Absalom, Absalom, Get You Some Grits!

Midnight in the garden of good
and evil, anyone?

Ah, yes....the summer of Faulkner. I have often wondered why I hadn't explored him before. I have a fondness for the Southern Gothic genre. While I don't really like Pat Conroy all that much, his mother has a terrific quote attributed to her. It's best said in a Southern accent:

"All Southern literature may be summed up as follows: On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she learned what Daddy did to Sister."

What's not to like??

So, in the spirit of all things Southern, and having cracked that tome today and off to the races, we present Shrimp and Grits, with a side of Okra with Corn and Tomatoes. Shrimp and grits is old Southern comfort food, possessing all the attributes of comfort food: bacon, sausage, cheese, more fat and more fat. I can hear my arteries screaming now. Bliss!

Now I have to go because I have a date with the Lady Chablis to watch that darling movie with John Cusack and Kevin Spacey. She will declare that shrimp and grits will ruin her figure, but I will insist. Yes, I KNOW that the movie and the book detail events that happened in Savannah, not Charleston, but just go with the flow, would y'all?

Mangia!

C'mon Chablis, just one little bite, darlin'

Old Charleston Style Shrimp and Grits

Courtesy Allrecipes.com

Grits

1 cup coarsely ground grits (polenta for you high-falutin' city folk)
3 cups water
2 tsp salt
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (don't y'all try this with no Colby, hear?)

Shrimp

2 lbs shelled deveined uncooked shrimp
salt to taste
Pinch of cayenne (make that one big ol' pinch or maybe two)
1 lemon, juiced
1 lb. andouille sausage, cut into 1/4" slices (bring on de pork!)
5 slices bacon (and bring on more pork!)
1 green and 1 red bell pepper chopped
1 large onion chopped
2 large garlic cloves
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Bring water, grits and salt to a boil in a heavy saucepan with a lid. Stir in half-and-half and simmer until grits are thickened and tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Set aside and keep warm.

Sprinkle shrimp with salt and cayenne, drizzle with lemon juice, set aside in a bowl.

Brown andouille slices in a skillet until browned, remove and set aside.

Cook bacon in the skillet until evenly browned; remove and set aside on paper towels, reserving drippings. When cool, crumble the bacon.

Cook peppers, onion and garlic in drippings until onion is translucent.

Combine shrimp, vegetables and sausage. Melt butter in a saucepan and add flour to make a roux. Stir on low heat until mixture is medium brown. This should take about 10 minutes. Watch carefully so it doesn't burn.

Pour butter mixture into skillet and add shrimp, vegetable and sausage mixture.Turn heat to medium and add broth, bacon and Worcestershire sauce. Stir until sauce thickens and shrimp is opaque and pink, about 8 minutes.

Just before serving, stir cheese into warm  grits until melted. Serve shrimp over grits.

Okra Stewed with Corn and Tomatoes Gourmet Magazine ·                   6 scallions, chopped ·         1 fresh jalapeño, finely chopped, with seeds ·         1 large green bell pepper, coarsely chopped ·         3 tablespoons unsalted butter ·         1 pound tomatoes, coarsely chopped ·         3 cups corn (from 5 to 6 ears) ·         1/2 pound small fresh okra, trimmed, keeping stem end intact preparation Cook scallions, jalapeño, bell pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until scallions begin to brown, 7 to 9 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until broken down into a sauce, about 15 minutes. Add corn and okra and cook, stirring occasionally, until just tender, about 15 minutes

 

I Have A Boatload of Grapes

And a need to clear some room for the weekend project. This was to have been the summer I explored Faulkner, more on that tomorrow, and I planned some good old Southern grub for tomorrow as part of my goal to get back on that reading track, but right now my fridge seems to have been taken over by a huge amount of red seedless grapes that looked yummy at the farmer's market a few days ago.

I also seem to have a lot of pasta, as evidenced by a bag of pipe rigate that keeps falling out on me when I open the cupboard.

