cooking

Perfect Happiness

It is so easy to make Bud a perfect meal, I don’t know why I don’t do it every night.

There are several interchangeable choices. All I have to do is cook steak, chicken, roast beef or pork, ribs, or meatloaf with gravy. My second decision is between rice, stewed or mashed potatoes. The third decision is the side. Black-eyed peas, always Bud’s first choice, either pinto, lima, red, or green beans.

Of course, we need a bread. Biscuits, cornbread, or rolls are always fine. Should I feel particularly industrious, dessert is in order, preferably homemade apple pie or yellow cake with buttercream frosting.

I can throw all the salad in the trash. Oh yes, Bud always volunteers to make the gravy if its not cooked along with the meat.

Slap Yo’ Mama Good Eatin’

I’ve gotten many questions about grits.  Grits are a hot cereal, made from treating field corn with a lye process.  Afterward, the grits are simmered, served as a breakfast cereal with butter and maybe sugar and milk.  At our house, we spoon grits over eggs. (no sugar or milk) One of the most succulent and delicious dishes on this planet is Shrimp and Grits.  If you ever see it on the menu at a coastal restaurant in the South or Southeast, order it, no matter who laughs at you. Be prepared to guard it with your life when it gets to the table.  Everybody who laughed when you ordered will want a bite when they see how happy you are.  Let them suffer!

Another regional favorite is Hog’s Head Cheese. Farm kids learn early,  it’s best not to be friends with a pig you plan to butcher.  This delicacy has nothing to do with cheese and everything to do with a hog’s head.  It is very simple to prepare, for those of you who are already smacking your lips.   The next time you butcher a hog, save the head.  Scald it in boiling, soapy water before scrubbing and scraping off the whiskers.  With your fingers, pry the eyeballs out, taking care not to rupture them. That is extremely disagreeable and makes it harder to get the membranes out of the sockets. You can throw in the feet if you don’t plan to make Pickled Pig’s Feet.  When the head is thoroughly clean, boil it until all the flesh, contents of the head, skin, and cartilage fall off the bone.  Try to let it boil low toward the end, so the broth will be reduced.  Debone, reserving broth.  Chop meat, add large minced onions, about eight cloves minced garlic, 1 teaspoon of salt and black pepper per pound of meat,  three to five tablespoons sage, red pepper if you like spicy.  Add 1/2 vinegar.  Mix in enough of reserved broth to mix till consistency of cooked oatmeal.  Pour into loaf pans.  Cover with foil and cool overnight.  By the next morning can be turned out and sliced for cold cuts or rolled in egg and flour and browned in skillet.  Store covered in refrigerator up to a week.  Freezes well

I recommend you serve it with Poke-Salad, Fried Mountain Oysters, Buzzard Butter, Pickled Pig’s Feet, Hopping John, and Hush Puppies.

Ewwwwww!

Not long after my cousin started dating Joey, she decided to treat him to her specialty, pancakes with sugar syrup. In case you’re not familiar with sugar syrup, it’s equal parts sugar and water boiled up and perhaps flavored with vanilla or cinnamon to taste. It’s actually very good on pancakes.

She served him up a tall stack of hot buttered pancakes, referring him to the pot of sugar syrup on the stove. He served himself and dug in, instantly spewing out the mouthful. “This is horrible! Is this some kind of sick joke!”

Joy was furious! “What was wrong with him?” Then she looked and saw he’d mistaken a can of bacon grease for the syrup. To make matters worse, he was Jewish.

Well, Black My Eyes!

This post might not make sense to you if you’re not from the South, but I had a near calamity today.  I had a taste for black eye peas, so I got my trusty cast iron pot out and started washing peas.  Bud made a pass through and nearly swooned with true love when he saw how lovely I looked washing peas, and the garlic, celery, and onion waiting on the chopping block.  There would be unhappiness in our home this evening if no peas and ham were forthcoming.  After seasoning and starting the peas, I went to the freezer to find the meaty hambone I’d squirreled back a couple of weeks ago.  I think to a Southern Cook, the hambone is more important than the ham itself, a delicacy to be hidden from nosey freezer plunderers at all costs.  In fact, I have been known to threaten bodily harm when a home-wrecking guest asked Bud, not me, for the hambone after a meal.  I put a stop to that hussy then and there!

