All the Comforts of Home

I love the Willie Dixon tune “Built for Comfort,” probably because, as the song says, I am built for comfort, I ain’t built for speed.  And the kind of comfort I am most built for is the kind that comes from the food I grew up with.

SOUTHERN COMFORT

Grandma Blanche wasn’t really southern.  But then, she wasn’t really our grandma, either. Our Grandma Wright—Ruby Gladys Archer before she married Grandpa and became Ruby Wright—died a few months before I turned 4, so I don’t remember a lot about her, and it’s hard to separate what I actually remember from the stories we grew up with.  Can I really see her driving down the highway singing “Get out the way, for Old Dan Tucker, Old Dan Tucker’s too late for supper” or do I just think I do?  I’m pretty sure I don’t actually remember Daddy preaching her funeral, telling the assembled mourners, “For years I’ve carried the Gospel, and now the Gospel carries me,” but I feel like I do.

Grandpa married Grandma Blanche not too terribly long after Grandma Wright died, and I don’t know that his children ever forgave her for that.  Not so much for the marriage, but for the fact that she got to be with Grandpa in the easy years, when life was good and money wasn’t so tight, the years that Grandma Wright should have been able to enjoy after a lifetime of scrimping and saving and doing without.

Daddy died a year after Grandma Wright, and the wreck that forever changed Mama’s life came a year later.  Grandma Blanche helped get us through that.  She and Grandpa took me to kindergarten and watched me after school.  Grandpa was kind of scary—tall, with whiskers that scratched when he held you on his lap in his big yellow Naugahyde chair—but sometimes in the car he would belt out a song from his days as a soldier in World War I:  “My gal’s a corker, she’s a New Yorker, I buy her everything to keep her in style, She’s got a pair of hips, just like two battleships, Hey boys, that’s where my money goes.”  When he sang those old songs, even a five year old could see the grin in Grandpa’s eyes. Then, when I was 7, Grandpa Wright died and it seems like most of the family quit having anything to do with Grandma Blanche.  But not us.  She lived just up the road and we went to the same church, so we saw her every week, and often as not we’d end up after church at her house for Sunday dinner. Like I said, Grandma Blanche wasn’t really southern, but when she got the skillet going for Sunday dinner at her house, she was as southern as the Colonel—and without the need for his secret herbs and spices.

She wasn’t really our grandma, and yet she was. She had a grandma’s kindness.  She made quilts for us.  She was the first person I knew with a carpeted kitchen, and when she had us over to show off the brand new rug and I spilled a gallon of strawberries in deep, staining red juice on it, she hugged me instead of scolding me. She cared for us, and we cared for her.  When her son died too young, it was my shoulder she leaned on at the cemetery after the funeral.  She was my grandma in every way that mattered.

Fried chicken

I wish I had Grandma Blanche’s recipe for fried chicken, but I don’t so this will have to do.  My memory is that she cooked hers in Crisco—not shortening, a word I don’t ever remember hearing her say, but Crisco—in an electric skillet, but I’m going to pretend that she used cast iron.

Ingredients:

1 chicken, cut into frying pieces

 2 cups buttermilk

1 egg

3 Tablespoons kosher salt

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

2 Tablespoons smoked paprika

Garlic powder, cayenne pepper, or other spices if you want

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 cups peanut oil, lard, or Crisco (I like lard because I think, probably incorrectly, that it adds more flavor to the gravy, but, like I said, I’m pretty sure Grandma Blanche used Crisco)

Directions

Put the chicken in a bowl or large ziploc bag.  Mix 2 tablespoons of salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, and 1 tablespoon smoked paprika and any other seasoning you’re using in the buttermilk, then pour the buttermilk mixture over the chicken. Cover the bowl (or zip the Ziploc) and let it soak in the refrigerator overnight (or at least for a couple of hours).

Put a rack over a baking pan to hold the chicken when it’s finished frying.

Combine flour, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 tablespoon paprika, and 1 teaspoon pepper (and the other spices, if you’re using them) in a large bowl or a brown paper bag. 

Put oil, lard, or Crisco in the biggest cast-iron skillet you can find and heat over medium-high heat to 350 degrees.  Oil should be about 1/3 of the way up the side of the pan before the chicken is added, about halfway up when the chicken is in the pan.

Put the chicken pieces in the paper bag and shake it til they’re coated, or dredge the chicken in the bowl of flour if you don’t have a paper bag.  Shake the chicken so the loose flour falls off, then put the chicken in the skillet skin side down.  Don’t overcrowd the pan—unless your pan is enormous you’ll need to cook the chicken in batches.  The temperature will go down when the chicken goes in.  Keep the oil temperature in the 300 to 325 degree range. Fry the chicken on one side without turning for 5-10 minutes until it’s golden brown.  Let it cook for at least three minutes before you even think about lifting it to check its color.  When the first side is done, turn and cook on the other side until it’s golden brown. Internal temperature of the chicken should be 165 degrees when it’s done.

