Caddo Lake Green Tomato Relish - a weekend recipe

Caddo Lake is the largest natural lake in Texas. The lake’s history is as diverse as pearls and steamboats, and Caddo remains one of the most beautiful and mysterious lakes in the entire United States.

My Dad was born in Trees City, once a boomtown a few miles from Vivian. Jeems Bayou separates Vivian and Trees. During heavy rains in the area, it will result in water rising over the highway, leaving a boat the only way to get to Trees City from Vivian.

I remember, as a kid, fishing from the side of the road. My parents, Grandmother and I were not the only ones, hundreds of others joining in to reap the harvest of fish from the fabled lake.

There were always fishing camps both on the Texas and Louisiana sides of the lake. These camps would have a ramp for launching boats, and would rent boats, and sell bait, fishing gear and pop. Each camp usually had a restaurant where the locals went for catfish, hushpuppies and Cole slaw.

Kool Point, near Oil City, no longer has a restaurant but Pelican Lodge, not far from Trees City is still open. I always love eating at Pelican Lodge when I visit Vivian. It is far off the beaten path and only the locals really know where it is. One condiment all of these restaurants serve is green tomato relish. It is probably best prepared in large batches, and then canned (bottled) but here is a recipe for a single batch, suitable for one dinner.

Caddo Lake Green Tomato Relish

Ingredients

• 3 green tomatoes, large, rough chopped

• 1 onion, large, rough chopped

• 1 hot green pepper, chopped

• 1/3 c sugar

• 2 Tbsp salt

• 1 c vinegar

Directions

In a small pot, bring the sugar, salt and vinegar to a boil, and then add vegetables. Return contents of the pot to a boil for two minutes. Chill and enjoy.

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Marilyn's Jalapeno Cornbread - a weekend recipe

  Cornbread is a staple for every good southern cook. When it comes to making cornbread, few can compete with my own wife, and wonderful southern cook, Marilyn. Here is her cornbread recipe using jalapenos, her daughter Shannon’s favorite.
Ingredients

• 2 ½ c cornmeal

• 1 c flour

• 2 Tbsp. sugar

• 1 Tbsp. salt

• 4 tsp. baking powder

• 3 eggs, lightly beaten

• 1 ½ c milk

• ½ c cooking oil

• 16 oz. can cream corn

• 2 jalapeno chili peppers, chopped and seeded

• 2 c sharp cheddar cheese, grated

• 1 onion, large, grated

Directions

Combine first five ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, mix milk, eggs and cooking oil, and then combine with cornmeal mixture. Stir in remaining ingredients, and then pour into two well greased baking pans. Bake at 425° for 25 minutes, or until done.

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Big Billy's Texas Pintos with Tomatillo Salsa Verde - a weekend recipe

Big Billy loved his beans. Once when he was staying with me and Anne, he cooked up pinto beans, complete with his special tomatillo salsa Verde. He also whipped up a pan of cornbread using ingredients he found in our pantry. To say the meal was wonderful is an understatement. It was sublime!

Ingredients

• 1 lb dry pinto beans

• 29 oz chicken broth

• 1 onion, large, chopped

• 1 jalapeno pepper, chopped

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• ½ c tomatillo salsa Verde

• 1 tsp cumin

• ½ tsp black pepper, ground

• 1 c water

Directions
Soak beans overnight in a large pot with ample cold water. Drain and place the pinto beans in a crock pot. Pour in the chicken broth and water. Stir in onion, jalapeno, garlic, tomatillo salsa Verde, cumin, and black pepper. Cook for 8 hours.

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Big Billy’s Tomatillo Salsa Verde - a weekend recipe

Big Billy’s green sauce was to die for, and goes well with many dishes. Here is his special recipe with tomatillos.

Ingredients

• 1 lb tomatillos, husked

• ½ c onion, finely chopped

• 1 tsp garlic, minced

• 2 Poblano peppers, minced

• 2 Tbsp cilantro, chopped

• 1 Tbsp oregano, chopped, fresh

• ½ tsp cumin, ground

• 1 ½ tsp salt, or to taste

• 1 Lime, juiced

Directions

Place all ingredients in a blender. Puree until smooth. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer about 15 minutes.