At any rate, the precious hambone has to be retrieved at the perfect point of denuding.  Too much meat on the bone is wasteful.  Too little just leaves the pea soup a bit anemic. I knew I had the most darling hambone hidden away in the freezer awaiting its rendezvous with my peas.  I reached in the freezer for my hambone and found………..nothing!  Well, actually I found ground beef and pork, chicken parts of numerous vintages, several kinds of sausage, vegetables and fruit a plenty, but no hambone.  I panicked.  Earlier in the week, I’d asked Bud to get the frozen meat trimmings and scraps to the trash.  God forbid?  Had he mistaken my foil-wrapped hambone for scraps. Worse yet, had he sneaked it out to another woman? I was almost too shattered to look, but finally found my hambone shoved to the back of the bottom shelf behind a bag of ice.  Never has a hambone been so welcome.  The peas breathed a sigh of relief when I dropped the bone in.

Our marriage was saved.

2 1/2 cups black eyed peas
8 cups water
1/2 tablespoon salt or more to taste
1/4 tablespoon black pepper
1 medium onion (whole)

1/4 c diced celery if desired
Nice hambone

1/4 teaspoon vinegar (or pepper sauce)

Simmer all ingredients in large cooking pot on stove top burner on medium heat. Use cast-iron pot if you have one.

Cook 40-60 minutes or until peas are tender. Do not allow water to evaporate entirely. If peas are dry they will burn quickly.

Serve with hot cornbread

Delicious Crockpot Venison and Beef Stew

Buying markdown meat is an excellent practice. I typically shop after the weekend and really stock up. I overdid it a few months ago and overfilled my freezer. Please don’t judge me but I’ve been reading about the health benefits of cooking for dogs. My vet suggested I cook one third good quality meat, one third brown rice, and one third veggies. That sounded easy enough. I put about three pounds of mixed venison and beef in the crockpot on high, added three cups of brown rice and two pounds of mixed vegetables. After an afternoon of simmering, it smelled wonderful. The dogs kept coming through, checking out the enticing aroma.

They weren’t the only ones. Bud found his way to the kitchen. “What are you cooking?” He asked, lifting the lid. “That smells great!”

It occurred to me, this was not the time to mention I’d planned to reheat the homemade chicken noodle soup I’d made the day before. Lo and behold, the concoction experienced a conversion. Hallelujah! “Oh, just some stew. I need to add some onions and garlic.” It will be ready soon. You might want to get a piece of fruit in the meantime.”

I got busy with onions, garlic, and parsley as well as seasonings. It smelled heavenly. Before long, Bud tucked into a big bowl of stew as the dogs watched mournfully. They may have to be satisfied with chicken noodle soup.

My Brief Career as a Religious Educator

 

Despite my parents’ earnest efforts, I never developed a taste for church. Church required dressing in starchy clothes, a miserable Saturday night hairdo session, major shoe polishing efforts, memorization of Bible verses, claiming to read my Sunday School lesson, and worst of all, not getting to spend the night with my heathenish cousins who didn’t have church inflicted on them.

It probably wouldn’t have been such an issue had my older sister not been the poster child for Christian kids. She could be mean as a snake all week, then nearly kill herself to be in church every time the doors opened. In all fairness, it is possible her meanness toward me was a result of torments I’d heaped on her, but if she was such a great Christian, you’d expect her to be thankful for the opportunity to turn the other cheek, like the Good Book says.

Any way, the summer after my junior year in high school, Mother came home from Sunday School with “Big News!” Mrs. Miner had asked Mother if I would take the primary class in Bible School. Mother assured her I would LOVE to, forgetting I wasn’t cut from the same cloth as my saintly sister. “Why, it was an honor to be asked,” Mother told me. “No one else your age was even asked.  Naturally Phyllis was also honored with an invitation to teach the juniors.  She was so excited you’d have thought the invitation was straight from God’s lips.

