Piggy Pudding

During my vacation this past May, I spent the first week with my youngest son, Chris, and his family in Florida, which just so happened to correspond with the Mother's Day weekend and Chris' birthday.

Chris and Kelly put on a huge spread for Mother's Day, inviting friends and co-workers to enjoy their culinary efforts:

• Eggs Anna - Chris' re-creation of a breakfast dish he used to order at a small cafe in Encinitas, California. A toasted English muffin, spread with a nice layer of mashed, lightly seasoned avocado, topped with eggs scrambled with bacon and heavily drizzled with hollandaise sauce. Without a doubt, my favorite breakfast dish.
• An egg, ham, cheese and green chilis casserole
• Piggy Pudding - Paula Deen's recipe for a sausage, apples and cornbread casserole topped with pure maple syrup
• A beautiful fruit tray
• And, of course, champagne

I'm coming out of the closet now. I'm not a Paula Deen fan. I know. There must be something drastically wrong with me, but I just don't care for her food. I've tried several of her recipes, none of which has impressed me or Tom. If Tom won't eat it, it's no good.

So, surprisingly, Paula's Piggy Pudding is a hit in this house. I think I've made it at least three times since I've been home. Tom says it is one of his favorite breakfasts.

I have changed the recipe somewhat by using pre-cooked link sausages, pre-cooking the apples a little and lowering the baking temperature so the cornbread doesn't dry out.

I sprayed a an 8"x8" pan with cooking spray, then cut the link sausages into pieces.


I melt the butter in a medium frying pan, add the apples and 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and cook about 5 minutes, turning the apples frequently. Then layer the partially cooked apples ~ butter, maple syrup and all ~ over the sausages.


Then I mix up the cornbread according to package directions and pour the batter evenly over the layer of apples.


Bake the casserole in a 400 degree oven for 22 to 25 minutes, until the cornbread is done and starting to brown, then remove it from the oven and drizzle with remaining pure maple syrup. Allow to sit about 5 minutes before serving.



To serve, cut into squares and serve with more maple syrup if desired. Our favorite way to eat this casserole, by far, is topped with an egg fried over-easy.



Piggy Pudding
adapted from the recipe by Paula Deen

PRINTABLE RECIPE

1 package of 12 Jimmy Dean Fully Cooked Sausage Links (I use Turkey Sausage)
2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 envelope Martha White Sweet Yellow Cornbread Mix (which calls for 1/2 cup of milk and 1 egg) or you can use a small box of Jiffy brand cornbread mix prepared according to package directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Spray an 8-inch X 8-inch baking pan with cooking spray.

Cut the cooked sausage links into pieces and spread evenly in the bottom of the prepared baking dish.

In a medium frying pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Add the apples and 2 tablespoons of the 1/4 cup pure maple syrup, reserving the remaining syrup. Cook the apples for about 5 minutes, then layer evenly over the sausage pieces. If there is any remaining liquid in the frying pan, drizzle it over the apples.

Mix up the cornbread according to package directions and pour it evenly over the layer of apple slices.

Bake at 400 degrees for 22 to 25 minutes until the cornbread is done and just starts to brown.

Remove from the oven and immediately drizzle the remaining maple syrup evenly over the top of the casserole. Allow to sit for a few minutes before cutting into squares to serve.

Sweet Potato and Chorizo Soup

Winter has hit Arkansas pretty hard. Yesterday was our third snow storm in as many weeks and that's highly unusual for this part of the country. Plus, temperatures haven't exceeded freezing for several days. When it's cold outside, I crave soup.

I'm not one to choose a brothy soup. I like a hearty thick soup. The kind of soup I grew up eating. Peas. Beans. Lentils. Potatoes. This soup is rich, hearty and very flavorful. The spice of the Mexican chorizo compliments the sweetness of the sweet potatoes. Served with cornbread or warm tortillas, this is a satisfying meal.

This recipe calls for a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil and a tablespoon of vegetable oil. When using straight olive oil for cooking, it is important not to heat the oil over its smoking point (the temperature at which the oil begins to break down) because it gives food an unpleasant taste. I avoid this by blending the two oils together. I generally use an oil dispenser bottle in which I've mixed equal parts of each of the oils to have it readily available to use for sautéing.



