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Posts Tagged ‘cooking’

Give me convenience or give me death

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 11, 2013 | 10 Comments »

In a grand experiment just to see if we could, about a month ago Husband and I decided  to try our level best to avoid genetically modified foods, processed foods, and soy. Folks, I’m here to tell you it ain’t easy. And it ain’t cheap.

You see, nowadays most of our food is trying to kill us, and not in the caveman chased by a sabre-toothed tiger sort of way. When you look at the sweeteners, artificial ingredients, preservatives, dyes, and Frankenstein-like  lab creations that are in most all of the food that is readily accessible and affordable for most of the populace, it’s no wonder that we, as a nation, have grown fatter and sicker in just the last 20 years. We are slowly being killed by convenience.

So what’s a girl to do?

Get informed. Was your food created in a lab or grown in a garden? Are the chickens that laid your eggs part of a monumental commercial production or did they every get to go outside and eat a bug? Is your meat full of growth hormones and antibiotics? I remember when the only thing genetically different about the produce I ate was which farmer we bought it from.

Read the box. Husband and I have become label readers of the worst sort, clogging up the aisles at the grocery store while we scan ingredients and nutritional claims. Sometimes I have to whip out the old smart phone and Google something. What is xanthan gum really? Cyanocobalamin? A good rule of thumb is to buy products with the least amount of ingredients possible. And if you can’t pronounce it and don’t know what it is, chances are you shouldn’t eat it.

Shop local. Patronize your local farmers’ markets. Be part of a community-supported agriculture group (CSA). Get those summer tomatoes that are still warm from the sun and get to know the person who grew them.  You don’t have to march up and down the road in front of Monsanto in protest. Just spend your money elsewhere, like in your own neighborhood.

Grow your own. You’d be surprised how much food you can get from just a small garden! My one fig tree yields more than I can preserve, pickle, and dry. If you have too much, share with your friends or learn to can. It’s easy. Freezing is even easier.

Cook. It’s just as easy to bake a potato as it is to microwave a cardboard container of a frozen something that claims to be food. And it’s a whole lot more satisfying. If you think every meal has to be a gourmet extravaganza, get over it. I have fallen victim to marthastewart-itis in my day, admittedly. But I’ve come to realize that sometimes a fried egg and a piece of toast is really all you need.

Now I’m not claiming that I’m all that and a bag of chips cooked in genetically modified corn oil. We’ve strayed over to the white bread side of life a time or two. We still frequent our local Mexican restaurant with alarming regularity. (They hug us we go there so much.) And I’m pretty sure that tonic water is not considered a health food, nor is the gin I mixed with it. It is, after all, summertime.

The point is we’re trying.

Say you find yourself at a Shell station in Livingston, Ala. And say it’s been a while since you had a salad for lunch. It’s easy to find a healthy snack even there. Look past the honey buns and Bugles. Avoid the 100 Grand, the wax lips, and the jerky. I have found the perfect snack with only two ingredients. Plus it has a Bible verse on the package so it must be alright.

IMG_0516 2 IMG_0517 1IMG_0517

Well, what did you expect from a Southern girl?

(Note: Notice anything about the Bible verse?)

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Merry and Bright

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Dear Readers,

I’d like to share with you a story I wrote that was published today on Bourbon & Boots, a website that specializes in all things Southern. It’s called Merry and Bright: Why We Love to Bake With Booze, and you can find it right here: www.bourbonandboots.com/merry-and-bright.

Thank you all for reading this year and for your kind words, encouragement, and the stories that you have shared with me. I hope each and every one of you have a very safe, happy, and peaceful holiday.

Love and hugs,

Audrey

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Oh, fudge!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 10, 2012 | 6 Comments »

My Granny was not a good cook. There, I’ve said it. She just wasn’t. Granny had many talents, but they were all put into practice far, far away from the kitchen. Unless you count arranging flowers on the kitchen table, but that had nothing to do with food.

I remember one time when I was spending the night and Granny tried to make spaghetti for supper. Upon realizing that she was out of Ragu, she proceeded to pour a bottle of ketchup over the hot pasta. After all, tomato sauce is tomato sauce, right?

In theory, yes. In practice, no.

But there was one thing that Granny could make — fudge. And Granny didn’t make any old cop-out fudge. She made the hard kind on the Hershey’s Cocoa can (recipe below). The kind that requires one to intuit things like “soft ball stage.” The kind that, if you don’t hold your mouth just right, well, it winds up being nothing more than grainy ice cream topping.

