Sweet Corn

Yes, it is the extremely tasty evil Georgia sweet corn, and is entirely the fault of the guy at the farmer’s market who forced six ears on us Saturday morning, shortly before the guy at the meat market twisted our arms and made us buy 3 racks of baby back ribs.  All of which we were then compelled to grill, then consume, later that evening, entirely against our will.  And we won’t even go into the watermelon.  *sobs*

It was a heartbreaking experience.

So we smoked a turkey breast and beef brisket on Sunday.  And I felt the need to do something with the three ears of roasted corn we had leftover from our excess Saturday evening.  Once I realized I had a bag of dried black beans in the pantry, this dish was on the menu.  (You can, of course, make it with canned black beans.)

We ate it as a side with our brisket and turkey, but it would be marvelous served with good quality tortilla chips.

Roasted Corn and Black Bean Salsa

Black Bean Salsa

makes…a lot

4 cups (or two cans) black beans, drained and rinsed

3 ears roasted corn, kernels cut away (about 2 cups)

1 large tomato, chopped

1 to 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced

1 cup red onion, finely chopped

1/2 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves, torn

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Cover (and refrigerate if desired) for at least 1 hour to allow flavors to develop.  Bring to room temperature and stir before serving.

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“Coleslaw” comes from the Dutch koolsla – literally “cabbage salad.”  And a very good, easy salad it is, especially when made with bagged, shredded cabbage.  You can shred your own cabbages and carrots, of course, but I’ve found that it’s not all that much more expensive to use the bagged stuff unless you are making a really, really large quantity.  But I’ve included instructions for both, just to be on the safe side.

And the dressing?  YUMMY.

Happy picnicing and barbecuing this summer, y’all.

Coleslaw

Coleslaw

Serves 6 – 8

One 16-oz. bag of shredded green and red cabbage with carrots OR

5 cups shredded green cabbage

1 cup shredded red cabbage

1 large carrot, shredded

1 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar or Splenda

1 teaspoon celery salt, or to taste

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

Place the cabbages and carrots in a large bowl.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk the mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, sugar (or Splenda), celery salt and pepper together until well blended.

Pour the dressing over the cabbages and carrots, and toss until well mixed.  Cover and refrigerate for an hour to allow the flavors to blend.

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Nah.

Actually, I think I’m suffering slightly from blog-burnout, a lingering after-affect of blogging every day last month, then continuing to blog every weekday this month.  I don’t think I’m losing my mojo – it’s just tired and needs a break.  I think I’ll give it one next weekend when we go to Hocking Hills, and won’t post Friday through Monday.

At any rate, while thinking about what I would write about today, I started thinking about the weather (cool and wet – Fall is definitely here) and dinner, which should go with the cool, wet weather.  With Beloved out of town for more than a week, I am going to have to just cook for myself; if I let The Young One choose the menu like I did last night, we’ll end up eating chicken nuggets or pizza rolls with carrot and celery sticks and mac ‘n’ cheese every night (while watching 3 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD – but hey, we had a nice evening).  So, tonight I’m making this:

Hoppin’ John.

If you asked Oldest Son what his favorite dish is, he’d probably come back with “Spinach-stuffed pork loin with fruit sauce” (another recipe I’ll have to post soon) accompanied by this simple casserole of black-eyed peas and rice.  Hoppin’ John is fairly ubiquitous in the South and is traditionally eaten on New Year’s Day; in our house, it’s served far more often.  Growing up, my mother made this with canned black-eyed peas and Minute rice and while instant rice is not allowed in my home, I’ve made it upon occasion with the canned peas.  However, having said that, it is best made with dried peas and since black-eyed peas require no soaking and cook up fairly quickly (compared to other dried beans, which is what black-eyed peas really are) you can have this dish on the table in fairly short order.  It’s a great side dish for pork – which is how Oldest Son prefers it – or by itself with just some hot, buttered corn bread on the side.  For me, it personifies comfort food.

