Chopped

Despite a language barrier, Danielle and I work well as a team using hand signals

We had an hour, but it is 20 minutes now until judging and the chicken is raw. And then there is the peanut butter issue.

In our basket at the Char-Broil version of Chopped are the mystery ingredients: a whole chicken, a fennel bulb, a stick of butter, bacon, a wedge of blue cheese, a pineapple and a horrifying jar of chunky peanut butter. We have to use all of them in our dish. The Char-Broil people, who have kindly invited the All-Star Bloggers to a resort outside Atlanta, have thoughtfully provided us with a nifty “kitchen” consisting of two disposable cutting boards, a half sheet pan, a moderately sharp knife, and four miniscule bowls.

Fear the Diva

But I have the ace card in my corner. My teammate is Danielle Dimovski, the reigning world pork champion better known as Diva Q. I am totally set here. This is going to be a walk in the park. “I know exactly what we’re going to do,” says Danielle as she hacks away at the pineapple. “We’re going to make beer-can chicken but we’re going to use the pineapple as the beer can. We can totally do this in an hour.” I have a slightly difficult time understanding her. Danielle is from Canada and she uses words like “aboat” (about) and “hoose” (house). Then again I use words like “haid” (head) and “bidness” (business). We have a slight language barrier, but we’ll work through that.

There are screaming hot Char-Broil TRU-Infrared grills set up around the Lake Pavilion at Serenbe, an insanely gorgeous planned community. Danielle slams that chicken onto the pineapple spike, rubs on some spices and citrus juice (the bloggers have a common “pantry” of additional ingredients we can use),  slaps the whole thing authoritatively on the grill and slams the lid shut.

If you’ve ever watched Chopped, the Food Network Show where four chefs are given mystery baskets of insanely inappropriate ingredients, you will understand that Danielle and I had to take a few minutes to ponder the butter, blue cheese, bacon, fennel and peanut butter.

Bacon? Obviously, no problem. We cook it on a grill pan. Fennel? Shave it and briefly kiss it with some grill marks. Alrighty then. We’re left with the butter, blue cheese and peanut butter. Yummy, yum, yum.

I am slightly reticent to offer suggestions to the world pork champion, but I wonder if we can’t use the peanut butter with some barbecue sauce to make a dipping sauce for the chicken. Why the hell not? We throw the peanut butter, barbecue sauce, a bit of lemon juice and a bit of Worcestershire into one of our pygmy bowls.  We throw in some bacon grease and butter. It looks like baked beans. But it tastes good.

It is now 20 minutes before turn in. Danielle lifts the lid of the grill. The chicken is…raw. Plan B. Plan B! This woman is a rock star. She takes the knife and dissects that chicken right on the grill! Two chicken breasts off the bird and onto the grill. I retreat to make a vinaigrette for the fennel.

Grilled chicken with fennel slaw and our almost-award-winning pineapple and bacon bites

I am going to cut to the chase.We made a grilled chicken breast over grilled fennel slaw in a citrus vinaigrette topped with blue cheese and bacon crumbles. But the single thing that makes our dish is this: We took some of the pineapple, cut into spears, and grilled it. Then we topped it with our peanut butter barbecue sauce concoction and then we put a strip of bacon on top. Sweet and salty on top of sweet and salty. They were over the top. The chicken and the fennel, not so much. Danielle and I knew this. Even though we don’t speak the same language we are realists.

We got honorable mention, based solely on our pineapple bacon bites. The winner was a New York

Christo modest in victory

City chef, Christo Gonzales, who made a chicken breast stuffed with fennel, bacon and blue cheese with a peanut butter and citrus jus. What a show off. Oh, I’m sorry. That’s not ladylike. But we’re not bitter. We applauded Christo, took a bite of his chicken and conceded we were outdone.

I will say this. After the competition, we had quite a few pineapple bacon bites left. And one by one, our fellow bloggers slowly sauntered over to our station and ate them all. I’m just sayin’.

Grilled blackened catfish with melon salsa and creamy grits

Hey, ya’ll. The weather’s finally warming up and it’s time to get outside to do some cooking. I have a great recipe (she said modestly) for blackened catfish using my trusty black-iron skillet on the grill. It’s posted on the Char-Broil site and if you would be so kind as to hop over there and take a look I’d be in your debt. Just click the link. Go ahead. Click it. Thank you.

