Cooking Group~ Kelley Miller's Quick Tilapia In Lemon Caper Sauce

Hi friends! Thanks to one of my son's, I could finally find some pictures from my iphone, upload them and get them on my blog!  Thanks Timothy!  While my fun Maryland cooking group has ended, I'll still be posting some great recipes from it, here and there.  This is one of Kelley Miller's favorite dishes.  We loved it too.  It's really easy and pretty fast.  Hope you enjoy it!  

Quick Tilapia in Lemon Caper Sauce

6 fresh tilapia or sole fillets, seasoned with salt and fresh ground pepper

flour for dredging

3 tablespoons butter, divided

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup lemon juice

2 tablespoons capers

fresh cut lemons for garnish

Dredge fish in flour and shake off excess.  Melt 1 tablespoon butter with oil in large non-stick skillet. Heat butter until browned, stir in olive oil.  Add fish to butter and oil and cook fish for 3 minutes in each side.  Remove fish from pan and add broth and lemon juice and simmer until reduced to 1/2 cup.  Whisk in 2 teaspoons butter and serve over fish.  Garnish with capers and a slice of lemon.  Serve with seasoned rice or couscous.

Cooking Group ~ Kelley Miller's Easy Tortellini and Spinach Soup

Easy Tortellini and Spinach Soup

A hot bowl of soup on these cold fall and winter nights served with some fresh bread really hits the spot. I love soup!  Don't you?  You know I LOVE trying new recipes...so I was so excited to try Kelley's soup today!  And it's a hit!  It is super fast, easy and delicious so I know you'll love it too!  You can add some cooked chicken to this soup if desired.  If you are adding chicken, add a little extra chicken broth as well. This recipe will serve six.

1 tablespoon butter, or olive oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 (14 ounce cans) chicken broth

9 ounce package cheese tortellini

course salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

14 ounce can stewed tomatoes (favorite: Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes)

1/2 bunch fresh stemmed spinach

handful fresh basil, chopped or 1 teaspoon dried

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, garnish

Melt butter in large pot.  Saute garlic in butter over medium heat for a minute.  Stir in broth and tortellini.  Bring to a boil.  Season with salt and pepper. Simmer 5 minutes.  Add tomatoes, spinach and basil.  Simmer 10 minutes.  Garnish with Parmesan cheese and serve with crusty bread.  Now how easy was that?

Here are all of the ingredients measured and bagged for cooking group.

Cooking Group~ Kelley Miller's Shrimp Portifino

Shrimp Portofino

Here's another favorite meal from Cooking Group for you all to try.  Kelly Miller brought this amazing dinner the other night.  It was really pretty fast to prepare and tasted amazing! It's great for a fast weeknight meal but elegant enough for a dinner party too!  I love it!

 5 tablespoons butter, divided
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. large raw  shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/3 cup white wine
3/4 cup cream
scant 1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons Italian breadcrumbs
4 cups baby spinach
handful of pine nuts for garnish
1 lb. thin spaghetti

Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the pasta while you are making the shrimp sauce.   In large heavy skillet, melt 2 tablespoons butter, Saute garlic in butter for 30 seconds.  Add shrimp saute for 30 seconds.  Add white wine and saute for 2 minutes, until shrimp are opaque. Remove shrimp from pan and set aside, leaving the sauce in the pan.  Cover shrimp with foil to keep warm. Bring sauce to a simmer and add cream. Simmer 3 minutes. Stir in lemon juice.  Remove from heat and whisk in 3 tablespoons of butter, 1 tablespoon at time until melted.  Season with salt and fresh ground pepper. Stir in bread crumbs. Return to heat and add spinach and cook until spinach wilts, just a minute or two.  Stir in shrimp and serve over hot pasta. Garnish with pine nuts, serve with crusty bread and enjoy! 

Fresh Tomatoes and Basil with Hot Pasta

Fresh Tomatoes and Basil with Hot Pasta 

As the garden tomato and basil season winds down, here's one last great recipe for you to help you put your last few garden tomatoes and basil to good use!  My sister in law Dawn Ann shared this recipe with me years ago and it's still a favorite!

