Southern Grace Gourmet

Key Lime Pie

March 5th, 2010 by Angie

This is a great recipe for key lime pie. I even dare say it is better than the key lime pie I have had in Key West. But I better not say that too loud, I’ll offend someone. I have made key lime pie a few times before, and always just used the bottled key lime juice. While this is good, it in no way compares to the real thing. I was very happy to find some key limes at my neighborhood grocery store. When I saw them I knew I had to try the famous key lime pie the right way. Now I know there is debate on which type of crust is authentic, but I choose a graham cracker crust because it sounded good. And I also choose the cream topping over the meringue because I thought the tart little key limes would be better complimented with the whipped cream. I researched several recipes and came up with this one. I added more egg yolks and additional zest than most recipes for a rich flavor.

This is also the first photo with my new camera! I am so excited, I got a smaller, more portable dslr. After a little advice from the sweet Jaden at Steamy Kitchen, I decided to go ahead and get a the 50mm lens with a new camera body to go with it. I got a little canon with the 50mm automatic lens, the kit lens, and a zoom lens for other photography than food. I can’t believe the program function actually works well, even though I am still using manual mode, per advice from Allessandro at Fotographia. My old one forced me to be in manual at all times taking indoor shots. The automatic function only worked in well lighted conditions. I had been struggling with the manual lens too. I’ll admit, I do not have perfect eyesight, and but I don’t think its bad enough for correcting. That’s because I have 20/20 with astigmatism in the right eye, and 20/15 without any astigmatism in the other eye. Having astigmatism, it takes a little while to focus, and having to depend on that little focus circle was bothering me. I tried using my left eye for the viewfinder, but it was pretty difficult, because I am right eyed.
I did enjoy my first dslr very much. It was a great learning camera, and will make a great camera for someone else who is learning.

Ingredients

Crust

8 Honey Graham Crackers

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

Filling

5 egg yolks

1 14 oz can condensed milk

1 cup freshly squeezed key lime juice

2 teaspoons key lime zest

Topping

1 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Zest and juice the limes. Add condensed milk and egg yolks. Whisk together until well combined. Let stand to thicken while you prepare the crust.

Combine graham crackers, brown sugar, and butter in a food processor until well combined. Press the crumbs into a pie plate.

Pour filling into pie shell. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or just until center is set but still jiggly. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving.

Before serving, add cream and sugar to a large bowl. Beat until light and fluffy. Top pie with cream before serving.

Print This Post

Tags: key lime
Posted in Dessert | 21 Comments »

Spicy Panko Crusted Chicken Strips

March 4th, 2010 by Angie

Hello and welcome to yet another new look for my site. I have been endlessly searching for about 6 months for a more professional looking theme that I could customize. I had all but given up, and had just about given in to just buying a theme. Then I came across a new free theme from Geek Design Girl. I have been working on custimizing the theme quite a bit, so it doesn’t look like the original very much, but it still has all the great features that I love about the theme design. I am still working on tweaking the theme so I have all the features of my old theme, and maybe some new things too. If you see any problems or dead links, let me know. I also know some of you have been having problems with the comment section of my blog. The reason is because I am on a shared server. I am switching to another type of server in the next month to hopefully correct this problem.

I want to invite you today to visit Champions Against Hunger. There you can read inspirational stories and vote for your favorite. For each vote received, Share our Strength will receive a $1 donation from ConAgra Foods to help end childhood hunger. The campaign is going on until march 19, so be sure to go ahead and visit today.

I have recently fallen in love with panko crusted anything. I saw this recipe, at Kathy’s site, Are You Hungry. She is a great cook and her site is full of wonderful recipes. This recipe is a little different than her’s. I tried to get a really thick coating, so instead of just dipping the chicken in hot sauce first, I added milk. Combining the milk with the hot sauce makes a spicy buttermilk marinade from the vinegar in the hot sauce. I then added my own seasonings to plain crumbs because I did not have any Italian panko crumbs. The result was a super crispy spicy breading on the chicken. It was amazing to say the least.

Ingredients

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips

1 cup milk

2 -3 teaspoons Tabasco sauce

1 cup plain panko bread crumbs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine milk and Tabasco sauce in a bowl. The vinegar in the Tabasco sauce will make the milk into a thick buttermilk. Add chicken and let sit for at least 15 minutes.

