Mayberry, Mayodan and a Rebuttal

Living in Mayodan is the closest I’ll come to living in the fictional town of Mayberry, that splendidly wholesome place made famous on The Andy Griffith Show. The towns share many similarities: May, my favorite month, is at the beginning of both town names; it takes the same number of syllables to say Mayodan as it does to say Mayberry and they are both located in the fine state of North Carolina.

The huge selling point for me in calling Mayodan home, this sister town to Mayberry, is not in town names, but in the quality of life and people who live here. Many of you may recall that food was often a focal point in Mayberry and the same can be said for Mayodan. I’ve lost count of the number of times my daughter and I have been gifted food from our neighbors. Soups, stews, breads, pot pies, cobblers, casseroles, cakes and a variety of homegrown vegetables are but a few of the tasty goodies that have been given to my daughter and me for no other reason than out of the kindness and caring of good people. In fact, while writing this article, Susan’s daughter Deedee Grummett, delivered a deliciously fresh (still warm) homemade pineapple and ginger pop tart to my front door. Talk about impeccable timing! This giving of food, of course, fuels my desire and need to reciprocate that care and giving as I have, on occasion, whipped up something to eat for my neighbors. I love to cook and it pleases me to see someone enjoy something I’ve prepared in my kitchen. 

Mayberry had its fair share of cooks and, with the exception of her kerosene pickles, Aunt Bea reigned queen of the cooks in that town. Blue ribbons were highly prized and seldom, if ever, did anyone share the ingredients of an award winning recipe.

My good friend, Susan, is one of the best cooks I’ve ever met. Watching her in full blown cooking mode in her kitchen is a sight to behold. I’d wager that she can hold her own against a Food Network chef when it comes to handling a knife and a chopping block and she can follow or ad-lib a recipe and produce a masterful meal in a matter of minutes.

My kitchen skills weren’t too shabby prior to my having the good fortune to meet Susan, but her willingness to become my cooking sensei, to share her recipes and to teach me how to be more frugal in the kitchen and at the grocery store has made me a better, more cost efficient cook today.

A few days ago Susan phoned and invited me over to sample a few of her squash fritters. Thinking that I’d likely glean something from watching her cook fritters using fresh squash harvested from her father’s garden and being a might hungry, I hurried out the door. The squash fritters were awesome! Coated in cornmeal, deep fried to a golden brown, the fritters looked like a large hushpuppy but tasted soooooo much better. My taste buds begged for more and Susan was kind enough to put several in a bag for me to carry home.

When I asked for the ingredients, Susan handed me the recipe and turned to make a new batch of fritters. I sat, munching a fritter, reading the recipe when, suddenly, something caught my eye. The main ingredient, self-rising cornmeal, was not the cornmeal my cooking sensei had recommended that I buy at the grocery store. I had been encouraged, and rightfully so, to buy the cheaper regular cornmeal and flour and use recipes that called for baking soda and baking powder as an ingredient when cooking. Why, in my mind, I was witnessing a food scandal worthy of being written into an episode of The Andy Griffith Show! When I questioned her use of self-rising cornmeal in her squash fritter recipe, she turned, smiled and said, “You’re going to post this on The Frugal Poet, right?”

And so it is with good humor and a huge sense of trepidation that I make this post today. I dearly hope I’ve not eaten my last squash fritter or anything else cooked by my friend in her kitchen. A few weeks ago in her "Well, I never!" post, Susan called me on taking a short cut when I used canned biscuits in my crock pot chicken and dumplings recipe. It seems, in my mind, that using self-rising cornmeal or flour in a recipe could also be considered a short cut.

“Well, I never!”...?

I think maybe you did sensei, at least once. ;-)

Today’s recipe is easy to make. My daughter and I call this one “A Keeper” here at Poet’s Cottage.

Chicken and Noodles in Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce

Ingredients

        4 to 5 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
        1/4 cup soy sauce
        1 to 1 ½ teaspoon ground ginger
        2 tablespoons minced garlic
        2 tablespoons olive oil
        2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
        3 tablespoons honey
        4 chicken breasts (cubed)
        3 chopped green onions (cut diagonally)
        2 cups shredded carrots (or more to your liking)
        1 (16 ounce) package of wheat noodles
        Sriracha sauce (rooster sauce) for heat and taste
        sesame seeds

Directions

Sauce: Combine peanut butter, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and honey in sauce pan. Simmer, covered, on low heat for 5-10 minutes or until hot, stirring occasionally.

