Sweet Tea Pie

I'm not sure what to start defending first: this sweet tea pie that needs perfecting; or the magazine — Garden & Gun, with one of the worst names of any magazine I've ever encountered — which shot me an email newsletter with the recipe.

Every time I hear the name of the magazine Garden & Gun — an absolutely fabulous and beautiful "Southern lifestyle" magazine that launched in 2007, featuring all things Southern in a stylish and smart manner, and to which I happen to subscribe — I want to violently shake whoever decided Garden & Gun (an obscure reference to a '70s disco in Charleston, SC) was a name that would attract people, as opposed to scare them away.
Yes, there are gun articles in almost every issue of Garden & Gun, but they are in the line of erudite articles about gun-loving Ernest Hemingway, or sentimental stories of bonding with a favorite hunting dog.

The other 95 percent of the magazine is about Southern art, food, gardens, architecture, design, history,and culture. If you're a Southerner living outside of the South like I am, there is almost always an article in each issue that touches upon a fond memory or place that is dear to one's heart. If you grew up in the South or live in the South, you should put Garden & Gun on your wish list, even if you will never touch a gun in your life. Trust me.
Now onto the pie.

The sweet tea pie recipe comes from Martha Hall Foose, a Southern-born pastry chef and cookbook author. Martha Hall Foose presents sweet tea pie in her James Beard Award-winning cookbook, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea, and she also contributed her sweet tea pie recipe to Nancy McDermot's cookbook, Southern Pies, but I came about the recipe in a newsletter from Garden & Gun (sign up here, if you like).

This recipe got immediately bookmarked, but, as always, I took a while to make it. Essentially, this pie puts a new Southern twist — sweet tea — on the traditional Southern chess pie. As one of the stories goes, chess pie got it's name when someone said the pie was "just pie" — because there ain't nothin' fancy is chess pie, just eggs, butter, and sugar — and at the end of the line "just pie" transmuted into chess pie.Martha Hall Foose's sweet tea pie gets it's sweet tea flavor from the addition of strong brewed tea in the pie batter. And that batter contains about twice as much butter — two sticks!! — than most chess pies, not to mention eight egg yolks. This ain't no diet pie!

And since this pie is so indulgent, I haven't made it again to perfect the recipe to my liking. I found the sweet tea flavor to be too subtle. The recipe only calls for 3/4 cup of strong brewed tea without suggesting how many tea bags to stick into 3/4 cup of water. I went with two (added another bag after I snapped the photo), thinking that would be plenty for such a small amount of liquid. I suggest more. How many? I don't know, but just use more.
I also found the lemon flavor to mask the subtlety of the tea. Next time, I'm using half, if not less than half the amount of lemon zest called for.

Also, this pie had to be baked for much longer than called for, but, in the end, the pie did set. The pie is even firmer the next day served chilled.

I'd like to try this pie again, but I certainly don't want to be left home alone with a two-stick-of-butter and eight-egg-yolk pie. Invite me to a picnic, and I'll make it for you!Sweet Tea Pie
adapted from Martha Hall Foose
makes 1 9-inch pie

pastry for a 9-inch single crust pie (store bought or basic pie crust)
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
8 egg yolks
3/4 cup strong brewed tea, room temperature
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest (next time, I'm using 1/2 teaspoon or less)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt

• In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter with a mixer until fluffy.
  
• Add egg yolks to the butter and sugar mixture, one at a time, beating well after adding each egg yolk.
• Add tea, lemon juice, and lemon zest to the batter, and beat until mixed well.
• Add flour, cornmeal, and salt to the batter and stir in with a whisk until incorporated.
• Pour batter into the pie crust.
• Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven in the lower part of the oven (I suggest placing a baking sheet below the pie to catch spills) for 45 minutes (mine baked for 70 minutes), or until the edges are puffy and the center is firm.
  
• Cool pie completely before serving. (I enjoyed the pie best refrigerated the day after.)
  

Vegan Barbecue Sandwich at Khyber Pass Pub

When I visited Khyber Pass Pub for a tasting of their preview menu prior to opening (Khyber Pass Pub has now been open in it's new, Southern food inspired reincarnation since November 2010), I lamented that there wasn't a vegetarian/vegan barbecue sandwich on the veg-friendly menu.

