Believe it or not, I actually make a lot of the things I post on this blog over and over. That’s the mark of a good recipe, in my opinion –whether would I make it again.
As proof, I took pictures a couple of weeks ago when we had a burger night and I made homemade hamburger buns. Go ahead and go look at the recipe now if you want to. I can wait.
Or take a look at these mouth-watering pictures and THEN go check out the recipe, because I know you’ll want to. 🙂
When I was in college, I worked at a tiny little lunch place downtown. It had four tables and a lot of takeout business. There was a different daily special every day, and in the winter, it was often soup.
I was watching one of the owners make soup one day and realized she had no recipe, which blew my mind. I made a comment about how impressive it was to make up a recipe as she went along. At that moment, I was taught a cooking lesson I have never forgotten.
She said, “It’s no big deal. You know you have to have a base — some kind of broth or cream — and then you just throw in whatever sounds good together. As long as you know what the elements are, you can combine them however you want.”
Obviously, this was an epiphany for me, because I still remember the conversation all these years later, even though I don’t remember her name.
So that is the approach I have to cooking and to soup in particular. This past weekend, I made two different kinds of soup for SND — one old standby and one brand new one.
Any time I make soup, my daughter always wants potato soup. It is her absolute favorite, so of course I can’t resist a request for it! (There’s just something about your teenager declaring that something you make as her favorite that is irresistible.) Potato soup is really easy (I’ve never understood how so many restaurants manage to screw it up) and will be a popular dish in your repertoire.
I will warn you, however, that this recipe is terribly inexact. Look at it as an opportunity to learn to experiment and trust yourself. Continue reading
I’m going to assume you have recovered from making mini bacon bowls by now. I told you they weren’t as easy as you thought! And if they were, I don’t think I want to hear about it. 😀
Now you need something to put inside those bacon bowls. (Assuming you didn’t eat them all while you were making them.) This part is actually pretty easy.
First, make grits. I cheated and used quick grits (I am a fake gourmet, remember?). Put 3 cups of chicken broth on the stove to boil. I usually keep chicken broth, mostly because a local cafe gives away the stock when they boil chicken for chicken salad. (That’s right, they just give it away. Free. Just ask. Crazy, huh? Otherwise, they just throw it out.)
Of course, I got ready to make these grits and discovered that I had store-bought beef broth instead of chicken. Sigh. So I used bouillon cubes to make broth. (Then found 2 cans of chicken broth in the bottom of the pantry after I was finished. Typical.) Continue reading
Something terribly exciting happened. I think I may have actually come up with something that didn’t exist before I did it. Well, at least it didn’t exist on Google. I checked.
A friend had a birthday gathering at her house last Saturday. I had thought I would make her a cake, but another friend beat me to the punch on the offer of a cake, so I had to come up with something else. He mentioned that one of us should make pig candy, which made the wheels start turning.
(You’ve never heard of pig candy. O.M.G. I guess I will have to do a post about that next. Or you could buy a SPQ book. Or just Google it. It will change your life.)
I am a full-fledged Queen in The Drama Queens of the Singing River, which is a chapter of the Sweet Potato Queens made up of some of my oldest and dearest friends. (If you aren’t familiar with that either, just go ahead and follow the link to check it out. I’ll wait.) And it just so happened that this birthday gathering was for our very own Boss Queen. Of course, some of the standard food at the annual SPQ Parade in Jackson, MS, (which we have attended in full-blown queenly attire) is pig candy (vats and vats of pig candy!) and shrimp and grits.
Why not combine the two?! Genius idea! I decided to make mini bacon bowls out of pig candy and fill them with gouda grits and shrimp. Continue reading
Even though my parents had a huge vegetable garden when I was growing up, I have to confess that I am not particularly fond of vegetables. Let’s just say I’ve never completely recovered from some bad veggie experiences as a child. (Think of Veggie Tales as horror stories.)
Because of that, I haven’t been terribly open to trying new vegetables. Â I had never had spaghetti squash until just a few years ago. When I had it, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was.