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Big Billy's Italiano Baked Shrimp - an early weekend recipe

 Here is one of Big Billy’s favorite dishes. No, he wasn’t of Italian ancestry, but he sure knew how to cook their signature delicacies. This is one he made his own.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs shrimp, cooked and deveined

• 3 Tbsp olive oil

• 4 green onions, chopped

• 4 stalks celery, chopped

• 1 green pepper, chopped

• 3 garlic cloves, crushed

• 1 Tbsp parsley, fresh, finely minced

• 1 Tbsp cornstarch

• 1 8 oz can tomato sauce

• ½ tsp oregano

• ½ tsp sweet basil

• Salt and pepper to taste

• 1 c Mozzarella cheese, grated

• ½ c bread crumbs, seasoned

Directions

In a saucepan, sauté onions, celery, green pepper, garlic and parsley in olive oil until soft. Add cornstarch and stir until well blended. Add tomato sauce, oregano and sweet basil and simmer for fifteen minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Layer the shrimp, and the tomato mixture in a greased casserole dish. Top with Mozzarella and bread crumbs and cook at 350 degrees until bubbly, about thirty minutes.

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Lily's Stuffed Mirlitons

Lily was a religious woman and never missed a Sunday service. Gail and I were spiritual, but not so religious. Still, whenever we visited Chalmette, we somehow managed to make it to church. It all seemed worth it when we returned home, enjoying the feast Lily always prepared on Sundays. Here is just one of the wonderful side dishes we often enjoyed.

Lily’s Stuffed Mirlitons

Ingredients

• 6 mirlitons

• 1 onion, large, finely chopped

• 3 shallots, finely chopped

• 4 cloves garlic, minced

• ½ green pepper, chopped

• 1 tbsp parsley, chopped

• 2 c bread crumbs, or as needed

• 1 egg, beaten

• 1 tsp Creole seasoning

• 1 lb beef, ground, lean

Directions

Cut mirlitons in halves and cover with cold water. Bring to aboil and continue until tender. Remove from water. Let cool and scoop out pulp, discarding seed and fibrous pulp around seed. Place pulp in colander over bowl, and chop, reserving water. Place shells on a coated pizza pan.

Fry beef in cast iron skillet until all lumps are broken but not brown. Add vegetables and continue cooking for about 5 minutes. Add merliton pulp, bread crumbs, and a little merliton water if needed. Add beaten egg. Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Fill each mirliton half shell. Top with bread crumbs and ½ slice bacon. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Enjoy.

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Pedernales River Chili

I found this recipe in an old cookbook. It was submitted by Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady and wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. In case you haven’t read about her, Lady Bird was a most interesting person. She was the first, First Lady to become a millionaire in her own right, but her biggest claim to fame was the beautification of our Nation’s highways, ridding them of billboards and planting Texas wildflowers along the way. Don’t know if this will win any chili cookoff contests, but it is quick to prepare and mighty tasty.

Pedernales River Chili

Ingredients

• 4 lbs chili meat

• 1 onion, large, chopped

• 2 cloves garlic, chopped

• 1 tsp oregano, ground

• 1 tsp comino seed

• 2 tbsp chili powder

• 2 cans Ro-tel tomatoes

• Salt to taste

• 2 c hot water

Directions

Put chili meat, onions, and garlic in large heavy boiler or skillet. Sear until light colored. Add oregano, comino, chili powder, tomatoes and hot water. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer about 1 hour. Skim away fat as it cooks off.

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Big Billy's Catfish Gumbo - a weekend recipe

Here is a quick and easy dish Big Billy used to whip up when he entertained, which was often. Big Billy was so big and athletic that he could have made a career in pro football. Ironically, he was more into talking politics than watching sports on television. Still, his catfish gumbo is a perfect winter dish for watching college bowl games and the Super Bowl. This recipe serves eight.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs catfish filets, bite-sized

• 10 oz okra, sliced

• 1 c celery, chopped

• 1 c onion, chopped

• 1 c green pepper, chopped

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 3 T cooking oil

• 4 c beef broth

• 16 oz tomatoes, diced

• 1 bay leaf

• 1 t salt

• ½ t thyme, dried

• ½ t red pepper, ground

• ½ t oregano, dried, crushed

• 4 c rice, cooked, hot

Directions

In a large Dutch oven, cook celery, onion, green pepper and garlic in hot oil until tender. Stir in beef broth, tomatoes, bay leaf, salt, thyme, red pepper and oregano and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add catfish bites and okra, uncover and return to a boil. Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes or until fish flakes easily. Remove and discard bay leaf. Serve in bowls over rice.

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Big Billy's Blackened Catfish - a weekend recipe

Big Billy had an enormous outdoor grill and loved to cook on it whenever the weather was good, and sometimes when it wasn't. Here is an easy catfish recipe with as much wonderful flavor as you could ever want.

Ingredients

·         4 catfish fillets

·         olive oil

·         1/3 lb bacon

·         2 tsp cayenne pepper

·         2 tsp lemon pepper

·         2 tsp cumin or chili powder

·         2 tsp garlic powder

·         2 tsp thyme

·         2 tsp white pepper

·         2 tsp black pepper

·         2 tsp rosemary, crushed

·         2 tsp fennel seed, crushed

·         1 tsp allspice

·         1 tsp oregano

·         ½ tsp salt

Directions

Fry bacon; discard bacon and retain grease. Combine all dry ingredients, rub fillets with olive oil, then coat liberally with spices. Drop in hot bacon grease and cook until you can easily put a fork through them.