The owners and chef of Khyber Pass Pub rectified that situation very quickly — I believe I saw a tweeted picture of the vegan barbecue sandwich a few weeks or so after their opening — but it took me a little while longer to pay a return visit for some 'cue.

The vegan barbecue sandwich comes with a heapin' mound of soft seitan stands drenched with vinegar-tomato sauce, topped with sweet coleslaw, all on a soft, but substantial roll. This sandwich is a dripper, but, oh, so good. The barbecue sauce is extremely tangy, and a bit spicy, so it's hard to taste the coleslaw, especially since the neutral-flavored seitan doesn't counteract the vinegar in the sauce like pork would.

I was especially wooed by the side of vegan collards — perfectly braised with bits of garlic and celery cooked to sweet oblivion in a flavorful potlikker that would give traditional ham hock potlikkers a run for their money. Really, some of the best collards I've had in this town.I'll also recommend the big-ass Mason jar of Bourbon and lemonade, which I believe is called Louisville Lightning on the cocktail list. Makes me wish I were at a real barbecue, sitting outside soaking up the sun.

Khyber Pass Pub
56 S. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA 19106
215-238-5888
Bar: every day 11am-2am
Kitchen: every day 11am-1am

Kyber Pass Pub Preview

Walking into Kyber Pass Pub, I wondered if anything had changed. Same dim lighting, same bar, same tiled bar floor, same jukebox. Feels like the Kyber I know, a dingy Old City bar and music venue, except, peek into the adjoining room where bands used to play, and the stage is gone and candle lit tables fill the long, narrow room.

Starting today, the Khyber reopens as Khyber Pass Pub, a gastropub serving grub with a Southern bent. The pub will be serving food and drinks in soft-opening mode until the grand opening on November 18. Thanks to the fine folks at Khyber Pass Pub, I was treated to a preview of the menu, which you can peep here. The menu features a mash up of normal pub food (wings, burgers, fries, onion rings), Cajun (po-boys on imported Leidenheimer rolls, gumbo, and fried oysters), barbecue (North Carolina-style pulled pork and brisket sandwiches and platters with choice of Kansas City, South Carolina — holla! — and North Carolina-style barbecue sauces), and soul food (Memphis-style fried chicken, biscuits, and collards).

Vegan and vegetarian options are clearly marked on the menu. While the meat-eaters plow through bacon grease popcorn with Cajun seasoning and oyster po-boys, vegans can order their own non-porky Cajun seasoned popcorn and seitan po-boys. There were a lot of vegan and vegetarian options, but the following is all we could manage to put away in one evening.
Bright and thick vegan tomato bisque was actually a special of the day, conjuring up memories of dreary winter days, and would have perfectly paired with a grilled cheese sandwich.Thinly sliced fried green tomatoes were piping hot, perfectly breaded, and topped with a tangy and spicy remoulade. The best dish we sampled.
The grilled vegan sausage sandwich had a bit of pep from the roasted poblanos, red onions, pickles, creole mustard. The side of mac and cheese was bland and dry.The vegan fried seitan po-boy seemed so similar to the grilled vegan sausage sandwich, that I'd like to see one of the two omitted from the menu, and a barbecue pulled seitan sandwich on a soft roll make it onto the menu, since there currently isn't a vegetarian or vegan barbecue option.

The side of sweet potato fries were on par.
Bourbon, pecans, and red velvet were all over the dessert menu, but we only had room to split one, so went with the maple bourbon creme brulee. A thick, crackly sugar top gave way to a smooth, bourbon-heavy, but thin custard. The taste and texture was all there, just a little thickening was needed.

Obviously an initial run through of the menu with the staff, and a gracious preview for the guests, Khyber Pass Pub has some expected, initial-opening kinks to work out. I think the Khyber probably made a wise choice to keep the venue a bar, as they have such a loyal following — and apparently mostly men, 'cause it was one hot sausage fest up in there!

For those living on the northerly end of town, you'll be pleased to know that Khyber Pass Pub reads like a more spacious Royal Tavern, a sibling bar in South Philly . . . and that's not a bad thing.

Khyber Pass Pub
56 S. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA 19106
215-238-5888
Bar: every day 11am-2am
Kitchen: every day 11am-1am

Stewed Okra and Tomatoes

Stewed okra and tomatoes over rice is one of my all-time favorite side dishes, that, I swear, it seems like we ate every week when I was growing up. Surely we didn't dine on this simple Southern dish that frequently, and even if we did, I never tired of it.