Granny could make it every time! She never failed. IMG_0892

And it was Granny’s fudge that I looked forward to every Christmas. I would watch her slowly, constantly stirring stirring stirring the mixture. I would watch her let one drop slip off the end of the spoon into a glass of water. And I would watch her examine that drop to see if it sent the proper message of doneness.

If it was time, she would take the pot off the stove, add some butter and vanilla, and beat beat beat it with a wooden spoon until it started to look right. Into a buttered pan it would go, and a little while later it was a perfect square of fudge. Yum yum.

I still make fudge every Christmas because it reminds me of Granny. Unlike Granny, though, I cannot make the Hershey’s Cocoa recipe set up to save my life. I have problems with foods that must “set” — any sort of Jello dish usually defeats me.

I use the Carnation Classic Five-Minute Fudge recipe (also below). It’s a cop-out because it uses marshmallows and there are no ball stages or anything terribly complicated involved. I don’t care. It has never failed.

Now just about every year it winds up that I only have one weekend with Sonny between Thanksgiving and Christmas because of a custody arrangement, bad luck, fate, and the alignment of the stars and planets. One piddlin’ weekend for us to pack in all the fun holiday things we want to do. One weekend. Two days.

In past years, when he was smaller, we’d go to The Birmingham Zoo‘s Zoolight Safari, we’d go visit Santa Claus, and we might go see a Christmas movie if one was playing. But this year, now that he’s a teenager, he didn’t want to do any of those things. “Well, what do you want to do this year?” I asked him. “What is the one special Christmas thing that you’d really like to do?”

“Can we make fudge?” he asked.IMG_0907

So make fudge we did. Since we are products of too much Food Network, we started Saturday morning planning what flavors we would make, as if plain fudge isn’t perfection. We dispensed with bacon (it’s been overdone) and margarita (couldn’t find lime flavoring), and we decided to try plain chocolate, chocolate jalapeño, peanut butter, dark chocolate cherry, white chocolate peppermint, chocolate chili, and s’more.

We made fudge all day long and into the evening. We made fudge until we were so tired and sticky we could hardly stand it. Some of the batches turned out great (you’d be surprised what a shot of Sriracha does to a recipe of fudge). Some not so great (apparently fudge flavored with maraschino cherry juice will never really set up, even if marshmallows are involved).  And there were some couldn’t help but be good (did I mention plain is always the best).

Sonny and I spent the day cooking and tasting. Measuring and stirring. Laughing and joking. We wound up covered in chocolate. We washed a mountain of dishes. We had to mop the floor. We ate fudge until we were nearly sick.

We spent the day — our day — making so much more than just fudge.

Hershey’s Cocoa Fudge

(from http://www.hersheys.com)

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups sugar
  • 2/3 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa or HERSHEY’S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1-1/2 cups milk
  • 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 Directions:
  1. Line 8-or 9-inch square pan with foil, extending foil over edges of pan. Butter foil.
  2. Mix sugar, cocoa and salt in heavy 4-quart saucepan; stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to full rolling boil. Boil, without stirring, until mixture reaches 234°F on candy thermometer or until small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water, forms a soft ball which flattens when removed from water. (Bulb of candy thermometer should not rest on bottom of saucepan.)
  3. Remove from heat. Add butter and vanilla. DO NOT STIR. Cool at room temperature to 110°F (lukewarm). Beat with wooden spoon until fudge thickens and just begins to lose some of its gloss. Quickly spread into prepared pan; cool completely. Cut into squares. Store in tightly covered container at room temperature. About 36 pieces or 1-3/4 pounds.NOTE: For best results, do not double this recipe. This is one of Hershey’s most requested recipes, but also one of the most difficult. The directions must be followed exactly. Beat too little and the fudge is too soft. Beat too long and it becomes hard and sugary.

Carnation Classic Five-Minute Fudge

(from http://www.carnationmilk.ca)

Ingredients:

  • 2 Tablespoons butter or margarine
  • 2/3 cup evaporated milk
  • 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups (4 ounces) miniature marshmallows
  • 1-1/2 cups (9 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. Combine butter or margarine, evaporated milk, sugar, and salt in a medium, heavy-duty saucepan. Bring to a full rolling boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil stirring constantly for 4 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
  2. Stir in marshmallows, chocolate chips, nuts, and vanilla. Stir vigorously for 1 minute or until marshmallows are melted. Pour into a foiled-lined 8-inch square baking pan. Chill until firm.