12-16 ounces favorite pasta ( i.e.  bow ties, spaghetti, linguine etc.)
1 cup Parmesan Cheese
4 tablespoons olive oil
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
bunch of fresh basil, chopped
4 large tomatoes, chopped
handful of pine nuts or sunflower seeds (optional) 

Cook pasta according to package directions and toss with the remaining ingredients.  Serve with a good crusty bread.

Quick and Creamy Chicken Soft Tacos

Quick and Creamy Chicken Soft Tacos

I love how I can just throw all the ingredients together in just a few minutes and have a healthy and delicious meal that I know the kids love!  We love topping these tacos off with our favorite hot sauce,  Cholula sauce, imported from Mexico.  (You can find it in most grocery stores, it's the one with the wooden bottle cap.)   It's got great flavor and it's not too hot for the kids.   I'd like to dedicate this recipe to my friend Michelle Miller who shared this simple dinner idea with me years ago and it's been a favorite ever since.  We lost Michelle to cancer last week.  She was a beautiful person, a mathematician, a wife and mother of four young children.  She will be greatly missed.  I always think of her when I make these tacos.  Thanks Michelle, for sharing a bit of yourself, with all of us.

1 small cooked rotisserie chicken, meat torn from bone and shredded

2 cups or 16 ounces favorite salsa  

1 cup sour cream

6 inch corn or flour tortillas, browned over flames on gas stove

In medium sauté pan or heavy pot, over low heat pour salsa, sour cream and chicken.  Stir mixture and heat thoroughly. Warm or brown tortillas and fill with chicken mixture. Top with avocado, tomato, olives, shredded lettuce, grated cheese, sour cream and Cholula sauce and fresh chopped cilantro, sliced limes and tortilla chips.

Ravioli With Sage Cream Sauce

Ravioli with Sage Cream Sauce

This pasta dish is an ABSOLUTE favorite.  It's so simple and comes together pretty quickly.  You can find so many delicious types of frozen ravioli in the grocery stores, from butternut squash to spinach and pine nut to a plain kid-friendly cheese.  My kids love cheese ravioli, but for more sophisticated palates use any other favorite ravioli.  They ALL are wonderful with this simple sauce, it's so packed with flavor.   For variation, add a pound of sliced mushrooms and sauté with the green onions.  NOTE:  Sage is a hardy perennial herb which looks great planted among other plants in your perennial garden.  It is so easy to grow, takes little care and is definitely worth growing for use in meals that call for fresh herbs of choice.  However you can use some dried sage if you don't have a sage bush just yet. 

1 lb. 9 ounces package frozen ravioli (cheese, butternut squash or vegetable)

3 tablespoons butter

handful pecans, chopped

6 green onions, greens and whites thinly sliced

handful fresh sage leaves, chopped or 1 teaspoon dried

1 ½ cups water

1 tablespoon chicken or vegetable bouillon granules or 3 cubes

1 2/3 cup heavy cream

several grinds fresh ground pepper

grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

First, chop pecans, chop green onions, and chop fresh sage.  Set aside.  In large sauté pan, melt butter and sauté pecans until fragrant, just a couple minutes. Remove pecans from pan with slotted spoon and set aside.  Add onions and sage to pan.  Sauté a few minutes.   Add cream, water and chicken bouillon.  Stir and simmer on medium-high until thickened enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.  Stir frequently. When sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, turn the heat off under the sauce.  While sauce thickens, fill a large pot with water, add some olive oil and coarse salt.  Bring to a boil.  Add ravioli and stir gently. Don’t let water come to a boil again.  Let the hot water cook the ravioli until done, according to package directions.  Be careful not to overcook ravioli, as they will break and lose their filling. Gently drain. Ravioli will float to the surface when done.  If sauce begins to separate, it has cooked a little too long, just whisk in a little cream or chicken broth to reach desired consistency again.  Place ravioli in large pasta bowl and pour sauce over the top. Garnish with Parmesan and additional sage and sauteed pecans, if desired. Serve with additional cheese and crusty bread.

Garlic Shrimp Scampi

Garlic Shrimp Scampi

This is one of the simplest, fastest and tastiest meals you can make. It's a great go-to week night meal because it's just so fast, easy and fresh.  It's definitely one of our favorites, because all of my kids love shrimp.  Serve with some crusty bread.