Lemon Butter

Ingredients

·         ¼ cup melted butter

·         1 teaspoon lemon juice

·         ½ teaspoon tabasco

·         sliced green onions

Directions

Combine, mix well and serve as dipping sauce with blackened catfish.

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Big Billy's Catfish Fajitas - a weekend recipe

Big Billy was a Dallas restauranteur and Oklahoma oil man. It’s no secret he loved to cook, and he loved Southern comfort food. Here is one of his favorite and simplest recipes.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs. catfish, filets

• 1 cup lime juice

• 3 cups mesquite wood chips

• 1 onion, large, chopped

• 1 red pepper, large, chopped

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 Tbsp. butter

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/4 tsp pepper

• 8 tortillas, flour or corn, warmed

• Sour cream, salsa, avocado and lime slices

Directions

Place fish filets in large zip top bag. Pour in lime juice, seal and marinate in refrigerator for one hour. Soak wood chips in water for one hour. Drain wood chips. Sprinkle wood chips over pre-heated coals in a covered grill. Brush grill rack lightly with cooking oil and place catfish filets on rack. Close grill and cook for about five minutes on either side, or until fish is flaky.

In a large cast iron skillet, cook onion, red pepper and garlic in the butter until tender. Stir in salt and pepper. Cut filets into chunks, toss into skillet and mix well. Fill warmed tortillas with catfish mixture and serve with sour cream, salsa, avocado and lime slices.

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Marilyn's Chicken-Fried Catfish with Pan Gravy - a weekend recipe

Do you crave southern comfort food? Few people in the world can cook it as well as my wife Marilyn. Here's one of her recipes that embodies the spirit of food for the soul. Serve it with mashed potatoes and pan gravy. Heck, I even like pan gravy over my green beans. If I could talk Marilyn into opening a restaurant, we'd get rich. Until then, try her recipe and enjoy!

Marilyn’s Chicken-Fried Catfish with Pan Gravy

Ingredients

• 4 catfish fillets
• 1 cup vegetable shortening
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole milk

Directions

Combine salt, pepper, and flour in a large zip-top plastic bag. Mix well. Pour milk into a large bowl. Dip fillets in milk and shake off excess. Enclose in the bag and shake to coat. Shake off excess. Set a cast-iron skillet over medium flame and add shortening. Lay each filet in hot fat. Repeat until skillet is full, but not crowded. The shortening should be no deeper than ¼ inch. Heat only until it's hot enough to set the breading on the catfish after it's dropped into the skillet. When the bottom crust starts sizzling, turn filets and set the other side.

Pan Gravy

Ingredients

• 3 cups milk

• Catfish drippings

• 3 Tbsp. flour

• 1 1/2 tsp. salt

• 1 tsp. pepper

Directions

In a heavy, 2-quart saucepan, heat 3 cups milk but don't let it boil. Using the skillet in which you cooked the catfish, pour off excess grease, leaving about 4 or 5 tablespoons in the pan. Over a medium flame, heat the drippings and add 3 tablespoons flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. Continue stirring to brown flour. When brown, hot and bubbling, add hot milk. Stir constantly until thick and creamy. Add 1 ½ teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check him out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to visit his website.

Choctaw Zweibelkuchen - a weekend recipe

Central Oklahoma has many citizens of German extraction, the language still spoken in Oklahoma households where German cuisine is still proudly served. Choctaw, Oklahoma, and the Old Germany Restaurant have hosted an Oklahoma version of Oktoberfest every September for the last twenty years.

Here is a Germanic recipe with a slight Okie modification. P.S. – this recipe originated in German wine country and, yes, grapes are now grown and wine being produced right here in central Oklahoma. Although great with wine, I can personally attest to the fact that this dish is also great with a cold Beck’s. Yes, southern comfort food sometimes has European origins.

Ingredients

• 16 strips bacon

• 4 large yellow onions, chopped

• 2 jalapeno peppers, roasted, deseeded, finely chopped

• 2 eggs plus 1 yolk

• ¾ cups sour cream

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Caraway seeds

• 2 -8 inch pastry shells half baked at 400 degrees

Directions

Fry bacon until crisp. Drain, crumble and set aside. Fry onions in oil until soft and yellow. Add beaten eggs, and yolk, chopped jalapeno pepper, sour cream, salt and pepper. Add crumbled bacon. Pour mixture into pie shells and sprinkle with caraway seeds. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes, or until centers are firm. Enjoy.