This is a very basic recipe; you can jazz this up just about any way you like, and add bell peppers and celery to the onion, throw in some tomatoes, substitute the bacon with salt pork or a small hamhock (pick the meat off that hock and add it back in before serving!) or a good, spicy smoked sausage like Andouille.  It can be made vegetarian by leaving the meat out all together and spicing it up with some cumin, cayenne or thyme and bay leaf.

Hoppin’ John

makes 4 – 6 main dish servings, or 8 side dish servings

6 thick slices of bacon, chopped

one medium onion, chopped

1 cup dried black-eyed peas

5 – 6 cups water

1 cup uncooked long-grain white rice

Sort and rinse the black-eyed peas.  Fry the bacon in a large saucepan (or small pot) over medium heat until almost crisp; remove with a slotted spoon and reserve.  Lower the heat and saute the onion in the bacon fat in the saucepan until soft and almost translucent.

Return the bacon to the saucepan and add the peas.  Pour in the water and remove any peas that float to the top.  Gently boil the black-eyed peas, uncovered, until tender but not mushy – about 1 1/2 hours – and about 2 cups liquid remain.  Add the rice to the pot, stir, cover, and simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes, never lifting the lid.

Remove from the heat and allow to steam, still covered, for another 10 minutes. Remove the cover, fluff with a fork, season to taste with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

My chicken and dumplings has a secret ingredient:  canned biscuits.  Cheap canned biscuits.  The kind that are not “flaky” or “grand” and come 10 in a can.  You know, the kind you used to be able to buy 10 for $1 but now are 50 cents each.  The kind that resemble little hockey pucks when baked.

I believe I’ve mentioned a time or twelve that Mom wasn’t big on cooking when we were kids – she was all about cheap, fast and easy.  The biscuit thing was something I think she read in one of her beloved cookbooks that contained recipes from the backs of packages, boxes and cans – she had a total of three.  At any rate, her version of chicken and dumplings was cheap pieces of chicken – thighs, legs and wings – boiled with a few vegetables like celery, onion and carrots and a minimum of seasoning.  She’d strain the broth, shred the chicken, put it all back on the stove and when it was boiling, drop in those cheap biscuits, torn in half, and let it all cook for about a minute.  Voila – it was done.

The dish was uninspired, perhaps, but cooked properly the dumplings made out of these cheap biscuits were feather light, fluffy and delicious.  When I moved away from home and had a family of my own, I made chicken and dumplings frequently because it was a cheap dish to make and I began to experiment, especially with the dumplings.  I tried a ton of different recipes, ranging from old cookbooks to the one on the back of the Biquick box, and while I liked the flavor and texture of these dishes overall better, the dumplings were always a disappointment.  Usually heavy and chewy, they just weren’t like Mom’s.

The recipe I’m giving you here is the result of years of trial and error and is one the kids all beg me for, either to cook it or for the recipe itself.  It includes the cheap biscuit dumplings, cooked separately and added at the end, and is the epitome of comfort food.  Assembled with leftover roast chicken and stock made from the carcass, it is not only delicious but economical as well.

Chicken and Dumplings

6 – 8 generous servings

3 – 4 cups cooked chicken, chopped

2 large carrots, peeled and sliced

1 large onion, roughly chopped

2 – 3 large stalks celery, sliced

1 cup frozen petit sweet peas, thawed

1 stick butter

1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 cups chicken stock or broth

2 cups milk

Salt and pepper to taste

1 – 2 cans cheap biscuits, depending on how many dumplings you want (I usually use 2)

In a large, heavy skillet, melt the butter over medium heat; add the carrots, onion and celery.  Lower the heat a bit and cook the vegetables until the onions become soft and transparent, but not brown.

Stir in the flour, mixing well, and cook until it becomes a smooth paste and is beginning to brown just slightly, about 5 minutes.  Gradually stir in the chicken stock, whisking constantly to prevents lumps, then gradually stir in the milk.  Add the chicken, lower the heat a little more, and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture begins to thicken a little.

Lower the heat to simmer and gently stir in the peas.  Taste; add salt and pepper as needed.

