Kitchen

[Tigriss]

It is really good. My mother would make me a coffee mug of cheese grits, with American cheese, for breakfast as she drove me to day care before she went into the sewing factory for work. Grits are super easy to cook and works with darned near everything. We have fish and grits for suppers and left over grits can be poured into a pan and chilled for pan frying in the morning in bacon grease or butter. We also do hoe cakes, which are corn meal and/or flour mixed with a bit of water and pan fried to make a pancake like corn bread. Then there is lace corn bread made from a thin mix of corn meal and water and an egg and poured in small silver dollar sized rounds in a thin layer so the cooking makes holes in it making the lace. That is a common bread for meals around here as well.

We have sugar cane in the fall and grind it, then boil to make cane syrup. This isn't something done at home, or most homes. We have an old boiler pot, about 4 foot across, and an old cane grinder that was powered by horses but is now powered by an electric motor. It takes a lifetime of experience in making sure you boil it to the right consistency before you put on the steel ring for the impurities to boil over and be collected, then it will foam over the ring making dog candy (a sweet taffy like candy, but be careful eating it as too much acts as a cure for constipation!), and when it is at the right thickness/consistency (determined by how it pours when it is scooped up and poured back into the boiler, you take it up into a cheese cloth lined washtub fitted with a spout. You mix it with corn syrup to preserve it, about a 1/3 to 1/2 depending upon the color of the syrup and cane used, then bottle. It is very, very hot and will take the hide right off you!! The bottles are already sterilized when you pour the syrup into them and sealed. We did this Thanksgiving weekend before a hard freeze that would kill the sugar cane. We cook a half a hog, deer sausage, and chilies/soups cooking on the wood stove. We bake biscuits in the oven and serve them with a hole poked in the side into the center of the biscuit and pour the syrup into it. Yummy! All said and done, it takes all day and into the night to make, which is why we gather and make food and ride 4 wheelers and just gather. We are doing a low country boil for family Christmas with my granny when my uncle comes down this weekend and a traditional Christmas on Christmas Day with turkey and ham, corn bread dressing, giblets and gravy, candied yams, sticky buns (yeast rolls baked with butter/brown sugar sauce with pecans in the bottom), rice cooked in the juice from baking the ham, greens from the garden (mustards usually), pecan pie and pumpkin pies made from our pecans and pumpkins, 20 something layer chocolate cake (it depends on how it bakes up as to how many layers it has), mac and cheese, deviled eggs, creamed corn from the summer, peas from the summer, chicken and dumplings, and who knows what else. We all eat dinner and supper together and take left over plates home to finish off at work or home. We are a large family and always have plenty of food and additional people we seem to collect along with way, friends that don't have much family or neighbors that don't have much family or visiting deer hunters from Florida and who knows who else we end up bringing home from church. This is just a typical meal for our family get to-gathers about once a month or so. We all divide up the cooking and it all gets done with plenty to go around. This is really our entertainment along with long rides on the 4 wheelers and golf carts through the woods with coolers of drinks and snacks, getting a large water slide in the summer for our birthdays in July that are all so close together, and just watching all the kids play. Visit and eat is what we do in the rural south.

[Tigriss]

OH and don't forget a bowl of grits with a easy or medium cooked egg on top with bacon and/or sausage with cheese. It makes for a nice filling meal on a cold winter day, or any day really! Snuggly food!

[NoelSeven]

On 12/8/2014 Caron122 said:

Another great magazine is called "Taste of the South". It's one of my favorite magazines on southern cooking!

I haven't seen that one, Caron, thank you for mentioning it, I'll look for it!

[NoelSeven]

On 12/8/2014 tigriss said:

It is really good. My mother would make me a coffee mug of cheese grits, with American cheese, for breakfast as she drove me to day care before she went into the sewing factory for work. Grits are super easy to cook and works with darned near everything. We have fish and grits for suppers and left over grits can be poured into a pan and chilled for pan frying in the morning in bacon grease or butter. We also do hoe cakes, which are corn meal and/or flour mixed with a bit of water and pan fried to make a pancake like corn bread. Then there is lace corn bread made from a thin mix of corn meal and water and an egg and poured in small silver dollar sized rounds in a thin layer so the cooking makes holes in it making the lace. That is a common bread for meals around here as well.