Pipe rigate is a fun shape. It looks sort of like a monk's hood and cowl. But they're headless monks, so the sauce has lots of little crevices to run into. And every time it falls on me, I start singing the monk's chant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Whack!

A quick search yielded this yummy recipe courtesy of Epicurious and Self Magazine. To go with, I made an arugula salad with peaches, figs, pomegranate seeds, red onion, feta and a lemon and pomegranate molasses dressing. Mangia!

Arugula Salad with Peaches, Figs, Pomegranate Seeds and Feta

Pie lesu domine, dona eis requiem

5 oz. baby arugula
1 large ripe peach, sliced thinly
3 brown turkey figs, cut into sixths
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
1/4 small red onion, sliced thinly
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

Dressing

Juice of one large lemon
1 garlic clove minced
scant 1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp. pomegranate molasses
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix the dressing ingredients and toss salad ingredients gently in a large bowl with about half of the dressing, or more if you like.

Pasta with Sausage and Red Grapes

SELF  | August 2011

by Kerri Conan

Makes 4 servings

ingredients

• 6 ounces mild Italian sausage, cut into 1-inch chunks
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tablespoon plus 1/4 teaspoon salt (preferably kosher), divided
• 2 cups seedless red grapes
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more to taste)
• 10 ounces whole-wheat orecchiette (or other short-cut pasta, such as farfalle or penne)
• 2 tablespoon grated Parmesan
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (or 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil)

preparation

Set a large pot of water to boil. In a large skillet, cook sausage over medium heat, stirring and breaking up, until well browned, about 15 minutes. Transfer sausage to a paper towel. Add oil to skillet; return to medium heat. Cook onion and garlic with 1/4 teaspoon salt, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Add grapes, broth and pepper flakes; increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, until grapes soften or burst and liquid thickens, about 10 minutes. Return sausage to skillet and stir; turn off heat. When water boils, add remaining 1 tablespoon salt and pasta; cook as directed on package. Drain pasta, add to skillet, and turn on heat to high. Cook, stirring, until sausage is hot and pasta is coated with sauce, 30 to 60 seconds. Divide pasta among 4 bowls; sprinkle each with Parmesan and parsley before serving.

Now That's A Food Blog

I am so not worthy. Even though I have a Leftovers On A Grand Scale entry, making reference to famous White House menus and parties (Andrew Jackson's kegger, anyone?) I can't complete with the hilarity and spunk of this story from Wonkette's Recipe Hub. Discovered just this morning and making me roll on the floor ever since....

gross things to eat

Delicious Recipes From Ancient American Congressional Wives

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by Ken Layne

May 11 1:37 pm 2011

Most Americans today completely ignore politics and Congress, and most of those who follow the stuff very intensely are, you know, insane, and the only “congressional recipe” America’s Abused Liberals know about is the Larry Craig “super tuber,” which is a wiener forced inside a hole cored in a potato, again and again, until both the wiener and the potato are spent. WE FEEL YOUR DOUBT SO GO NOW AND LOOK AT THIS, THEN COME BACK. There. Do you feel better? Of course you don’t. Let’s talk about History instead — the history of Congressional Cookbooks of Olden Times When Blacks Were Still Legally Prevented From Voting In Most States and World War I veterans were smashed and beaten in the streets of Washington by active-duty troops led by MacArthur and Eisenhower. You know, 1933! The last Great Depression!

Our pretend-friends at The Hairpin came across this delightful recipe book of terrible food items allegedly prepared by the vacant-eyed wives of congressmen and senators. (The food was really prepared by black house-servants, who must’ve been appalled by this scary white people food free of spice or seasoning.) Each recipe is gross! So gross, in fact, that we cannot quote them here. Instead, we will make up our own versions based on the titles of the individual recipes. (You can read the real ones at The Hairpin.)