On another burner, bring about 6 cups of water to a boil in a large sauce pan.  Working in batches, tear two of the biscuits into three equal pieces each, and carefully drop them into the boiling water.  Cook them for about 30 – 45 seconds, stirring and flipping them, then remove them with a large slotted spoon.  Place them in the chicken mixture.

Repeat with the remaining biscuits until they are all cooked and have been added to the chicken and vegetables.  Gently stir together, and serve.

Since Monday is a holiday, I may post, but it won’t be my usual recipe so I thought I’d give it to you today.  That way, if you’re interested in making it you’ll have it handy.  Isn’t that convenient?  Aren’t I thoughtful?  Aren’t I weaseling my way out of having to actually write something?

Shortcuts Recipes.  I love ‘em.

Anyhoo, I made this to accompany the Grilled Honey Rosemary Pork Loin we made last weekend, and it was delicious.  The dressing is very similar to that of my Sweet Potato Salad, but what can I say – we Southerners love our mayonnaise and sweet pickle relish.  I’m working on a recipe for an olive oil-based dressing that should be marginally healthier; when I’ve got one I like, I’ll post it.

Tricia, feel free to leave the onion out.  It will still be yummy. *wink*

Macaroni Salad

serves 6

8 ounces elbow macaroni, cooked, rinsed and cooled

1 red bell pepper, roasted,  peeled, seeded and chopped

1/2 cup celery, chopped

1/2 cup sweet onion, such as Vidalia, chopped

1 large carrot, peeled and grated

1 cup frozen baby sweet peas, thawed

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon sweet pickle relish

1 teaspoon prepared mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Combine all of the ingredients except salt and pepper in a large bowl and toss gently until thoroughly combined.  Season with salt and pepper.  Refrigerate for an hour before serving.

Have a lovely weekend, y’all

We did – not The Egg, I’m sorry to say (I just couldn’t justify the cost – the damn thing is $800), but we got a decent, if inexpensive, charcoal grill with a smokebox on the side – and an obscene amount of all natural, hardwood charcoal.  (I’m sorry, but I dislike gas grills – they’re silly and defeat the purpose of barbecuing.)

Since then, we’ve been grilling and smoking our little hearts out.  And since we will be cooking a great many things on the grill, I will be posting a great many recipes for my favorite warm-weather dishes – main dishes,  side dishes and desserts.  Because I’ve already posted my barbecue sauce recipe, I thought I would give you my all-time favorite warm-weather side dish:  Sweet Potato Salad.

I’ve mentioned before, when I was posting Thanksgiving recipes, that I happen to LOVE sweet pototoes.  In fact, I think there’s very few dishes that can be made with white potatoes that aren’t better with sweet potatoes.  I was thinking along those lines a few summers back, when it occured to me that sweet potatoes would probably be quite tasty in my potato salad recipe – and I was right.  Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement – they are MARVELOUS in my potato salad recipe.

My potato salad recipe is pretty typically Southern; if you have a favorite potato salad recipe, why not try it with sweet potatoes?

Sweet Potato Salad

serves 6

5 cups peeled, cubed sweet potatoes

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped red onion

2 – 3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish

1/2 – 2/3 cup mayonnaise

1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Place the cubed, peeled sweet potatoes in a large pot of cool water; bring to a boil and cook for 3 – 5 minutes, or just until fork tender.  Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water until they have cooled enough to handle.  At this point, I drain them well and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients except the salt and pepper and mix well.  Gently stir in the potatoes, then add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve immediately (can be refrigerated before serving if desired).

Our day began when we were rudely awakened by the psychotic robin that lives in the hemlock outside our bedroom window.  It’s nesting season, you see, and when it sees its reflection in our very large, very south-facing bedroom window it thinks there’s an invading bird so it charges and flies directly into the window…repeatedly.  We finally gave up trying to sleep any later – the damn bird kept at it even after we’d lowered our blinds – so we turned on Turner Classic Movies, which was having an “Easter Themed Day” of programming, while Beloved grouched:

“Remind me to go out there first thing in the morning and body slam that damn bird’s nest a few times.”