Grilled meatloaf with garbage can mashed potatoes

Oh, you want this. You so want this. Smoky meatloaf and mashed potatoes studded with all the good stuff. You want it so badly, you need to hop on over to the Char-Broil site and take a look-see. I promise you will not be disappointed.

For those of you new to this blog, I am also a Char-Broil All Star Blogger and the good folks at Char-Broil prefer that my blogs for them are exclusive to their site. So get on over there. And leave a comment! Makes me look good to the guys or gals in the front office. Hey, I want a front office. What is that exactly, anyway?

A college student cooks…well

Noah checks out

Teachable moments. When a child is five, it seems there are a thousand of them. By the time they’re twelve, the stack starts to dwindle. And, at almost 20, I am now down to five or six. Or so it seems.

Noah wants an apartment next year and, with that, will come cooking his own meals. He will have a budget of $100 a week (what, in a year, his meal plan would cost) and I am superior in my assumption that he has no idea how to make that money stretch for a week. So we test the theory. We go to the grocery store with a calculator.

We hit the perimeter of the store first. That’s where you want to shop. The produce, meat and dairy sections. Only go to the dark side for staples like pasta, oil and spices. Hamburger Helper? NO! Chips Ahoy? DANGER! Velveeta? Okay, you’ve got me there. I love me some Velveeta.

So, to make a long story short, he did great. Dammit. He bought (I bought) a package of chicken breasts, thin-cut pork chops and two pounds of bulk sausage. Low rent ham for sandwiches. Lower rent bread. Frozen vegetables, rice, pasta, apples, coffee, canned soup and store brand cheese. He bypassed the relatively expensive convenience foods. He was unsuitably smug in his victory and totally discounted the fact that I had guided him away from the frozen pizza.

Having a basket full of groceries and knowing what to do with them are two different things, however.

Pork chops, mashed potatoes and green beans

Hah! I’ll get him here. “So, son?” I say coyly. “Why don’t you cook us supper with your new groceries? Just whip something up. Anything, really.”

And I leave. I go down to the garage to smoke and play World of Warcraft, confident in the fact that when I ascend again there will be mass chaos, a smoke-filled kitchen and burnt shards of something inedible on the plate.

“Mom?” he says. “Supper’s ready.”

I ascend. I gasp. How did friggin’ Emeril Lagasse find my kitchen? Noah has made coffee rub/breadcrumb coated pork chops, cooked perfectly until just rosy in the middle. He has made buttery mashed potatoes with garlic. He has made hericot verts with garlic. Alright, too much garlic but I am not going to quibble. It was all delicious.

So, tonight we go again. Chicken breasts, chopped green and yellow pepper, red onion, mushrooms.

Chicken, peppers, mushrooms and pasta. Noah style.

He chops the chicken and seasons it with Montreal Chicken Seasoning. Sautes in oil, removes the chicken and then adds the vegetables.  When they’re nice and brown he adds a bit of Madeira (not something he’ll have on campus – I can’t see you)  and then adds a can of cream of mushroom soup. This is going to suck, I think. He thins the soup with milk, adds back the chicken, and then puts the entire mixture over pasta.

Dang it! It’s good. If I hadn’t watched him add the soup, I would never have known. I had seconds. And I wasn’t being polite.

I am proud of my boy. I would like to think that my miniscule attempt at one of the last few teachable moments had the seeds of germination in the hours he’s spent watching me cook over the last 19 years. But as I told him tonight there is no way to teach someone to cook. You either have the intuition or you don’t. You’re a recipe follower or you’re a creator. You can pick up tips and tricks, but you have to just have the knowledge of what goes with what and how much in your gut.

And he has it. No brag, just fact.

Mushrooms in red wine

I like to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

As you can see, nothing but the finest will do for me. A friend of Noah’s, who is from France and whose family is in the wine business, was holding forth with my son about the virtues of various vintages. “My mom loves wine!” he said cheerfully. What kind, the friend asked. “The kind in the box.”