12 ounces linguine
1-2 lbs. shrimp, raw, peeled and deveined 
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup butter
4 garlic cloves minced
pinch red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons dried parsley
1 cup pasta water
Salt and fresh ground pepper
Parmesan cheese

Fill large pot with water.  Add a little salt and olive oil. Bring to a boil and cook linguine according to package directions, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid to add to sauce.  In large skillet combine butter, olive oil and pasta water.  Add garlic, shrimp, parsley and red pepper flakes to skillet. Season with salt and pepper.  Sauté for a few minutes until shrimp are cooked through. Serve sauce over pasta and garnish with Parmesan cheese and fresh parsley. 

Fettuccini With Seared Scallops and Tomatoes

Fettuccini with Seared Scallops and Tomatoes 

I am crazy about this incredibly flavorful dish!  Best of all, it's super fast, and fresh.  You can make it in the amount of time that it takes your pasta to boil!  Serve with plenty of crusty bread because you’ll want to sop up every last bit of the scallop sauce.

1 lb. fettuccine, cooked according to package directions, reserve 1 cup pasta water

¼ cup olive oil
4 large cloves garlic, minced
scant ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 lb. fresh scallops
2 cups grape, cherry or plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise
1 cup boiling pasta water
1-2 teaspoons chicken or vegetable bouillon
fresh ground pepper
1 cup fresh grated Parmesan or Romano Cheese
fresh parsley for garnish

 First, mince garlic and cut tomatoes cut in half lengthwise.  Chop some fresh parsley.  Bring large pot of water to a boil.  Add a little olive oil and salt.  Cook pasta according to package directions.  Reserve 1 cup of hot pasta water before draining.  While water comes to a boil, place a heavy sauté pan on the heat and add olive oil.  When oil shimmers add garlic, red pepper flakes and parsley and sauté for a few minutes.   Add scallops and season with a pinch salt and fresh ground pepper, sauté 2-3 minutes until cooked through.   Remove scallops to a plate and cover with tented foil to keep them warm.   Add tomatoes to sauté pan and sauté 2 minutes.  Add pasta water and bouillon.  Season with fresh ground pepper and let simmer for a few minutes.  Remove pasta to pasta bowl and toss with a little butter, parsley and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Serve sauce over individual servings of hot fettuccine, top with scallops and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.  Garnish with fresh parsley.  

Linguine with Sauteed Tomatoes and Garlic

Linguine with Sautéed Tomatoes and Garlic


This is one of our favorite week night go-to meals.  It is just so fast, easy, healthy and absolutely delicious.  As a newly- wed back in college, I came up with this incredibly flavorful recipe when there was nothing in the refrigerator and cupboards but a couple of tomatoes, some garlic, butter, Parmesan cheese and some pasta. To this day this pasta dish remains one of my husband’s ultimate favorite dishes.  In his words..." I could eat this once a week for the rest of my life!" Fortunately our children love it too!   I love the fact that it makes fabulous use of all your home grown tomatoes that you don’t know what to do with!  If you ARE using homegrown tomatoes that are really juicy, you most likely won’t need to add any pasta water.  Store bought tomatoes are usually quite dry so pasta water may need to be added to make the sauce really saucy!

12 ounces linguine made according to package directions and drained

1/3 cup olive oil

½-1 cup boiling pasta water, if needed

4-5 large fresh garden tomatoes, chopped

4-5 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon (more or less to taste) chicken or vegetable bouillon granules

handful of fresh basil and or parsley, chopped (or use a big pinch of dried if needed)

coarse salt and fresh ground pepper to taste 

lots of grated Parmesan cheese 

Put a pot of water on to boil.  Add salt and olive oil.  Cook pasta according to package directions.  (Note: The sauce will cook in the amount of time it takes your water to boil and pasta to cook.)  Chop up all your tomatoes and place in a bowl with all the  juices.  Mince garlic.  Chop fresh parsley and basil.  Set aside. In large sauté pan, on low heat, heat olive oil and add tomatoes and juices, garlic, spices and pasta water (water taken from pot of boiling pasta) sauté on lower heat, 5 minutes or so.   Pour cooked pasta into large pasta bowl and toss with a little olive oil, dried parsley and a little salt and pepper.  Serve sauce over individual servings of linguine.  Top with grated Romano or Parmesan and extra fresh herbs. Serve with additional cheese and plenty of crusty bread.