Summer Already?...and Sweet Corn Fritters with Creole Remoulade

I cannot believe that we are already well into summer!  I feel like I'm constantly saying this, but as soon as Easter hit, the weeks started flying by!  Final papers, exams, parties and, yes, graduation followed soon thereafter.  As a friend of mine quipped, I am now no longer a student, but an unemployed counselor.  


I have lots of catching up to do, but I wanted to start by sharing a very special celebration.  Just last week my husband turned the big 3-0!  It was a number that, I think, he has been dreading for a while, but when the day finally came around, he did too.  I think what really brought him around was a couple of big celebrations with friends and family to commemorate the completion of his third decade.  How can you be sad at a party?

Our backyard bash was a blast!  You know it's a good night when the last guest leaves at 1:00 AM.  Of course, we enjoyed a feast to offer our friends, a mix of old and new favorites.  One favorite of the night, which received a number of comments including "what is it?," "I want that recipe," and "is that on the blog?," was a newbie, introduced to me by Eating for England.  I gave it a Southern twist with creole remoulade sauce, and a star was born.  I think these could be prettied up a bit with halved cherry tomatoes, a sprinkle of crumbled bacon, or chives, but they are delicious as is. 

Sweet Corn Fritters with Creole Remoulade

Sweet Corn Fritters adapted from Eating for England
Creole Remoulade adapted from Myrecipes


1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon chives, chopped
1 tablespoon parsley, minced
2 teaspoons sweet pickle relish
2 teaspoons whole grain mustard
1 teaspoon capers, chopped
3-4 dashes hot sauce


1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 bunch chives, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup cilantro
2-15 ounce cans sweet corn, drained
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vegetable oil


Combine the mayonnaise and the next six ingredients in a small bowl.  Cover and refrigerate the remoulade sauce until serving.


In the bowl of a food processor, combine the jalapeño and garlic.  Pulse 5-6 times.  Add the chives, cilantro and corn and pulse 5-6 more times.  Add the salt, chili powder, flour, baking powder and eggs and blend until smooth.  


Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium-high heat, swirling to coat the pan.  Add 1 tablespoon of batter to the hot pan and flatten with the back of a spoon.  Cook for about 2 minutes, then flip and cook for 2 minutes, until golden on each side.  Place cooked fritters on a platter in a warm oven (about 180 degrees) while preparing the rest of the batter, until ready to serve.  


To serve, top warm fritters with 1 teaspoon remoulade sauce.  Garnish with crumbled bacon, cherry tomato halves, cilantro, chives or cheese.


Make Ahead: The remoulade sauce can be made up to two days in advance.  The fritters can be made several days (or weeks) in advance and frozen in an airtight container, with parchment paper between layers.  Defrost the fritters in the refrigerator.  Arrange the fritters on a baking sheet in a single layer and re-heat in the oven at 220 degrees for 20-25 minutes.  


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Happy Birthday to My Love, and Happy Summer to All!

Waves, and Shrimp and Grits worth Making Twice

Last summer, a wise woman shared with me that grief is like standing on the shoreline; sometimes the water ripples and tickles your toes, sometimes a surprise wave hits and gets you all wet, and sometimes a surge hits you so hard that it knocks you over.  I think that life acts the same way; there are waves of emotion, but also waves of busyness, of good relationships, of daily enjoyment, and so much more.  

Last weekend was a wave of good fellowship with friends, but it also coincided with a wave of busyness this week.  And while we delight in enriched friendships and a challenging week of classes, sometimes those waves mean that our marriage receives very little attention. 

Love and Joy in Waves: Summer 2010 

My husband and I enjoyed some time investing in our own marriage this weekend.  On Friday night, we watched The King's Speech at a little community theater.  As we walked the Main Street of the little town after the movie, we enjoyed the rippling wave of the sweet, deepening friendship that will grow for the rest of our lives.  On Saturday,  in between studying and chores, we ran errands together and again enjoyed good conversation and sweet fellowship.  And of course, we enjoyed good food.  

This Shrimp and Grits recipe may just be my favorite so far.  It is easy, delicious, and perfect for both guests and date night.  It is excellent with collard greens and cornbread.  