• EGG LEMONADE: 
  Take several plastic jugs of whatever corn syrup/citric acid “lemonade” is sold in the congressional cafeteria these days. Masturbate furiously into the bottles while thinking of killing Arabs and sucking off a cop. Remember not to pay for the lemonade! (A staffer can take care of that, or you can just tell your staffers to “write an omnibus bill” making it illegal for anyone to complain about you stealing stuff, and then you can include whatever billions of dollars in corporate welfare the Koch Brothers demanded with their last gift basket.) Serves yourself.
• GRANDMOTHER’S INDIAN PUDDING:
  Kill several million Native Americans and tell a bunch of hideous lies to the rest. Then, when you’re caught with a gambling addiction at a local Indian Casino, have your staffers write a “budget plan” that makes it illegal to be Native American. Masturbate into some pudding at the congressional cafeteria. Serves you right.
• YUM-YUM GEMS:
  Make your staffers write a “declaration of solidarity” with white-ruled South Africa, in the 1980s, and then take one of diamond necklaces you got as a bribe and give that to the boy you call from the telephone service at night. Serves the servants.

Well, that’s all the time we have for whatever this was, today! See you again on the next episode of “Famous Congressional Recipes.” [The Hairpin]

Read more at http://wonkette.com/445755/delicious-recipes-from-ancient-american-congressional-wives#ekKq5KsBvfXmKaqH.99

Chick N' Taters - Winner, Winner, Sheet Pan Dinner

It's been getting a little cooler in So Cal, but not quite as frigid yet as a typical winter here.

Dammit, I forgot the crusty bread!

You know, 70 degrees versus the frozen depths of 50? It's been months since I felt I could tolerate the oven cranked up for a 30 plus minute period, but we are now on the cusp of roasted dish weather. Roasted root veggies with rosemary*, I'm seeking you! Call my name sweetly, butternut squash with sage, I'll be yours forever.

Saw this one in this month's Bon Appetit. I sauteed some rainbow chard with garlic, smoked paprika, golden raisins and a splash of good sherry vinegar to go along, with a fennel, celery and pomegranate salad from the same issue. Mangia!

Recipe courtesy of Bon Appetit magazine, October 2014

Ready for the furnace

Roast Chicken with Potatoes and Olives

INGREDIENTS

·      1 bay leaf, crushed

·      1 teaspoon fennel seeds

·      ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes; plus more for serving (optional)

·      1½ pound fingerling potatoes, halved

·      ½ cup pitted Kalamata olives

·      4 tablespoons olive oil, divided

·      Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

·      4 chicken legs (thigh and drumstick; about 3 lb.)

·      ½ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves with tender stems

·      1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Preheat oven to 450°. Pulse bay leaf, fennel seeds, and ½ tsp. red pepper flakes in spice mill until finely ground.

Toss potatoes, olives, 2 Tbsp. oil, and half of spice mixture in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper.

Place chicken on a rimmed baking sheet and rub with remaining 2 Tbsp. oil; season with salt and pepper and rub with remaining spice mixture

.

Arrange potato mixture around chicken. Roast until potatoes are fork-tender, chicken is cooked through, and skin is crisp, 35–45 minutes. Serve chicken and potato mixture topped with parsley, lemon zest, and more red pepper flakes, if desired; spoon pan juices around.

Fennel, Celery, and Pomegranate Salad

INGREDIENTS

·      3 small fennel bulbs, thinly sliced

·      6 celery stalks, thinly sliced on a diagonal

·      1 medium shallot, thinly sliced into rings (I was out, used scallions instead)

·      ½ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, very coarsely chopped

·      ¼ cup celery leaves, very coarsely chopped (optional)

·      ½ cup pomegranate seeds, divided

·      ¼ cup fresh lime juice

·      ¼ cup olive oil

·      Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Toss fennel, celery, shallot, parsley, celery leaves, if using, and half of pomegranate seeds in a large bowl. Drizzle with lime juice and oil and toss to coat; season with salt and pepper. Serve topped with remaining pomegranate seeds.

