Southern Cooking!

[AlanC]

Corn Bread

Put vegetable oil (or lard) into a cast iron skillet and preheat in a ~410 degree oven.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon soda (if you use sweet milk omit the soda)
1/2 tsp salt (or slightly less depending on taste)
2 heaping tbsps self rising flour
Add home ground white cornmeal until texture is creamy (~ 1 1/2 cups; you want it to pour but not be runny)

Pour mixture into hot skillet, bake for 15-20 mins, until brown. If you use a non-cast iron pan place on the top oven rack to avoid burning the bread.

Spread with butter. Eat. Repeat.

 

[KittyT]

Corn Bread

THANK YOU! I can't wait to try it.

Keep those recipes coming folks! I still want to learn about making good gravy. Someone here has to have mad gravy skills.

 

[freebird]

Chocolate gravy with Cat head biscuits and butter.

Chocolate Gravy

1/2 c cocoa
1/2 c flour
2 c sugar (we substitute splenda)
4 c milk
1 tsp vanilla
oil to coat the bottom of skillet
dash of salt (optional)

This is made just as you would regular flour gravy, add oil to preheated skillet, then combine:
combine cocoa, flour, sugar (or splenda) and salt
add just enough milk to make mixture into a smooth paste
gradually add rest of milk and vanilla, stirring well

Cook over medium heat until thickened

Serve over hot buttered biscuits

 

[duggap]

What is "Vanilla Butter and Nut"?

It is a vanilla bases flavoring. You will find it next to vanilla in your grocery.

 

[KY Gentleman]

Here is a very easy and very good corn bread recipe.

2 cups of flour
2 cups of corn meal
2 cups of water

mix well until its a good consistant batter.

Pour into a pre-heated iron skillet and bake at a high temp until it mushrooms over the top of the skillet and looks golden brown.

Make a pot of pinto beans and you got you a great meal there, and its EASY. (and cheap!).

Thats how we do it anyway.

 

[KY Gentleman]

THANK YOU! I can't wait to try it.

Keep those recipes coming folks! I still want to learn about making good gravy. Someone here has to have mad gravy skills.

You can use sausage grease or melt some butter in a pan.
With that you can add a table spoon or two of flour and mix it into the grease or the melted butter/margarine.

Once the mix is a bit chalky begin adding milk slowly while stirring.
Remember, you can always add milk but you can't take it out!
I usually add about a "pinch" of pepper for taste.

Crumble up a sausage patty if you have one and add it in, too. GOOD.

Bring it to a boil while you stir it, makes a good biscuit gravy.

 

[Miss Crisplock]

My Mother and Grandmother were both from the South, and oh how I remember Coconut Pie. Not Coconut cream pie. Coconut pie. And Chess Pie, Ox tail stew, etc.

I was born in Alaska but still can make a decent pecan pie and pound cake.

Corn bread was sometimes Jiffy, but more often self-rising WHITE cornmeal corn bread. Heaven. In a pan.

Still get happy over Biscuts and Gravy.

My Grandmother taught me some things, but my cousin Johnny spent more time in the kitchen with her; he's now a chef. Maybe I better see if I can get invited to dinner.

 

[KittyT]

Pour into a pre-heated iron skillet and bake at a high temp until it mushrooms over the top of the skillet and looks golden brown.

Question - how does it mushroom over the top if there's no raising agent like baking powder? Do you have to use self-rising flour or cornmeal?

 

[KittyT]

Corn bread was sometimes Jiffy, but more often self-rising WHITE cornmeal corn bread. Heaven. In a pan.

I've used white cornmeal before with my recipe. It's very good!

You can use sausage grease or melt some butter in a pan.
With that you can add a table spoon or two of flour and mix it into the grease or the melted butter/margarine.

I know that mixing in the thickener/flour is the hardest part and that it's very easy for it to get lumpy at this stage. Any tips for doing this correctly?

 

[AlanC]

For good gravy you have to start with some sort of pork grease. Usually just do it in the pan you just fried your bacon or sausage in. Then, as stated above, you put in some flour and stir it around while it browns. Then add milk (with some sort of fat content, not skim), stir until thick. Lumps in gravy isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Here is how my South Carolinian Grandmother cooked collards. It is now my recipe.



1. Wait until at least two hard frosts have "struck" the collards in your area. For me, that is usually late November. There is no point in cooking collards that have not been struck by frost. They will be bitter no matter how hard you try to sweeten them. If it doesn't get cold enough to frost where you live, stop reading now and substitute some other vegetable into your menu.


2. Purchase at least one entire collard plant from a person selling them from the tail gate a pick-up truck. The older the pick-up truck, the better. If you have access to a farmer's market, you may purchase your collards there, but only if you can't find someone selling them from a truck. If the collards in your area can only be found in a grocery store, stop reading now and subsitute some other vegetable into your menu.


