Magnolia Tea Room

Recently on the Taste page I mentioned the Magnolia Tea Room in Hazel. I haven't yet had a chance to enjoy an afternoon tea or lunch down there, but I hope to make it in a couple of weeks as my role at the newspaper changes and allows me more opportunity to travel throughout the region. Pat Seiber sent along photos of the interior that I couldn't use with the column.

In case you have a chance, the Magnolia Tea Room is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. High tea is served beginning at 2:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. More info: 492-6284.

Easy Chicken Curry

A friend from graduate school, Rachel from Kansas City, Mo., serves as our writing group's social coordinator during the twice a year residencies at Murray State. Rachel tries her best to coax me into trying more exotic fare at Jasmine's or Gloria's, but I usually stick to something fairly conservative like sweet-and-sour chicken.

Last week as we talked about our various writing projects and challenges, Rachel sent along one of her favorite Chicken Curry recipes. It looks wonderful and easy.

Easy Chicken Curry
Add oil to pan and put in minced garlic and diced onions. Add diced chicken breast and when that's almost cooked, add 2 T. curry powder, 1 T. chili powder and 1 teaspoon salt. When the chicken is cooked, add one can of coconut milk and a can of tomato sauce or diced tomatoes (even salsa would work). Stir and serve over rice.

A healthy summer treat

I'm always on the lookout for easy and healthy recipes. When I covered a meeting of a weight-loss encouragement group at Dr. Jorges Cardenas' office in Paducah for an upcoming House Call Weekly story, his staff handed me this recipe. If you already have bananas on hand, this looks like a good way to use them up before they turn solid black and attract not-so-attractive fruit flies and their a couple of dozen of their closest pals.

This ice cream has a light but satisfying taste and doesn't pack that much of a calorie punch.

Fruit Smoothie Ice Cream
2 overripe bananas
1 pineapple ring
1 tablespoon unsweetened applesauce
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Peel and mash bananas. Add the rest of the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Freeze for several hours. Serves 6. Just 31 calories per serving but a serving is the size of a small paper cup.

A hint of Halloween?

I've heard of rushing the season before, but really, Halloween hints in a newsletter in August?

Thanks to our good friends at Martha Stewart Living's Every Day Food, we can all sign up for the Halloween Idea of the Day newsletter delivered straight to our inbox. She also will begin her Halloween decorating online workshop on Sept. 3.

The kids just went back to school (again, too early if you ask me) and now the Queen Bee of Everything Home wants us to begin thinking about Halloween decorating and baking? Sorry, Martha. It won't take me two months to figure out how to carve a pumpkin or to set out the cutesy Hobby Lobby style decor. For goodness sakes, I want to enjoy the last month of summer and all the cookouts we can manage. Plus, I'd like to savor apple season first before moving on to pumpkins.

Anyone else think retailers and the media rush the seasons too much?

Taste page preview

Check out our Taste page tomorrow, either online at www.paducahsun.com or pick up a paper at one of our racks around town and the region. We'll have a story and photo package about baked potato skins, a quick and yummy meal idea for these harried nights of August. My column will have details about the local Farmers' Market bounty and details about a new Kentucky-born soy sauce. Yes, you read it right. Kentucky-grown and brewed soy sauce.

Downtown salads

Rose over at the Sub Shop, inside US Bank in downtown Paducah, makes a darned good salad.

Sure, it's the same ingredients as a salad I could make at home and transport downtown to the Sun's refrigerator, but Rose has a certain touch. I've watched her make the salads that begin with a layer of simple iceberg lettuce. She then tops the lettuce with tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, bell peppers, black and green olives, banana peppers and jalapeno peppers, bacon bits, croûtons, etc. Picky salad eaters, like me, can request certain things be left off without affecting the taste.

It's nice to have a healthy option for a quick lunch downtown, and it's much better for me than a quick stop by the vending machine for a bag of chips and diet soda.

Eat healthy, support a good cause

I received an e-mail from a source about a good way to eat a healthy lunch and help a local charity at the same time. If you're in the Paducah area, you might want to check out Super Salad Day to benefit the Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk by ordering a grilled chicken salad on Aug. 20. Order forms are available at www.superiorcarehome.com.

Info: Call Cynthia Foster at 442-6884.

We want your recipes

Looking through a recipe box always revives memories of special dishes and the people who made them.
My mother-in-law gave me a recipe box filled with special family recipes when my husband and I married 10 years ago. To this day, I still flip through the box to find family favorites such as Betty’s Baked Beans and Harold’s Tacos. And I still have all of my grandmother’s faded recipes stashed in a box in hopes of some day finding the time to type them into a book for my family.
I know all of you have a favorite recipe that you’d like to share. And I’d like to share your favorites with readers. Please send me your favorite recipe, along with a short description of why you like it and a photograph of yourself, and we’ll publish those several times a month on this page as Readers’ Recipes.
Please send to llandini@paducahsun.com or regular mail to Leigh Landini Wright, Features Editor, The Paducah Sun, P.O. Box 2300, Paducah, KY 42002-2300.

Chocolate and Marshmallow Delights

National S’mores Day is just four days away (Sunday). What can be better than chocolate combined with an oozy marshmallow sandwiched between two graham crackers?
My former neighbors’ children came over almost every weekend last fall when we burned leaves. We placed marshmallows at the end of the hot dog roasting fork and hoped for the best. Of course, our s’mores had a slightly oak-smoked taste, but they were a treat after a long day of raking leaves.

Happily, though, we don’t have to wait for an open fire to enjoy the chocolate marshmallow taste. S’mores can be placed on the grill, which avoids an intermingling of leaf and stick debris flavors with the sweet goodness.
For the grill, place half of a chocolate bar on half of a graham cracker. Toast a large marshmallow over a grill preheated to medium, toast and then place atop the graham cracker combo. Top with another graham cracker.
Or for a cooler treat during the dog days, try a s’mores ice cream pie:
S'mores Ice Cream Pie
1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
1/4 cup sugar
4 cups vanilla or chocolate ice cream, slightly softened
3 cups miniature marshmallows
4 (1.55 oz. each) milk chocolate bars, finely chopped
Whipped topping or sweetened whipped cream (optional)
Additional graham cracker pieces, miniature marshmallows and chopped milk chocolate bars (optional)

Instructions:
Butter bottom and sides of 9-inch pie plate. Stir together graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar until well blended. Press crumb mixture evenly on bottom and up sides of prepared pie plate. Freeze 5 minutes before filling. Stir together ice cream, marshmallows and chocolate bar pieces; spoon into crust. Cover and freeze until firm.
Soften slightly to serve. Garnish with whipped topping, graham cracker pieces, marshmallows and chocolate bar pieces, if desired.
8 servings.

Easy side dish for Mexican-themed meals

Or perhaps I should call this post "What to do with too much cilantro."

My small herb garden has exploded with new growth in recent weeks, thanks to a few well-timed summer showers and storms. I now have enough cilantro to stock a Mexican restaurant (OK, well maybe that's a bit much, but enough for a couple of families at least). Faced with a cilantro explosion, I decided to fix a new recipe first tested by my mother-in-law. I'll pass it along for your consideration and tweaking.

1 can black beans (rinsed and drained)
1 small can white shoepeg corn (rinsed and drained)
1 cup salsa (or more)
2 T. lime juice
Cilantro to taste (I snipped off a handful of leaves and cut them up, but some people don't want that much spice)
Green onion (I didn't use them, but mother-in-law recommends them)
1 T. vegetable oil
Dash of garlic salt

Mix all ingredients in bowl. Cover and refrigerate. Serve with tortilla chips.