“I will not teach Bible School. I hate bratty kids and crafts, and I am going to enjoy the first year of my life not stuck in Bible School half a day.” I told Mother. This defiance came as a big surprise to her, since I normally went along with her. Daddy was so strict, that by the time I was that age, I’d pretty much given up on getting my way about much of anything, but this Bible School business was over the line. I’d had enough!

“Oh, yes you are,”. She insisted.” I’ve already told Mrs. Miner you would. Besides, she can’t get anyone else to take that class.”

“Mother, I hate Bible School. I won’t do it even if you beat me to death, and then I’d go to Hell for sure, getting killed over not teaching Bible School. Do you WANT me to go to Hell?”

Pulling out the Hell card was all that saved me. Mother considered and backed down. She’d made it clear on many occasions she had no intention of allowing any of her children to go to Hell.

Well, I didn’t teach Bible School and I didn’t have to go to Hell, but I got the next worse punishment. Mother gave up and taught “my class” but threatened me I’d better have the house spotless and lunch ready every day when she got in from Bible School. She was mad as hops for having to teach, which seemed odd when it was such an “honor” to be asked. Oh yes, I checked with my friends, all good Christians, and Mrs. Miner had unsuccessfully badgered them to take the class before she bothered cornering Mother about me. I guess they didn’t know what an honor it was.

That Monday morning the house was a real pigsty. Mother never was a meticulous housekeeper, but we’d had swarms of relatives in. Sunday evening supper was late, so the dishes waited for me in cold, slimy gray water ensuring they’d be as disgusting as possible for me.  I was always involved in housework, but this was the first time I was threatened with a job of this magnitude to accomplish alone in less than four hours.

Mother took pleasure in calling out over her shoulder as she headed off to Bible School. “This house better be spotless and lunch on the table when I get home…..and Oh, yes, clean out that refrigerator, too!”  The saintly Phyllis smirked as they got in the car.

I didn’t bother to tell her that she, Phyllis, and I couldn’t have gotten all that done if we’d been working like like our lives depended on it. It looked like a week’s mess piled up. I started in on the dishes, a Herculean challenge. All the countertops were covered, the stove, and a pressure cooker and several dirty pots waited patiently on the floor for their turn. Grandma apparently thought more pots was the answer to all Mother’s problems, so every time she went near a thrift store or replaced one of her pots, she sent her castoffs to Mother. Mother was a master of disorganization and grabbed a fresh pot for everything she cooked, tossing the used one on the dirty stack. A stack of crazily leaning miss-matched pots and lids always lined our counters, unless we’d just done the dishes.

I set in washing. The glasses, plates, and bowls went pretty fast. There were way, way more than the rack would hold, so of course, I had to stop to dry and put away several times. The dreaded silverware was next. I made fresh, hot dishwater to soak it during the drying and put away process. While they soaked, I tackled the refrigerator. It was a small, older model with few shelves. Never fear, those shelves were stacked two or three layers deep with ancient vegetables nobody wanted the first time, dried mashed potatoes, wizened onions, potatoes, and turnips with dirt still clinging from the garden. None of our bowls had lids, so leftovers quickly crusted over.  I scraped out the dried leftovers in a bucket for the hogs, and made a new stack to start after the silverware was done.

We didn’t have air conditioning, but our house boasted an attic fan.  For best effect, one closes the doors to unused rooms so the fan will pull a breeze though the areas in use.  I had the kitchen windows and back door open.  By the time I got the silverware done, a few wayward flies had worked their way in through a hole in the back door screen, not bothered at all by the cotton ball on the screen  that was supposed to terrify them senseless.  They didn’t share the family’s low opinion of the leftovers and were buzzing about them happily.  I took time out of my busy schedule to treat the hogs to that bucket of slop.  It’s impossible to climb up on the rails of a hog pen and dump slop into a trough with splashing some on yourself.  This just added to the fun.  A number of the flies journeyed with me to the hog pen, but a few slow learners lingered in the kitchen.  They were all over the slop I’d splashed on myself as soon as I got back in.  I didn’t have time for a shower, so I washed  my feet and legs with a washcloth.  The flies found a few spots I missed and pointed them out.  Of course, I had to swat them and sweep them up with the rest of the kitchen before I could continue.

