Winter Warmers

Hey, y'all. Today's show is all about winter warmers

I'm going to be starting off with a cheesy, creamy shrimp and crab au gratin

and then I'm cooking up veal and cream spinach. It's going to have you reaching for a second helping

And for dessert, y'all, I'm making sweet caramel apple cheesecake bars with a streusel topping

So come on in from the cold, y'all. grab a blanket because I've got a meal that's going to warm you inside and out

All right, the first dish we're going to make is one of those that just warm you inside out

from your head to your toes, and I'm going to be making a shrimp and crab au gratin

I've got to wash my hands so quickly because Cody needed just a little loving

so I had to give him a head scratch. All right, so y'all come on down and join me at the stove

This is such an easy recipe to put together. It's just great on one of those cold nights

Now I've got some water boiling here, and I'm gonna put a little crab seasoning in it

And I'm gonna take my shrimp and just pop those over in there

Now, this pound of shrimp has been peeled and deveined. And these won't take but a second

You know, I've said it a thousand times, and I'll probably say it another thousand times

Don't overcook your shrimp, especially in this dish because it's gonna have more cooking time to it

So we just barely want to get our shrimp just kind of going a little bit

You can see they're already turning a nice pink for us. All right, I'm going to take these shrimp out

They're not completely done yet, but that's kind of the way I want them

Oops, get back up in here. Loose man. Because we're going to be baking our shrimp and crab au gratin

And now what we're going to do is I'm going to give a very light chop to our shrimp

That's kind of about it. Going to toss them in that bowl

All right, now I've got two cans of crab meat. Now, this is just a pasteurized crab meat that you can usually find in the seafood section of your grocery store

I'm using a claw meat, which has a great deal of flavor

but it's already in small pieces, so you want to make sure that you don't, like, mush it

You want to be real, real gentle with it. All right, now here in this pot, I've got one stick of melted butter

Now to our butter, I'm going to add a half a cup of flour

because this is one of those thick, thick dishes. I'm going to get that mixed up

And then I'm going to move over to my whisk because I want to make sure that our sauce is nice and smooth

Oh, and that's looking good. All that flour is breaking up in there

And now I'm going to add a half a cup of milk to our flour and butter mixture

Boy, that's getting thick quick. Michael said his mother used to make shrimp and crab au gratin all the time

He said it was one of their favorite meals as a kid

All right, now to our roux, I'm gonna add a half a cup of white wine. Okay. Okay

And y'all can see how thick this is, because there's not gonna be another thing in this dish

other than our seafood, our sauce, and cheese. And this is one of those dishes that you eat with a fork

You don't want it soupy. All right, so some black pepper and 1 1⁄8 of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Then I'm gonna put in a little salt, and maybe just a wee little crab seasoning, not much

All right, that looks good. So now I'm gonna take this and I'm gonna pour it over our seafood

I gonna gently fold this in to our seafood trying not to tear it up so that looks really good And now I going to add a little lemon juice to it

because the lemon is so good with that shrimp and crab. Okay

Perfect. Alright, now I'm just going to fold that in. So now all we have to do is put this in our casserole dish

And I'm using an oval dish. So I'm just going to pile this in here

Just like that. And now I'm going to cover our casserole dish

with one and a half cups of sharp shredded cheddar cheese. This is going to melt all down in there

and be so good. So we're going to put this in the oven at 350

We're going to bake it for about 25 or 30 minutes until it's hot and bubbly

I'm going to do that while we're on break. And how does this grab you

Thill and creamed spinach. That's what we're doing next. See you right back here in a couple of minutes

Okay, hey y'all. It's time to taste my favorite part of the show

I've got that crab and shrimp au gratin out of the oven

Look at that. Mmm. I think maybe just a little twist of lemon on it

Give it a little squirt and a twist. My gracious. Mmm

It hits the belly mighty good on a cool winter day. Well, come on down here, because I've got a confession to make

This is the first time I've ever made the veal and cream spinach dish

I was writing the next cookbook that was coming into my life

I didn't have a recipe for veal, and I really, really wanted a recipe using veal

So during the middle of the night, I sat in my bed, and I formulated this recipe

And y'all, I never made it. I never cooked it except in my head

So here we go. I'm starting out with some nice thin strips of veal

And this may look like a mirror, but it's not. It's a mallet

But certainly doubles as a mirror. So I'm just going to pound out our veal

Like I said, this is quite thin, so it's not going to take much. Pounding our veal is going to make it even more tender

I think that's nice. All right. So I'm just going to quickly do all of this

Okey-do. Okay. So I'm definitely fixing to find out if I'm half as clever as I think I am

You know, I've told y'all so many times, it doesn't matter what you're cooking

It doesn't matter how the food turns out. The important thing is that you're in the kitchen with your family

You're making memories. You're bonding. You're healing at the end of the day

So I've always said the food does not matter. All right, now I've taken two eggs

I'm gonna take a little bit of my house seasoning. And my house seasoning is one cup of salt

a fourth of a cup of garlic powder, and a fourth of a cup of pepper

I've got about three tablespoons of olive oil over here in my pan, heating up

Now I'm gonna take my veal, and I'm just gonna put it into my eggs

And then I'm gonna put it in my crumbs. Now, the crumbs that I'm using are buttercracker crumbs

And I've crushed those up very nicely. Okay. So in my hot pan, those go

And these are not gonna take much cooking at all because they're very, very thin

You know, just a couple of minutes on each side. Hopefully, this is gonna be really, really crispy

