Sara Evans's Peas and Mushroom Alfredo

Tim McGraw may prefer that old fashioned, down-home style of cooking like Chicken and Dumplings, but not every Country Music Star eats Southern.

“Good Housekeeping Magazine” recently printed a Sara Evans’s favorite recipe. The “Cheatin’” and “Real Fine Place To Start” singer chose an Italian influenced entree that would appeal to an audience wider than her Country Music fan base.

Sara Evans’s Peas and Mushroom Alfredo is as up-to-date and trendy “As If” it came from a New York Bistro.

Sara Evans’s Peas and Mushroom Alfredo:

1 pound of fettuccine pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 10 ounce package sliced mushrooms
1 15 to 18 ounce jar Alfredo Sauce
1 10 ounce package frozen peas
1 to 2 cups grated Romano Cheese

Cook the fettuccini in a large saucepan, and set aside. Meanwhile in a large saute pan, heat the olive oil and saute the mushrooms until lightly browned. Add Alfredo sauce and peas and heat through. Grate the cheese with a cheese grater. Stir in one cup of the cheese.

Drain the fettuccini in a colander. In a large serving type bowl, toss the fettuccine and Alfredo sauce mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot with the remaining Romano Cheese.

Serves 6.

Faith Hill's Cornbread

Erma, I’ll have to pass on those Shania Twain recipes to Mel. He does make a mean apple pie. No, that’s not right. His wife bakes a mean apple pie. Still not right. His wife bakes lots of mean apple pies. Like a dozen a day. Every day. All year long. Year after year.

And she must like Shania Twain. Or at least Mel plays her music a lot at the Diner.

Another Mel’s Country Music Special at the Diner is Faith Hill’s Easy Country Cornbread.
I just noticed that Mel’s favorite recipes and singers are all good looking female singers. Wonder if there is some connection here?

Anyway, this is Southern Cornbread as you taught me to like it Erma. I know that you throw up your hands in horror at the thought of The Sacred Cornbread being served like a soft, sweet cake. I don’t know if Faith Hill is a “Mississippi Girl’ or not, but she must be from way below the Mason-Dixon Line as her Cornbread is definitely Southern in taste and presentation. Faith must have had a grandmother like yours with a heavy, black cast iron skillet.

Mel often brings this Cornbread to the table straight out of the oven. You know what he looks like in his white apron. Imagine that big guy carrying a heavy black skillet with potholders, and then flipping out a giant cake of yellow cornbread on your plate. It just cries for a slathering of butter.

“There You’ll Be” with a piece of buttered cornbread in “Sunshine and Summertime.” Or Wintertime. Or Falltime.

Faith Hill’s Easy Country Cornbread:

3 tablespoons Crisco Butter Shortening
1 ½ cups Martha White Yellow Cornmeal Mix
1 egg
1 ½ cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place the Crisco in an iron skillet and melt the shortening in the oven.

In a mixing bowl, mix egg, cornmeal mix and buttermilk. Pour the melted shortening into the mixture, leaving a small amount in the skittle so the bread will not stick. Stir in the shortening. Sprinkle a bit of dry cornmeal mix in the skillet and then pour in the cornbread mixture. Bake at 500 degrees until golden brown.

EAT AT ONCE!!

Toby Keith's Black-Eyed Peas

No, Max, I am not a Good Ole Girl heading off to watch NASCAR races, but I do like some Country Music. I have to. The only radio stations that we can seem to pick up in the shop are country. So, yes dear, I know who Martina McBride is–and her Favorite Smoked Pork Chops sound divine.

Want a real Country meal? Serve those chops with Toby Keith’s Black-Eyed Peas. As you know black-eyed peas are a Southern tradition on New Years. Supposed to bring you good luck for the next year. So, of course, when we were in Las Vegas two years ago on New Year’s Eve, we had to go to The I Love This Bar & Grill to have REAL Southern comfort food. That was a pretty good year for the company, so maybe there is something in that superstition.

Toby Keith’s Black-Eyed Peas as Prepared at the I Love This Bar & Grill:

1 10 ounce can black-eyed peas
4 strips bacon
2 tablespoons bacon fat
¾ cup of diced red onion
2 tablespoons Cowboy Mix (below)

Dice the bacon and place in a Dutch Oven type heavy pot. Along with the bacon fat and the red onion. Fry until the onion begins to change color. Add the can of peas and the Cowboy Mix. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes at a hard boil.