For one, I simply adore rice and can eat it at every supper, as we almost nearly did growing up in South Carolina where rice is king. And, even as a kid I always enjoyed okra. Yes, it's slimy, but don't kids like slimy things? I did! Okra was like a toy on the plate. See how long the slime strands will stretch, squish the slimy pod around your mouth. And, best dinner table game ever, race to stab a singular, slime-covered okra seed with the tine of your fork before your brother could. It's not easy.
Then there are the bright, acidic tomatoes that really are the stars of the dish as far as flavor is concerned. Everybody makes stewed okra and tomatoes with fresh okra, but the tomatoes are almost always from a can, because, well, canned stewed tomatoes are picked when perfectly ripe and have all their full flavors preserved. Go ahead, use canned tomatoes, it's perfectly fine.

But what if you used your last can of stewed tomatoes for soup the previous week, and you have just-bought, fresh, local tomatoes on your counter? Roast those fresh tomatoes first to get that sweet, concentrated tomato flavor you'd get from a can.
After you're done roasting tomatoes (or popping open a can of tomatoes), the dish comes together as simply as sauteing some onion, then simmering okra and tomatoes in liquid (water, vegetable broth, or the tomato juice from the canned tomatoes) until the okra is tender.

Serve stewed okra and tomatoes over rice, for sure, and if my memories aren't too hazy, there'd be a pork chop and a side of butter beans on the plate, too. Nowadays, tempeh does the trick for me, though.
Stewed Okra and Tomatoes
serves 4 as a side

3 large tomatoes (or 28-ounce can of stewed tomatoes)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound okra, chopped
1 cup vegetable broth
olive oil
salt
pepper

• If roasting tomatoes instead of using a can of stewed tomatoes: Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Line a baking pan with parchment paper. Cut tomatoes into eights and place on parchment paper-line baking pan. Drizzle tomatoes lightly with olive oil. Salt and pepper tomatoes. Bake for 3 hours. Cool enough to remove skins, if desired (I leave skins on).
  
• In a medium-sized pot over medium-low heat, add about 1-2 tablespoon of olive oil. Add onion and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally.
• To the onions, add okra, tomatoes, and vegetable broth. Simmer, with the pot lid partially covering the pot until okra is tender (depending on the size and variety of okra, this could be any where from 10-30 minutes). Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  
• Serve warm over warm rice.
  

Squash Casserole

Squash casserole holds a tie with macaroni and cheese as my favorite dish my Mom makes. Maybe it's because squash casserole is essentially the same as the macaroni and cheese my Mom makes, except squash take the place of elbow noodles, and the squash's own juices take the place of milk. If you will, you could say squash casserole is a healthier version of mac and cheese!

This dish is found at every Southern table for weeknight suppers and even special occasions. I get my mother's squash casserole only at Christmas when visiting home, so the dish in now a special occasion dish for me.I have the hardest time finding tender, young, yellow crookneck squash around these parts (always find straight squash, or overgrown squash with tough skins and pithy centers), so I actually grew my own this year. We use nothing else but yellow crookneck squash, so it's not the same to me with some other squash, but you certainly could use some other yellow summer squash. Just be sure the squash is young and tender, as this is very important to the texture of the casserole.Squash is boiled until tender and then mashed to varying degrees of mushiness. I like squash casserole mushed to oblivion, and also only slightly mushed. I like squash casserole.

So, I will eat them in a box. And I will eat them with a fox. And I will eat them in a house. And I will eat them with a mouse. And I will eat them here and there. Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE!On vacation a few weeks ago, a friend made squash casserole knowing I liked it so much, and commented that everyone makes squash casserole differently. It's true! She made hers with dill, sour cream, and Cheddar, and it was fabulous. I'm giving you a basic recipe with only onions and Cheddar cheese, but feel free to play around.

Squash Casserole
adapted from my Mother
serves 4-5

5-6 yellow squash, chopped
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup onion, chopped
garlic salt, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste
1 1/2 cups sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

• Boil squash until tender. Drain water from squash.
• In a large bowl, add the squash, egg, butter, onion, garlic salt, salt and pepper. Mash together with a potato masher
• Add Cheddar cheese to squash mixture and combine.
  
• Pour into a casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees fro about 30 minutes.
  

