December 9, 2013 · 4:41 pm

Roasted Butternut Squash, Potatoes and Onions

Roasted Butternut Squash and Potatoes

The arrival of peeled and cubed butternut squash in the produce section of the grocery store may be one of the smartest marketing decisions ever made by the Butternut Squash Council of America (I totally made that up). Have you ever tried to cut up one of those suckers? Oh, my Lord. And there’s not a vegetable peeler in America that can get the peel off a butternut squash.

King Daddy thinks he doesn’t like butternut squash, but he does. Every time I make this dish I tell him it’s all potatoes and KD eats every speck and pronounces it delicious.   He doesn’t think he likes sweet potatoes, either, but he was ruined by a childhood darkened by the annual Thanksgiving sweet potato casserole covered in mini-marshmallows. He actually likes roasted sweet potatoes. Same thing. I just tell him they’re Yukon Golds and he dives right in.

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Roasted Butternut Squash, Potatoes and Onions
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Serves: 4
 

Ingredients
  • 12 ounces cubed, peeled butternut squash
  • 12 ounces cubed Yukon Gold potatoes
  • ½ large onion, cut into chunks
  • ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon dried thyme
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Put the squash, potatoes and onions on a foil-lined, rimmed cookie sheet. Add the olive oil and coat the vegetables thoroughly. Drizzle with the balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with thyme, salt and pepper.
  2. Roast the vegetables for 30 minutes or until they’re tender and caramelized.

 

 

 

 

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Filed under casseroles, sides, Uncategorized, veggies

Tagged as balsamic vinegar, butternut squash, olive oil, onions, potatoes, roasted vegetables, yukon gold potatoes

December 6, 2013 · 6:14 pm

Cheddar Bacon Swirls

Cheddar Bacon SwirlsIf you had asked me 20 years ago why it was a bad idea to buy our house I would not have been able to give you these answers.

In hindsight:

  • It was a bad idea to buy our house because it’s made entirely of wood and our roommates over the years have included squirrels, birds, skunks and groundhogs. We liked the groundhogs best. They were quiet and they didn’t smell.
  • It was a bad idea to buy our house because it is surrounded by forest. Let no light penetrate the lot at 5117. That means no vegetable garden or beautiful flowers. Hope you love hostas as much as we do.
  • It was a bad idea to buy our house because it has an incredibly steep driveway. People visiting us have actually refused to drive up it. Poor Noah did not have a natural childhood because if he attempted to play catch at the top of the driveway and missed, he’d traumatically watch the ball roll about a mile downhill before stopping. And in inclement weather it ices over at the blink of an eye.

Here is a brief illustration of the steepness of our driveway.

Char-Broil Delivery 2This poor man had to deliver a grill to me last spring. It was painful to watch. It took him about half an hour to get the grill up the driveway. I did not offer to help. By the way, he’s only about a third of the way up.

Which brings to me to the Women of St. Paul’s Christmas Party at the Austin/Faulkner home. It may be the best Christmas Party ever. The food is fabulous, the wine flows and all the guests genuinely like each other. It is tonight and the weather is crappy. It’s rain right on the edge of turning to ice. Rain at the bottom of 5117 can be ice at the top. I call my friend, Claire. “What do you think? Should I make my appetizer?” She checks the weather and is uncertain. I stew about this for far too long before deciding I just don’t want to end up as a sad statistic. My obituary would read: “The deceased met an untimely death as she slid down her driveway into a telephone poll but her Cheddar Bacon Swirls were delicious!”

But I did make them, chewing over whether to go to Helen and Katie’s until the last minute. They are delicious. I’ve already had three.  If I put one on edge at the top of the driveway it would roll all the way to Franklin Road.

