Ice Cream Cone Cookies

In the kitchen at Still Waters pastry Chef Laurie has been testing this Kitchen Aid Mixer ...


................. a much loved ( and longed for) graduation gift.


These cute cookies were destined for the office.


For a friend's ( a student summer worker) last day at work.

Ice cream cone cookies. Too cute.


And good! They didn't all make it to the office.

Leslie's Mediterranean Grouper

For Laurie's Birthday celebration Leslie prepared her Mediterranean Grouper. Here are the ingreds: Grouper, pesto, green olives, capers, butter, feta cheese, and olive oil.


Dredge fish in flour then brown in butter and olive oil. Remove fish to plate.


Add pesto, sliced olives, and capers to pan (same pan, Les used two pans since she was cooking for all of us) After a couple of minutes add halved cherry tomatoes.

Return fish to pan, nestle into the sauce, put some on top of fish, then top with feta cheese. Cover pan to allow cheese to melt a little.

Sorry about this poor photo of the great fish.

Served with Ree's Crushed Potatoes, my salad, and garlic bread. Yum!!! Would be great with pasta.

Saturday Morning Brunch

What a beautiful early Spring morning for a ladies' brunch.

Featuring a grits bar!....... The speaker was " not from around here".

And she has been a missionary to Africa for many years. She had not eaten grits!


She loved them!

Sue plans to buy grits to take back home where she and her husband will be preparing to move to North Africa this June.





Here are your pics K K! Sliced fruit, cinnamon twist, tea biscuits with pear butter, mayhaw jelly and blackberry jelly, and breakfast casserole. Forgot to take pictures of the dining tables or drink areas.

Tuesday Night Parmesan Crusted Chicken

Typical Tuesday night dinner at the Allen house. Parmesan crusted chicken, roasted potatoes, steamed asparagus, black bean & shoepeg corn salsa with Mandarin oranges served with


a nice wedge of iceberg lettuce with homemade ranch dressing and a sprinkle of bacon bits.

Okay, so we would normally probably only have salad, Ree's smashed potatoes and George Foreman chicken except that I eat black bean and shoepeg corn salsa every day now. Or we would even more likely just eat at the Barbecue Pit on Tuesday night.

But, my friend Ree's friend Kate from Holland shared a recipe on The Pioneer Woman today for Parmesan Crusted Chicken that looked delicious. So I decided to try the recipe since I had thawed chicken for dinner.


Her recipe called for 1/2 cup of Hellman's mayonnaise and I used half Kraft mayonnaise and half whipped cream cheese spread because a woman at WalMart told Jimmy, when he was looking for Parmesan cheese, that her sister now used whipped cream cheese spread instead of mayonnaise for everything and it has less than half the calories so Jimmy bought the whipped cream cheese spread and I felt I should use it. So I did. Because apparently, strangers at WalMart know things.


Kate used sun-dried tomatoes and I did look for the sun-dried tomatoes that I had purchased at some point but I may have thrown the jar away when we moved last year so I had to do without them.

I did however have basil in the freezer thanks to Laurie as well as chives, parsley and shallots which I threw into the mixture. Not that Kate used any of these ingredients except the basil, but she used an Italian mixture and I, surprisingly, did not have an Italian mixture .

Kate used Lowery's garlic salt and I remembered the Lowery's but I was thinking seasoning salt so I used that along with garlic and pepper.

Jimmy did pick up Parmesan cheese similar to what Kate used. She recommended 1/4 cup of fresh grated but I used about a cup of fancy shredded Parmesan cheese. Oh, and Kate added a cup of bread crumbs which I also could not find in my cabinet.

So, my recipe and Kate's both had some mayo and some Parmesan cheese. Then we both spooned the mixture on top of our chicken and baked it at 425 until done.

And it was great!!!!!

I had extra topping and decided to top the new potatoes that I had cooked in the microwave and brown them also.

Yummmmm! They were also delish!!!

Oh, yea. Did you notice my baking dish? It was perfect for my version of Parmesan Crusted Chicken.

Thanks Jay and Lela and Hannah for a dish that is very appropriate for me. I love it!!! Clean up was a breeze too!


In reviewing Kate's recipe I discovered that Kate has changed her name to Kay. But we are still friends by association.