Here’s another confession: Even though it’s good, it’s never quite as good as I want it to be. I think I like the idea of it better than I actually like it.
It’s a little too sweet for a vegetable, in my opinion. So every time I use it in a dish, I’m trying to overcome the sweet with savory and it somehow doesn’t work out. It’s never bad, exactly . . . just not what I want it to be.
I think that all changed last Sunday. Continue reading
I wasn’t raised eating bread pudding.
I had heard of it, but I had never seen it in person. Not at my house, or at a friend’s house, or on a restaurant menu in town.
A friend of mine swears it’s because bread pudding is not a southern dish. However, when you look it up in the great Google machine, there are lots of references to Southern Bread Pudding and recipes in Southern Living magazine and other southern cooking magazines.
I don’t suppose it really matters why I didn’t have it until a couple of years ago. I’m just glad I finally did. Wow, is it ever good!
When I was at the beach last fall, I had a bread pudding at a little hole in the wall place that made me think I had died and gone to heaven.
Of course, after finally getting to try some bread pudding, I decided that I wanted to try making some for myself.
And what do you know, right after that I saw a recipe for Cornbread Bread Pudding with Whiskey Caramel Sauce. Bingo! Continue reading
This post is about cornbread. Okay, ultimately, the dish I made was Cornbread Bread Pudding with Whiskey Caramel Sauce, but without cornbread, that wasn’t going to happen.
There is a whole spectrum of good cornbread. The texture can range from coarse to almost like cake. You can have yellow or white. Some people add things like corn kernels or jalapenos. (IMHO, that is just wrongwrongwrong. But then, I am a purist.)
As a born-and-bred Southerner, you would think that I would have mastered cornbread as a child. And in a way, I did. Continue reading
Where does inspiration come from?
It may come from a photo or a story. It can come from something someone else wrote or did.
Maybe it comes from something you pass every day, or on just the right day.
Inspiration can be in the unusual or the ordinary.
We usually think of inspiration being related to artistry — a great performance, a work of art, a novel or poem that moves you. Have you ever thought about inspiration in the kitchen?
Oh, wait . . . inspiration is reserved for great chefs, right?
NO! Absolutely not!
You can find inspiration in the kitchen just as well as any chef you’ve ever heard of. Just look around you.
Open your pantry and think about what you have that might taste good together. Or do the same thing with your refrigerator. Or maybe the grocery aisle.
Sometimes I get inspiration from watching what other people are doing on cooking shows. Chopped is a really good example of inspiration coming from what is in front of you. Or Cupcake Wars.
I used to play a game with one of my best friends for his birthday cake. I would ask what kind of cake he wanted and he would start listing things he wanted in it. The challenge was to figure out how to combine all the ingredients into something wonderful.
Try that with someone in your family or one of your friends. See what happens.
I bet you will find inspiration! (Remember, Sponge Bob came from somewhere!)
(See? Even the pros fail sometimes!)
Serenity is not the word that normally comes to mind when you think about having a weekly dinner for anywhere from 10 to 25 people.
Crazy, yes. Chaos, yes. Serenity…not so much.
Serenity — the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled (according to Google, anyway).
Strangely enough, though, serenity is often what occurs in the time before the craziness hits.
For the past nine years, I have been part of a group who meets for dinner on Sunday nights. We call it Sunday Night Dinner, or SND. (We like to save our creativity for the food.) Imagine having a holiday dinner every week. That’s kind of what it is like. We set a theme or main dish, and everyone brings something to contribute. There are several people who love to cook and experiment and lots of willing guinea pigs to sample the results.
Last night was pizza night. Sometimes someone will show up with a takeout pizza on pizza night, but usually it is free-styling homemade pizza. (On one pizza night, a random person once observed, “Wow! When y’all said pizza, I was thinking pepperoni or maybe sausage. But y’all get serious about some pizza!”) Continue reading
The Fake Gourmet 