3. Carefully---leaf by leaf---wash your collards in cold water. There will normally be sand in them. Bugs, too. Place each leaf on a large cutting board and, with a sharp knife, remove and discard the center stem.


4. Fry out a couple of slices of country ham to create some grease in your collard pot. Just fry the ham in the bottom of the pot; there's no need to use a separate pan. I realize that I may have just lost some of you, but please remember, this is a Southern recipe and something has to be fried. By the way, collards cook down quite a bit, so to end up with enough to feed a large family, you'll have to start with a huge pot full. The pot I use at Thanksgiving holds twenty-four quarts and I could really use a bigger one.


5. After the ham grease cools a bit, remove the ham and place a large, pepper-cured ham hock (or two) into the pot. If you can't find real, pepper-cured ham hocks in your area, stop reading now and substitute some other vegetable into your menu.


6. Add two or three inches of water into the bottom of the pot and bring it to a low boil. Now begin adding the collards. Go ahead and fill'er up 'cause collards cook way, way down. Keep tamping down the leaves untill you've got the pot very full. Now, maintain a very low boil or simmer. Be carefull to not burn the collards by trying to cook them too quickly with too much heat. Also, stir your collards often to begin breaking them up and to prevent the ones on the bottom of the pot from scorching.


7. After the collards have cooked down a bit, cut half of a cabbage into the pot. This is a very important step. The cabbage removes bitterness from the collards. Also, add a bit of sugar at this point. For my fairly large Thanksgiving batch, I use at least two table spoons and may add more if necessary.


8. Allow the collards to slowly cook. Depending on the amount you are preparing, this will take a couple of hours. When they are done, they will look much like cooked spinich but will have a more course texture and will not be as slimey.



Serve your collards with hot pepper vinegar and cornbread.

AF

 

[KY Gentleman]

Question - how does it mushroom over the top if there's no raising agent like baking powder? Do you have to use self-rising flour or cornmeal?

Martha White self rising flour...

 

[KY Gentleman]

I know that mixing in the thickener/flour is the hardest part and that it's very easy for it to get lumpy at this stage. Any tips for doing this correctly?

As you add the milk stir constantly. Hold your spatula flat on the bottom of the pan and stir in a circular motion so you don't spill and the ingredients don't settle on the bottom. Don't stop until it reaches a boil.

 

[Mr_Misanthropy]

Mmmmmmm.......

Atticus Finch, those sound like some spectacular greens! Set me a place at the Thanksgiving table! lol There were a couple of spots where I was supposed to stop reading and pick another vegetable (I'm on the hunt for those ham hocks), but I had to finish reading. Entertaining and informative recipe, thanks for sharing!

There are a lot of great recipes in this thread, I'm going to have to dig up a few of mine.

Right now I really want some cornbread...

 

[AlanC]

Martha White self rising flour...

It's got Hot Rize!

 

[Tamamiko]

So i was just wondering, has anyone tried the Hoppin' John yet?

 

[freebird]

Didn't see the recipe on here, this was the first page I've seen (gonna have to rectify that situation), but we have hoppin john every New Years day. They're some kinda good!

 

[Foofoogal]

Purchase at least one entire collard plant from a person selling them from the tail gate a pick-up truck. The older the pick-up truck, the better.

lol Seriously is the same for diners. Gotta see lots of trucks in the parking lot. What r we going to do if all the trucks disappear. We will starve. lol

 

[Foofoogal]

Pork chops, sausage, or ham and cabbage with red potatoes.
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Get big pot or dutch oven. With maybe 1 or 2 tbsp. of oil fry on low heat 1 onion with some chopped garlic. When they get clear add pork chops, sausage or ham to cover onions. Cook on med. heat to brown meat stirring some. The key is to almost burn the meat with onion but not.
When meat is all brown( not all the way cooked but outside braised) use the top of the pot to take out mixture and load it in the top.
To fixins in bottom of the pot add about 2 cups of water and stir some.
Take a head of cabbage and take off few outer leaves or cut out bad parts. Cut head in 4 pieces and lay in bottom of pot with the water. Put the meat on top of all of this and as it cooks down it will all be ok. Simmer covered on low to medium heat till cabbage cooks down. When you can fit more in the pot after cabbage cooks down you can add cut up little red potatoes with skin still on. Add as personal taste garlic powder, salt and pepper while simmering.
My sons favorite dish. Go crazy and use all the meat for a variety. Takes about 1 1/2 hours to cook down well.

 

[Tamamiko]

Damn you all and your inspiring recipes...
After reading the new posts in here I ended up coming home and making Southern supper.
Sliced tomato and Vidalia onion, cottage cheese with garlic pepper, black eyed peas with celery and green beans, spinach, jalapeño cornbread, and a big juicy ham steak.
Then we followed it with ice cream.