Sweet Potato Chorizo Soup

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 - 10 oz. tube of Mexican chorizo (not smoked)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 3 yukon gold potatoes, washed well and cut into 1/2-inch dice (no need to peel)
• 6 to 7 cups chicken broth
• 1 - 9 oz. box of frozen chopped spinach (I've also used kale with great results)

Heat both oils in a large pot. Add the chorizo and cook until done, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon as it cooks (about 8 to 10 minutes).

Add the onion and celery to the pot and cook until the onions are translucent, stirring frequently (about 6 or 7 minutes). Add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes.

Add the all the potatoes to the pot and stir until the potatoes are coated well with the chorizo, onions and celery. Add 6 cups of chicken broth to the pot and stir well, scraping all of the browned bits from the bottom. Bring to a boil and simmer at low heat until the potatoes are just fork tender, about 15 minutes.

Add the frozen spinach and bring the pot back to a simmer and cook a few minutes more until the spinach is thawed and fully incorporated into the soup. If the soup gets too thick, add another cup of chicken broth.

Correct seasoning with salt and pepper and stir well. Serve.

Country Breakfast in a Cup

I'm not much of a breakfast eater. I am just "Coffee, please," first thing in the morning and then usually wait until 9:30 or 10:00 before I can even think about something solid. Most mornings I have either a toasted English muffin or slice of toast with a couple of slices of avocado, or a turkey sausage patty, or a slice of turkey bacon. But, Tom has always been a great breakfast eater, so we go out to breakfast often on weekends.

Generally, for breakfast we wind up at Cracker Barrel, where I will order a breakfast much larger than I would generally eat simply because I like to have a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Grandpa's Country Fried Breakfast is my favorite because I get just what I want and I can pick my way through the eggs, country fried steak, hashbrown casserole, biscuits and gravy. At least, that's what I usually do, but I might have to rethink my choice.

This morning as I was perusing the internet I wandered onto The Daily Beast and into a media gallery entitled "This Is Why You Are Fat." The ninth photo is entitled "Country Breakfast Parfait" and contains nearly all the components of my beloved Cracker Barrel breakfast in one tall glass. . .

The caption for this photo reads: "this winner contains all the elements of a country breakfast shoved into a cup as a parfait would be. Those elements include tater tots, fried eggs, chicken-fried steak bites, buttermilk biscuit chunks, sausage gravy, and bacon.

It's one thing to see your breakfast laid out nicely on a plate, with a separate plate for your biscuits and a nice neat bowl for the gravy.

It's quite another thing to see it layered and mushed all together like a gravy, potato, egg and meat milkshake.

I may never eat breakfast again.

 

It's Fall and Time for Soup

It has cooled down considerably. Yesterday, the high was in the very low 70's and today is cooler and raining. Even with the rain, I'm enjoying it. This afternoon, I am wearing a long sleeve shirt, long pants and socks. It's been several months since I've worn long sleeves. Next stop, turtlenecks and Ugg boots.

Another thing I like about the onset of cool weather is having a nice hot bowl of homemade soup for dinner.

My mom was a soup maker. Not professionally, mind you, but I thought she made darn good soups. When I was growing up, I came to love the thick soups or chowders she would throw together with just a few ingredients. The seven of us (five girls and our parents) would sit down to dinner and make a meal of a large pot of thick soup and some bread. It was delicious, filling and warmed the tummy.

When Tom and I married over 40 years ago (41 years on the 19th of this month, thank you very much), the only type of soup I knew how to make was thick and hearty, made with beans, potatoes, rice or noodles ~ anything to thicken the broth. The first time I sat down to a meal of soup at my in-laws, I thought I might come away from the table still hungry. The soup pot was filled with a thin beefy broth, a few pieces of meat, some chopped vegetables and homemade "noodles." It filled me up, but it was nothing like I was used to.

Although I now appreciate a nice brothy soup, I still gravitate towards thick, hearty and flavorful. My favorites are clam or seafood chowder, bean soup, wild mushroom soup and the Tuscan soup my sister, Karen, introduced to us when she lived with us earlier this year. This is Karen's favorite soup, her rendition of a soup she had while living in Las Vegas.