And the last one goes right in And I just gonna run down here and wash my hands real quick like because they gumpy

They're gumpy with the egg. So, let's get back to our pan

I'm going to check my heat. I'm going to turn that up just a wee little bit

So I think we're ready to flip here. Ooh, look at that. Look at that

So far, so good. You know, I don't normally do a whole recipe

and just only cook it in my head. I think this is the only recipe that I've ever done that with

All right, now I'm gonna take our veal up. And now I'm gonna add about a fourth of a cup of wine

To deglaze your pan, you wanna be real careful. You don't wanna singe your eyebrows

Wow! All right, now I'm going to take an onion, because I love onion in my spinach

and I love garlic in my spinach. So... Okay

Now I'm just going to chop my onion, and I'm going to toss it over here in my pan

Just a rough chop. I want those pieces of onion to be seen

Okie do. And let those saute. Now I'm going to put a squirt

of garlic. You can buy these in the produce section at your grocery store, and they come in lots of different flavors

and I just love the convenience of them. Those are looking pretty good, aren't they

All right. Now I'm going to add one bunch of fresh spinach

And spinach doesn't take but a second. All right. Now to our spinach, I'm going to add a quarter of a cup of heavy cream

Doesn't that look delicious? And I'm going to pour my spinach and my onions onto my platter

And then I'm going to take my veal and put on top of it

And then I'm going to top it with a few green onion tops. So I'm fixing to taste and see what we've got

The veal is so tender, and I get a tartness from the wine

and it really, really is good, y'all. When we come back, I'm gonna be making a wonderful caramel apple cheesecake

cheesecake with a streusel topping. Hey, y'all

Welcome back. This next recipe is so good. A caramel apple cheesecake with a streusel topping

Now I'm going to start our crust by measuring out two cups

all-purpose flour into my bowl. That's one, two. Okay, I've got two sticks of butter

that have been softened. I'm gonna toss in. I've got a half a cup of light brown

sugar. I'm gonna put that in and now I'm gonna use a pastry cutter to just blend

this until it's crumbly. Now if you don't have one of these little pastry cutters

that's all right. You can use a fork or even two bread knives. We want it to have

the consistency of cornmeal, you know like when you're cutting shortening into

your biscuits. Okay that's cut in nicely. Now I'm gonna take my casserole dish, I've

I've buttered the bottom of it. Now I'm going to pour this in. And we're just going to press that down

And this is going to make a fabulous buttery crust for our cheesecake

And see how easy that's pressing down? Now I'm going to put this in the oven at 350 degrees

and I'm going to let this bake for 15 minutes. Okay. Okay so in the oven this goes 350 for 15 minutes And the beauty of this recipe is we not going to have to let that crust cool

We can go ahead and make the cheesecake and pour it on there onto our crust warm

So there's no wait time on it. So which is, that's great

That's great. So come on down here now. I've got two eight-ounce packages of cream cheese that have been softened

and I'm going to add two eggs and a half a cup of sugar

And we're just going to cream this until the sugar has dissolved

Okay, so that's nice and creamy. I'm going to let that sit there for a second

because I want to come over here and I want to make our apple topping

And I've got three Granny Smith apples that I've diced very finely

I'm going to add two tablespoons of sugar. I'm going to add a half a teaspoon of cinnamon

and a fourth a teaspoon of nutmeg. And I'm just gonna toss that together

All right, now we're gonna take our crust out of the oven. It's been baking for 15 minutes

Look at that pretty crust. Doesn't that look good? Okay

Now we're gonna pour our cream cheese over our crust, and it's all right that the crust is warm

because this is going back in the oven. Okay. So there we go. Mmm

Alright, now we're just gonna take our apple topping, and I'm just gonna distribute that across the top of our cheesecake. Mmm. Mmm-mmm-mmm

So as good as this looks, y'all, we're not done with it yet

I'm going to take a quick break, and when we come back, I'm going to show you how to put the streusel topping on this

and we're going to put it in the oven. And before you know it, we're going to have another one

of those wonderful winter warmers. So step on in here, y'all

Let me show you how to make this quick streusel topping. I've got one cup of all-purpose flour

I've got one stick of butter that's at room temperature. I've got one cup of packed light brown sugar

and a half a cup of quick-cooking oaks. Now I'm just going to take my fork and cut all that in together

And that doesn't take but just a second because I got that butter really nice and at room temperature

So for any of y'all that are just joining us, today's been all about winter warmers

You know, dishes that just taste so good when there's a nip in the air and nothing will satisfy you but something warm going down your belly

Mmm. Okay, so we got our streusel mixed up. Now I'm just going to take this and just sprinkle it over the top of those apples

Streusel is a German word for sprinkling, which is just what I'm doing now

Looks perfectly delicious, doesn't it? Okay, so I'm going to put this in the oven 350 degrees

I'm going to bake this for about 30 minutes, and I want to meet y'all over at the table

and I'm going to share with y'all the winter warmer dishes that I've done for today

They are just perfect for a cool day. So I'll meet you at the table

I love cooking, but I have to say, I love making those dishes that just scream winter and cool weather

How about that crab and shrimp au gratin? It's going to be so good going down

The veal and cream spinach, it's so good. And what better than a warm caramel apple cheesecake with a streusel topping and a little caramel drizzled on top of it

Look at that. I wish you were here to have some with me

But since you're not, I'll have your bite for you. Y'all have a great time in the kitchen

You know, I always send you loving best dishes from my kitchen to yours. Bye