Makes 2 to 4 servings

Cowboy Mix:

4 tablespoons kosher salt
¼ tablespoon pasilla powder
2 tablespoons granulated garlic
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons black pepper

Mix and use where ever a Tex-Mex flavor is wanted. Store in a small, tightly covered container. This will “fire up” any thing it touches.

Martina McBride's Smoked Pork Chops

Erma Elizabeth McCall, I can’t believe that you are promoting a NASCAR recipe!! What is the world coming to?

You, who thinks the only proper racing involves four footed horses at Keeneland and Churchill Downs now has become a NASCAR fan? I just knew that somewhere under all that prim and proper Southern Lady facade, there lurked a hidden Good Ole Boy side of you. Next thing I know, you’ll be driving down to Talladega or Daytona and trading recipes out in the infield!! Dear, early senility may be taking over your por’ little brain.

So, just to keep up with your Down Home Country/NASCAR side, I’m sending you some Country Music star’s recipes.

Mel, from Mel’s Diner fame, right here in downtown Dutch Corners, has been featuring a pork chop recipe he says came straight from some big restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee. Mel loves Country Music (that’s all he plays at the Diner), and he especially loves Martina McBride. “Wild Angels” seems to play non-stop during dinner.

Any how, Mel went down to Nashville and ate at this place that claimed these Smoked Pork Chops were Martina’s favorite dish. Mel, naturally, conned the cook into sharing the recipe and it has been a staple at the Diner ever since.

With all of Iowa’s pork, any different recipe for the faithful pork chop is a welcomed friend. These have become something of a Saturday night Special at Mel’s, and he must make up a hundred or so each week.

P.S. You can reuse the marinade. With that whole vanilla bean, this aint a cheap brine. Just bring it to a boil after you remove the chops and store it in the fridge and it is ready for the next batch of Martina McBride’s Favorite Smoked Pork Chops from Cabana in Nashville, or from Mel’s Diner in beautiful downtown Dutch Corners.

Martina McBride’s Favorite Smoked Pork Chops from Cabana in Nashville:

6 large center-cut pork chops–make that HUGE thick chops

Marinade:

1 quart of water
¼ cup sorghum
¼ cup salt
1 teaspoon brown sugar
10 whole black peppercorns
2 cinnamon sticks
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out

Bring all the Marinade ingredients to a boil in a large saucepan. Simmer for several minutes and then cool to room temperature. Place chops and marinade in a large, covered casserole, and place in the refrigerator for one to two days.

Pat dry the chops. In a home smoker or good closed barbeque grill, smoke the chops at 160 degrees with fruit flavored wood chips until the chops reach at least 150 degrees. Use a thermometer to test.

Serves 6.

Fried Green Apples

Yesterday, as I was thinking about how to incorporate all the fresh garden vegetables, and blackberries, into menus I realized that one fruit that was missing out of the mix was green apples. Thanks that to that late April freeze, we have hardly a dozen apples on any of our trees. Usually by now the trees are having their first drop of excess hard little green apples. As a kid it took only one encounter with a sour green apple to learn that they were unedible, and good for nothing but throwing at friends. But they do make delicious Fried Green Apples.

This treat must have developed back when you only ate what you grew so nothing could go to waste. A mess of Fried Green Apples could be made by the least skilled cook on an open hearth. All you needed was a heavy iron skillet over some coals, apples, and some sort of sweetener. I suppose pioneers used honey or molasses and ate them tarter than we do. Green apples for most farm families were the first fruits of the season, and what a treat it must have been to have some fresh fruit.

Unless you have your own apple trees, nobody fixes the Fried Green Apples anymore. I know Max, that you have some apple trees so you can try this heirloom recipe. If using the green apples, you will probably need to add a bit of water and cook longer on a lower temperature. Ripe apples cook up in as little as 10 to 15 minutes.

Southern Country Fried Apples:

6 apples
3 tablespoons fresh bacon fat, or butter
1/3 cup sugar

Peel, core, and slice the apples. (We sometimes did not even peel them.)

Heat the bacon fat, or butter, is a hot heavy skillet with lid. When the fat sizzles, add the apples. Cover and cook quickly. Cook until the apple slices are soft and there is still some juice in the pan. Time depends on age and type of apples.