* Super, super easy and completely transformative. Roast root vegetables in a 425 degree oven. I use parsnips, turnips, carrots, Brussels sprouts, baby beets and red onion. Sometimes I add fennel. If you're using beets, you'll want to start them first as they take a lot longer. Beets should be wrapped in foil, and will take about an hour and a half.For the rest, cut them into similar sizes, toss with olive oil and some finely chopped rosemary and salt and pepper. Add to the sheet with the beets after an hour and roast for another 30 or so minutes.

How Very (Not) French - Salad Nicoise Rah, Rah!

There's just something about a nicoise salad. The combination of potatoes, green beans and olives is a trinity that is a part of many great cuisines. In salads, roasted along with chicken or cod, or just the trinity solo, they are good eats. But put them together with some good quality canned tuna and they become composed salad nirvana.

Sunday morning: NY Times and brunch. Cold glass of Freixenet. Some lovely ripe brown turkey figs. Give some tuna to the cat. Start with the Review section. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, what work week? Mangia!


Not Very Authentic Salad Nicoise

Per (very generous) serving

Basic Dijon vinaigrette*
3 cups Mixed spring greens
2 Scallions, thinly sliced
1/4 red pepper, thinly sliced
1 cup French green beans (cook in boiling water a scant 4 to 5 minutes and shock them immediately afterward in iced water to halt cooking....no limp beans, please!)
6 to 8 very small red potatoes, cut in half after boiling
Red and yellow grape tomatoes
1/4 cucumber, thinly sliced at an angle
2 hard boiled eggs, cut in three slices each
1/4 cup sliced Kalamata oilves
3 or 4 ounces good canned tuna

Toss the greens with some of the vinaigrette, reserving some for drizzling. Plate the greens and sprinkle on scallions. From there, you're basically composing the salad in whatever way you prefer, ending with the tuna in the center. Here's what I like to do: Place the potatoes and green beans across the plate from one another, and add the contrasting colored tomatoes on opposite sides. Put the cukes on one side and the pepper on the other in what areas remain un-topped, and and olives in two sides. Place the eggs on opposite sides. Finish with a drizzle of vinaigrette, some good grindings of black pepper and salt of your choice (pink sea salt this morning). Chow down.


* Mince one clove garlic, combine with 1 tbsp. Dijon mustard (I like coarse ground Country styles), scant teaspoon honey, 2 tbsp. capers (I love love love capers. So sue me.), 1/4 to 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, slat and pepper. I tend to go vinegar-heavy in proportion to oil. Adjust to your taste.

Petruchio’s Pomegranate Pizza And A Veggie One

Many learned people speculate about a great many things regarding the romantic lead in The Bard’s The Taming of the Shrew. One of the most famous of debates is, of course, about what the gentleman from Verona liked to eat. Numerous scholarly essays exist on the topic.

No? Of course not. There are many novels and  non-fiction books out there, very, very fine ones, that never bother to mention anything about food. But my memory gravitates most readily to those with famous food scenes or references. Proust’s madeleines? Check. Scarlett’s memories of the ante-bellum groaning board during the post-war starvation at Tara, with its three desserts at every dinner and just as many kinds of breads? I can recite the menu from memory. Francie’s pickle days, those days when after far too many days in a row of the stale, re-purposed 5 cent loaves of bread on which her poor Brooklyn tenement family survived, she just had to have a pickle? To this day, I can’t eat a whole dill pickle without thinking about that one from the bottom of the barrel that she made the Jewish shopkeeper fish out.

I can’t yet ponder what Petruchio must have liked to eat. It seems premature at this stage, when I have just begun to read it **. The pizza connection is to Italy, and the pomegranate connection is to its season, which is right now. I picked some up at the store this afternoon after beginning the read on the bike at the gym. This entry is titled purely from an alliterative sense, after I saw the pizza dough in the deli and knew what I wanted for dinner.

