Sheets Culinary Feats

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted here folks, quite a lot of personal matters all tossed on top of the holidays. But without further ado…

I had gotten a request from a friend of mine up in Seattle for a good crab soup recipe, so I decided this week will be dedicated solely to our little crustacean friend. It can be very difficult to get even frozen crab this time of year anywhere but on the coasts. I know that it’s a lot cheaper, but if at all possible try to stay away from the imitation crab if you are unable to find fresh or frozen locally.

As the name implies, imitation crab contains no crab meat what so ever. Generally it is made from the Alaska Pollock (also known as: Walleye Pollock, Snow Cod, or Whiting). Then the fish meat is colored and flavored to resemble crab meat.

As in most things you get what you pay for, and while imitation crab may vaguely resemble the flavor of crab it will never compare at all. Well I’ll step off my soapbox now.

I’m always looking for comments and requests. If you have a request for any recipe, or any comments, feel free to post them on here or email me at bob.sheets@yahoo.com.

Recipes for this week will be:

Crab bisque

Maryland Style Crab Cakes

So I was thinking today with the large amount of snow that we’re expecting this week that it’s the perfect time to stay home curled up under some blankets in front of a fireplace and eat some delicious comfort food.

These are some of my absolute favorites of all time when ever I’m feeling down in the dumps or just need to warm up.

The beef and noodles is probably my most favorite recipe ever from childhood and I loved hearing those words when my mom told us what was for dinner. Now a days it’s so difficult to make truly amazing noodles now a days, especially since my GG’s (read great grandma we couldn’t say it as kids) is over 100 years old and contains this sort of timeline: When the men go out to milk the cows mix the ingredients roll it out and let it dry; When the men come in for lunch, turn the noodles over…you get the point. I have, however, located a wonderful frozen noodle that actually tastes just as good as any noodle that ever came from my GG.

So without further ado, here’s the list of this weeks recipes.

Grilled cheese and tomato soup

Cream chipped beef

Beef and Noodles

While not necessarily my favorite holiday during the year Thanksgiving always holds a special place in my heart. Most of the major holidays deal with food, but none quite so much as Thanksgiving, when we throw our diets out the window and indulge our souls in some good old fashioned comfort food.

The menu I’m proposing this week is certainly not one that I would recommend every week, or even once a month. It is all very fattening and indulgent, but presents the perfect (in my opinion) menu for a delicious Thanksgiving meal. Sure a lot of these ideas are the traditional, and rely heavily on carbs, but they’re my favorites, and even one of my secret appetizers that goes over wonderfully every year. This year I think I’m going to leave out the turkey, everyone has their favorite recipe. But next year I plan on buying a turkey fryer and trying out a few different recipes, so I’ll cover those.

Thanksgiving Menu:

Appetizer: Twice baked Stuffing Muffins

Starches: Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Baked Yams with Marshmallows

Vegetables: Green Bean Casserole

I know that I promised to discuss some of the other goals that I have for this site, and while it’s been a tad I fully intend to have this discussion now.

Colorado cuisine:

One of the biggest problems I’ve always seen with Colorado is that it has no real sense of itself when it comes to food. When you think of places like New England you think clam chowder, or Maine Lobster comes to mind. Alaska dreams of spawning salmon cross, or even New Mexico where the spicy twist on tex mex are imprinted on our minds.

Colorado finds itself not having much of an identity, but instead borrowing from so many other regions. There are very few restaurants that claim to be truly Colorado cuisine.

I think that this problem stems from the climate of Colorado itself. With some of the extremes that are seen because we are semi-arid, but yet hot and cold seeing all those extremes during all of our seasons it takes a hardy crop to actually be able to survive here.

So what does grow well here? Corn and wheat are two of our major exports to the rest of the country. As well as squash, potatoes, onions, and apples. But I think our major industry, following suit with Wyoming is in ranching. With the wide open spaces, Colorado has always been a great place for cattle, sheep, and buffalo.

With that being said I plan to start focusing on meals and recipes that reflect a much more Colorado feel. This may be a bit hard starting in the fall, but we have a large number of wonderful fall produce that is available to us. Now is the season for canning, so I’ll bring up some chutneys, recipes for canning and make use of the delicious squashes that are available.

 Cooking demos:

I’ve been working a little with my videographer and we’re going to start meeting to discuss the taping of a weekly cooking demo that we would then post up on youtube. We’ve already got several ideas for some episodes to tape. However we’d love to have some ideas, feel free to respond here and tell me what demonstrations you’d like to see.