Blood, Bones and Butter

Ok, there is no blood, bones or butter in this wrap up foodie post, but I must say that I have been enjoying immensely listening to Gabrielle Hamilton reading her Blood, Bones and Butter to me on the way to work and home again. I read it 4 years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it then, but having her read the words and describe the food and Italy and her life experiences is so much better. I love being read to and I totally want to make something (lobster!) with smoked paprika butter now!

So on the foodie topic, we tried a wonderful Smoked Fish Dip at the Beach Cafe in Islamorada when we drove way down South and it was so good, we knew we needed to add this dip into our repertoire. I found a couple of recipes and have made it with smoked salmon and smoked cod. I use my stove top smoker to smoke the fish and it only takes 30 minutes. This dip is great with tortilla chips, but my kids have also loved it enough for sandwiches.

This was VERY good!

They have even requested it to take for school lunch. I can and will do!

And this recipe for Maple Cherry Italian Cream Sodas found me on FaceBook and I thought it looked like a perfect use for some cherries I had in the fridge. Of course I ended up using the recipe as a guide because I didn't think the cherry syrup needed maple syrup and I left the cherries in the syrup for a more filling treat.

I used some of my home made bourbon vanilla to cook the cherries into syrup and this smelled like heaven right here! Shame it's all gone now.

Now that I look at that picture it sorta looks like kidney beans (gross!).



I added a little more than a shot of this cherry syrup into some club soda and ice and then added heavy whipping cream for a more indulgent treat. Yum! I think the cherry syrup would be very nice on some home made vanilla ice cream. Maybe next time.

These were way more decadent than they look in this picture...

And I also happened upon a perfect raw chocolate bark recipe that only contains coconut oil, cocoa and honey. This has been a nice treat to have in the freezer and our chocolate bark is extra special because it has honey from a friend's bee hives.

Lastly is a recipe I want to try when I made my first batch of chicken noodle soup. The sotanghon will be a nice deviation from the egg noodles we typically use and the with the addition of shiitake mushrooms, I will be in heaven.