Louisiana Shrimp and Andouille over Grits

Adapted from John Besh's My Louisiana Kitchen

For the Grits:

4 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup stone ground grits

1/2 cup goat cheese 

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup half & half

For the Shrimp:

2 pounds medium wild shrimp

1 tablespoon cajun seasoning (I use a mix of Tony Cachere's and Old Bay)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/3 cup andouille or spicy smoked sausage, diced (I use Conecuh Sausage)

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 shallot, minced

2 roasted red peppers from a jar, drained and diced

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme 

1 cup vegetable broth

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

15 oz diced tomatoes (no salt added)

1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives

chopped parsley, for garnish

For the grits: 

In a medium pot, combine the water and salt.  Bring to a boil.  Whisk in the grits, and reduce the heat to low.  Cover and cook for 20 minutes, stirring often.  

Add the butter and cheese to the grits, stirring until the cheese is melted.  Stir in the half and half, cover and remove from heat.  Keep warm until serving.  

For the shrimp:

Combine the shrimp and spices in a small bowl.  Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the shrimp and cook until the shrimp become opaque, but are not quite done.  Remove the shrimp to a bowl as they become opaque.  

In the same skillet, add the sausage, garlic, shallot, red peppers and thyme.  Cook for about five minutes.  Add the vegetable broth and butter, and cook for six minutes.  Add the shrimp and cook for three minutes.  Stir in the lemon juice, tomatoes, and chives.  Cook until warmed through, and remove from heat.  

Serve the shrimp and sauce atop the grits in a bowl, and sprinkle with chopped parsley.  

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Off the Beaten Path in South Alabama

I cannot believe that our time here at my family’s beach house is coming to a close! It is amazing how quickly time passes, when you spend your days laying out, boating, shopping, reading, cooking and eating.

But that’s not all we’ve done. Our trips to this house are full of traditions.  Not only do we savor the fresh produce available from the surrounding farmland, enjoy boat rides and lazy meals, and love listening to my dad recount days of childhood trips to this same house, but we also have a few places off the beaten path that we must visit each year.  Otherwise, it would not be a complete trip. 

One tradition goes back, well, before I was born: dinner at Wolf Bay Lodge. This once-dive-of-a-restaurant has grown in popularity over the years, and as far as I’m concerned, has some of the best shrimp that you can find at a Gulf restaurant. Unfortunately, the original building (in Wolf Bay, of course) burned a couple of years ago, but that hasn’t kept the restaurant down, nor kept us away. We gladly made the drive to their new location in Orange Beach to keep our tradition going strong.

In addition to Wolf Bay, we made a time-honored tradition of visiting a little cheese farm located on Highway 98. We all have our favorites at Sweet Home Farm, (mine are Perdido Ash and Tuscany), and love the taste-tests of different cheese varieties as much as we like “talking to” the chickens and turkey on our way into the tiny shop. Another reason that I love this little treasure: we served cheese from Sweet Home Farm at our wedding reception!

A new tradition that we have added to the list is blueberry picking. Just before we moved to Pennsylvania last year, my husband and I joined my mom in picking just over 8 pounds of blueberries. This year, we went with my brother and sister, and the four of us harvested almost 20 pounds! As we’re preparing to pack leave, I’ve bagged and frozen about six quarts of the fruits of our labor to enjoy throughout the rest of the summer.

If you find yourself in south Alabama, looking for something to become your family vacation tradition off the beaten path, I highly recommend these little hidden jewels to you!

The Life of a college student and Southern Banana Pudding

When I was in college, I was wild.  Maybe not wild in the party-hardy loose living kind of way, but I did do crazy things.  I don't remember a semester when I had less than the maximum 18 hour load of classes, and I often had special permission to take more.  I was involved in my sorority, was on the school swing dance committee, performed in an on-campus ballet, was involved in a campus ministry, often participated in Relay for Life, fundraisers, and church events, was often found in the house kitchen cooking up something for friends or classmates, would stay up until the wee hours with friends, and then would do my homework.  I have no idea how I would live such a life, day after day, and survive!  There were days when I would get two or three hours of sleep, night after night.  I cannot even fathom that now!

I still love being involved.  I'm still a go-getter, to an extent.  But I cannot go with such gusto anymore (and even if I could, I now have a husband who would collapse if he had to keep up with me).  All that said, this week was a week requiring that old college fervor.  Thankfully, we had no less than seven hours of sleep each night. 

