Recipes

My Coquilles St. Jacques ( seafood casserole):
Thawed-ish Scallops and Shrimp(peeled and deveined but raw) to make 4 cups
Small onion finely chopped
Mushrooms, sliced ( 8 0z package)
White wine.... maybe 1/2 cup? I just sloshed it in.
Lemon juice (a tbsp or so)
Cream ( 1/4 cup or so...I used the 10% coffee cream stuff i had onhand)
Butter
Garlic ( maybe a teaspoons worth)
Flour ...2-3 Tablespoons
Tarragon..1/2 tsp or so
non bland shredded cheese ( 1 cup or so) I used a taco blend of colby, monterey jack and chedder. You could use chedder and parmesan or a gruyere...
Mashed potatoes.

Heat a pan and add a pat or so of butter for sauteeing the onion and garlic. When the onion is soft add the shell fish and sautee until the shrimp are pink and the pan has lotsa liquid. Add lemon juice and wine during this phase. Now, strain the contents of the pan, reserving the liquid and setting onion shellfish blend aside. Return pan to stove, heat and throw in some more butter. Sautee the mushrooms until cooked and set aside. Again, put butter in this now very tasty pan, melt it and toss in the flour, stirring to make a roux (look it up). Using a wisk, return the pan liquids to the pan to make this roux into a sauce. Add some cream. Return the fish and mushrooms to the pan and add tarragon. Simmer 5 minutes very gently. Add the cheese. Throw in some pepper too. Taste it and adjust seasonings to your taste. The sauce should be of a nice thickness.
NOW put this all in a casserole dish and top with mashed potatoes. If the sauce is too thin the potatoes will totally sink. A little bit of sinkage is tolerable. Piping on the potatoes is a great idea but who really does that? When its all pretty, throw it in the oven under the broiler to brown the potatoes a bit. Serve with veggies of some sort on the side.
Seriously yummy.

Smothered steak:

Steak pieces
steak spice
soya sauce
onion
water
butter

Season the steak pieces with the steak spice and brown well in a hot cast iron pan with butter. When browned, put the meat in a dutch oven or roaster. Sautee the onions with butter in the same pan and put them in the roaster with the meat when softened. Deglaze the pan with water and soya sauce and add to the roaster.
the meat should be almost covered with liquid when you cover it and put it in a 325 degree oven to cook for a few hours until fork tender. Do not let it dry out! Top up with water as needed.
When ready, remove the meat and create a gravy with the dark juices in the roaster by adding some flour and water. Serve with mashed potatoes for a real down home comfort meal.