Chicken: Cut and sauté chicken breasts in olive oil. Add vegetables when chicken is almost finished cooking. Salt and pepper to taste.

Noodles: Cook wheat noodles in water with salt, according to package instructions.

Serve chicken and vegetables over noodles with sauce poured on top. Top with sesame seeds.

A couple of notes: I added the rooster sauce to the peanut sauce toward the end of cooking time, adding and stirring until I reached the amount of heat that a normal human can tolerate. (I’d add more if I were cooking just for me.)

The peanut sauce thickened a little during the simmering and stirring process. I added small amounts of water until I reached a desired consistency.

If you don’t have rooster sauce, toss a chopped cayenne pepper or two in along with your vegetables, but be careful and don't overdo the heat. Overdoing heat is seldom a problem with me. :)

And finally, a one line haiku to sample along with your Asian cuisine.

drinking sake until I'm ready for the blowfish

Frogpond Volume XXXI:1 - February, 2008

Assumptions and Mockingbirds

“Which is your favorite season?” I am always undecided how to respond when someone asks me to choose just one season as a favorite since each offers a wealth of unique attributes to savor. Springtime is my favorite right now since I can grab a basket and head out to Papa’s garden to pick fresh dinner ingredients. In late May a variety of fresh lettuces, spinach, broccoli, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, squashes, scallions and asparagus are available. If I snip fresh herbs to integrate into a salad dressing, dinner plans are squared away entirely and for precious little money at that.

Just a few evenings ago as I cut vegetables for a salad, I stumbled down a figurative rabbit hole. As I hovered from one plant to the next, I pondered how we all savor life differently. After working his garden and watching it grow, Papa likes to tuck into a plate of thoroughly cooked vegetables for dinner while I enjoy them best either raw in a salad or lightly steamed . I was reminded of the scene from the movie made from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird where Scout angrily voices her bewilderment when Walter Cunningham pours syrup all over the meal prepared for them by Calpurnia. Scout was aghast that Walter would “spoil” his meal in such a fashion while assuming that everyone reserved syrup for breakfast meals. She mightily embarrassed Walter in the process of upbraiding him for what she perceived as an ignorant use of syrup. After all, Walter may not have had syrup available on his own dinner table. Or maybe Walter simply preferred syrup to gravy! I was immediately ashamed when admitting to myself that I have also made such judgmental assumptions over, of all things, the prolific use of buttermilk “ranch” dressing – I’ve literally witnessed gallons of the stuff consumed whether I found myself dining in local restaurants or in the homes of friends who graciously invited me to share a meal. I’ve often wondered why seemingly so many people default to ranch dressing as a condiment when there are dozens of options available, some certainly better suited to the salad served. But personal favorites are simply that – personal.

So it doesn’t matter a whit what I think of someone else’s preferences. Even if you don’t have your own garden from which to harvest vegetables on a whim, you’ll certainly find the fresh ingredients at more affordable prices in your local grocery now. Enjoy the season’s bounty – with syrup if you prefer!

 Buttermilk Salad Dressing 

1 cup crème fraiche*
1 chopped, trimmed scallion
2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 minced, peeled garlic clove
4 sprigs parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill weed
1 ½ teaspoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Mix all ingredients together and season to taste with salt and pepper (white pepper if you prefer no black flecks of ground black pepper in the dressing). Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour and up to four days before serving. Make approximately 1 cup of dressing.

*if you can’t find crème fraiche readily available in your local grocery, a quick substitute can be made by mixing one tablespoon of buttermilk into one cup of heavy whipping cream. Mix, seal in an air-tight container and let sit at room temperature for 12-20 hours or for 5-7 days in your refrigerator.

While you enjoy your salad, munch on a haiku and enjoy the season!

moonlight on aster
i take
the long way home

tiny wordsIssue 11.3/23 December 2011

Little Blessings

I enjoy taking my daughter, Alana, to school in the mornings. I’ve noticed that the drive usually assumes one of at least three moods or tones. There are mornings when she wants to listen to the radio or one of her CDs; some mornings we forego music and talk to each other; and then there are mornings when we’re quiet, together in the truck, alone with our thoughts. We had such a morning recently.