Caramel Cake

Ask me for a recipe, and I'll give it to you — duh, I have a food blog. Share the good times and tasty treats, I say! But some people keep recipes secret, and will not give them out to even their best friends and family. Where's the sense in that?

We have a relative in our family who makes the best caramel cake ever. Ever! It's her dish and her duty to bring it to every family and holiday gathering. Everyone looks forward to her caramel cake, and even lines up at the dessert table before hitting the main buffet line to assure that they get a piece. Outstanding cake!

But the recipe is a secret. It will die with her, and that is a shame. History and memories lost.A while back I tried to recreate her caramel cake using a recipe from A Gracious Plenty, a book by John T. Edge of collected recipes from the South, thinking that Mr. Edge probably rounded up a good caramel cake recipe. The cake was great, but the icing was not so great, and caramel cake is all about the icing.

Fast forward a few months, and, hello, September 2010 issue of Food and Wine magazine featuring a recipe for caramel cake!

But wait, the recipe is from The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook, a new, and yet (but soon) to be published collection of Southern recipes that is also edited by John T. Edge. I ran down stairs to check my edition of A Gracious Plenty to make sure the recipes weren't identical, and they weren't (yay!), so it was onward with the recipe for caramel cake in Food and Wine.

Outstanding! Fabulous! Delicious! Perfect! Just as I remembered! Caramel Cake
Adapted from Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook

The icing is fabulous, but I did run into a small problem with it. I waited the recommended 15 minutes before mixing the icing, and mixed the icing for the recommended 15 minutes before pouring it over the cake, but it was still too warm, so spent the next hour scraping puddles of soft caramel off the plate and back up the sides of the cake until the icing had finally cooled enough to stay up. The lesson here is that you might want to wait a bit longer before pouring the icing over the cake.

Cake
1 cup whole milk
4 egg whites, room temperature
2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups sifted cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, softened
3/4 cup heavy cream

Icing
3 cups sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream

• Butter 3 8-inch cake pans (I used 2 10-inch cake pans), line bottoms with parchment paper. Butter the parchment paper and flour the pans, removing excess flour.
• Cake: In a bowl, mix 1/4 cup milk, egg whites, and vanilla.
• In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add butter and the remaining 3/4 cup of milk. Mix until smooth. Add the egg white mixture in 3 batches.
• In another bowl, beat the heavy cream with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Stir 1/3 of the whipped cream into the batter, then fold in the rest.
  
• Divide batter between the pans, smoothing the tops.
• Bake in a 350 degree, pre-heated oven for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  
• Let cakes cool 10 minutes on a baking rack, then remove from pan, remove parchment paper, and let cool completely.
• Icing: In a saucepan, stir 2 1/2 cups of the sugar with the corn syrup and milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Keep warm.
• In a large, deep saucepan (size is important because caramel bubbles up and it extremely hot) sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until an amber caramel forms.
  
• With care, poor the warm milk mixture over the caramel. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring until the caramel dissolves, then stop stirring. Without stirring, let the caramel cook until the caramel reaches 235 degrees on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat.
• Into the caramel mixture, stir in the butter, vanilla, and 1/4 cup of the heavy cream.
  
• Pour caramel into a bowl and let cool for 15 minutes, then beat in the remaining 1/4 cup heavy cream with an electric mixer until creamy, about 15 minutes.
• Cake Assembly: Set one layer on a plate. Pour enough icing over top to cover the top of the layer. Top with a second layer and cover the top with icing. Add the third layer of the cake and pour the remaining icing over the top of the cake, letting it run down the sides. Using a spatula or knife, spread the icing evenly around the cake.
• Let cake stand for 2 hours to set the icing before serving.
  

Tomato Pie 2.0

It's a shame about the blogging format, how posts roll off the screen to never be seen again without digging around the archives. The 80 seconds the average person spends on my blog isn't going to turn up one of the best savory pies I've ever eaten — tomato pie — so I'm posting it again . . . with some changes.

Not the cheese-less pizza pie known so well around these parts, but a Southern pie filled with summer's ripest tomatoes, basil, and onion, then topped with a Cheddar and mayonnaise spread, the tomato pie I made last year was so darn delicious, I ate the entire thing by myself in one day!