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Cheddar Bacon Swirls
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Ingredients
  • 1 pound of center-cut bacon
  • 2 sheets of puff pastry, thawed but still cold
  • 1 jar seedless raspberry jam
  • 2 cups finely shredded Cheddar cheese
  • Parchment paper

Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Arrange the bacon in a rimmed, foil-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until bacon is crisp. Drain and cool. Finely dice bacon by hand or using a food processor.
  2. Unfold one sheet of the puff pastry. Spread a thin layer of the raspberry jam on the puff pastry. Top with half the bacon, spreading it evenly over the pastry. Top that with 1 cup of shredded Cheddar cheese, also spreading it evenly.
  3. Roll the puff pastry up as you would a jelly roll. Using a serrated knife, cut the pastry into ½ inch rounds. Place the parchment paper on a cookie sheet and put the swirls on the parchment paper, leaving room for them to expand. If you have leftover swirls, refrigerate them.
  4. Bake for 15 minutes or until the pastry begins to brown. Remove the sheet from the oven, gently loosen the swirls from the parchment paper with a rubber spatula and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

 

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Tagged as appetizers, bacon, cheddar cheese, puff pastry, raspberry jam

December 5, 2013 · 7:09 pm

This is an emergency (with a recipe for deviled eggs)

SrirachaNo, really. This is an emergency. I received word last week that the sriracha factory in California is being forced to shut down because some weenie-type West Coast people can’t tolerate the smell of roasting fiery hot peppers in their neighborhood. C’mon, people, get a gas mask and keep on moving.

Sriracha is like ketchup at our house. It’s the only hot sauce made from freshly roasted peppers versus dried ones and it’s intoxicating. I like things mildly spicy, but King Daddy isn’t happy until beads of sweat form on his forehead and his eyes start to pop out. And Noah eats hot sauce on fried eggs. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.

I was immediately deeply concerned that my supply of sriracha was about to dry up so I rushed to the grocery store to inspect the shelves. Sure enough,  there were only three bottles left. Three bottles. I bought them all. King Daddy and I were about to leave for Knoxville for Thanksgiving so I didn’t have time to hit up any other stores, but I had a feeling I could score some more sriracha in Knoxville. After all, the news of the impending sriracha shortfall started on the West Coast and Knoxville is three hours east of Nashville so I figured I’d have time to find more sauce before the good people of Knoxville understood the impending disaster.

I was so correct. I have now stockpiled a year’s worth of sriracha in an undisclosed location. Oh, no…no…no. You think me a fool? I know how valuable this stuff is going to be. You don’t think I’d be so foolish as to store it in my…pantry. Do you?

So, here’s a recipe for sriracha deviled eggs – sriracha puts the “deviled” back into this old classic. Oh, I forgot. You may not be able to find sriracha.  Pity that. And it’s not in my pantry so don’t come visiting just to snoop around.

Pimento Cheese Deviled Eggs

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Sriracha deviled eggs
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Serves: 4
 

Sriracha puts the “deviled” back in deviled eggs.
Ingredients
  • 8 eggs
  • ½ cup pimento cheese (Mrs. Grissom’s preferred)
  • 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • ½ teaspoon sriracha
  • ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • Salt to taste
  • 4 strips cooked bacon, crumbled

Instructions
  1. To boil the eggs, add them to a heavy pot and fill with cold water until the eggs are submerged. Bring water to the boil and then take it off the heat and cover. Let sit for 18 minutes. Drain the eggs (the water will still be quite hot) and immediately fill the pot with cold water. Drain again and refill with cold water. This helps loosen the shells from the eggs.
  2. Crack the top and bottom of the egg and then gently roll the egg on a cutting board until tiny cracks form. The shell should easily come off.
  3. Slice the cooked eggs in half and remove the yolks to a bowl. Add the pimento cheese, mayonnaise, sriracha, Worcestershire sauce and blend with a fork until smooth. Taste and add salt as needed.
  4. Fill the egg whites with the pimento cheese mixture and top with crumbled bacon.