I used to like the kind in the bottle, but certain things have to go during  a recession. And it was pointed out by my wine purveyor that wine in a box stays fresher longer. That, of course, is not an issue with me. I don’t get within six months of the expiration date for wine. Does wine ever expire? Not at my house.

And some of it actually finds its way into the food. My spaghetti sauce is about 70 proof. Equal amounts of crushed tomatoes and red wine. It also appears in pan sauces. Saute some seasoned chicken breasts, add some white wine and scrape up all the good bits on the bottom of the pan. Let the wine reduce by half and swirl in a bit of butter.

Noah has loved mushrooms in red wine since he was a little boy. Oh, I just realized I have been feeding my son alcohol since he was 10. Too late now. They say most of the alcohol burns off.

So the trick to sauteing mushrooms, and I’m sorry to repeat myself but some of you may not have had your listening ears on, is that you have to crank up the heat and cook them through the stage where they leach out all the water. If you stop while all that liquid is in the pan what you have are steamed mushrooms. You want a nice mahogany color on them, whether you’re adding red wine or not.

And since I’ve already admitted that I drink box wine, I’ll also admit that while I have several very nice sets of wine glasses, I often drink it in a Solo cup. There’s nothing like sitting in the garage (because we have banned ourselves from smoking in the house), playing World of Warcraft, and sipping wine from a Solo cup. That’s living, my friends.

Mushrooms in red wine

2 tablespoons butter

8 ounces sliced fresh mushrooms

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/3 cup red wine

Melt the butter in saute pan over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms and season with salt, pepper and the thyme. Saute them until all the liquid has evaporated and they are a nice golden brown. Add the wine and continue cooking until all the wine has been absorbed into the mushrooms.

 

 

Mini pork sandwiches and black-eyed pea salsa

If you’re from the South, you know the drill. You now officially have six days to plan your good luck New Year’s Day meal. It must include some kind of pig so you’ll live high off the hog, some greens for money and black-eyed peas for luck. This year I spread the luck quotient around by posting my pork sandwiches with spinach spread and black-eyed pea salsa to the rest of the country on the Char-Broil blog. So please, ya’ll, hop on over there and get your shopping list started!

The third Saturday in October: Cherry tomatoes and despair

It is the third Saturday in October. There are beautiful sweet cherry tomatoes at the Farmer’s Market. That will be a bright spot in an otherwise trying day.

The third Saturday in October is the Tennessee-Alabama game. It is also right smack dab on or near to Mark’s birthday every year. It’s kind of like getting married the day before April 15, which we did. Our anniversary is always tinged with bitterness as we ready our tax return – and check – to our hapless, idiot government that will waste it on $47 screws. Speaking of screwed, we as a country are right now. I want to go to Wall Street and protest. But I can’t afford the plane ticket, this being a stinkin’ recession and all.

But I digress. So, most years, Tennessee does not do well against Alabama. Most years, I watch the game in the bedroom so I do not have to hear Mark’s constant screaming at the TV. Most years, we start drinking before halftime so that by the end of the game we have a hard time remembering who was even playing. It gets that bad. Happy birthday, honey! He does not tell me to shut up, but he is thinking it.

This year, the game was played on the eve of Mark’s birthday. We got clobbered. Taken to the cleaners. Whooped upside the head. Mark was inconsolable and headed to the deck for solitude so he could properly wallow in his depression. I tip-toe out there. He is pretending to read. I imagine the title of the book: “Hurts so bad: What it means to be a Tennessee fan.” Happy birthday, honey! Happy birthday? Oh, never mind.

So, there is nothing in the world to cure a bad case of depression like Eggs Benedict, which I make him this morning now that he has gotten his appetite back. If you are afraid of making hollandaise and resort to that little packet in the grocery store, please reconsider. It takes five minutes and it never fails. Here’s the recipe.

And the cherry tomatoes, tossed with some fresh basil, salt, pepper and olive oil are a perfect side dish. Hollandaise sauce? Bad, bad, bad but oh so good! Tomatoes are redemption every second bite. I am loading up on restorative food to erase the horror of last night. Supper will be his favorite dish, mustard chicken. And then German chocolate cake for dessert, not just like his mother used to make because I got it at my beloved Publix. But it’s the thought that counts.

