually found on the table/buffet line. Notwithstanding our deep Southern roots, neither Hubby nor I are sweet potato fans. We definitely don’t like the usual method of adding even more sweetness to with brown sugar or maple syrup and topping with marshmallows. However, a few years ago Hubby ran across a savory version that included part of a chipotle pepper in adobe and lots of cheese. Now in all fairness, any time you use chipotle, it can be tricky because the peppers vary in intensity of heat. An option is a quarter teaspoon red pepper flakes or leave it out altogether. The rest of the recipe should work if you prefer no heat. I do take a short cut as our Publix has containers of mashed sweet potatoes in refrigerator section.

Step one. Rough chop half a small onion. Peel two whole cloves of garlic. Coat with favorite olive oil or use olive oil spray and roast in 350 oven approximately 20 minutes until caramelized and soft. Mash the garlic with a fork and mix in with the onions. While those are roasting, take one container of prepared sweet potatoes. Follow the directions for microwaving them for 1-2 minutes less than the full time. When partially cooked, place the potatoes in a bowl. Stir in two tablespoons butter/margarine and half teaspoon kosher salt. Add the roasted onions, garlic and spicy pepper (if desired). Stir in 1 cup grated cheese (whatever you like; we use a six-cheese Italian blend). Put mixture into buttered casserole dish and top with grated Parmesan (can use any hard Italian cheese). Baked covered (can use foil) for 25 minutes and check. If top not lightly browned, bake for another 5-10 minutes uncovered.(You may need to add 1/4 milk to mixture before baking if it is really stiff. The butter and roasted onions/garlic should give enough moisture)