The big event this week was the Annual Culture Night I mentioned a few weeks ago.  I was indeed asked to coordinate the southern table, and had several wonderful friends who helped as well.  We were given few instructions, our budget, and a lot of freedom.  I chose to represent the south with shrimp and baked garlic cheese grits, turnip greens, black-eyed peas, and homemade banana pudding.  Because I had a full meal and I knew there would be other cultures and other foods there, I decided to only cook for 40.  I figured if we ran out, then we ran out.  There was a huge turnout; I would guess well over 100 people.  But there was also a lot of food!  By the time the crowd got to my table, their plates were full with an assorted variety of food including Chinese, Greek, Malaysian, Korean, Irish, African Amercian, and much more.  At the end of the night, I took home about 30 servings of shrimp, grits, greens and peas, which I promptly packaged to send home with friends!

The banana pudding was another story.  This rather unattractive dish of homemade pudding, bananas and vanilla wafers topped with real whipped cream, which frequents church potluck dessert tables and almost always shows up at low brow BBQ restaurants, was completely gone.  This is comfort food at its finest. 

Now I have to go bake a cake, or go to a party, or do some homework, or something.

Homemade Banana Pudding

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

45 Vanilla wafers (about half a box)
3-4 bananas, sliced
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk (whole or 2%)
3 egg yolks, well beaten
2 teaspoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon powdered sugar

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the flour and 1 cup sugar.  Add one cup of cold milk and whisk until combined, then whisk in the eggs, and finally add the rest of the milk. 

Cook, stirring often with a whisk, over medium-low heat for four minutes, and then reduce the heat to low.  Continue to stir and cook over low heat until thick, about fifteen minutes.  Remove from the heat, and stir in the butter and vanilla extract.

In a glass bowl, layer the vanilla wafers, sliced bananas, and pudding.  Repeat the layers until you have used all of the pudding (reserve some vanilla wafers and bananas for the top layer).

Pour the whipping cream in a cold metal bowl.  Using a hand mixer, beat the cream until it is thick.  Mix in the powdered sugar.  Pour the whipped cream over the banana pudding, and decorate the top with the remaining vanilla wafers and banana slices. 

What is Southern Food? (And Curry Chicken, Part Two!)

My husband came home from a meeting at the school last week telling me that a student group at the seminary is discussing having an International night this semester.  One of the cultures represented?  Southern.  I didn't quite know that we were international, but you know, I love talking about the South so much that I might just go as an ambassador!

Of course, we started discussing just what we might offer if we were to represent sweet Dixie.  We both agreed would have to go with something that most people associate with the south.  I came across a "Southern" food stand at a market up here which offered the exact thing I am talking about.  What is Southern food (to a Yankee)?  It is fried!  Chicken, catfish, okra, cornbread, take your pick.  The fried offerings at that market represent the world's (or the North's) conceptions of everything Southern.  Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of fried food to go around in the South, but there's more to the south than that.  So we kept thinking; what else is as closely associated with the South as fried chicken?  Bingo, there are casseroles!  And these are not just any casseroles, they are made with cans of condensed soup. 

The problem is, apart from a very few exceptions, I don't make can of soup casseroles.  Also, I have never made fried chicken, or anything else that required a large vat of oil, in my house!  It's just not me.  I have an identity crisis; can I call myself Southern?

Well, if you have been reading here for any time at all, or if you are from the South yourself, you know there is more to Southern food than fried chicken and can of soup casseroles.  So, what would you have represent the South?  Me?  I am thinking that shrimp and grits and a taste of real, homemade banana pudding gives a great feel for the comfort food kingdom.  Or maybe I would have BBQ chicken and cornbread, and bread pudding for dessert.  So, hypothetically, if you were asked to make a Southern meal at an International celebration, how would you represent Dixie?  Let me hear from you!

In the meanwhile, I'm going to leave you with one of my few dishes that does use a can of condensed soup (or two!).  It's Curry Chicken, Southern style!  This meal is so fast, and the recipe can easily be multiplied to feed a crowd.  It is one of my go-to recipes when we are entertaining large groups of people for lunch or supper. 

Quick Curry Chicken

1 cup green onions, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 cups sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons red curry powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ginger
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 1/2 cups cooked chicken

Cook the onion in butter until tender, but not brown.  Add the soup; heat and stir until smooth.  Stir in sour cream, spices, and lemon juice.  Add the chicken and heat through.  Serve over hot rice.  Sprinkle condiments over curry as desired. 

Condiments:  flaked sweetened coconut, chopped roasted peanuts, chutney, chopped green onion, chopped hard boiled eggs, crumbled bacon. 