Combine bread crumbs and dry seasonings in a bowl. Bread chicken. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Sprinkle extra crumbs on top of chicken. Bake chicken for 30-45 minutes, or until chicken is firm, browned, and has an internal temperature of 165 degrees.

Print This Post

Tags: Chicken, panko
Posted in Chicken | 12 Comments »

Roasted Ratatouille and Adopt-a-Blogger

March 1st, 2010 by Angie

I love ratatouille roasted in the oven. It is so easy to just throw all the vegetables together on a baking sheet. Just make sure to place the vegetables are on a single layer in the roasting pan to ensure roasting and prevent steaming. I think its wonderful how you can put so many different vegetables together and make one beautiful dish. All the flavors compliment each other so nicely. I like to make this dish when I want to eat healthy. I served my ratatouille with a wonderful panko crusted chicken strip that I will share latter this week.

I also want to share with you all a fun program I am participating in called Adopt a Blogger. Adopt a blogger is a program hosted by Kristen at Dine and Dish. Kristen is the nicest lady, always there to answer questions about blogging and photography. She never hesitants to help a newbie blogger like myself. In her spirit of helping newbie bloggers, she has put together this program in which a more experienced blogger is paired with a newbie blogger.

In this program, I have been paired with Jackie from Foodie Reflections. She has been blogging for almost 2 years, and has a professional culinary background, how exciting! Here is her story:

“I didn’t grow up cooking, unless you count occasionally making cookies or spaghetti. In fact, I first discovered cooking while studying abroad in Florence, Italy, during college which is where I took my first cooking class. After Italy, I returned to the U.S., finished my degree in journalism and got my first real job at a public relations agency. During that time I also continued to explore my growing interest in cooking and found myself getting more and more into it.

A few years later I was at a fork in the road and made the decision to leave PR and marketing and go to culinary school full-time. I enrolled at Kendall College in Chicago (where I’m from and had been living since college) and went through a year-and-a-half intensive, military-esque program in culinary arts. It was truly one of my most demanding accomplishments and I am still boggled by how much information I learned and retained in such a short period of time.

I’d always known my goal wasn’t to be a restaurant chef, but I did want to experience that life and did a short stint during culinary school at a local restaurant, which leads to a whole lot of other stories for another time.

After culinary school, I spent about two years working on various food-related projects, including as a personal chef, freelance food writer, recipe tester and food stylist, and six months of that was full-time on a cookbook about Asian noodles. It was during that time I started my blog as a way to practice my writing and quickly became obsessed with it and all things social media.

Most recently, I returned to my PR roots and am currently working at an agency on various food accounts. I still teach classes once a week for Common Threads, a nonprofit that teaches Chicago public school children cooking skills, nutrition and cultural diversity (it’s an amazing program and one I’m very passionate about).”

Roasted Ratatouille Recipe

Ingredients

1 large eggplant, diced

2 yellow squash, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 yellow pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

2 zucchini squash, diced

1/2 red onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs (oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, savory, and sage)

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine vegetables, olive oil, salt, and herbs in a large bowl. Mix well.

Place vegetables in a single layer on a large sheet pan. Roast vegetables until browned, about 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees.

Print This Post

Tags: bell pepper, eggplant, squash, zucchini
Posted in Side Dishes | 19 Comments »

Senate Bean Soup

February 24th, 2010 by Angie

Do you want to eat like a senator? This is the traditional bean soup of the senate. This soup is on the menu everyday in the congressional dining areas. This tradition has been in place since a senator, which senator is debatable, insisted on this soup being on the menu everyday sometime in the early 1900’s. I grew up eating this soup very often. It is a great economical comfort food. My father use to always just call it navy bean soup though. This was one of the very few dishes he ever made. He was a very traditional, strong man who seldom entered the kitchen except to look for what my mother or I had been cooking. After his death, I did not make this soup for quite a while. My first attempt to make it turned into a disaster. It was tasteless, and just tasted like beans in broth. I was so disappointed, I just put the thought of ever having that delicious comforting bean soup out of my head. Then one day I came across Senate Bean Soup on the web. I had never heard the name before because my dad always said this was navy bean soup. I quickly realized in reading the recipe, that my father’s navy bean soup was actually a variation of Senate Bean Soup. My mistake had been not adding potatoes to the soup. I tried the recipe again, and it was even better than I remember. Perfectly comforting, and full of flavor. I added my father’s traditional garnish of freshly chopped onions and Tabasco and served it with cornbread. Even my son, who didn’t care for my black bean soup, ate a big bowl all by himself.