Keep the chicken on the rack in a 200-degree oven if it’s done before you’re ready to serve it.

Mashed potatoes

My mom was an amazing cook–for the most part. But we all have our failings and she was no exception: she believed instant mashed potatoes were good enough. She was right about most things she tried to teach us. I suppose she was entitled to one mistake. And we did get real mashed potatoes when we ate with Grandma Blanche.

Ingredients:

Potatoes–Yukon Golds if you have them, though Grandma Blanche probably used Russets. Cook one to two per person, depending on how big they are

Butter–it’s not possible to put too much butter in mashed potatoes, so feel free to go wild. You probably should have at least 1/2 stick.

Milk–Maybe a cup, maybe less. You’ll be mixing it in gradually til you get the right texture

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Peel the potatoes. You can find all sorts of recipes for smashed potatoes that are not peeled and have garlic and other add-ins, and those are delicious. They are not, however, Grandma Blanche’s mashed potatoes. For this meal, peel them. Quarter the potatoes or cut them smaller, but make all the pieces roughly the same size so they’ll cook evenly.

Put the potatoes in a pan, and cover with water. Grandma Blanche certainly would have put them in a pan of salted water. We do not add salt to the water, because we’re so very health conscious, as you can see from the rest of the recipes for this meal. Plus, you can always use salted butter. Bring to a boil and cook until fork tender, maybe 15 minutes or so.

Drain the potatoes, cover, and let them rest a few minutes while you tend to other things. Add butter and begin mashing, using a potato masher or an electric mixer. People think it’s cool now to leave the potatoes a little chunky so you know that you’re getting real homemade potatoes. Grandma Blanche had none of that. Mix or mash them til they’re smooth, adding milk a little at a time until they are the consistency you like. Put them in the serving bowl and throw in a little more butter to melt on top.

Chicken gravy

Okay, I don’t really know how you write a recipe for gravy.  Much of the food I like the most we don’t really have a recipe for—you just put stuff in til it looks, smells, and tastes right (or not—sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you).  We once fixed a Southwest-style stew for Aunt Caroline and Uncle David that Aunt Caroline liked, so she asked for the recipe.  We wrote down what we did as best as we could and sent it, then got this email back:  “Thanks a bunch for the recipe (of sorts).”  This is our chicken gravy recipe (of sorts).

Ingredients:

Oil (lard) left over from frying the chicken—as much as you need for the amount of gravy you want

Flour –about the same amount as the oil

Milk—enough to thin the roux to the right consistency

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

After frying the chicken, pour the lard out of pan, reserving a good amount of lard and all of the crispy bits that are left in it. Gradually stir in a similar amount flour, then gradually add milk, stirring constantly over medium heat, until you get the consistency you like.  If you soaked the chicken in buttermilk, feel free to pour that buttermilk in first.  (I’m sure there is some germ or salmonella reason not to do this, but it boils immediately when you pour it in, so it seems safe to me, but what do I know? As an attorney–but not your attorney, this isn’t free legal advice–I’d suggest you check with an expert, which I’m clearly not, if you’re worried about this ). Reduce to low heat, adding more milk as needed. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Sometimes, pretty much my whole meal at Grandma Blanche’s house would be a chicken wing (because that’s what the youngest kid got while the grown-ups ate the good stuff, but I get the last laugh—turns out the whole world now agrees with me that wings are the best part of the chicken) and white bread torn into bite-sized pieces smothered in gravy. Hard to believe I grew up with a weight problem.

Chicken and dumplings

I loved the dumplings we had growing up.  They’re even better if you ladle them over mashed potatoes.  Did I mention that I grew up with just a bit of a weight problem? This isn’t Grandma Blanche’s recipe, but I think it tastes pretty close.

Ingredients:

5-6 pounds chicken wings

2 onions, quartered

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1 large carrot, quartered

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups flour, with additional flour for rolling

4 Tablespoons salted butter

½ cup – ¾ cup chicken stock

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Start the day before you plan to eat the dumplings. Put the wings, onions, carrot, garlic, salt, and pepper in a stockpot and fill with water.  Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat to medium low and simmer for a few hours. Remove the wings, let them cool, and debone them.  Set the meat aside.  Remove the carrot and throw it away.  Remove the onion and surreptitiously eat it.  Cover and refrigerate the stock overnight.