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Have you got game?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 21, 2012 | 3 Comments »

“Taste this and guess what it is!” Aunt Lois* says to me one Thanksgiving morning while jabbing at me with a carving fork, a piece of grayish meat dangling from the tines.

“Go on; taste it!”

Now I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to readily identify my food. Even at a  young age, I didn’t think I should have to guess what exactly it was that I ingested. Plus, Aunt Lois had a history of cooking things that were, uh, a little too “organic” for my taste.

For instance, I was at her house one day near lunchtime and naturally the talk turned to what we should fix to eat. Unable to decide, we did what every self-respecting Southerner might do when on the horns of such a dilemma — we went out to the garage to plunder through the deep freeze, that enormous coffin-like receptacle for all things blanched and frozen, fishy or gamey, or just plain too unwieldy for your normal Frigidaire.

Aunt Lois dug past the fish filets, the venison steaks, and even some frog legs and pulled out a freezer bag. “Let’s eat this!” she said holding the bag up with something near glee in her eyes. Before me dangled two little carcasses pressed flat in the plastic, nekkid, arms and legs akimbo almost like they were shocked to death and flash frozen in their surprise. “Squirrel!” And off she went in search of the chicken fryer. Squirrel. Oh my. Couldn’t we just have a tomato sandwich?

Flash forward to Thanksgiving. Aunt Lois shows up at Mama’s house with a huge roasting pan containing an unnaturally large roast smiggling around in some sort of au jus with a few onions and mushrooms. Once in the kitchen, she sets upon it with a vengeance, wildly hacking at it with a carving fork and a large blade akin to a machete.

“Taste it! Guess!”

I thought it better to guess before eating. Just in case. You never know with Aunt Lois. Hmmm, I thought to myself, what lives around here?

Goat? “No.”

Wild hog? “No.”

Deer? Please let it be deer. I’m running out of options. “No.”

I’d seen what I thought was a bear track once. Lord, I hope not. Bear? “No.”

“It’s MOOSE!” she finally exclaimed. “A gift from a friend of mine who went hunting out West!”

Moose. Have mercy. No wonder it was so dang big!

For the record, if any of you, my dear readers, perchance to go out West and think to bring me a gift, I’d much prefer something that either makes me look good (like jewelry) or smell good (like perfume). I would just as soon not be remembered with a hunk of dead animal flesh, thank you very much.

But the same can’t be said for Aunt Lois, once an ace hunter her ownself. Aunt Lois, who has a room full of mounted heads from deer she felled. Aunt Lois, sweet, flirty, mischievous. Aunt Lois, who can gut a fish or a squirrel or a deer without ever so much as chipping her frosty pink nail polish. Aunt Lois, who doesn’t take “no” for an answer.

So taste I did. Gray, dense, gamey, a little too chewy. But if you slog it through some gravy, like most not-quite-palatable things, it wasn’t half bad. In “The Maine Woods,” Henry David Thoreau likened moose to “tender beef, with perhaps more flavour; sometimes like veal.” I don’t know if I’d go that far, but after a good deal of mastication it did, ultimately, go down.

Thanks to Aunt Lois, I have had to be game (pun intended) to try any number of things that I probably would not have without her insistence. Among other things, I have picked shot off my plate, learned to ignore the fact that supper looked like Kermit from the waist down, and been educated as to the best way to pull the skin off a catfish. And I am a better person for it.

So here’s to mystery. Here’s to culinary adventure. And here’s to knowing what’s on your plate before the blessing is said. Happy Thanksgiving!

*Aunt Lois is actually my great aunt, Granny’s youngest sister.

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Barbeque like a man

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 3, 2012 | 4 Comments »

The 4th of July is a time to celebrate America’s independence from Great Britain. It is time to reflect on our forefathers and their dream of freedom. A time to remember our veterans who fought hard to preserve our way of life.

It is also a time to cook meat. To cook it over fire. To cook it like a man.

I recently ran across this picture:

I’m not sure who this is or where it is (although it must be somewhere in the vicinity of Citronelle, AL), but this is the way real men barbeque. No namby pamby gas grill with a little stove knob to start it. No sissy tongs, sauce mops, or thermometers.