About eleven-thirty, I realized it was way past time  to get lunch going.  We weren’t baloney and cheese sandwiches kind of people  We were big meal in the middle of the day people, a meat, dried beans, and two vegetables and biscuits or cornbread.  I couldn’t have made a quick lunch if my life depended on it.

In a panic, I perused the refrigerator and found nothing but a couple of eggs and a package of frozen sausage in the freezer.  Desperately, I scrambled the sausage and made a pan of sausage gravy and biscuits.  We often had biscuits and gravy for an emergency meal.  Just as I pulled the biscuits out of the oven, I put away the last dish away and finished mopping the kitchen as they got out of the car.  The rest of the house was untouched, but the kitchen sparkled.  “Don’t come in the kitchen.  The floor is wet!”

Even though the rest of the house still looked like a disaster zone, the kitchen looked good.  Mother looked self-righteous, but somewhat mollified till she asked what was for lunch.

“Sausage gravy and biscuits.  I forgot to put a chicken out to thaw and put beans on.”

Mother was furious.  It was summer.  I guess she’d thought I would somehow found time to gather and prepare okra and tomatoes from the garden like she would have if she’d been home.  “I can’t eat biscuits and gravy!  I am on a diet.  I have to have vegetables or I’ll put all that weight back on!”  In a huff, she went out and got tomatoes and radishes, and ate them with two fried eggs.

It still beat the Hell out of teaching Bible School,

My Daily Habits

My habits are humdrum. I take the dogs out early because they demand it, feed and water them as soon as I get in so I won’t get trampled, drink some juice while I dawdle about and sit under my small dog a while. I think his hiney is broken since he doesn’t want to sit on his own. Bud and I visit until I feel compelled to a bit of housework I can’t put off any longer unless I slip out to the yard to play with my flowers. Of course, more dog walks. We usually brunch about eleven.

Interacting with my dogs in their favorite way

My afternoons are free for writing, crocheting or whatever other things I chose. I avoid errands, grouping them on one day. Several times a week I visit Mother or take her out. On those days, I usually check Lowes for plant markdowns, the only shopping I like. Our nearby Lowe’s is the smallest in town. They get the same amount of stock as the bigger Lowes, so their markdowns are great

All written out, my life looks pretty mundane but I love it.

Don’t Spin Your Greens, Granny!

greens 2

When you live in the South and visit old folks in the country, the first thing you have to do is admire their garden. If you run out of excuses, you’ll come home with a “mess of greens.” I hate dealing with greens. For the unenlightened, greens include turnips, collards, or mustard greens. Boiled down low, with a bit of pork, and garnished with a splash of “pepper sauce,” greens make a delicious meal. A true connoisseur polishes off by sopping up the juice, or pot-liquor with cornbread. If you’re above the Mason-Dixon Line, try a roll. That’s the happy ending.

Now, we get down to the nitty gritty, literally. Greens have to be “looked and washed.” The first step is dispossessing the wildlife who habituate greens. Nobody wants to find half a worm or a cluster of bug eggs in their pot-liquor. You have to give both sides of each rumpled leaf a good look, wash, and then rinse copiously. I’d heard the glorious news that greens could be washed in the washing machine, cutting down tremendously on prep time.

The next time Bud visited an elderly family member, he came back wagging a bag of greens. I didn’t moan like normal, having recently heard the good news that greens could be washed in the washing machine. As usual, the basic information registered, not the total technique. I loaded the washer with dirty greens and detergent and hit the start button. Quite a while later, the alarm sounded, and I went to retrieve my sparkling greens. Alas, no greens remained, just a few tough stems and a few bits of leaves. A follow-up conversation with my friend revealed that I should have only washed them on gentle and not continue on to spend.