Remove from the refrigerator and skim the fat from the top.  Save the fat and the skin from the wings to put on the dogs’ food—things like this are why they love you best.  Bring the stock to a boil again, then reduce to a strong simmer.

Combine flour (and salt and pepper if you’re adding it) and butter. Mix with a fork, pastry cutter, (or, more effectively, your hand) until mixed completely. Slowly add chicken stock until the mixture isn’t crumbly and can form a ball.

Dust your rolling surface with plenty of flour. Knead the dough a few times, then roll out flour to about ¼ inch thickness.  Add flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin. The extra flour will help thicken the broth.  Use a knife or pizza cutter to cut into dumpling-size strips, whatever that means to you.  Add a light dusting of flour to the dumplings.

Return the wing meat to the broth and bring the broth to a boil, then add dumplings one at a time.  Stir frequently, but gently.  After the dumplings have all been added, reduce to a simmer and cook another 20-30 minutes.

Rolls

By now, it should be clear that I don’t actually have any of Grandma Blanche’s recipes.  This is based on a recipe on thepioneerwoman.com.

Ingredients:

4 cups milk

1 cup sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

9 cups flour

2 packages yeast

1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

1 scant teaspoon baking soda

2 Tablespoons salt

Directions:

Pour milk into a heavy, thick-bottomed pan. Add sugar and vegetable oil and stir with a wooden spoon.  Scald the milk mixture over medium heat, stirring while it heats just until it starts to bubble around the side—don’t bring it actually to a boil. 

Let the milk mixture cool to lukewarm—about 100 degrees if you’re measuring.  If it is too hot, it will kill the yeast.

Add 4 cups of flour and the yeast.  Mix in, then stir in 4 more cups of flour.  After all of the flour is mixed in, cover with a dish towel that’s not too dirty and let it sit for about an hour in a warm place, until the dough has almost doubled in size.  After the dough has risen, add the last cup of flour, the baking powder, the baking soda, and the salt and knead just enough to mix the dry ingredients in.

Butter 2 muffin tins.  Roll the dough into walnut-sized pieces, and put three balls in each muffin cup.  We have also used mini-muffin tins and just put one piece in each cup.  Cover the muffin tins and let the dough rise for another 1 to 2 hours.  

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Bake until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.  Brush the top of the rolls with melted butter and serve.

Sliced tomatoes

This is a summer menu.  If you don’t have (or can’t get) fresh tomatoes from your own garden, a friend or neighbor, or a roadside stand, skip the tomatoes.  If you can get them, the recipe is simple:

Slice tomatoes.  Eat them.

Green beans

I didn’t like vegetables when I was little, and I think that was, at least in part, because we cooked vegetables to death. Most recipes seemed to involve putting a vegetable in a pot of water, then boiling it to mush.  If you looked and could still recognize it as something that once grew in a garden, it wasn’t done and you needed to boil it some more. Lightly sautéed vegetables, when I finally was introduced to them, were a revelation.

But let’s be clear.  Old school green beans are fantastic.  These taste best if you had to help pick the beans and snap them yourself, or failing that, if somebody you know and love canned them for you last summer.  If you can’t get fresh green beans or home-canned green beans, try Bush’s Cut Green Shelly Beans and throw in a piece of bacon.

Ingredients:

1 ham hock

1 onion

Lots of green beans

Put the ham hock in a stock pot and cover it with water.  Quarter the onion and add it to the pot.  Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.  While the ham hock is simmering, snap the beans.  

Add the beans to the pot and, if necessary, more water.  Bring to a boil and, again, reduce to a simmer.  Cover and let it cook a few hours until the beans are tender.

The Relish Tray

Grandma Blanche didn’t think Sunday dinner was complete if you didn’t have at least two vegetables and three relishes.  At the time, I didn’t have much use for any of that. I was more interested in the bread and gravy.  Now, it’s the pickles and relishes that I miss the most.  All of these would have been home canned when we ate at Grandma’s house.  These are lazy versions for folks like me who don’t want to spend long weekends putting up produce.

Refrigerator bread & butter pickles

This ends up more like a cucumber/onion salad than pickles, but it gets the basic bread and butter pickle flavor without the work of pickling.  If you ever need to send this recipe to anyone, try to keep the whole title on one line, or you may, as I did, get funny looks and questions about how you make refrigerator bread without flour, and what butter pickles are.

Ingredients:

5½ cups (about 1½ pounds) thinly sliced (about ¼-inch) cucumbers

1½ tablespoons kosher salt

1 cup thinly sliced sweet onion (basically 1 medium sweet onion)

1 cup sugar

1 cup white vinegar

½ cup apple cider vinegar

¼ cup light brown sugar

1½ teaspoons mustard seeds

½ teaspoon celery seeds

1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric

Directions:

Combine cucumbers and salt in a large, shallow bowl; cover and chill 1½ hours. Move cucumbers into a colander and rinse under cold water. Drain, then return cucumbers to bowl. Add onion to the bowl and toss with the cucumbers.