Take off the lid and sprinkle the sugar over the apples. Stir and cook, uncovered, until the liquid is absorbed. Apples should begin to brown.

Serves 6

In the past, Fried Apples were served with the main part of the meal, just like a vegetable. My family prefers them as a dessert with biscuits or cornbread. The leftovers reheat well for supper or breakfast.

Some cooks gussey this up with cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, but then you have Apple Sauce or Apple Butter.

More Traditional Southern Cucumbers

So you have become a convert to the Shaker style of cooking? I often pull out some of my old Shaker cookbooks, and just read them. It was the Shaker cookbooks that first introduced me to the concept of using herbs in everyday cooking.

Think about it, when we were growing up, the average recipe called for salt and pepper as a flavoring. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla went into desserts, and that was about it. Herbs were exotic things we read about in historical books from the Medieval Period. Did you know anyone who grew their own herbs? Not likely.

Then as a teenager, Shakertown at Pleasant Hill near Harrodsburg, Kentucky opened up as a working museum. Their dining room featured real Shaker food served in that wonderful house with the two story spiral staircase, and out back was a Shaker style herb garden. They smelled so good. I was inspired to try and grow my own herb garden, and ever since herbs have been a part of our landscape.

Cucumbers with White Vinegar Dressing is something that appeared daily on the table here, and probably everywhere, when families ate whatever the garden produced. The Shaker touch was the addition of the chopped dill, which adds just a hint of additional flavor.

Cucumbers with White Vinegar Dressing:

3 medium sized cucumbers
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon finely cut fresh dill
Optional: One medium onion, cut in thick rings.

Wash cucumbers and cut off each end. (Rub the cut ends over your face and get an instant cooling facial). Leave the peel on unless you are using waxed cucumbers from the grocery. (Ugh!). Slice cucumbers very thin and place in a deep bowl. Sprinkle with salt. Stir a bit and then place a smaller heavy bowl, like a cereal bowl, to weigh the cucumbers down.

Chill in the fridge for a hour or two. Drain in a collander and wash with fresh water.

Stir the vinegar and sugar together until sugar is completely dissolved. Add cucumbers and dill, (and onions if using) and chill for an hour or so until serving.

Serves 3 to 6 as a side dish.

After you serve the cucumbers, you can use the left over marinade over a salad. It is quite mild and is excellent over plain sliced tomatoes.

Home Style Southern Corn Pudding

Max, what finally converted you to keeping Drunken Raisins on hand? Could it be the pickup nibbling a couple of iron-rich Drunk Raisins? I keep mine right above the stove so they are handy anytime I want a snack.

Recently I had a terrible Corn Pudding at a pot luck dinner. It was thin, runny and obviously made with a can of corn. I know that puddings are usually soft, but Corn Pudding, at least where I grew up, is dense and has little filler between the kernels of corn.

I suspect that Corn Pudding originated as a way to use fresh corn after it got a little tough for eating off the cob. At any rate, the old fashioned kind always had a slightly chewy top.

The secret to real Southern Corn Pudding is using fresh corn and scraping the milky part off the cob. That makes a thick binder of the milk part. When you make it with just plain corn kernels it isn’t thick, and even canned creamed corn won’t substitute satisfactorily.

Through the week, we had corn on the cob, or pan fried corn every day. On Sunday Corn Pudding would appear on the menu as a change of pace. It was also a staple on picnics as it was easy to carry and was good at room temperature.

Corn Pudding:

2 cups corn, cut from the cob
1/3 cup sugar
½ tea spoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
Scant 2 cups rich milk, or evaporated milk
3 tablespoons melted butter
½ teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1 green or red pepper, cut into rings, Optional

Cut the corn off the cob with a downward slice. Then take your sharp knife and scrape all the remaining pulp into the bowl. (It is this lack of corn pulp that makes Corn Pudding made with canned or frozen corn not the real thing.) Beat the eggs and milk with a whip. Add the butter and corn pulp and stir well.

Butter the insides well of a 1 ½ quart casserole like the Corningware French Casserole. Sprinkle the nutmeg on top. Top with thin pepper rings if desired. They are mostly for color.

Bake at 350 for 35 to 45 minutes. A clean knife inserted in the pudding should come out clean and the top should be golden. The kernels on the top are supposed to be slightly chewy.

This makes 4 to 6 servings.