Though I hoped he’d forget, Bud came in that night expecting greens. I feigned innocence. “What greens?” It didn’t fly. “The greens I brought in yesterday.” It’s hard to come up with an excuse how precious greens went missing. I gave up and told the truth, though I don’t like worrying Bud stuff with that gets his blood pressure up. I’m considerate that way.

“They went down the drain.”

“How in the Hell did they go down the drain?” I don’t know why he gets all up in my housekeeping and cooking business

“They just did. Now don’t keep asking nosy questions!” “

“Exactly what drain and how did that happen?” “

“The washing machine drain.” I

I hoped if I answered matter-of-factly, he’d move on. I didn’t work. “

“You put greens in the washing machine? What in the Hell were you thinking?” I

I hate it when he apes back what I’ve just said. I’ve told him it gets on my nerves. “It takes forever to look and wash greens. Jenny told me she puts hers in the washer and it works great. I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to put them through spin.”

“Grouch, grouch, grouch @^%&( , #@$%! Don’t ever put )(^%&# greens in the washer, again!”

“Okay, okay. Don’t go on forever about it. I get tired of your nagging” Since then I’ve been careful not to spin them. It works great.

Don’t Spin Your Greens, Granny!

greens 2

When you live in the South and visit old folks in the country, the first thing you have to do is admire their garden. If you run out of excuses, you’ll come home with a “mess of greens.” I hate dealing with greens. For the unenlightened, greens include turnips, collards, or mustard greens. Boiled down low, with a bit of pork, and garnished with a splash of “pepper sauce,” greens make a delicious meal. A true connoisseur polishes off by sopping up the juice, or pot-liquor with cornbread. If you’re above the Mason-Dixon Line, try a roll. That’s the happy ending.

Now, we get down to the nitty gritty, literally. Greens have to be “looked and washed.” The first step is dispossessing the wildlife who habituate greens. Nobody wants to find half a worm or a cluster of bug eggs in their pot-liquor. You have to give both sides of each rumpled leaf a good look, wash, and then rinse copiously. I’d heard the glorious news that greens could be washed in the washing machine, cutting down tremendously on prep time.

The next time Bud visited an elderly family member, he came back wagging a bag of greens. I didn’t moan like normal, having recently heard the good news that greens could be washed in the washing machine. As usual, the basic information registered, not the total technique. I loaded the washer with dirty greens and detergent and hit the start button. Quite a while later, the alarm sounded, and I went to retrieve my sparkling greens. Alas, no greens remained, just a few tough stems and a few bits of leaves. A follow-up conversation with my friend revealed that I should have only washed them on gentle and not continue on to spend.

Though I hoped he’d forget, Bud came in that night expecting greens. I feigned innocence. “What greens?” It didn’t fly. “The greens I brought in yesterday.” It’s hard to come up with an excuse how precious greens went missing. I gave up and told the truth, though I don’t like worrying Bud stuff with that gets his blood pressure up. I’m considerate that way.

“They went down the drain.”

“How in the Hell did they go down the drain?” I don’t know why he gets all up in my housekeeping and cooking business. “

“They just did. Now don’t keep asking nosy questions!” “

“Exactly what drain and how did that happen?” “

“The washing machine drain.” I

I hoped if I answered matter-of-factly, he’d move on. I didn’t work. “

“You put greens in the washing machine? What in the Hell were you thinking?” I

I hate it when he apes back what I’ve just said. I’ve told him it gets on my nerves. “It takes forever to look and wash greens. Jenny told me she puts hers in the washer and it works great. I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to put them through spin.”

“Grouch, grouch, grouch @^%&( , #@$%! Don’t ever put )(^%&# greens in the washer, again!”

“Okay, okay. Don’t go on forever about it. I get tired of your nagging” Since then I’ve been careful not to spin them. It works great.