No Yankee Pies Here

I have a few precious memories of my paternal grandmother. She loved sweets and always had ice cream, butterscotch sauce, and maraschino cherries in stock. Although she had a color TV, I am pretty sure that it was bought no later than 1969. Her Christmas tree always had giant, colorful, and hot C7 bulbs. She often hummed, and she liked to sing in church.

There is one anecdote about her that I don't actually remember happening, but have heard my dad recount many times. At Thanksgiving dinner, when someone would inevitably bring a Pumpkin pie to the table, she would scrunch up her nose and pronounce "Pumpkin pie, that's Yankee!" She would then proceed to eat every bit of her slice.

It is because of this story that I made my first sweet potato pie while I was in college, cultivating my southern culinary roots. You see, if pumpkin pie is Yankee, then sweet potato pie is the pumpkin pie's quintessentially southern counterpart. They are like siblings who chose opposing sides in "The War of Northern Aggression." If you are a Yankee, please do not take offense. I like Yankees. I have many Yankee friends. Like my grandmother, I will eat a good slice of pumpkin pie. But I am southern, and must stay true to my roots.

The only issue that I have with sweet potato pie is that when it comes to Thanksgiving dinner, a sweet potato casserole is one of the indispensable side dishes. A sweet potato pie is just redundant. You might as well stick with the typical, albeit Yankee, pumpkin pie and let the Pecan pie represent the south at Thanksgiving dinner. Sweet potato pie deserves to be a star, the southern belle of the dessert table. Enjoy this pie for a not-Thanksgiving feast.

Buttermilk Sweet Potato Pie

Crust:
30 gingersnaps
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 dash cloves
1 dash nutmeg
1 dash cinnamon

Filling:
1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
8 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a food processor, blend the ginger snaps until coarsely ground. Add the 4 tablespoons melted butter, dashes of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, and process until the butter is distributed. Pour the crumbs into a deep pie dish and press into the bottom and the sides. Bake at 325° for 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, and increase the oven temperature to 350°.

In a medium pot, place a steam basket and 1 to 2 inches of water. Put the sweet potatoes in the basket, cover, and steam for about 15 minutes. Allow the sweet potatoes to cool slightly. Transfer to a large bowl. Using a hand mixer, blend the sweet potatoes until they are well pureed. Add the softened butter and sugars, and blend. Add the eggs, buttermilk, remaining spices, and vanilla, and blend on low until completely mixed.

Transfer the filling to the cooled pie crust. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 25 minutes (it will still be slightly jiggly in the center). Allow the pie to cool completely on a rack. Serve at room temperature, or cold.

Southern at Heart

This is quickly climbing my favorite cookbooks list:

This cookbook has lovely stories and the recipes are fun to read. "Fun to read, you say?" Well, it's fun to compare other southerner's recipes with my own and those of my family. Southern cooking is an art form. It's a way of life. It will always point to home.

To me, southern cooking is embodied in the summer by fresh vegetables, cornbread muffins (Lula's recipe), the best seafood (often a competition among my uncles) and my dad's fig ice cream. Winter brings the same divine Dressing casserole, Lala's Corn Pudding, Sweet Potato Casserole and Smoked Turkey to our Christmas and Thanksgiving tables each year. The list goes on, and hopefully I will be able to share some of my family's southern recipes with you.

The interesting thing about Matt and Ted Lee is that they are not originally southerners. They were born in New York City and moved to Charleston during their Pre-Adolescent years. When they returned to NYC, it became evident that southern heritage and cooking had a strong hold on their hearts.

If you read the Lee Bros. cookbook, you will discover that they began a southern shipping company after they tried selling boiled peanuts in New York. This launched them into a world of southern food, and they began developing their own southern style. The book is full of classic southern recipes, many from South Carolina Locals and more their own take on those classics. I loved comparing their pear chutney recipe with my own and I cannot wait to try their grits casserole. Their buttermilk sweet potato pie, however, was quite possibly the sole reason that I could not wait to buy this book. Of course, the book has a recipe for boiled peanuts, too.

Boiled peanuts are quintessentially southern, and are sold at many gas stations and road side stands throughout the south. Despite my love all things southern, I had never made boiled peanuts, and really did not eat them unless I was with my friend Becky who always bought them from a man in the mall parking lot. We had a few friends over for a barbecue this week, mostly southerners, and I decided that it was time. I made boiled peanuts. And for just a few hours, I was home.