Oh, how I've been looking forward to summer's bounty of tomatoes (because winter tomatoes just won't do) to re-make the pie using my own suggestions: cut the tomatoes into smaller chunks instead of slices to avoid a forkful of tomato that won't fit in my mouth; caramelize the onions for sweetness; and use a different cheese just to change things up.Tomatoes were chopped in big chunks, salted and left in a strainer to drain for 30 minutes or more. A press of the hand does wonders to get the juices out, and you're gonna wanna get a lot of juice out of the tomatoes, or else tomato pie becomes tomato soup pie.
Onions were caramelized to coax out the sugars. If you're not a fan of raw onion, go ahead and caramelize them, because in the original recipe the baking doesn't quite take out all of the onion's strong flavors. I like the pie either way, but prefer it slightly more with caramelized onions.
Different herbs can be used, but I stuck with basil because tomatoes and basil are besties.I had not been dreaming of a tomato pie with corn, but we just so happened to have grilled way too much corn the day before, so that's the short of it as to how corn ended up in the pie. Throw in whatever you fancy.
Parmesan along with white Cheddar went into the mayo and cheese topping because that's what we had. Funny how recipes evolve like that.Mixed all together, the pie innards look like so before the mayo and cheese topping goes on. I forgot to take a picture of the mayo and cheese, but you can see it in all it's melted glory in the picture at the very tippy-top of the post.

What do I think of tomato pie 2.0? Gosh, it's awfully good! Just as good, if not better, than the original tomato pie, but I'd take either in a heart beat . . . then eat the whole thing lickety-split.

Tomato Pie 2.0
serves 4-6

1 9-inch pie shell
4-5 large fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 medium sweet onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoon butter
12 or so large fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
2 ears of corn, cooked and kernels cut off
salt
pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

• De-seed tomatoes by squeezing or pushing out the seeds with your fingers. It doesn't have to be thoroughly de-seeded (that's where the flavor is), but you'll want the majority of the liquid out to avoid a soupy pie. Salt the chopped tomato, and let sit in a colander for at least 30 minutes to draw out extra moisture (push down gently on tomatoes to help it along).
• Melt butter in a skillet over low heat, add onions and cook on low for 30-60 minutes, or until caramelized to your level of doneness.
  
• Blind-bake pie shell for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Remove from oven and let cool a few minutes.
• Mix tomatoes, caramelized onions, basil, and corn together in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer tomato mixture into the pie shell.
  
• Combine mayonnaise, Cheddar, and Parmesan in a bowl, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper. Spread over the top of the pie (hands work best).
• Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the top of the pie is browned. Cool slightly and serve.

Cooperage

Back before Cooperage opened in April of this year, I was excited for the "gastropub meets Southern Soul" wine and whiskey bar, but was a little miffed at the first peek of the almost vegetarian-hostile Southern influenced menu. I bit my tongue and waited to see what developed from the Curtis Center's first floor bar and eatery. While not a vegetarian haven, the menu (a tad different than the online version) turned out to have a few items to choose from, although mostly in the bar snacks, sides and salad section.
While the interior is dark and modern, overall the feeling is of a chain restaurant or hotel restaurant (I'm sure I felt this way because the restaurant is in the interior of an office building and business types were happy hour-ing). Cooperage does try to bring the down home feeling with small touches like Mason drinking glasses and dish towel napkins.
What got me initially excited about Cooperage was the fact that they serve boiled peanuts. You won't find boiled peanuts on the menu, but take a seat at the U-shaped bar or one of the dining room tables and you'll be presented with a complimentary ramekin of hot, salty, boiled peanuts cleverly placed in a tub with room for discarding shells. Who gives you complimentary anything sitting at a bar anymore?!
My mint julep flavored with the fruit of the day (blueberry and peach on my visit) was strong and served in a silver cup (no silver straw, though) as juleps should be, but I'd skip the fruit flavors next time and just ask for a regular ol' julep.
Sit down for dinner and not only will you get complimentary boiled peanuts, but you'll get complimentary cornbread. The red chili flecked cornbread straddled the line between sweet cornbread (a no-no in the South) and non-sweet cornbread, but leaned more so to the traditional Southern non-sweet cornbread. A smart move on their part, because people around these parts just complain when there is no sugar in cornbread.
Hushpuppies with blueberry jam were up next. Now hushpuppies are savory bites of cornmeal batter usually studded with onions and sometimes other savories like green peppers, and often times fried in fish grease. I do appreciate the absence of fish grease since I don't eat fish, but was not happy with what seemed to be the exact same cornbread batter (minus the chilis) fried up with no savory seasonings. And the blueberry jam just took this dish farther into the land of sweetness. These are not hushpuppies.
The cobb salad comes topped with charred corn, pistachios, avocado, marinated jicama, tomatoes, and fried okra. A hearty, filling, interesting, but unrefined salad I could see many Curtis Center employees eating as a lunch entree from the small, to-go Cooperage Cafe located right next door to the restaurant. The only flaw: the okra was fried to an oblivion, so much so that the okra actually lost moisture and shrank.
The sweet potato tots were also fried to an oblivion. These are poor, dimly lit pictures, but in real life the grated sweet potato balls were also black. The grease also did not taste fresh. One bite and we just said no. The green tomato chutney was sweet and spiced like apple pie filling. Even if the sweet potato tots were edible, I'm just not sure about this dish. It's like someone said, "Hey, sweet potatoes and green tomatoes are cliche Southern ingredients, let's put them together somehow." Even if the tomatoes in the fried green tomato sandwich weren't fried to oblivion black in old grease, I don't think this sandwich with seasoned chips would be much to write home about. Some mayo, Burrata cheese, poorly cooked tomatoes, and lettuce on a hoagie roll that did not taste like it was from one of Philly's finest bakeries. It was a lot of bread and some poor fillings. Even though the tomatoes are red and the heritage is Italian, you'd find a finer fried tomato sandwich at Chickie's in South Philly.