This is my father’s recipe for Senate Bean Soup, with a few modifications. His recipe varies from the original in that it does not have celery, but has additional flavor from tomatoes. He use to add ketchup, (not part of the traditional recipe) but I am adding a little tomato paste in my recipe. He also added dried potato flakes, but I added the real thing instead. I also made this soup in the crock pot, instead of the stove top. I try to take every chance I get to use my crock pot. Use which ever is more convenient for you.

Senate Bean Soup Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb navy beans, soaked overnight

2 medium Idaho potatoes

1 large sweet onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1 large smoke bone

6 cups water

Garnish

Freshly chopped onions

Tabasco

Method

Add soaked beans and their water to a large soup pot or crock pot. Add additional water till you get 6 cups of water. Add onions, garlic, smoke bone and tomato paste.

Peel and cut up potatoes. In a separate saucepan add the potatoes and enough water to cover them. Boil until very tender. Drain the potatoes and then mash them with a little water. Add mashed potatoes to beans.

Cook beans until very tender. On the stove top for 2-3 hours. In the crock pot on high for 3-4 hours, or in the crock pot on low for 6-8 hours. You may have to add additional water if the soup gets too thick.

Serve with freshly chopped onions and Tabasco.

Print This Post

Tags: navy beans
Posted in Soups | 12 Comments »

Kumquat Refrigerator Pie

February 22nd, 2010 by Angie

Have you ever had a kumquat before? I haven’t had one since I was a kid. I faintly remember a family member urging me to try this little orange, proclaiming, “You’ll love it!” I also remember the out pour of laughter when my mouth puckered from the super sour center. Kumquats are nature’s sour candies. The rinds are super sweet, and the inside pulp is very sour. You eat them by popping the whole little fruit in your mouth, and then spit out the seeds. I had alot of fun watching my son taste the sweet rind, then pucker and spit out the pulp. If you love sour candies, you’ll love these, otherwise just stick to preparing dishes with the sweet rinds, like I have done here.

I first came across kumquat pie in the cookbook, Cooking the Cowboy Way, by Grady Spears. I saw the same recipe again at Drick’s site, Drick’s Rambling Cafe. Drick is a talented cook with tons of great recipes. I knew I had to try this great recipe after reading his love for it. The cookbook, Cooking the Cowboy Way, is a great cookbook that may be better suited on your coffee table than on your kitchen book shelf. It has some of the most beautiful photography. Not only of delicious food, but also of amazing landscapes, livestock, and hunky cowboys. The book takes recipes from different ranches across the south. I had wanted to make this kumquat pie, along with a few other recipes. There is an amazing fish taco recipe I have yet to try, a delicious corn casserole that I made for Thanksgiving, and a great looking mole sauce I am planning to make. There are also a multitude of other great looking recipes. The kumquat pie recipe from this book comes from Sylvia Young, who won first place for this pie at the Kumquat Festival, held every year in Dade City, Florida. My recipe that follows is closely based on that recipe. I did take a shortcut and used a pre-made pie dough. However I added Sylvia’s pie crust recipe here. The basic difference in our recipes is that my modified recipe has a bit more orange juice and less lemon juice. Make sure that your pre-made pie crust or the pie plate you use is a deep dish. I used a regular nine inch pie crust, and had to use both crusts. So now you ask, Florida and cowboys? Well of course, the cattle industry in Florida is 500 years old and still a major part of our economy.

Kumquat Refrigerator Pie

Ingredients

Crust

1/4 cup sour cream

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

Ingredients

1 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons sugar

1/3 cup pureed kumquat rinds

14 oz can condensed milk

the juice of 1 lemon

the juice of 1 lime

the juice of 1 orange

8 oz package cream cheese, room temperature

Method

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine sour cream and butter together in a bowl. Mix in the flour, but do not over mix. Form the dough into a ball and place into the refrigerator for a few minutes. Lightly flour your work surface, and roll the dough into a medium thick crust. Place the crust into a 9 inch pie plate and prick the crust with a fork. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool completely.

Beat the cream and sugar with an electric mixer until it is light and fluffy, and holds its shape well. In a separate bowl beat the room temperature cream cheese, kumquat rinds, milk, and juices until well combined. Now add the fluffy whipped cream and beat until it is well incorporated. Scoop the filling into the cooled pie shell. Refrigerate overnight before serving.