Sweet Potato Pie

I guess we didn't blog this. I have this habit of keeping recipe tabs open until they get blogged, and lo and behold this has been open for more than a month. We made this to use up our farmers market sweet potatoes before we went out of town. Results were actually pretty awesome, and I don't think this is actually that bad for you?

Ingredients

• 2 medium sweet potatoes
• 1/2 stick butter
• 3/4c sugar
• 3/4c milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2tsp cinnamon
• 1/4tsp nutmeg
• 1/4tsp salt
• 1 tbsp dark rum (maybe more?)
• 1 tbsp flour
• 9" pie shell (we used store-bought pre-made. It was fine.)

Preheat the oven to 350.

Cook the sweet potatoes until tender. We peeled and par-boiled them, but when that failed to get them cooked all the way through, we microwaved them until they were very tender. When they are very tender, mash with the remaining ingredients (maybe want to add the sugar and milk first to cool the potatoes a bit - you don't want the eggs to cook when you add them, so make sure the potatoes are sufficiently cool before you do.)

Raise the oven temp to 400. Fill the pie shell and place on a shallow baking dish. Pop it in the oven for 40 minutes Remove and let cool before serving.

Thoughts: We made two pies, actually, because our potatoes were enormous. One of the pies we baked for 40 minutes and the other was more like 60, I think. Either way, the one we baked longer LOOKED like it was overcooked - it was much darker, and we were afraid we had ruined the texture - but it was actually much better. I guess it's very hard to overcook a sweet potato pie, and cooking the thing longer caused a lot of the sugars to caramelize, which gave it a much better flavor. The texture was better, too. So I would say 60 minutes or more may be more the way to go - just start checking on the pie after 40.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - even when we messed it up, we didn't.

Turkey Gumbo

After Thanksgiving, we went to Jeff's house and had amazing leftover turkey gumbo. Pat & Eleanor had given us the turkey carcass from our own feast, so Claire and I were inspired to try it. The recipe we made was ENORMOUS but good. You will almost CERTAINLY want to alter the amount of stuff in this.

Ingredients

• 1/2c oil or leftover bacon grease or something similar
• 1/2c all purpose flour
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 red bell peppers, seeded, chopped
• 4 celery ribs, chopped
• 8 cloves worth of garlic
• 1 tsp cayenne
• 1/4c white vermouth
• 1 tbsp dried thyme
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 28-ounce cans diced tomatoes with juice
• 4-6ish cups turkey stock with turkey
• 1 package (?) andouille sausage (I think about 1 lb), cut into 1/2" slices
• 1 16-ounce packages sliced frozen okra
• 1 lb peeled (tail off) de-veined shrimp.
• Salt to taste
• Gumbo filé to taste

So, it's important to note before you start that we made the turkey stock as follows: chop up the turkey carcass and place in a slow-cooker. Cover with water, and leave for about 24 hours. Fish out any bones. DONE.

In a huge pot, add the grease / oil. Heat until quite hot, then add the flour. Stir around this paste, cooking over medium heat, for about 5 minutes. If you use oil, at least, it's supposed to turn reddish-brown through this process. Ours started out that color, so who knows. Anyway, add the onions, peppers, and celery. Cook until everything is quite soft - about 20 minutes. Then add the garlic and cayenne and cook another couple minutes. Then add the vermouth, thyme, and bay leaves. Turn to high heat and cook for a minute, before you add the tomato, stock, and sausage. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes, then add the okra and simmer for another 10 minutes. Finally add the shrimp and cook until just fully opaque (3-5 minutes). Salt to taste (ours needed quite a lot).

Serve.

Thoughts: Great flavor. Claire and I agree that we could have used more turkey - we could have had more, but we ate a lot of the turkey before we tried this. I think the amount of shrimp and sausage was good, though. We agree that the flavor was great.

Disaster Index: 1/10, but it made so much we'll be eating it for like 2 weeks.

Biscuits

Ingredients
This is actually Alton Brown's grandmother's biscuit recipe.

• 2 cups flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp butter
• 1 cup buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450.
In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients.
Cut the butter into the dry ingredients and then pinch with your fingers like you would with scones.
Add buttermilk and mix until just combined. Dough should be sticky.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface and fold over onto itself a few times to make sure all the flour etc. is incorporated.
Press into a 1-inch thick round.
Use a 2" biscuit cutter (we used a 2" heart-shaped cookie cutter, which worked ok) and push straight down through the dough. Do not use a glass or a jar or whatever. The cutting surface should be very thin. Otherwise you'll squish the dough, and you don't want that.
Place biscuits on a baking sheet.
Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on the top, 15 minutes.

