Pea-Hull Jelly (Purple Hull Peas)

After shelling purple-hull peas, save the hulls, and wash them at least three times.

Pack clean hulls into a heavy pot, and cover with about 5 cups of water.

Boil hulls until tender. It's not the hulls you're concerned with--it's the purplish "tea" that you're making of the boiling water. Steep those babies until the water's pretty and purple.

Strain the "tea" from boiling the hulls, and pour 4 cups of it back into the saucepan.

Bring juice to a boil, then add 1 package of Sure-Jell (fruit pectin). Return liquid to a rolling boil, and add 5 cups of sugar.

Return liquid to a rolling boil again, and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside for 5 minutes. Skim. Pour into hot, sterilized jars, seal, and process in a water-bath for 5 minutes. Set jars aside on a towel for 24 hours.

Spoon-Tastic!

This is an easy fresh corn spoonbread that is a great dish to make with kids--it's pretty much all about measuring and stirring and pouring, which are MY kid's favorite things to do in the kitchen. The recipe is from Southern Living, and is credited to Beth Trueblood of Lanesville, Indiana.

Fresh Corn Spoonbread

Ingredients:

1 cup white cornmeal mix
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar (or equivalent in honey)
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups fresh corn kernels (about 5 to 6 ears)
2 cups plain yogurt
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix together dry ingredients, set aside.

Stir together corn and all remaining ingredients.

Add corn mixture to dry mixture, stirring just until blended and moist throughout. Pour batter into a 2-quart baking dish that's been sprayed with cooking spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, until golden brown and set in the center. I may have tented some foil over the top for the last 20 minutes or so...I really can't recall. Just eyeball it, and don't let the top and edges dry out during baking.

Enjoy! It's some yummy stuff.

Fried Green Tomatoes. Yes, They're That Good.

This recipe almost doesn't need words, but I'll use a FEW. Get some of these:

I have actually had people tell me that they couldn't find "this kind" of tomatoes, only the red ones. Well, these are the red ones. They're just not ripe yet. The rest of you quit laughing. There are actually people who have never seen a tomato before it hit the grocery store. Green tomatoes are apple-firm and wonderful to work with. A lot of people seem to prefer the ones that have just a hint of pink blush forming, but I like the pure greenies. I like fried pickles, too, though, so take that into account when you select your degree of green-ness.

Slice 'em up. I like to do them at an angle instead of straight across the middle, but that's just me. I promise the tomato-slicing police will not show up at your house if you do it differently.

Have a shallow dish of buttermilk, salted and peppered to taste, at hand, and as you slice the tomatoes, add the slices to the buttermilk. They don't have to soak or marinate, but a couple extra minutes couldn't hurt, right?

In another shallow dish, combine equal parts cornmeal or cornmeal mix, and flour. Take the tomato slices from the buttermilk, and dredge them in the flour mixture. I usually just lay the wet slices onto the flour, cover them, and lightly press the flour mixture into the tomato a little.

Cook in hot oil until golden-brown, then turn them over and brown the other side. The tomato slices will soften as they cook, but don't let them get all mushy. If your slices are no more than 1/4-inch thick, they should get done about the time your coating is golden-brown.

Drain slices separately on layers of paper towels, or in a wire basket or on a rack (though that won't get as much oil out as draining on paper), and serve HOT. We like ours with cold ranch dressing, but I'd love to hear any other ways of enjoying fried green tomatoes.

An alternate, and equally acceptable method is to simply dredge very thin green tomato slices in seasoned cornmeal mix and then fry them. That should get you a result like these slices, from a popular Arkansas country restaurant. Also yummy, if greasier and floppier.

The "Stuff" of Dressing

Also? Gordon Ramsay TOTALLY validated my approach to cooking a turkey on FOX-NY News tonight, which is to cook it in pieces, rest the meat before carving, and do the carving "backstage" and serve with sauce made from deglazing the roasting pan. We're going to be eating elsewhere, and the turkey is already cooked, but I have a lovely breast/rib turkey roast thawing that I'm going to roast here this weekend.

Anyway, here's the components of the dressing we made this year. Finished product won't be baked until tomorrow. If it's a hit, I'll dig up a link to the recipe. Click the picture for more.

Leftover-Fest Jambalaya

I got several things accomplished at once today, and I'm kinda proud. Tired, but proud. First of all, the kitchen is clean. The kitchen. Is. Clean. You have no idea how big that is. I made a good, hot dinner, and did it using leftovers and Stuff I Already Had On Hand. That is also huge. AND, everyone ate it. Admittedly, Bella only ate a molecule or two, but she is the preschooler human equivalent of an air fern.