Panko fried pork chops

I am going to get off on a tangent right away. I made these wonderful panko fried pork chops last night and it took me right back to the Snappy Lunch in Mt. Airy, N.C. and their world-famous fried pork chop sandwich. In another life, when I was the movie critic for the Charlotte Observer, I traveled to far-off Mt. Airy to do a story about the enduring nostalgia of Mayberry and the Andy Griffith Show. Mt. Airy was the model for Mayberry and the Snappy Lunch was a part of that landscape. The story turned out fine, but the biggest hit of the trip was eating a fried pork chop sandwich at the Snappy Lunch. Oh, my goodness. Deep-fried goodness.

The fried pork chop sandwich features a pork chop that cannot be contained by a mere hamburger bun. It overflows on every side. It is deep fried and then topped with coleslaw and a slice of tomato. It was utterly delicious and after consuming the entire thing I did not even care if my interview with Andy Griffith was a tad testy (sadly, he was not very nice) or my disappointment that Aunt Bea would not talk to me at all (she had turned into kind of a recluse).

So last night I was thinking of those sandwiches when I made the panko fried pork chops. I am quite sure that panko is not even a known quantity at the Snappy Lunch but I have come to adore it (or them). Panko are Japanese bread crumbs. They’re very crunchy and they’re the perfect coating for frying.

And talk about easy. Here’s what you do. Take some of the bread crumbs and put them on a plate. Mix in a little salt, pepper and whatever dried herbs you like. I usually use oregano. Now, rinse the chops in cold water and press the bread crumbs on both sides. Some people use the flour/egg/bread crumb method but I think that’s a complete waste of time.

Get a generous amount of vegetable oil hot in a skillet and fry them until both sides are golden brown. You want your pork to be on the rosy side so don’t cook the hell out of it. Just press down on the second side and if it gives a little, take it out of the pan!

I am not embarrassed to say that I usually serve these pork chops with that five-minute dressing out of a box. I have determined, after making about 437 pans of dressing, that you cannot tell the difference and sometimes that boxed dressing is even better.

Cafeteria food

No, it is not what you think at all.

Broken-hearted, once again, I have taken Noah back to the University of Tennessee for his sophomore year. And he invites Bunny and me to eat in the cafeteria for lunch. “Umm, O.K.,” says Bunny tentatively. She and I both remember college cafeteria food from the 1970s. When you were required to have a meal ticket because the university’s revenue stream would dry flat up if they couldn’t force kids to eat in the cafeteria.

Well, just let me say this. There are no starving college students at the University of Tennessee if they are on the unlimited meal plan. Oh, my God. We walk in and Bunny and I are stunned. The cafeteria is actually a food court at a Las Vegas casino. Somehow, it has found its way to Knoxville and is catering to a bunch of ignorant college kids who don’t know anything about starving and do not seem to be the least bit grateful about it. This is the homemade taco station where the chef prepares your tacos before your very eyes. But wait. There’s so much more. And I will have to go to the thumbnail photos to get this all in.

Bunny and I wander the cavernous cafeteria, not sure where to start. There’s the Asian station with stir fry, again prepared before your very eyes. There is the roast loin of pork, haricot vert and mashed potatoes. There is the sandwich station, where once you prepare your sandwich as you like it, you can press it on a panini press!

But wait. There’s more! Like pizza? Of course, you do. You’re an ignorant college student who doesn’t understand that it is highly unusual to watch pizza dough being thrown right in front of you and your hand-crafted pizza being delivered just minutes later. Are you kidding me? I’ve been to Vegas and this is better.

Bunny and I spend an hour just wandering around and trying to figure out what to eat. Noah is impatient. This is no big deal. Oh, yes it is. We finally start to choose and it is embarrassing. I start with pizza and salad from the designer salad bar. Bunny starts with a beef and broccoli stir fry and Asian noodles. I move on to tacos after sneaking a healthy portion of mac and cheese off Noah’s plate. Bunny goes all out with a hot dog smothered in chili, pizza and French fries. I think, for a moment, she has actually transported herself back to college. Look at us. They say youth is wasted on the young. Truer words.

But wait. There’s more. You like soft serve ice cream with colored sprinkles? Oh, yes. Bunny needs a few sprinkles these days. She called it a party in a bowl. But the real deal, the over-the-top winner is the sweet pizza with chocolate sauce and M&Ms. I am dead serious.