Combine the sugar, white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seeds, celery seeds and ground turmeric in a medium saucepan; bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over cucumber mixture; let stand at room temperature 1 hour. Cover and refrigerate 24 hours. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator up to 2 weeks.

Chow Chow

More or less from https://www.lovelesscafe.com/recipes/old-fashioned-chow-chow-relish

Ingredients:

2 diced green bell peppers (about 2 cups)

2 diced red bell peppers (about 2 cups)

1 ½ cups diced green tomatoes

2 cups diced Vidalia or other sweet onion     (“Is the onion hot?” I asked Mama.  “No.”  A pause. “Not very hot.”  A pause.  “This is so hot!”  Don’t let this happen to you.  You want a sweet onion in this)

1 ½ cups diced green cabbage

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

¾ cup sugar

½ cup apple cider vinegar

¼ cup water

¾ teaspoon dry mustard

1 ½ teaspoons mustard seed

½ teaspoon crushed red pepper

¼ teaspoon celery seed

¼ teaspoon turmeric

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

Directions:

Bring water, salt, sugar, and spices to a simmer in a large stainless steel skillet.  Add vinegar and bring to a boil.  Add the vegetables and reduce heat to medium.  Cook 5-10 minutes, stirring, until the vegetables are tender.  Pour in glass jars and refrigerate.

Grandma’s Cheesecake

I didn’t know what the dense, creamy dessert most people call cheesecake was until I was almost grown.  For me, cheesecake was the light, airy thing we had after Sunday dinner with Grandma Blanche.  I don’t know how she made hers, but this recipe I stole from http://www.food.com/recipe/light-and-fluffy-lemon-jello-cheesecake-185635 seems pretty close. In the interest of accuracy, I probably should admit I haven’t actually made this recipe, though I’m hoping that Kathy will read this and will make it for us.

Ingredients:

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

2 Tablespoons sugar

6 Tablespoons melted butter (though I’m sure Grandma Blanche used margarine, and I’m sure she called it oleo)

6 ounces lemon Jell-O–and yes, use Jell-O, not some knock-off flavored gelatin

2 cups boiling water

8 ounces cream cheese

12 ounces evaporated milk, chilled

Directions:

Mix graham cracker crumbs, 1 Tablespoon sugar, and melted butter or margarine.  Press graham cracker crumb mixture into the bottom of an ungreased 9″x13″ pan. 

Dissolve lemon Jello into 2 cups boiling water.  Break the cream cheese into small pieces and mix it into the Jello.

In a different bowl use an electric mixer to whip the chilled evaporated milk with 1 Tablespoon sugar until small peaks form.  Add the Jello mixture to the evaporated milk and beat until well blended. Pour the Jello/evaporated milk mixture over the graham cracker crust.  Crush another graham cracker or two and sprinkle over the top.  Put it in the refrigerator and chill it until it’s firm. 

Strawberry shortcake

Cheesecake was by far the most common dessert at Grandma Blanche’s, but, given the incident with the bright red strawberries and the new green kitchen carpet, it would seem wrong not to include a strawberry shortcake recipe.

Ingredients:

1 quart strawberries

¼ cup sugar

2 1/3 cup Bisquick

½ cup milk

3 Tablespoons sugar

3 Tablespoons melted butter

½ cup whipping cream

Vanilla

1 teaspoon sugar

Vanilla ice cream

Directions:

Heat oven to 425 degrees.  Slice the strawberries and mix with the ¼ cup sugar. Set the strawberries aside.Follow the recipe on the back of the Bisquick box.  It should go something like this:

Mix the Bisquick, milk, 3 Tablespoons sugar, and melted butter into a dough.  You can substitute buttermilk for the milk if you want.  Spread the dough over a greased baking sheet.  Bake 10-12 minutes, or however long it takes to get golden brown.

Beat the cream in a cold bowl, adding a drop or two of vanilla and a teaspoon of sugar (or buy Cool Whip—that’s what we usually did).  Break the shortcake into pieces and top with strawberries and whipped cream.  Feel free to add a dip of vanilla ice cream.

Sun tea

Ingredients:

Water

Lipton Tea Bags

Sugar

Directions:

Fill a glass gallon jar with water. Add 8 tea bags per gallon of water. Close the lid on the jar, put it in a sunny spot on the patio, and wait for it to look like tea, probably around two hours. Add sugar to taste. The correct amount of sugar is none, but Grandma Blanche preferred it sweet. Do what feels right to you.