 

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Tagged as bacon, deviled eggs, pimento cheese, Sriracha, sriracha shortage

November 29, 2013 · 4:32 pm

Back-door dressing

It occurred to me yesterday that for 15 years I have been picking up dressing for Thanksgiving at somebody’s back door.

We always have Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law’s house in Knoxville. Bunny has seen no need to make the turkey or the dressing because for many years, we had an impeccable source: Mike Ramsey. Mike owned a restaurant in North Knoxville and he did a booming business selling cooked turkeys and cornbread dressing every Thanksgiving for the kitchen impaired or space challenged. Every Thanksgiving, my father-in-law and I would rise at dawn, head to the Waffle House for some early morning waffle-and-bacon sustenance and then drive to Ramseys. We’d go through the back door and pick up our order: one turkey and two pans of cornbread dressing with gravy.

Times changed and not for the better. Paul died and Ramseys closed. One year I believe we skipped a communal Thanksgiving altogether and another year we met at a restaurant. Bunny just wasn’t ready. We all understood, but damn we missed the broccoli, rice and cheese casserole.

This year, the family kind of nudged her along and she agreed to host Thanksgiving again. It was time. We all pitched in (something Bunny would never allow in the olden days). I made the turkey, her sister made the mashed potatoes and her daughter made the green bean bundles. The broccoli, rice and cheese casserole made a triumphant return in Bunny’s hands. But what about the dressing?

I found myself – now with King Daddy and Noah – at the back door of Harry and April Bryan’s house in Powell. Why we drive 20 miles for a pan of dressing, I do not know. But we’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. Bunny found Harry and April through friends. Bunny has a lot of connections.

April and Harry Bryan of the award-winning competition BBQ team, Q We Do.

April and Harry Bryan of the award-winning competition BBQ team, Q-We-Do.

The Bryan’s are competition BBQ cooks and run a catering business from a commercial kitchen attached to their house. We came in through the back door to pick up the dressing, which is laced with pulled pork. And here’s, once again, why I love the South. We chat about competition BBQ. I know a bit about it since I’m a Master BBQ Judge and former competition cook. I inspect the hardware (trophies that line one of the walls of the kitchen). If you get hardware, you are seriously good. We start to leave. “Wait,” Harry says as he hands me a bottle of Q-We-Do Sauce. “Take this.” I’m grateful. We chat a bit more and then turn to leave again. “One more thing,” Harry says as he reaches into his commercial fridge and pulls out a package of smoked turkey. “Try this – it’s unusual.”

Back-door dressing. And sauce and smoked turkey. I feel as though I’ve won the bonus round. Long story short, the dressing was a hit and the smoked turkey flew off the platter before my completely presentable bird. I did not share the sauce. In fact, I didn’t even tell anyone I had the bottle.

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Tagged as dressing, mashed potatoes, pulled pork, Q-We-Do competition BBQ team, smoked turkey, thanksgiving, turkey

November 24, 2013 · 5:20 pm

Tortellini with mushrooms and white wine butter sauce

Tortellini with Mushrooms and White Wine Butter Sauce

King Daddy is not a good teacher when it comes to things he knows a lot about, such as computer technology and leather working and carpentry. He tends to jump ahead a few steps and then gets a tad frustrated when the student – usually me – ends up confused and slightly defensive.

I realized the other night that I may not be the best teacher either when it comes to the few things I know a lot about, like cooking. King Daddy is always kind to want to help in the kitchen. He likes chopping and he does it with great gusto. Sometimes I leave a few steps out. Like a few weeks ago I was making a stir fry and I gave him examples of how to slice the zucchini and crookneck squash (okay, it’s a Southern stir fry). I assumed he would follow the same general shape when he did the onions as everything in a stir fry should be chopped into equal sizes. I didn’t turn around for 30 seconds before he’d chopped that onion into infinitesimally tiny pieces.