Boiled Peanuts

From the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook

2 pounds raw peanuts, unshelled
1 1/2 cups salt, plus more to taste
4 gal. water, plus more as needed

In a 3-gallon stockpot, dissolve ½ cup of salt in 2 gallons of water and add the peanuts. (The peanuts will float, but you can keep most of them submerged by using a dinner plate as a cap.)* Allow the peanuts to soak for 8 hours or overnight.

Discard the soaking water. Fill the pot with 2 gallons of fresh water and the remaining cup of salt. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low, and cook at a low boil, covered, for 5 to 8 hours. Keep the water in the pot at roughly the same level with hourly additions of 2 cups water until the peanuts are soft. (South Carolina-style peanuts are very soft, but some cooks prefer them al dente.)

When the peanuts have boiled for 3 hours, check them for texture and saltiness. Allow a peanut to cool, then crack open the shell to get at the kernels inside. If you find them too salty, remove some brine with a ladle or small pot and replace it with an equal amount of fresh water. If the peanuts are not salty enough, add salt in ¼-cup increments, turn off the heat, and let them soak for an hour to absorb the salt. If the peanuts are too crunchy for your taste, boil on. It can take as long as 12 hours if you prefer them mushroom-soft. Sample them every hour.**

When the peanuts are cooked to your satisfaction, turn off the heat and cool for 1 hour. Drain and eat immediately or store (in the shell) in a sealed container in the refrigerator or freezer. Boiled peanuts will keep for a week in the refrigerator, and for several months in the freezer.

*I used a steam basket turned upside down over the peanuts to keep the peanuts submerged, and used it during cooking too.
**Mine were perfect at 6 hours.

Enough of the Sweets!

Well, it is time to take a hiatus from all of the sugar-filled baked goods that I have been turning out lately. It's not that we haven't been enjoying good (non-sweet) food, but either I have forgotten to take pictures or it has turned out looking disastrous (like Monday's fajita quesadillas, which completely fell apart when the tortilla stuck to the pan, but tasted great). And besides, sweets are just a lot of fun to make and talk about! I'll move on. I promise.

Our lives have been pretty quiet lately. With my husband studying most of the daylight hours, I have spent time reading, cleaning, cooking, and planning our meals into November! This meal-planning process involves looking at recipes and planning a week's or month's worth of menus on a calendar. It's a process that I love, but once I finish, I want to do it all over again, because there are always more recipes out there that I would love to try. Don't get me wrong, we probably will not follow my little calendar very closely, because usually we get whims for different foods and aren't always good about ignoring those whims. However, I have good intentions, and it is a great method of planning and incorporating fall flavors and seasonable vegetables into our life, and making sure that we get plenty of variety. Besides, my classes will start September 10th, and it will be easier to have a meal plan to go by.

Menu planning gives us a lot of room to try new things, but there are always a few tried and true dishes that I try to occasionally add to our repertoire. Curry chicken, beef stroganoff, roast chicken, low country boil, and shrimp and grits are all menus that the husband has deemed "make again," and that we return to often. That is exactly what we did earlier this week; we had shrimp and grits.

Creole Shrimp and Grits
From Southern Living, January 2009

2 pounds unpeeled, medium-size raw shrimp
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
1 medium-size green bell pepper, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (6-oz.) can tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 teaspoons Creole seasoning
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
4 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup stone ground grits
1-2 tablespoons butter
1-2 tablespoons half-and-half

Peel shrimp, reserving shells; devein shrimp, if desired. Bring shells and 4 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat; reduce heat to low, and cook 20 minutes. Pour shrimp broth through a colander over a large bowl, pressing shells with back of a spoon; discard shells.*

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat; stir in flour, and cook, stirring constantly, until flour is caramel colored (about 8 to 10 minutes). Add onion and next 3 ingredients, and cook, stirring often, 5 to 7 minutes or until tender. Stir in 2 cups shrimp broth, tomato paste, and next 4 ingredients. Reduce heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally, 45 minutes. Add shrimp, and cook 10 minutes, stirring in 1/4 to 1/2 cup remaining shrimp broth to reach desired consistency.

In a medium pot, whisk together the water, grits, salt and butter. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Whisk in the half-and-half.

Serve the shrimp over the grits.

*I have made the shrimp stock before using this method, but this time I bought peeled shrimp and used store-bought seafood stock. You could also use half/half clam juice and chicken stock.

Stay tuned for the fabulous herb loaf recipe, pictured in these photos.