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Big Billy's Crawfish Quesidillas - a weekend recipe

Big Billy was a Texan, transplanted from Arkansas by way of Oklahoma. He had a big booming voice that somehow even overwhelmed his six foot four, four hundred pound body. Big Billy wasn’t ashamed of his weight and he had a razor tongue that could lacerate most mere mortals in seconds, if they ever dared not treating him like the super intelligent person that he was. Kathy was Big Billy’s better half. More intelligent than even Big Billy, she was the keel that kept his boat positioned on the straight-and-narrow.


Once, at a Superbowl party in Oklahoma City, Kathy fell in love with an abandoned blonde cocker spaniel with the regal name of Stacy’s Blueberry English Muffin. One of the young dog’s elderly owner’s had recently died, the other no longer capable of caring for the pedigreed cocker.

Muffin was on her way to the pound but Kathy begged Big Billy to let her adopt the friendly dog. He agreed, but only after obtaining her promise to “do anything he asked of her” for a month. Hmmmm! I have no clue what wild and depraved acts Kathy had to ultimately perform, but Muffin turned out to be one of the world’s best dogs, a real princess that even Big Billy eventually bowed down to

Muffin and Big Billy are both gone, but Kathy now lives in Austin along with her new husband Ross andtwo kitties Lefty and Blacky (named after some crazy country-western song, I think) that she and Big Billy had adopted. Since Kathy is allergic to cats, she built them their own air-conditioned palace behind her house on Lake Travis. Ah, the lives of the very rich!

Anyway, here is one of the many wonderful dishes Big Billy and Kathy used to cook up. It’s a Louisiana/Texas specialty that I think you will like.

Big Billy’s Crawfish Quesadillas


Ingredients

• 8 ten inch flour tortillas

• 1 lb. peeled crawfish tails, lightly rinsed and drained

• 1 medium onion, chopped

• 1 Tbsp. butter

• 1/2 cup green onions, chopped

• 1 cup Monterey Jack cheese

Preparation

Butter a non-stick skillet and sauté onion on medium heat until tender. Add green onions and crawfish and sauté about 10 minutes. Spritz a large skillet with cooking spray and place on medium heat. Place tortilla in skillet and spread with 1/2 cup crawfish and cheese, and top with another tortilla. Cook 1 minute on each side and then cut into 8 wedges. Serve quesadillas as an appetizer along with Texas hot sauce and sour cream.
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Lily's Steamed Oysters - a weekend recipe

Lily, my former mother-in-law was a church-going lady and I don’t think a drop of liquor ever crossed her lips. Still, she loved to cook and she loved to entertain. When members of her large family dropped by, (an everyday occurrence) she would often steam up a batch of oysters. Here is her simple, yet wonderful recipe. You can check out more of Lily's recipes in Lily's Little Cajun Cookbook at Smashwords.

Lily’s Steamed Oysters

Ingredients

• 4 doz. Oysters

• 1 Tbsp. butter

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Dash cayenne

Preparation

Drain the oysters in their shells and put them in a bamboo steamer over a pot of boiling water. Cover and steam for ten minutes. Place in a hot dish and season with salt, pepper and cayenne. Serve with drawn butter sauce and eat while very hot to enjoy the entire flavor.

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Big Billy's Curry Mango Shrimp Tacos

My good friends Big Billy and Kathy, his significant other, once bought a large sailboat and pulled it on a trailer to Seattle. They were both too young to retire, but neither knew it at the time. They lived on the sailboat for two years, sometimes sailing miles from shore. Usually, they were docked in Seattle, enjoying their sea-going neighbors and the ambiance of the City.

Big Billy, a former Dallas restauranteur, was a wonderful cook. Despite the fantastic fare in the Seattle area, he couldn’t help but cook with Texas flair. He had a little charcoal grill he kept on deck and quite often prepared world-class meals for him and Kathy before they ventured out for the night to drink the local beer and listen to music in the clubs. Here is a simple recipe for one of their favorite dishes.

Big Billy’s Curry Mango Shrimp Tacos

Ingredients

• ½ lb. shrimp, large, peeled and de-veined
• ¼ cup mango chutney
• 2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 Tbsp. fresh grated ginger
• ½ tsp. curry powder
• 1 avocado, large, cubed
• corn tortillas

Directions

Combine mango chutney, lime juice, olive oil, ginger and curry powder in a mixing bowl. Grill shrimp over the white hot coals on the grill while heating the soft corn tortillas in a pan (don’t overcook the shrimp and just warm the tortillas). Wrap the shrimp in tortillas and drizzle mango mixture over them. Top with cubes of avocado. Enjoy.

Good with a nice Riesling, but Big Billy much preferred Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

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