So a couple nights ago, I had some mushrooms and a package of tortellini and I told him to saute the mushrooms in a little butter. To King Daddy, a little butter is…oh…a stick. Once again, I had just turned around for 30 seconds. I considered offering my thoughts. But all I said was, “You’d better crank up the heat.” King Daddy did alright. He added some white wine and I advised him to throw in some garlic and lemon juice. And then, so I could write a recipe, I made it again today. With half the butter. But King Daddy’s version sure was good.

 

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Tortellini with mushrooms and white wine butter sauce
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Serves: 2
 

Ingredients
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 12 ounces of Portobello mushrooms, ends trimmed and sliced
  • ¼ cup dry white wine
  • 1 clove of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
  • Juice of ½ lemon
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 9-ounce package of fresh three-cheese tortellini (such as Buitoni)
  • ⅓ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions
  1. Melt the butter over medium high heat in a large skillet. Add the mushrooms and sauté them until they begin to release their juices. Add the white wine and garlic. Continue cooking until the mushrooms have given up all their liquid. Add the lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.
  2. Bring two quarts of water to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Add the tortellini and cook for 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Drain and add the mushroom mixture to the tortellini. Serve and top with the freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Notes
Don’t follow the package directions, which say to boil for 7-9 minutes. Four minutes is enough. The tortellini will be mushy if you boil them longer.

 

 

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Tagged as butter, garlic, lemon juice, mushrooms, pasta, tortellini, white wine

November 21, 2013 · 7:19 pm

The passing of a Southern gentleman

John Egerton died today. I’d like to say a few words.

John EgertonJohn wrote or spoke everything I love about the South.

The New Orleans Times Picayune wrote this: “Egerton’s book, Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History,” published in 1987, is widely considered one of the essential texts on the subject. As much a history and travelogue as it is a cookbook, “Southern Food” has endured as a model for approaching Southern cuisine as an avenue to substantive cultural inquiry.” Couldn’t have said it better.

Through his books and his founding of the Southern Foodways Alliance and his desire to just show up, which is a time-honored Southern tradition, John displayed expertise, humor, thoughtfulness and – above all – kindness. The last time I saw him was at Sam’s B-B-Q in Humboldt, Tennessee. The place had burned down and John came together with other SFA members to rebuild. I believe he was 76 at the time.

The first time I met John was a little surreal. Dave Green, then the managing editor of the Tennessean, wanted to try an experiment. What would happen if you put a long-form writer in the world of quick-form journalists. What would you get? I was his editor. The experiment lasted six months and I learned a few things.

John wrote books. Newspapers publish articles. There was a bit of a gap. I wish I could remember the subject matter John picked, but I can’t. But what I do remember is how he “took the edit,” which is what newspaper folks refer to as how well the writer receives criticism. I would try to be gentle as we whittled down 12,000 words to 3,000, horrendously long in newspaper terms. “Don’t sugar coat it,” he would say. “Just tell me what you think.” John was ten million times more noteworthy than I ever hope to be. But he took the edit. With humility.

I have a copy of Cornbread Nation 1 sitting in front of me right now. John began this series of essays from noted Southern writers about food and culture for the Southern Foodways Alliance. Typically, none of his work is in the volume. He let others shine.

I would see John from time to time through the years. We both lived in Nashville and our worlds met. There was always the warm hug, the heartfelt hand on the shoulder and the query, “So what are you doing these days?”

So I am immeasurably sad that John has passed. Am I imagining him in Heaven right now, breaking bread with Edna Lewis and Craig Claiborne? Oh, absolutely. If you don’t know who any of these beacons of Southern culture and cooking are, please look them up. You will be impressed.

God speed, John. God speed.

 

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Tagged as cornbread nation, John Egerton, southern cooking, southern culture, southern foodways alliance

November 20, 2013 · 5:13 pm

Two simple sides for Thanksgiving

I have to tell you, around this time of year I love all the talk about how to roast or grill a turkey. Yes, you have to have turkey on Thanksgiving just as you  have to leave cookies and milk out for Santa Christmas Eve. But does anyone really love, love, love the turkey? I don’t care if you put a bow tie and a top hat on it. Turkey is still going to be bland and, once out on a buffet table for an hour or so, dry.That’s why I don’t bother brining mine. Too much trouble for too little payback.