I had just turned onto Bethany Road, that long winding stretch of road that would take us to Alana’s school when, after several miles of silent contemplation, she spoke-up and said, “I miss that patch of honeysuckle that grows near the garden where we used to live.”

I was surprised at where her thoughts had taken her and asked, “Why is that, little girl?”

“I miss the smell of honeysuckle. I miss plucking a blossom and tasting its sweetness.”

For a moment, I wondered if she had read the haibun from my Frugal Poet post of two weeks ago, but then it occurred to me that she had seen a patch of honeysuckle alongside the road and the memory of me having shown her how to taste the plant’s sweet nectar prompted her comment.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “We’ll find a patch of honeysuckle soon.”

Alana (most folks call her Lainy) and I enjoy riding our bikes in the evening. Our current route has been to follow 9th Avenue north until it ends at Monroe Street, which is about three blocks from Poet’s Cottage. We turn left onto Monroe, then turn left onto 10th Avenue, where we coast down a gradual hill toward Main Street. We then turn east onto Main Street and back onto 9th Avenue.

We were in the process of taking a second turn around our route later that day when I happened to notice a patch of honeysuckle on 9th Avenue, in a vacant lot just up the street from Poet’s Cottage. I stopped at the honeysuckle patch and pointed so Lainy would see the blossom of her longing earlier in the day. She smiled, slid off her bike and said, “Do you think we’ll get in trouble?”

I smiled, “I don’t think the folks who own this vacant lot will miss a couple of honeysuckle blossoms.”

She plucked a honeysuckle blossom, then one for me and waited. I then realized that tasting a honeysuckle's nectar is something that she wanted to share with her dad.

My daughter and I have been residents of Poet’s Cottage for eight months now. I could not ask for a better daughter and friend to have as a roommate. Our circumstances have not been without hardships, but we are blessed and thankful to be where we are today.

We ain't all about biscuits and gravy here in the south. This week’s Frugal Poet offering is the perfect side for a spring or summer meal. Thank you Beth Pulliam for sharing this delicious recipe!

Marinated Veggie Salad

Drain and combine:

1 can shoepeg corn
1 can french style green beans
1 can bean sprouts
1 can lima beans
1 can peas
1 2 oz jar pimentos
1 can water chestnuts
1 cup chopped celery
1 thinly sliced onion

Marinade:

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
dissolve 1 T salt in 1 T water
1 t basil
1 t oregano
1 t garlic powder

Whisk marinade together and pour over veggies. Refrigerate overnight.

Continuing with this week’s theme of vegetables and plants that sustain us, I offer this haiku:

recession —
poke salad growing
in a sidewalk crack

The Heron’s Nest: Volume XIII, Number 4: December, 2011

Squeezing Turnips

Most of us have heard the cliche “You can’t get blood from a turnip.”  The adage is usually quoted to remark on some state of financial duress or when we’ve been asked for something we deem as far beyond our means to provide.  A lot of us see the precept as inarguable.  I, however, do not and here’s why.  If blood is life’s force and it’s something you can’t get from a turnip, then it would logically follow that a turnip should sustain nothing at all.  Well I’ve watched three seasons move across my father’s humble turnip patch and have been repeatedly amazed at how so many species take their sustenance from what that garden provides.  And those turnips have given far past what was asked of them.

Papa initially planted the turnips for his beloved honeybees.  Last summer, autumn and winter here were warm and dry - he worried they’d not have lush enough foraging territory in spring so he planted the turnips with the intention of letting them run berserk.  When the turnips were at their peak in early autumn, my uncle would stroll over for a visit, pull a turnip and eat it raw while chatting with and generally catching up on life with his brother.  My oldest daughter would harvest a sackful to take home with her to roast or boil.  Neighbors reaped some of the turnips’ green foliage to boil and sauté - a true southern delicacy when teamed with a hot pan of cornbread.

As autumn’s brilliance faded into winter, the turnips began heaving themselves to the soil’s surface.  Their remaining greenery grew thick and wildly upward into leggy stalks.  Deer and at least one groundhog feasted themselves silly as I found half-eaten purplish orbs scattered helter-skelter around the garden.  Either they came back for leftovers the next day or yet more wild creatures dined on the castoffs - fresh bites had been taken from a few such turnips over several days.