Saturday night, I forced wheedled the Men In My Life into decorating about a dozen and a half hard boiled eggs with me.  I mean, it’s not Chocolate Bunny Day without colored hard boiled eggs, right?  Right?? So now, as usual, I’m stuck with 18 brightly colored hard boiled eggs that need to be devoured in the next few days.  Some of the will be eaten for breakfast over the course of the week, some will be put into salads for lunch, and the rest will be made into deviled eggs to be scarfed as snacks all through the day.

Because I love me some deviled eggs.

A note about hard boiled eggs. For years hard boiled eggs baffled me – half the time, at least, I’d end up with ragged egg whites that stuck to the shell, and even when the eggs peeled cleanly I’d be stuck with a yucky green coating on the yolk.  Both, I’m glad to report, are easily avoided if you know your eggs.  First, never boil a strictly fresh egg; they will peel much more easily if they’ve been sitting in the refrigerator for a few days (the ones we boiled Saturday had been purchased the previous Saturday in anticipation of boiling and coloring).  Secondly, when you do boil them, do so gently.  Lower the eggs into cool water that covers them by at least an inch, and bring them to a brisk boil.  Immediately remove from the heat, cover, and let sit for 10 minutes – no more,  no less.  Drain and cool in a bowl of cold water.

You will have perfect hard boiled eggs that are easy to peel and have no discoloration.

Deviled Eggs

makes 12 servings

12 large hard boiled eggs

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 teaspoons brown or yellow mustard

1/4 cup sweet pickle relish

1/4 cup finely chopped onion or celery

Peel eggs and halve lengthwise. Carefully remove yolks and mash in a bowl with a fork. Add mayonnaise, mustard, pickles, onion or celery, and salt and pepper to taste to yolks and stir with fork until well combined, then spoon into egg whites.

Oh.  My.  Gawd.

Yes, it was yummy.

In my never ending quest to find new ways to cook a freezer full of inexpensive cuts of beef, I ran across a version of this recipe while looking for main dishes that would go well with baked cheese grits.  Would it go well with the cheese grits?  Yes indeed it would, but it was just fine with plain white rice.

Because you are using an inexpensive cut of beef, this dish takes awhile to cook, so you may want to start it early, make it on the weekend, or plan on a late dinner (we chose the latter option).  I imagine it would do well in the crock pot, if you don’t mind skipping the step of sweating the onions to soften and sweeten them.

Also, everything in the dish are things you should either already have on hand or are readily available at the grocery store, and don’t let the list of ingredients intimidate you -  it is very easy and inexpensive to make.  Everyone in our family just loved it, including The Young One, which is saying something.

Creole-Style Steak

serves 4 – 6

3 pounds boneless chuck steak

salt and pepper

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 medium onion, thickly sliced

1 large carrot, peeled and cut in to large pieces

1 large green bell pepper, cored, seeded and cut into large pieces

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups beef broth or bouillon

1 – 15 oz. can tomato sauce

1 heaping tablespoon packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Season the steak lightly with salt and pepper.  Heat one tablespoon of the vegetable oil in a large, heavy skillet over high heat and brown the steak on both sides; remove from the pan and reserve on a plate.

Add the other two tablepoons of oil to the skillet, lower the heat to medium low and add the onion, carrot and bell pepper to the skillet; saute briefly, stirring frequently, until the onions are wilted but not brown.  Add the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds.

Add the beef stock, tomato sauce, brown sugar and spices to the vegetables, stirring well.  Return the steaks to the skillet along with any juices that might have collected on the plate, spooning the vegetables and liquid over them.

Reduce the heat to low, cover the skillet and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until the steaks are fork tender.  Uncover the pan the last 15 – 20 minutes of cooking to let the sauce thicken slightly if desired.

TYB:  They sure are big on BBQ out there, and so is M – personally I don’t care if I see anymore BBQ sauce till Labor Day – and that might just be too soon.

Me:  ROFLMAO – I miss barbecue!