Sides are king on Turkey Day. I’m all about the mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing and cranberry sauce. I’m also about trying new sides to change it up a bit.

Curried fruit compote

Curried fruit compote

 

Green bean and corn casserole

Green bean and corn casserole

Curried fruit compote has been around at least since the ’70s because that’s when I started making it. It is the only acceptable use for canned fruit that I know about. And green bean and corn casserole is what the classic green bean casserole wants to be when it grows up.

Both of the recipes are on the Char-Broil LIVE site. Just click on over there to get them. And I have to tell you, if you’re still trying to figure out your Thanksgiving meal there’s no better place to find inspiration than at my beloved Char-Broil’s Ultimate Guide to Thanksgiving.

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Tagged as butter, cherries, corn, curried fruit compote, curry powder, fruit, green bean and corn casserole, green beans, ritz crackers, sour cream

November 17, 2013 · 5:56 pm

Kale with raisins, garlic and pecans

Kale with garlic, raisins and pecans

So you know going through “what the hell” moments and then feeling so bad afterwards? I had one last night.

My colleague, Betsy, and I were the recipients of the Citizens of the Year Award from Omega Psi Phi, a service fraternity that does fantastic philanthropic work. Our nonprofit, the Community Resource Center, works with them quite a bit to get basic necessities into the hands of people in need. They present these awards at a banquet. I was imaging the whole rubber chicken thing. But no. It was a banquet of everything I love – smoked chicken, smoked ribs, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, collard greens and banana pudding. There was some salad, too, but I breezed right by that. Do you know how absolutely wrong it is to see mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese side-by-side on your plate? I saw it on mine.

I ate every scrap. I pretended I didn’t want any banana pudding, but then I ate half of King Daddy’s right off his plate.

So I am atoning today with sauteed kale. I actually like kale quite a bit and I hate that it’s getting kicked to the curb lately as a vegetable that’s being over used. Nobody ever says that about peas, green beans or corn. And for all you seasonal eaters out there, of which I am one, you will be so sorry you’re a kale hater in February because that’s going to be all you get.  This recipe balances sweet raisins and rich pecans with the bitter tones of kale. That sounded pretty fancy, didn’t it? Just make the recipe. You’ll feel good about yourself.

 

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Kale with raisins, garlic and pecans
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Serves: 2
 

Ingredients
  • 1 bunch kale
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • ¼ cup raisins
  • ¼ cup pecans, chopped and toasted in a pan for 5 minutes
  • 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
  1. Cut the kale into thin ribbons, discarding any big stems.
  2. Heat the olive oil over medium high heat in a large skillet. Add the kale and garlic and cook until the kale has wilted and reduced in volume, stirring constantly to avoid burning the garlic.
  3. Add the raisins, pecans, vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook another minute or two, stirring constantly, to plump the raisins.

 

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Tagged as garlic, kale, olive oil, pecans, raisins, vinegar

November 15, 2013 · 5:41 pm

King Daddy’s Excellent Adventure

The fried chicken livers, nestled right between the fried potato wedges and foil-wrapped cheeseburgers

The fried chicken livers, nestled between the fried potato wedges and foil-wrapped chicken biscuits

King Daddy and I will drive absurdly long distances for food. We once drove 2 1/2 hours from Reno to Gerlach, Nevada – which is perilously close to a ghost town – to eat ravioli at Bruno’s Country Club, which in no way qualifies as a country club. The ravioli was damn good.

So I was all ears when KD asked me the other day to accompany him to Centerville, Tennessee, for fried chicken livers. DO NOT TURN UP YOUR NOSE. If you’ve never eaten the fried chicken livers at the fastStop Market you have never lived a day in your life. Centerville is an hour from Nashville and I counted every mile marker.