Thoughts: These were easy to make and pretty good. We did a half batch and cooked them for 15 minutes and it was too much -- they were dark gold and a little dry. Luckily, the cure for this is to eat them with gravy, which just makes everyone happy.

Disaster Index: 2/10

The Fat Elvis Sandwich

Okay, so we changed one ingredient.

Ingredients

• 2 slices of bread (we used whole grain, you're supposed to use Hawaiian.)
  
• 3 slices thick cut bacon, cooked and patted dry
  
• peanut butter
  
• 1 banana, sliced and grilled (possibly in bacon fat) until caramelized on both sides.
  

Cook bacon and banana as instructed above. Put peanut butter on the sandwich, followed by bacon and then bananas. Put the sandwich back on the griddle and toast lightly. Serve.

Thoughts: Not much needs to be said about this. Claire put a lot of peanut butter on, which, she evinced, drowned out the bacon flavor too much. In the future, she would use more bacon (or less peanut butter). I thought it could use a spot of jelly or possibly honey, though that might be fixed by using hawaiian bread.

Also this was FANTASTIC. Although I would say it has an artery disaster index of more like 3-7/10, depending on how you make it / whether you fry EVERYTHING in bacon fat (including the sandwich) or nothing.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Collard Greens

Perfect in combination with the grits. The slight acidity of the tomatoes really complements the rich creaminess of the grits.

Ingredients

• some olive oil
  
• 1 smallish onion, chopped
  
• 1 green pepper, chopped
  
• garlic (1tbsp?)
  
• 1lb collard greens, stems removed, chopped coarsely.
  
• 3c chicken stock (or veg, if you don't like flavor)
  
• 1-2 tomatoes, chopped
  
• Salt and pepper
  

In a large pot, saute the pepper and onion until the onion is translucent, then add the garlic and go another minute or so. Throw in the (well cleaned) collard greens and the stock. Bring to a simmer and cover, leaving for about 30 minutes. Fish everything out and toss with the tomatoes.

Thoughts: This recipe was adapted ONLY SLIGHTLY from a recipe by Sunny Anderson, but I have to say: way too liquidy. In the future, I might add 1/2c of stock, let it steam the collard greens, and add more only if it's needed. As such we had to pour it through a strainer. Probably we'll use the stock again at some point, but I would rather we didn't have to. Other than that, it was pretty delicious. It may have been our first time having collard greens, but we would definitely do it again.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cheese grits

Courtesy of Alton Brown

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole milk (you may need more)
• 2 cups water
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 4 ounces cheddar cheese, grated/shredded

Place the milk, water, and salt in a large pot over medium/high heat and bring to a boil. Stir often, so that the milk does not burn. You don't want that.
Once the milk mixture comes to a boil, gradually add the cornmeal while continually whisking. Be careful with this step, because this is when clumps are most likely to form. It might be helpful to use two people for this one, so that one person can whisk violently while the other person delicately sifts the cornmeal into the milk. Whatever.
Once all the cornmeal has been incorporated, decrease the heat to low and cover.
Remove lid and whisk frequently (every 3-4 minutes) to prevent grits from sticking and clumping. You may find that you need to add more liquid. We couldn't bring ourselves to add more whole milk, so we added skim (about 1/2 cup total), and that worked fine.
Cook for 20-25 minutes, until mixture is creamy.
Remove from heat, add the pepper and butter, and whisk to combine. Once the butter is melted, gradually whisk in the cheese a little at a time. Serve immediately.

VARIATION: Add some steamed corn into the grits. It is delicious. I highly recommend it.

Thoughts: Fantastic. The grits sort of have a subtle flavor, but it is a delicious flavor. I can't really imagine them without cheese, but we'll try some variations later, I imagine. Again, we have some pretty major clumps in ours because we didn't add the cornmeal slowly enough, but with some frantic whisking, we managed to make them unnoticeable. Just be careful on this one. Don't eat too much of this in one sitting, or you'll become a fatty. To be completely honest, it pairs nicely with Sauvignon Blanc. How dare you doubt me? Try it.

Disaster index: 1/10