We have sugar cane in the fall and grind it, then boil to make cane syrup. This isn't something done at home, or most homes. We have an old boiler pot, about 4 foot across, and an old cane grinder that was powered by horses but is now powered by an electric motor. It takes a lifetime of experience in making sure you boil it to the right consistency before you put on the steel ring for the impurities to boil over and be collected, then it will foam over the ring making dog candy (a sweet taffy like candy, but be careful eating it as too much acts as a cure for constipation!), and when it is at the right thickness/consistency (determined by how it pours when it is scooped up and poured back into the boiler, you take it up into a cheese cloth lined washtub fitted with a spout. You mix it with corn syrup to preserve it, about a 1/3 to 1/2 depending upon the color of the syrup and cane used, then bottle. It is very, very hot and will take the hide right off you!! The bottles are already sterilized when you pour the syrup into them and sealed. We did this Thanksgiving weekend before a hard freeze that would kill the sugar cane. We cook a half a hog, deer sausage, and chilies/soups cooking on the wood stove. We bake biscuits in the oven and serve them with a hole poked in the side into the center of the biscuit and pour the syrup into it. Yummy! All said and done, it takes all day and into the night to make, which is why we gather and make food and ride 4 wheelers and just gather. We are doing a low country boil for family Christmas with my granny when my uncle comes down this weekend and a traditional Christmas on Christmas Day with turkey and ham, corn bread dressing, giblets and gravy, candied yams, sticky buns (yeast rolls baked with butter/brown sugar sauce with pecans in the bottom), rice cooked in the juice from baking the ham, greens from the garden (mustards usually), pecan pie and pumpkin pies made from our pecans and pumpkins, 20 something layer chocolate cake (it depends on how it bakes up as to how many layers it has), mac and cheese, deviled eggs, creamed corn from the summer, peas from the summer, chicken and dumplings, and who knows what else. We all eat dinner and supper together and take left over plates home to finish off at work or home. We are a large family and always have plenty of food and additional people we seem to collect along with way, friends that don't have much family or neighbors that don't have much family or visiting deer hunters from Florida and who knows who else we end up bringing home from church. This is just a typical meal for our family get to-gathers about once a month or so. We all divide up the cooking and it all gets done with plenty to go around. This is really our entertainment along with long rides on the 4 wheelers and golf carts through the woods with coolers of drinks and snacks, getting a large water slide in the summer for our birthdays in July that are all so close together, and just watching all the kids play. Visit and eat is what we do in the rural south.

tigriss,

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed reading this post from you. I read it aloud to DH and DD and we were all transfixed. You write well and it was like being there with you, I envy you with your large family, we are very small, just the three of us with a few scattered cousins on my husband's side.

There was a lot I hadn't heard about before in your retelling, and it was wonderful

Thank you!

[Poodlepet2]

I love Southern Living and subscribe. If you love that magazine, Southen food, decor, etc, you would love "Southern Lady". It is absolutely beautiful and the recipes are phenomenal. It is a treasure! Poodlepet2

[RedHeadedWench]

I have subscribed to Southern Living for probably 30 years now, and also enjoy Southern Lady magazine too. Another beautiful magazine is Tea Time...I hate to toss these out!

[gkelly]

On 12/8/2014 NoelSeven said:

I'm from Northern California and I've always been fascinated with the South and Southern cooking. I subscribe to the magazine Southern Living, and I follow three Southern food bloggers.

Mary, from Biloxi, always has fascinating recipes and stories about them. Just came across one today for boiled pudding, which can also be a base for making eggnog.

For anyone interested, here is her menu for Christmas dinner, along with the recipes for most items on the menu.

http://www.deepsouthdish.com/2008/11/christmas-cookies-candies-southern.html#axzz3LLtmyh9B

You might want to take a look at "The Southern Plate" blog if you haven't already. She is from north Alabama and has some great southern recipes!!