Place and food are very intertwined in the South.  Generally speaking, the more humble the place the more beguiling the food. Rules of rooting out the best food in out-of-the-way places:

1. If it looks condemned, go in.

2. If you see a BBQ joint and there’s no wood pile and an abandoned car in the back, keep on driving

3. If the name of the restaurant is the Kountry Kitchen and there’s a bunch of ancient license plates tacked to the outside of the building, you’ve found mecca.

So I was highly anticipating fried chicken livers at a gas station. I was slightly alarmed when we arrived and I found the fastStop Market to be disturbingly clean and modern.

King Daddy is a regular at the fastStop because he practices quite a bit of law in Centerville (I love how you “practice law” as though you will never quite get it right). He has eaten fried chicken livers there frequently and one or two leftover livers find their way back home for me. But I had never had them hot and fresh out of the fryer.

Gina serving up our order...nice goes a long way in the South and Gina is extremely nice

Gina serving up our order…nice goes a long way in the South and Gina is extremely nice

Oh, my. We hurried to the car with our box of fried chicken livers and several ketchup packets and did not speak for a full five minutes. King Daddy makes a mean fried chicken liver and I can honestly say they’re the best I’ve ever had. But these come in second just by a nose. I had to accompany KD to the Centerville Justice Center where he had a few cases to try. I will tell you that I admire his keen legal abilities and his talent at oration before the Bench, but I can honestly say the best part of my day was behind me.

 

 

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Tagged as bbq restaurants, Centerville, dive restaurants, fried chicken livers, Kountry Kitchen, ravioli

November 12, 2013 · 6:28 pm

What Chinese students think of Southern food

No thank you. NO. Pretending to vomit.

No thank you. NO. Pretending to vomit.

I just finished taking Noah on a cultural food tour of various parts of the world represented by Nashville food outlets, and now my friend Charlotte Fraser has alerted me to this. A woman currently teaching in China made a PowerPoint presentation of iconic regional American foods and the reactions of her students. We may turn up our noses at bird’s nest soup and chicken feet, but the Chinese have some equally negative reactions to foods we in the South hold near and dear.

Grits: No. Ew. Why eat that? That is not good.

Biscuits and Gravy: No thank you. NO. Pretending to vomit.

Red Velvet Cake: BLOOD. IT IS LIKE BLOOD. Is it meat? I don’t like it.

Sweet Tea: It’s…sweet…tea?  Why is that good? I don’t understand.

Cornbread: Corn?

That’s okay. I understand. Not three states to the north of here, people don’t understand about grits and sweet tea.

In the North, people grow up eating Cream of Wheat. It’s kind of like grits, but not. It’s made from wheat. How good could that be? Ew.

Northerners do not understand the proposition that gravy can be white. Gravy is brown there. And they would never put it on a biscuit because all they have are English muffins and toast. No thank you.

They also do not understand why we would put red food coloring in a chocolate cake batter to achieve the violent hue that is Red Velvet Cake. Yes, it is like blood. Very, very tasty blood.

Sweet tea. I must confess I hate sweet tea, but here’s the moment when I realized most of the country doesn’t even understand what it is. I was traveling through Kansas a while back and stopped at a restaurant for supper. The waitress asked about my drink order and I said, “I’ll have unsweet tea.” She looked at me quizzically. “That’s all we have. What is sweet tea?”

Of course, the quiz about regional foods covered more than the South.  Here’s the link. I don’t understand why the Chinese students expressed great enthusiasm about tacos and chocolate chip cookies, but could not embrace the cornbread. Then, again, I’m still not embracing the chicken feet.

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Filed under breads, casseroles, pizza, pork, sweets, Uncategorized

Tagged as biscuits and gravy, cornbread, grits, red velvet cake, regional foods, Southern foods, sweet tea