Grilled pizza is a delicious thing, and while it’s hard to replicate the smokiness of an actual grill in the cramped apartment kitchen, my stove top grill pan works out just fine. I went through a cast iron skillet pizza phase, and never seemed to get the knack of temperature control, frequently burning the bottom before the dough in the middle baked. But with the grill pan, I have been reliably able to turn out a tasty dish.

I had decided to go with grilled veggie and pesto pizza, but when the pomegranates winked at me, I thought: blue cheese. Red onion. Arugula. A light brush with olive oil. 

These recipes use one half of the dough for each pizza. Mangia!

Veggies and pizza #1

Grilled Veggie Pizza

·         One red and one green bell pepper, cut in three pieces each, so they’ll lie relatively flat on the grill
·         One red onion, halved and then sliced crosswise into about 5 or 6 slices
·         Sliced mushrooms
·         Sliced heirloom tomato
·         Fresh mozzarella, sliced into thin pieces and Parmesan for finishing
·         Prepared pesto (I use reduced fat Buitoni)
·         Refrigerated pizza dough, brought to room temperature (I use whole wheat from Vons deli section usually)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Heat stove top grill pan on very high heat. When smoking hot, give it a spray with some olive oil and put on the peppers, turning once until soft and starting to blacken, about 7 minutes a side. Remove them and grill onion slices, continuing through the mushroom stage.When the peppers are cool enough to touch, remove the skin and slice thinly.

While grilling the veggies in stages, take the pizza dough, divide in half and form each half into a ball. With floured board and rolling pin, roll out the half and with floured hands, begin to gently pull the pizza in the air until you form a rectangular shape sized a little less than the diameter of the grill pan. Invert a large bowl and dust it with flour. Lay the prepared half across the bowl. This helps keep the dough stretched and from retracting. Repeat with the other half.

Ready for the oven

Wipe pan and return to heat, reducing the heat slightly. Give it another spray of oil and lay the dough on the pan. After about 2 to 3 minutes, turn it over and repeat timing until the dough is about 80% cooked and has gorgeous grill marks. It will puff up quite a bit during cooking. Lay the pizza on a cookie sheet and brush it with a light coating of the pesto. Top with onions, then peppers and mushrooms, finishing with the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Top with mozzarella and Parmesan. Slide cookie sheet into the oven for about 7 minutes to lightly melt the cheese, finish cooking the dough and warm all the toppings.

You will have leftover veggies. They are wonderful tossed with hot pasta, leftover pesto and Parmesan.

Ready for their close up, Mr. DeMille

Grilled Pizza with Blue Cheese, Pomegranate Seeds and Arugula

• Second half of the refrigerated pizza dough
• Blue cheese, crumbled
Leftover grilled onions

• Pomegranate seeds*
• Baby arugula, lightly dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper

Preheat the oven and grill the dough as in the first recipe. When on the cookie sheet, brush it lightly with olive oil, and then top first with the onion, then the blue cheese and seeds. Pop in the oven for about 7 minutes to warm the toppings and finish cooking the dough.  When removed, put a good couple of handfuls of the arugula on top.

* Best way to remove seeds from a pomegranate without making your kitchen walls and floor look like a shootout scene from Inglourious Basterds is to cut it in half and hold it upside down over a bowl. Knock on the back of it with a heavy wooden spoon until the seeds have all dropped into the bowl.

** I finished it this morning. Turns out, yes, there is a food scene, after Petruchio brings his reluctant bride home to his apparently appallingly-run bachelor estate. A hasty dinner is ordered but Kate is discouraged from eating anything because Petruchio in taming mode throws the mutton to the floor, and by Petruchio's manservant, who insists that anything the kitchen might have on hand will be choleric. Fat tripe, beef and mustard, beef alone, mustard alone, fowl with or without accompaniment, all choleric.

He may have been being sensitive to the idea of the wedding night.Not a good time to be choleric.

This is a very racy play in some parts. Wasps carrying their stinger in their tails, and Kate wants to rip P's tongue out, to which he replies, What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentlemen. You tell ME what you think THAT means.