Although I really liked her soup...you know me, I cannot leave well enough alone. I had to doctor it up with some herbs and spices to suit my palate. I have also made the soup using two different methods to cook the Italian sausage: 1)cooking the sausage with casings on, then slicing it, or (2) removing the casings before cooking the sausage and breaking it into chunks as it cooks (much like cooking hamburger). I like either method, but I'm lazy and often use method #2 because it takes the slicing step out of the recipe. The photo is of the soup using method #2.

Tuscan Soup
by Terri Powers (adapted from my sister, Karen's recipe)

• 1-1/4 lbs sweet Italian sausage, about 5 (I have also used sweet Italian turkey sausage with great success)
• 4 slices bacon, chopped
• 4 medium potatoes (I use Yukon Gold and don't bother peeling them), cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 fennel bulb, roughly chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons ground fennel
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 bunch kale, stems and center veins removed and roughly chopped
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

In a large pot or dutch oven, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and (Method #1)cook the Italian sausage links until cooked through, about 6 or 7 minutes. Remove the sausages from the pot to a plate and allow to cool slightly. ~ OR ~ (Method #2) Remove the sausage from the casings and cook the sausage meat, breaking up with a fork, until cooked through. Remove from the pot to a plate or bowl.

Add the bacon to the pot (with the drippings) and cook until done, but not too crisp.

Add the onion to the pot with the bacon pieces and saute until the onion is translucent, about 3 or 4 minutes.

Add the garlic, fennel bulb, potatoes and spices to the pot and cook for about 3 or 4 minutes until the mixture is fragrant and hot.

Add the chicken broth to the pot and bring just to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.

If you have used Method #1 to cook the sausage, slice it now into approximatey 1/4 inch slices and add back to the pot and mix well. If you have used Method #2 to cook the sausage, add it back into the pot and mix well.

Simmer the soup until the potatoes are almost soft enough to pierce with a fork, then add the kale and the cream. Bring back to a simmer and cook for about 5 or 6 minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with hot with a crusty bread.

Shellfish and Chicken Paella with Lemon Aioli

No cute quotes. No clever quips. There is no point trying to upstage this dish. Doesn't it look delicious? It was.

Like many of you, we are fans of a few shows on the Food Network. We TIVO Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Iron Chef and, every year, The Next Food Network Star. This year we watched and were rooting for Aaron McCargo's win. And, of course, I love Giada DeLaurentis.

The recipe for this Paella is an adaptation of Bobby Flay's recipe from Throwdown. You can find the original recipe here.

Now for the disclaimer. I live in Arkansas. I have never met an Arkansan fish monger (I don't think they exist here) and, according to a conversation I inadvertently overheard a couple of weeks ago, the barely-out-of-his-teens "butcher" at my local grocery store couldn't tell a customer what tilapia tasted like because he'd only ever eaten catfish. So, when the original recipe called for fresh baby octopus and squid... well, you know, it just wasn't going to happen. But, my husband, Tom, being the ever so positive thinker that he is, drove to Little Rock and the Fresh Market there came through once again and Tom was able to get fresh clams and mussels and two frozen rock lobster tails. Score !! We had a half of a tube of chorizo in the freezer. The chorizo sausage was not the smoked and cooked kind, but rather the raw sausage you get in a tube in the sausage section at Wal*Mart. That's okay, though, the flavor is there. Oh, and we just thawed out some frozen peas.

Bobby Flay's recipe serves 8, but that is way too much for the two of us. Tom scaled down the recipe to just 4 servings.

Let me note here that I really did not care for the Aioli with this dish. I would have been just as happy with a few sprinkles of fresh lemon juice.



Shellfish and Chicken Paella with Lemon Aioli
by Tom Powers
adapted from Bobby Flay's recipe on the Food Network


For the Paella:

• 2 roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise
  
• 1 tablespoon honey
  
• 1/4 cup olive oil, divided
  
• salt and fresh ground pepper
  
• 5 cups chicken stock, divided
  
• large pinch of saffron
  
• 6 littleneck clams, scrubbed
  
• 4 chicken drumsticks or 2 thighs, bones removed and meat cut into about 3-inch pieces
  
• 1/4 pound (or 1/2 of a tube) of chorizo sausage
  
• 1/4 large onion, chopped
  
• 1 cup Arborio rice
  
• 6 mussels, debearded and scrubbed
  
• 10 large shrimp, peeled and deveined, with tail on
  
• 3/4 cup fresh or frozen peas
  
• 2 cooked small rock lobster tails, leave the tails in the shell and split in half lengthwise
  
• fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped, for garnish
  

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Place the tomatoes in a small baking dish and drizzle with honey, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and salt and pepper, and roast until soft. Set aside.