Oh, Cooperage! You kinda made me sad with your Southern influenced offerings — at least the veggie offerings. You did make me very happy with the complimentary boiled peanuts, though. My suggestion: stop into Cooperage for a drink to discover just how good boiled peanuts are. Then carry on.

Cooperage
601 Walnut St., in Curtis Center building, Philadelphia, PA, 19106
215-225-COOP
Mon-Fri: 11:30am-10:30pm
Sat: 4pm-10pm
Sun: 4pm-9pm
Cafe hours: Mon-Fri, 7am-5pm

Boiled Peanut and Sorghum Swirl Ice Cream

I've been intrigued by the recipe for boiled peanut ice cream from native South Carolinians Matt and Ted Lee's award winning debut cookbook, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, ever since the day I got the book a few years ago. The only thing that has stopped my from jumping on the recipe is the fact that I did not want to boil a huge pot of peanuts for four hours ('cause that's how you do it) for the 1/2 cup of shelled boiled peanuts the recipe calls for.

What I was waiting for was a day when we had left over boiled peanuts, and, well, that rarely happens — unless you're in Philly with a bunch of people that don't really know what to do with them — but such a day happened recently. So, yeah, thanks Philly peeps for not eating all my boiled peanuts.Now, in the Lee brothers' cookbook they say they submitted this boiled peanut and sorghum ice cream idea to Ben and Jerry's many years ago, and were rejected. They then go on to defend the ice cream by comparing peanuts (a legume, not a nut) to bean ice creams popular in Asia. They did not have to defend the flavor to me; as a lover of boiled peanuts, I was game.

Results? Well, I'm not so sure I can defend the Lees and their ice cream concoction. I'll admit salty, soft, boiled peanuts in the middle of sweet creamy ice cream are a bit weird, although still tasty. This is a novelty ice cream. One that should only be pulled out at parties of fast and true Southerners that will appreciate the quirky combination. A one time treat, to say you've done it.What I did discover is that swirls of sorghum syrup in ice cream are amazingly delicious. Now I'm dreaming up more mainstream — and crowd pleasing — combination of Southern flavors like sweet potato ice cream with pecans and sorghum swirl. Gonna make it happen.

Still want to simultaneously impress and freak out your friends? Have at it.Boiled Peanut and Sorghum Swirl Ice Cream
adapted from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook
makes 1 quart

Because I always like to cut fat when I make recipes for myself, I used 2% milk in place of whole milk, and half and half in place of the heavy cream to good results.