TYB:  For me, a little BBQ sauce goes a long way and the places we went to seemed determined that the chicken had to drown in the stuff before it was cooked and then eaten!  It was like it had simmered in in a gallon of sauce.

At that point I went, well, ballistic.  If you think I’m picky about chili, you haven’t seen anything until I go off on a tangent about barbecue.  I once wrote an email to a restaurant that claimed to have “authentic Texas barbecue” (because, excuse me, it wasn’t) that was apparently so scathing they took the claim off of their menu.

Just to be perfectly clear, barbecue is not a sauce; it’s a method of cooking. The sauce is almost incidental.  To whit, the definition of barbecue that is accepted by most authorities is “meat or other foods, cooked in close proximity to a fire of coals or wood, usually with a sauce applied.”   Note that it does not say “always” (to say nothing of “drowned in sauce”); in fact, I’ve had some damn fine barbecue meat only dressed with a dry rub or even just plain, with a little sauce served on the side if you want it.  Even then, the sauce is usually not applied until the last 15 minutes or so of cooking – any good barbecue sauce is going to contain sugar (but not too much) and/or tomatoes.  The sugar will burn and tomato can become bitter with long cooking.

Barbecue purist say you can’t call it barbecue unless it’s slow-cooked in a pit all day, but most of us are not quite that stringent (who wants to have to dig a pit in their back yard?) – a barbecue grill is certainly sufficient.  Having said that, if you have a gas grill you’re stretching it – real barbecue should be cooked over a wood embers or charcoal.

As I mentioned earlier, unless you’re a Kansas City Barbecue fan (and I won’t hold it against you if you are…you poor thing), barbecue sauce isn’t supposed to be real sweet.  It should have a good tang to it, and if you’re a hot head it’s perfectly okay for it to have a some kick.  If you’re going for a bottled sauce, the original Sweet Baby Ray barbecue sauce is pretty good, although a tad on the sweet side (they also make some damn fine marinades/mopping sauces that the barbecue  sauce compliments wonderfully), but if you want to make your own, this one is pretty damn good.  It lends itself well to modification, too, and makes a ton.  The original recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon dried mint, but I tend to object to mint in barbecue sauce.  But give it a whirl, if you want.

Barbecue Sauce

3 cups chopped onion

1/4 cup honey

3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon salt

1/2 cup chopped, fresh parsley

3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 cup dry white wine

3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon liquid smoke

2 cups ketchup

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce, or to taste

Place all ingredients in a heavy saucepan or Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Cover and cook, at lowest simmer, for 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Slow cooking is the secret of this sauce. If your sauce should become too thick, thin it with a little white wine.

So.

Now that I’ve gotten my movie reference for this post out of the way (and notice how I never even brought up my misgivings about Marisa Tomei and her Oscar), let’s move on to chocolate gravy, shall we?  Because, yes, it is a very real thing.  Apparently a purely Southern thing, too, although I have to admit that I’d never heard of it until recently.  I was saved the humiliation of excommunication from The Society of All Things Southern, however, by this post from BooMama, who is one of the most hysterically funny bloggers on the interwebz, in my not-so-humble opinion.  Since she is also just about the most Southern blogger I’ve encountered on the interwebz, I feel slightly better about my ignorance of what is apparently a Southern Culinary Tradition.

I must say that I am further mollified by the fact there is no Wikipedia entry for it.

When I first heard of chocolate gravy, my first reaction was, “Ewwwwwww!” for I had an immediate vision of my beloved cream gravy with a hunk of bittersweet – or worse yet, unsweetened – baking chocolate thrown in.  What it really is, though, is more of a chocolate sauce made of sugar, cocoa, flour, milk and/or water with possibly a touch of butter and vanilla, depending on who’s recipe you’re using.  These crazy, wonderful Southerners then pour it over biscuits and eat it for breakfast.

Oh, I am SO all over that – we’re having it for brunch this Sunday.  The Young One won’t know what hit him, for if there’s one thing he loves more than biscuits, it’s chocolate, and it goes without saying that I am not about to pass up an excuse to legitimately eat chocolate for breakfast.  Oh, no.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.