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer in a saucepan and add a large pinch of saffron.

Into another saucepan put about 1/2 cup of the seasoned chicken stock, add the clams and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook just until the clams open. Remove the clams from the liquid and set aside, reserving the liquid in the saucepan.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a very large skillet or paella pan over medium high heat. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and add to the heated pan. Cook until browned on all sides. Remove the chicken pieces to a plate. Add the chorizo, onion and garlic and saute until the chorizo is cooked through and the onions are translucent.

To the chicken juices in the frying pan, add the rice, about 3-3/4 cups of the chicken stock, the reserved clam liquid and bring to a simmer. Nestle the chicken in the rice and let cook, uncovered, until the rice is quite al dente, about 15 minutes to 20 minutes. Adjust the heat as necessary to maintain a gentle simmer (the rice on the bottom of the pan should form a dark brown crispy crust by the end of the cooking time. If the stock is disappearing too quickly, just add a bit more of the remaining of the remaining chicken stock.

Add the mussels, shrimp, and peas. Cook, covered, for about 5 minutes until the shrimp are pin and the mussels open. Add the lobster, clams and roasted tomatoes, cover and cook for about 5 more minutes. At this point, you should be able to see liquid bubbling gently; it will settle when you turn off the heat.

Sprinkle with the parsley and lemon aioli and serve in the pan.

Lemon Aioli:

• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
  
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
  
• 2 egg yolks
  
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
  
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
  
• 3/4 cup olive oil
  
• fresh ground white pepper
  

Place the garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, egg yolks, lemon juice and zest in a blender and process until smooth. Slowly, while the blender is running, add the oil, in a small steady stream until thickened. Season with salt and white pepper, to taste. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Welcome to the Church of the Holy Cabbage. Lettuce pray. ~ Author Unknown

I love cabbage. I love it in coleslaw. I love it in soups, especially Minnestrone. I love stuffed cabbage leaves. I love sweet and sour red cabbage. Most people don't think of serving it as side vegetable, but I love cabbage just sautéed with a little salt and pepper. So obviously when I come across a new recipe that incorporates cabbage, you get my attention.

A couple of weeks ago, I was wandering around the internet looking for some inspiration and I found this dish at Melissa's Magic in the Kitchen, which she adapted from Allrecipes.

Like Melissa, I made several changes to the recipe to make it more suited to my tastes. I went to one of my favorite cookbooks, Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, to get the flavor I wanted and I incorporated the spices for Chef Paul's Red Beans and Rice into this recipe. The recipe below incorporates my changes.

This recipe is hearty, flavorful, simple to prepare and makes A LOT !! Tom and I each had seconds and we still vacuum sealed and froze enough for two more dinners.

Cabbage Jambalaya
by Terri Powers for Terri's Table
adapted from Melissa's Magic in the Kitchen

1 pound ground beef
1 pound kielbasa, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium head green cabbage, chopped
1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed tomatoes, drained well (I used diced tomatoes)
3 cups chicken stock
1 cup uncooked long grain white rice
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 teaspoon Emeril's Essence seasoning (or other Cajun-syle seasoning)
2 bay leaves
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons pepper

To prepare this dish, use a large stock pot, dutch oven or other large pot with tight fitting lid.


Put the olive oil in the pot over medium high heat. Add the onion, celery and carrots and cook until the onion is slightly cooked. Add the garlic and cook for one minute more. Add the ground beef and cook until the beef is evenly brown, breaking it up into small pieces with the spoon as it cooks. Add the kielbasa slices, cabbage, tomatoes, chicken stock, rice and all the herbs and spices and stir well.


Bring contents to a boil and reduce the heat to low for a slow simmer. Cover the pot and cook for 35 to 40 minutes, or until rice is done. Adjust the seasoning if desired and serve.