2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup shelled boiled peanuts
1/2 cup sorghum syrup

• Beat eggs and sugar together in a bowl until incorporated
• In a medium pan warm milk over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until reaches 150 degrees. Slowly poor milk in a thin stream into the egg and sugar mixture whisking constantly.
• Return mixture to the pan, and heat over very low heat, stirring constantly, until reaches 170 degrees and forms a custard. Let cool.
• Combine heavy cream and vanilla with the cooled custard, then refrigerate for a few hours or overnight until chilled.
• Add custard along with the boiled peanuts to ice cream machine bowl, and churn until thick.
• Transfer ice cream to a container with a lid. With a spoon cut a few channels in the ice cream, then pour the sorghum syrup in the channels. With a spoon gently swirl the ice cream until the sorghum is evenly distributed.
• Freeze for a few hours or overnight until hardened before serving.
  

Cracker Barrel

This is quite possibly the worst restaurant dinner in my recent and distant memories. There is one high point, though.

It may come as a complete surprise, but this Southern girl has never before eaten at Cracker Barrel, the ubiquitous (they're every where, not just in the South) Southern-themed country cooking chain.

Why? There was that whole anti-gay policy of theirs in the early 90's (I never forget), and, hey, lookie, I missed this, but it seems they discriminated based on race in the 2000's (don't worry, I'll never be back).

So, why dinner now? Caught driving in that East Coast snow storm of December 2009, we decided to call it quits in Virginia (good thing, because the highway was littered with stranded cars when we woke up) for a hotel and the nearby Cracker Barrel. Lame excuse, but it is what it is.

The plate you see above is their veggie plate incorporating most of the veggies that are meat-free (nothing out of the ordinary there with country cooking). The corn is straight out of the can. The sweet carrots are mechanically whittled "baby" carrots. The macaroni and cheese is Velveeta-esque. The biscuits taste like those from a fast food chain (I do like fast food biscuits for guilty pleasure reasons, but much prefer homemade biscuits). Cornbread was skipped because it's not vegetarian (nothing out of the ordinary here, either — boxed cornbread mixes often contain lard).

Really, I was expecting a little more effort on Cracker Barrel's part. I've had better at cafeterias. Here is the high point: perfectly crisp and non-greasy fried okra. The okra was outstanding. But not outstanding enough to forgive them for their sins (culinary and otherwise) and make a return visit.

Hoppin' John And Collard Greens

This post is from a few years ago (see original post here), but I thought it'd be best to re-hash these two traditional, down-home, Southern recipes to share with you a little luck in the New Year. I'm actually going to fix this for New Year's Eve supper instead of New Year's Day, as it's intended to be eaten. I'm moving January 1, and just don't see myself boiling beans on moving day. May the gods of tradition and ritual forgive me for being a day early, and carry over the good fortune into 2010.

**************

For a good measure of luck and fortune in the New Year, I always eat Hoppin’ John and collard greens on the first day of January. The green of the collards represents greenbacks and the round, copper-colored black-eyed peas represent coins. With the way my new year is looking, I’m going back to the kitchen for seconds!

Hoppin’ John
Hoppin’ John is traditionally made with ham hocks and served over rice. This recipe skips the ham hocks.

8 ounces dried black-eyed peas
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons soy sauce
salt
pepper
2 cups reserved cooking liquid

• Cover beans with water and soak overnight. Strain beans and rinse.
• Cover beans with water and bring to a boil.Simmer for about 1 hour or until beans are tender.
• Drain beans and set aside, but be sure to reserve about 2 cups of the cooking liquid.
• Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil for 10 minutes over medium heat.
• Add allspice, cayenne pepper, soy sauce, beans, and reserved liquid to onions and simmer for 20 minutes so the flavors marry.
• Salt and pepper as desired.

Collards
Most recipes for collards call for boiling the greens for an hour or more. I think this is absurd. I’m not sure what you would have left after an hour of boiling other than disgusting, gray mush. The following method yields collards that are green and flavorful with a kick of vinegar and hot sauce.

10 or so large collard leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ cups onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
hot sauce
salt
pepper

• Wash and remove the tough, central ribs of the collard leaves.
• Chop leaves. I find the best way is to roll the whole bunch of leaves and make 1 inch cuts along the length of the roll. Then run the knife through the collards 10 or so times to chop into smaller pieces.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil and drop chopped collards in. Boil for about 5-10 minutes, drain, and set aside.
• Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil for 10 minutes over medium heat.
• Add collards and vinegar to onions. Add salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. Sauté for no longer than a few minutes (just enough time to add the seasoning to your taste) and serve.