I am now officially jealous. Noah says the menu changes every day. At every station.  But the capper had nothing to do with the food.

When we walk in on Noah’s first full day back at school there is Janice. Janice would be called the maître d‘ if there were justice in the world, but she is the cashier at this food palace. And she loves my Noah. She gives him a big, proper hug and then asks me for my lasagna recipe. Noah has told her of my lasagna. I love the both of them. Noah is well fed and he is looked after by the amazing Janice. Would it be considered untoward to move into the dorm with my son just so I can eat at the Presidential Court cafeteria? Perhaps I will just move a sleeping bag into the cafeteria next week and take up residence. I thought Noah was on the unlimited food plan at our house this summer. But I was so wrong. So very, very wrong.

 

Food therapy

It would be unseemly to boast about the exceptional quality of the funeral food that arrived at Bunny’s house after the passing of  my father-in-law. That would indicate there is a pecking order in the desirability of funeral food, which there decidedly is not. Just as the pawns lie down with the kings in death, the pimento cheese stands proudly next to the triple chocolate bundt cake in the funeral food hierarchy.

However,  I will say that the ladies of Knoxville displayed a certain level of brilliance. Funeral food begins arriving the second the departed has been carted off to the funeral home, or in this case off to the University of Tennessee Medical Center where Paul donated his body to science. Bunny barely made it back to the house before the knocks at the back door began. Here came beer-braised beef, cheese grits casserole and creamed spinach. Here came the much beloved pimento cheese, chicken salad and apple cake. Here came the curried artichoke rice salad, the cream cheese coffee cake and, in a tour de force, the chocolate chip cookies with both crushed malted milk balls and Ovaltine. It is very difficult for the bereaved to pick at their food in the South.

Bunny does not lose control of her kitchen lightly. And it lasted about one day. Saturday morning, she cracked. “We’re going to have at least 20 people here tonight for supper,” she said. “I am going to make shrimp salad, pasta salad, deviled eggs and tuna salad.” Please keep in mind that there is enough food in the house to feed the entire University of Tennessee football team for the entire season.

Horrified, her sister, Brenda, stepmother Sandra and I stepped in. “You are to do no such thing!” we said. “Just let us take care of everything.” Daggers. If Bunny could send daggers from her eyes directly to our hearts she would have. But we are also wise

Brenda, Bunny and Sandra in food therapy

Southern women and it did not take a second to realize that a food therapy session was about to begin. Bunny needed to make something. She needed some small measure of control. Shrimp salad was control. We stepped back. We couldn’t help ourselves. We started to laugh. Laughter through tears is our favorite emotion. We had a good laugh. A belly cruncher.

Well, just let me say that the knocks at the back door didn’t stop all weekend. And neither did the friends of Paul and Susan who stopped by to offer a hug, lend a shoulder and provide more Kleenex when appropriate. Somehow in the South, funerals can be oddly life affirming. They are gatherings of family and friends, sharing beloved memories of the departed and copious amounts of food.

By Monday, we were on to hamburgers on a grill that Paul had probably not used in five years. Brenda’s husband, Jim, fixed what was broken, got more propane, fired it up in the rain and grilled his heart out. I need to pause here to say that the single best grilled beef tenderloin I have ever eaten came off that grill at the hands of Paul Harbin. It was good to have the grill back in action.

I am fairly certain that I gained five pounds in four days. And I can say with certainty that we ate better than at any four-star restaurant in New York City. A huge part of honoring the dead in the South is to nourish those left behind, both spiritually and literally. A knock at the door. A casserole dish. Funeral food.

Cheese Grits

Cook according to package directions:

1 cup grits, quick (not instant!)

4 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

Add:

1 roll garlic cheese (Kraft)

1 stick butter

Stir until melted.

Mix in another bowl:

2 beaten eggs

¼ cup milk

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Red pepper to taste

Add to grits mixture

Put in a 1.5 quart casserole and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour.

(Note: Inexplicably, Kraft stopped making the garlic cheese rolls, although I include it in the recipe delivered to the back door in case any of you are hoarding it. If you cannot find it, substitute 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese and 2 tablespoons sauteed minced garlic.)