What are These?

The picture above looks like what? Like a nice bowl of field peas with a few snaps, cooked with some peppers and onions, right? Maybe some hamhocks gave it that nice reddish sheen, right? All you’d need is some cornbread, and you’d have good start on a nice hot lunch, right? Well that’s WRONG! It’s a SALAD! Yes, a salad! Earlier this year Alice started making this Marinated Carrot Salad, where she cooks some carrots for a few minutes, then she pours this marinade over them and after a couple hours in the fridge, we’ve got this wonderful salad. It keeps for a week, at least. 

        About a month ago, I came across several pea or bean salads, and decided to try it out. The first time I cooked some dried black beans with nothing in the pot but water. I actually drained the marinade off the Carrot Salad and poured it over the beans. It was pretty good. This time I had a bag of frozen field peas with snaps, and some pork broth I had made from the bones of some smoked boston butts. I just brought them to a boil, and put the top on the pot and let them sit for couple of hours to cool. Then I drained the broth off. I made the marinade, let it cool a bit, and poured it over the peas. The next day, they were a big hit! My son didn’t know what I had done. He served his plate, tried them he said, “Hey, these are cold!” (But he went back for seconds!)

        The picture above looks like what? Like a nice bowl of Red Rice, right? Like you’d find in Charleston, right? Well, that’s RIGHT! I got the recipe from a lady at work, and she’s a Nutrition Specialist! (so it's got to be healthy, right?) You can cook it in a rice steamer, or you can do it in the oven in a covered casserole, (which is what I did.) I used brown rice, and didn’t put the 9 PIECES OF BACON in like it calls for, though I did sauté the onions in Benton’s Bacon grease.  When cooled enough to sample, we did. Then we got a bowl full of it.  There was enough left for a family meal on Sunday, but not much after that. It was a bigger hit than the Pea Salad.  It will be a wonderful new Page, that I’m sure we’ll turn to often.

Two New Items

So here we have two new items. While perusing some old Southern Livings a couple of weekends ago, Alice came across this Pear/Peach/Tomato Relish. As luck would have it, due to current climatological conditions, all three types of produce were available to us (at a reduced cost!) We have not actually used the relish on anything yet, but we have tasted it. We’ll be trying them with field peas or butter peas this weekend. Confidence is high, as it reminds me of the Tomato Chutney from the Blue Willow Inn.

The deviled eggs are my rif on Bill Smith’s of Crook's Corner :

1 tablespoon vinegar
2 tablespoon mustard
2 tablespoon mayo (Dukes?)
2 tablespoon fresh finely chopped chives
24 rings of pickled jalapeño (Chapsmackers?) finely chopped
12 boiled eggs

I’m not going to tell you how to make them. Bill’s recipe uses way more jalepenos, and purple onions, which I have nothing against. It’s just that I have a surplus of chives right now. The good thing about this recipe is that with the mustard, mayo, and pickled peppers, you don’t have to add salt . . . . and that helps keep my blood preasure down (126/78 on Monday!)


yeah I know the white borders are stupid,  but I was in a hurry.

Charleston Farmers Market and McCrady's

We went to Charleston for the weekend to visit our daughter. Catherine had raved about the farmers market at Marion Square conveniently located to CofC, so we hit it Saturday morning. It was wonderful! I had to restrain myself from getting some of all types of the Heirloom tomatoes (I only l got 5 kinds) It’s not all farmers produce. They have various food kiosks, and home-squeezed lemonade, crafts, plants, and entertainment.

Catherine is taking a class at CofC, the Sociology of Food, and her professor had spoken of restaurant week in Charleston. We took this a great excuse to go to McCrady’s, where Chef Sean Brock’s crew did a fantastic job. It was the first time ever for us there, though Alice and I had sampled Chef Brocks faire at the SFA Bristol Field Trip. It won’t be the last!

Catherine’s dorm as a huge kitchen on her floor, so we started talking about coming down and serving brain food right before midterms and\or finals. Not sure what we’ll have, but Frogmore looks promising.

WHOOSH!! Labor Day Surpise!

Yesterday around 2 we talked to our son, at USC, to see if he was coming home, for there was left over homemade pizza to be had. He said he'd probably be home later in the afternoon, maybe pretty soon, because he hadn't had lunch yet. He said he didn't know if he'd bring anybody with him or not. . . . . hard say. . . . he'd let us know. At 7:13 pm, he calls, he's on his way, he'll be home in 20 minutes. . . with 7 others to have the pizza we'd told him about. Uh oh, we had 2 small halves left. Luckily, I was fixing to make some flat bread from a recipe I saw on Serious Eats. Alice had me make that into two pizza crusts, and we had a store bought crust in the fridge. We scrounged in the freezer, pantry and fridge to come up with these toppings: ground beef, pepperoni, chopped black olives, cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, thin sliced green tomates, onions, mushrooms, Peruvian Hot Pepper Paste, Sun Dried Tomato Pesto, and Alice's Homemade Spaghetti Sauce. We blenderized the spaghetti sauce, since it is pretty chunky, and had everything set out on the kitchen table when the kids blasted in. For a bit they just kind of milled around looking at the ingredients. Then they started creating. They made one cheesy vegetarian pizza (Sunny: "No, take some of the cheddar off. It needs way more mozzarella."), one MAN PIZZA -lots of meat and the pepper paste(thanks to Jay-bird from Memphis) and one mostly normal pizza. With home-canned Lexington peaches and imported pears (from Williamston, SC) sweet tea, some peach-blackberry smoothies, and a spice cake one of the girls brought(YEA! SARAH!), I believe they were well content. At 9:09 they were pullling out of the driveway! They did say thank you and they helped bring the dirty dishes into to kitchen. WHOOSH!