[Zhills]

On 12/8/2014 tigriss said:

It is really good. My mother would make me a coffee mug of cheese grits, with American cheese, for breakfast as she drove me to day care before she went into the sewing factory for work. Grits are super easy to cook and works with darned near everything. We have fish and grits for suppers and left over grits can be poured into a pan and chilled for pan frying in the morning in bacon grease or butter. We also do hoe cakes, which are corn meal and/or flour mixed with a bit of water and pan fried to make a pancake like corn bread. Then there is lace corn bread made from a thin mix of corn meal and water and an egg and poured in small silver dollar sized rounds in a thin layer so the cooking makes holes in it making the lace. That is a common bread for meals around here as well.

We have sugar cane in the fall and grind it, then boil to make cane syrup. This isn't something done at home, or most homes. We have an old boiler pot, about 4 foot across, and an old cane grinder that was powered by horses but is now powered by an electric motor. It takes a lifetime of experience in making sure you boil it to the right consistency before you put on the steel ring for the impurities to boil over and be collected, then it will foam over the ring making dog candy (a sweet taffy like candy, but be careful eating it as too much acts as a cure for constipation!), and when it is at the right thickness/consistency (determined by how it pours when it is scooped up and poured back into the boiler, you take it up into a cheese cloth lined washtub fitted with a spout. You mix it with corn syrup to preserve it, about a 1/3 to 1/2 depending upon the color of the syrup and cane used, then bottle. It is very, very hot and will take the hide right off you!! The bottles are already sterilized when you pour the syrup into them and sealed. We did this Thanksgiving weekend before a hard freeze that would kill the sugar cane. We cook a half a hog, deer sausage, and chilies/soups cooking on the wood stove. We bake biscuits in the oven and serve them with a hole poked in the side into the center of the biscuit and pour the syrup into it. Yummy! All said and done, it takes all day and into the night to make, which is why we gather and make food and ride 4 wheelers and just gather. We are doing a low country boil for family Christmas with my granny when my uncle comes down this weekend and a traditional Christmas on Christmas Day with turkey and ham, corn bread dressing, giblets and gravy, candied yams, sticky buns (yeast rolls baked with butter/brown sugar sauce with pecans in the bottom), rice cooked in the juice from baking the ham, greens from the garden (mustards usually), pecan pie and pumpkin pies made from our pecans and pumpkins, 20 something layer chocolate cake (it depends on how it bakes up as to how many layers it has), mac and cheese, deviled eggs, creamed corn from the summer, peas from the summer, chicken and dumplings, and who knows what else. We all eat dinner and supper together and take left over plates home to finish off at work or home. We are a large family and always have plenty of food and additional people we seem to collect along with way, friends that don't have much family or neighbors that don't have much family or visiting deer hunters from Florida and who knows who else we end up bringing home from church. This is just a typical meal for our family get to-gathers about once a month or so. We all divide up the cooking and it all gets done with plenty to go around. This is really our entertainment along with long rides on the 4 wheelers and golf carts through the woods with coolers of drinks and snacks, getting a large water slide in the summer for our birthdays in July that are all so close together, and just watching all the kids play. Visit and eat is what we do in the rural south.

Oh, boy, did you wake up the memory! Born and raised in Florida and ate everything you mentioned and had a friend that made syrup the old fashioned way. I could relive your story! Wish I could find some of that syrup now.

Tigriss, I worked at the sewing factory in Douglas when I was a newlywed and my SO played football at South Georgia. It was in a hanger at the airport. Yes, you really brought back good memories today! Always enjoy your posts

[NoelSeven]

On 12/9/2014 Poodlepet2 said: I love Southern Living and subscribe. If you love that magazine, Southen food, decor, etc, you would love "Southern Lady". It is absolutely beautiful and the recipes are phenomenal. It is a treasure! Poodlepet2

Thank you, poodlepet2 I haven't seen Southern Lady, but maybe one of the larger bookstores carries it, I'll look.

[NoelSeven]

On 12/9/2014 RedHeadedWench said: I have subscribed to Southern Living for probably 30 years now, and also enjoy Southern Lady magazine too. Another beautiful magazine is Tea Time...I hate to toss these out!

Me, too! I've kept so many, but sometimes I cut out my favorite recipes and photos and reluctantly recycle the bulk of the magazine.

I always keep the specials and holiday editions.