Monica Kochelee

The word is out that there is a Great American Seafood Cook off happening in New Orleans. The cook off is supposed to be using domestic sustainable seafood recipes.   This cook off is one of the most prestigious contests.  The winning chef will win the title of King of American Seafood.  I went onto the Internet to find out what I could about the contest.

I’m very excited about the event because it is featuring local, fresh food instead of something foreign, frozen or canned.  I think that promoting local seafood is important.   I’d love to be able to enter my Aunt Johnnie’s baked seafood recipe in a seafood cooking contest!

This is her recipe:

Aunt Johnnie’s baked seafood casserole

1 pound of fish (suggests scallops, shrimp, or crab)

2 T butter (or oleo)

2 T flour

1 c chicken broth

1/8 t nutmeg

salt & pepper

Parmesan cheese

Bread crumbs

To make veloute sauce:  In a saucepan, melt butter, stir in flour, slowly add broth.  Return to heat, stirring constantly until thick & smooth.  Blend in salt & pepper & nutmeg.  In a separate frying pan saute fish in butter for approximately five minutes.  Combine the fish with the veloute sauce and put all in a shallow baking dish.  Sprinkle top with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese and brown it quickly under the broiler.

This recipe does not specify what KIND of bread crumbs to use, whether to buy the canned seasoned bread crumbs, or crumbs made from fresh bread.  So I’ve tried it both ways and I think I like the the fresh bread crumbs version the best.

If you’d like to share your favorite recipe with me, I’d love to hear from you!  Feel free to leave a comment with your recipe in it!

I had a coupon for a Smithfield’s seasoned pork roast, so I decided to buy one last week and we tried it out last night.  It was the one that is seasoned with herbs and stuffed with Wild Rice.  It took longer to cook than it was supposed to, which I guess is normal for most roasts - it is aggravating when the directions say 22 minutes per pound and you have 1 1/2 pounds and it takes an hour to cook!  I know the temperature on my oven is good, I bought TWO oven thermometers and they say it is right on.  Anyway, it took longer to cook than it was supposed to, which is aggravating.

I guess my entire family is not a big fan of heavily seasoned items, we found this to be way too spicy hot with black pepper and way too heavy on the garlic.  We would have liked it much better if the seasoning was cut in half.  I might buy it again and then wipe off half of the seasoning before cooking it!

When I got home this evening I was hoping that my hubby was going to cook burgers on the grill outside.  I love it when he cooks burgers on the grill outside.  Let’s face it, I love it when he cooks ANYTHING outside!  Probably largely due to the fact that leaves me with one less pot or pan to clean up from cooking inside!  But also I like it during the summer because it helps to keep the house from getting overheated from cooking inside.  During the summertime, cooking outside is definitely the way to keep a house cooler! 

But my hubby was asleep when I got home, and he stayed asleep so I had to fend for myself.  I don’t like cooking on the grill outside.  I don’t know why the propane grill makes me nervous, I guess it’s because I have to make sure to turn the propane on and off again and I’m afraid I’ll forget.  Or maybe it’s the open flame, but I rather doubt that because I cook with propane inside!  I think I’d really like to buy one of the Outdoor Electric Grills for me to cook on, I would not be as nervous about that.  I’d probably keep it in the garage, though, and leave the garage door open.

I was reading on the Reuters.com website that researchers are working on a new material that converts heat into electricity.  The hope is that using this material will help cars get more miles to the gallon.  According to the article, only about 25% of the energy produced by a typical gasoline powered engine is used to move the vehicle, and the rest escapes through the exhaust pipe.  The researchers are hoping that this new material will enable the car to recycle some of that escaped heat into energy that will power the car.  That would be kind of cool!

I used to work with a woman who had bare naked windows. She lived out in the woods, with no neighbors in sight, and she loved having no window coverings at all. She showed me pictures of the different rooms, she was very proud of the fact that her windows were bare. Although she DID have some hanging plants in front of the windows and some shelves with plants in front of some windows, for the most part I thought that the windows looked too sterile; I feel that curtains add a lot of personality and warmth to a room.  I also feel that insulated curtains are a good idea to help save energy and reduce heating and cooling costs.  I’m always all about saving energy and heating and cooling costs!

The Curtain Shop website accepts competitor’s coupons and has a price matching guarantee - they will match their competitor’s online prices for the same product. They have a wide assortment of high quality window treatments, from tab top curtain panel, valance treatments, drapery ensembles, sheers and door panels to name just a few.  They also sell bedding ensembles and rocking chair cushions to complete the ”feel” of the room being decorated.  This is a good website to check out when redecorating a room!