OK, so here's what I had:

Ham left over from what Alex brought home last night
A partial package of frozen tail-on shrimp
Chicken broth that I cooked boil-in-bag rice in last week, and then froze
Three leftover pieces of frozen garlic bread
One packet of instant brown rice
Half a bag of frozen chopped onions
A can of diced tomatoes with peppers, onion and celery
File' powder
Garlic powder
Thyme
Olive Oil
Butter
Louisiana hot sauce
Coarse Kosher salt

And here's what I made with it:

And here's how--again, you can change this up about a million ways, however you like. I started with a pat of butter and a splash of olive oil in a Dutch oven.

Sauteed the onion and garlic (or garlic powder) until browned.

Added about a cup of uncooked, instant brown rice, and a couple cups of chopped ham, stirred to coat in oil.

Added the can of diced tomatoes (the variety with celery and peppers added).

Added the 2-3 cups of chicken broth, that I'd partially thawed in the microwave.

Reduced heat, covered, and simmered for a while, cooking down the liquid, while also adding gumbo file' powder to thicken.

When optimal thickness was reached, added the frozen shrimp and cooked just 'til done, a couple of minutes.

Removed shrimp, pulled tails off because my family would whine about having to do it themselves, put tailless shrimp back into jambalaya, made final adjustments to seasoning and thickness, then served with garlic bread, hey presto.

This is kind of a big deal for me, because I'm bad about accumulating ingredients in my pantry and freezer, and not using them. To stop doing that is one of the goals I'm trying to reach with all this (there are MANY), because to not do so is wasteful of food and money, and we certainly don't have money to spare around here. I work too hard organizing coupon sprees to waste the spoils of my victory.

Southern Fried Chicken

There are as many variations on frying chicken as there are cooks who make it. I'm only going to talk about the ways I make it, and the way I consider to be the best.

This is NOT a dish I make frequently, because, let's face it, it's FRIED chicken, and not exactly diet-friendly. But 3 or 4 times a year, it's a delicious, special treat. I normally use boneless, skinless breast and thigh fillets, but sometimes (like in the pictures to follow) I'll use a cut-up whole chicken, as-is, because Alex likes it that way.

Lots of people deep-fry chicken. I deep-fry nothing, because I find the grease absorption to be just too much, plus you don't have as much control during the cooking process. I pan-fry chicken, and I do it one of two ways that my mother and her mother and her mother did it. One of the only things I added of my own to the process is that I marinate the chicken, sometimes overnight, in buttermilk before cooking. The acid in the buttermilk tenderizes the chicken and helps it retain moisture.

When it comes to coating the chicken, you need a wet component and a dry component. You can just use the buttermilk for your wet wash, taking the chicken pieces directly from buttermilk to the dry coating, and that works just fine, and is the method I used here. But for "classic" fried chicken, you'll want to make your "wash" with eggs. Beat a few eggs with a splash of milk, and use the dry-wet-dry method of coating the chicken: dredge each piece in your flour mixture, then dip it in the egg mixture, then dredge in the flour again. About the flour mixture--just season a shallow dish full of all-purpose flour with whatever suits your taste. It could be as simple as plain ol' salt and pepper, but you can add everything from seasoned salt to poultry seasoning to dried herbs. Just be sure it's blended well with the flour.

Of course, you don't want to coat the chicken pieces until the minute you're ready to cook them. Use a heavy skillet, preferably cast-iron, and pour in about 1/2-inch (less if you're using boneless cuts--you only want the oil to cover about 1/3 of each chicken piece) of fresh vegetable oil (never re-use cooking oil). Heat the oil to medium-high--you'll know it's ready when a bit of flour dropped into the hot oil sizzles. DO NOT add chicken until the oil is hot!

Place coated chicken pieces "pretty side" down in the skillet, and cook at med-high heat until the bottom side is golden-brown. Now you have a choice to make. If you're pressed for time, or if you just like your chicken very crispy, you can turn it over and simply continue to cook it, quickly, at the same heat until it's golden-brown all over and juices run clear when you pierce a piece in its thickest part. That will produce a fine result that anyone would be proud to serve.

BUT. If you want "classic" Southern-Fried Chicken, tender and juicy and melt-in-your-mouth divine, you'll do it just a little differently. Turn the pieces over, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover the skillet, and leave it alone for another 20-30 minutes or more, depending on the thickness of the cuts. The result is well worth the extra time, and will have people in awe of your chicken-frying prowess.

One note--no matter how you're tempted, do not crowd the chicken pieces in the skillet. The skillet shown here is a bit crowded.

Compatible side-dishes for Southern fried chicken include, of course, mashed potatoes and gravy (I'll add a separate post on making chicken gravy--it's easy when you know how, and not nearly as unhealthy as you might think), green beans served with pepper-vinegar sauce, corn on the cob, chow-chow or corn relish, and fried okra. In warmer weather, or for picnics, potato salad and coleslaw are good choices. I've never quite understood or agreed with the serving of baked beans with fried chicken, but apparently a lot of people like that.

Homemade (don't you DARE serve canned) biscuits are a must with fried chicken, and I'll post that recipe next, because it's quick, easy, and delicious, and the same recipe lends itself to delicious chicken and dumplings.