This carnivore’s delight started with the phrase “First you dig a hole.” Then you get some iron bars and place them across said hole. The grilling surface is completed with the addition of chicken wire. It’s fencing, y’all. No little, sorry store-bought grill rack here.

Now isn’t that way yonder more manly than “Honey, let me run out on the deck and take the cover off the Big Green Egg?”

There is fire. A wood fire. No part of this equation incorporates anything that ends in -ette. This is a fire that required an axe, not opening a sack.

And you’ll notice that there are no burgers, or brats, or, God forbid, salmon filets on the fencing come grill. There is meat, real meat, with bones sticking out. Meat so immense that you need a pitchfork to turn it. A farm implement, good people, not a kitchen utensil.

This is how it was done back before grills had wheels, before we talked about our “outdoor living spaces,” before Martha Stewart tried to convince us that barbeque sauce should include either maple or chipotle.

This is down-home, shade tree, finger-lickin’ good barbeque. Barbeque for real men…and real women too!

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The last supper – or at least mine

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 8, 2012 | 4 Comments »

There seems to be a phenomenon afoot wherein a goodly portion of the general public feels compelled to share a photo of every plate of food they eat or fancy cocktail they imbibe. Extravagant dinner fare precariously stacked on teenincey plates, frosty glasses rimmed in colored sugar with fruit and umbrellas spilling forth, cupcake towers teetering with frosting, nonpareils, and fondant flowers – all carefully framed through the lens, tinted, retouched, then posted to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more for all the world to drool over.

This temptation to post pictures of every last morsel of food I eat is one I rarely give in to. Except for the other night.

I had been to Andy’s Farm Market and procured four things I dearly love – white corn, tomatoes, speckled butter beans, and okra (little tiny pods, not the big old reedy ones). There was fixin’ to be an old-time, country dinner at the Atkins’ house! In fact, I told Husband that if I ever had to, Lord forbid, choose a last meal, this would be it – with the addition of some hot peach cobbler topped with cold vanilla ice-cream. Just like Mama used to make. Warden, bring it to me!

Having said that, let me insert here that in my adult years I have often succumbed to the notion, thanks in no small part to too much Food Network  and too little satisfaction with the ordinary, that every meal I put on our table must be a fête of gastronomical extravagance with aioli this and en papillote that (really just fancy Hellman’s and things cooked in a paper sack). I have braised, glazed, and maized my way through many a cooking adventure – some with good results, others not so much.

But I am tired of that, y’all. Tired. There’s too much pressure in trying to think up a grand dining event every…night…of…the…week. Sometimes you just need to eat a bowl of cereal.

But I digress as I so often do.

So I headed home from Andy’s with all my favorite things and set about cooking dinner. I fried the corn, boiled the butter beans and okra, whipped up a quick skillet of cornbread, and sliced them ‘maters. Easy greasy. (And yes, where I come from those two words rhyme.)

I served it all up for Husband and me, and it just looked so good I couldn’t stand it! Out came the camera and before I could stop myself, I’d  gone and done it. I posted this picture:

Now what strikes me as odd about this whole turn of events is not that I cooked a simple, homemade meal. I am a good cook, in fact. I like to cook. Cooking makes me happy.

And it’s not that Husband gave it his highest seal of approval, “Good eats, Mama!”

And it’s not that I had the whole thing done and on the table in under an hour. Dinner at our house is on the table at 6:30 sharp barring unforeseen divine interference or natural disaster – in other words, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise – so I’ve managed to whittle dinner cooking down to a fine science of kitchen efficiency.

And it’s not even that I slipped up and posted a picture of an inanimate plate of food. What’s next? My laundry?

What surprised me the most is that of all the meaningful, thoughtful updates on my Facebook page (okay, Roll Tide! or Hunker down! are neither, but I’m making a point here), of all the vacation pictures, Sonny pictures, and nature pictures, of all the quotes from the intelligentsia of the last few centuries – a snapshot of a plate of food, ordinary old country food at that, generated a sudden flurry of “likes” and comments! Sentiments of awe, love, and jealousy were expressed. A debate on the merits of okra – slimy or slimelicious – ensued. Folks I haven’t heard from in months surfaced from the dark nether regions of the interweb to say hey and share a memory.

And I have to admit, it was fun and engaging. And it was really what I want Facebook – and Twitter, and Instagram, and all the other social networking sites – to be. Less like a a great time-sucking morass of commercialism, advertisement, and memes and more like a conversation…with good friends…over dinner.

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