With spring’s arrival, the patch flowered into an explosion of delicate yellow blooms.  The garden literally hummed as Papa’s honeybees nursed en masse, carrying pollen back to their hives to provide sustenance for not only themselves but the countless family dinner tables and restaurants our apiary supplies with honey.  Several kinds of birds now reside in the turnip patch and feed from the scattering seed now that the blossoms are spent.  That groundhog now fairly waddles in and out of the thicket, having developed a taste for aging but easily accessible turnips which lie entirely exposed.  I now detect the tiny green shoots emerging from the turnip patch floor which signal their readiness to provide yet again.  No blood from a turnip?  I invite you to rethink that one.

This week’s recipe repeatedly nourishes and satisfies too.  Thanks to my friend, Norman Darlington of Darlington Richards Press and Bunclody, Wexford, Ireland for validating that this version is the real deal!

Irish Soda Bread

4 cups all purpose flour
4 tablespoons cold butter, diced
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 F.  Sift together flour, salt and baking soda into a large mixing bowl.  Using a pastry cutter, work butter into flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.  Add beaten egg and buttermilk to well and mix it with a wooden spoon until dough is too stiff to stir.  Dust hands with a little flour, then gently knead dough in the bowl just long enough to form a rough ball.

Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and shape into a round loaf. Transfer dough to a  lightly greased 8” or 10” cast iron skillet.  Using a serrated knife score the top of the dough about ½” deep in an “X” shape to let the devil out!  Transfer to oven and bake until bread is golden and bottom sounds hollow when tapped with a knife - about 40 minutes.  Transfer bread to a rack and let cool briefly.  Serve warm, at room temperature or sliced and toasted.

Finally, a haiku to finish your meal.

full-bellied moon -
catfish lurking
beneath my line

Poetry and Rum Cake

I’ve never asked for payment to read a few of my poems to an audience. As long as I have gas money (which is becoming increasingly difficult these days), I’m willing and ready to share my love of poetry and my poems to anyone who will listen. The way I look at it, the more I promote poetry, the better the likelihood that someone will pick up a pen and pad and share their own poems.

Why? It’s simple. I am of the opinion that the world would be a better place if everyone wrote poetry. There certainly would be more people in touch with their feelings; empathy would be a common trait for everyone. Dialogue, whether in the form of a poem, prose or spoken word, would be less muddled. Maybe poetry receives a bum rap because of our tendency to mask our feelings. Maybe we’d understand and recognize each other more easily, as human beings who share a remarkable world, if we’d write or read an occasional poem.

Do I think poetry can fix the world’s problems? No. But I firmly believe it could be a tool to work toward that goal.

I recently had the pleasure of reading a few poems to an English class at the college where I work. The class was small but receptive to my poems. I enjoyed the smiles and the laughs that the more humorous poems brought from the audience. After reading my Southern Legitimacy Statement #5, a student spoke-up and said, “I like that”, and I could tell that something in that poem was relatable to him.

Now that’s payment that’s better than money. :)

Cissy Murphy, the instructor for the class, gifted me after the reading with a very nice card, money (she really shouldn’t have!) and a gem of a family cookbook. She’s given me permission to share a few of the recipes here, on The Frugal Poet web site.

And so, without further ado, let me share the first recipe I prepared from her family cookbook:

Bacardi Rum Cake

1 box or package of yellow cake mix
1 (3 ½ ounce) package instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
½ cup cold water
½ cup Bacardi Dark Rum
½ cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour (I used Baker’s Joy cooking spray and did not flour) a 10 inch tube pan. Mix ingredients. Pour into a pan. Bake for one hour. Cool the pan for 25 minutes then invert onto a serving plate. Prick top (I used a fork). Spoon and brush rum glaze over cake.

Rum Glaze

¼ lb butter
¼ cup water
1 cup sugar
½ cup dark rum

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil for five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in rum.

One note: prior to pouring the mix into the tube pan, I added brown sugar and pecans to the pan, right on top of the Baker’s Joy that I’d just sprayed. Once inverted, this gave me a topping of brown sugar and pecans.

I’ll close with an untitled haibun I penned recently. Have a great week!

for the second time this week, i pluck a honeysuckle blossom, pinch the bottom, pull the stem through, exposing a tiny droplet of nectar at the base of the blossom. i extend my tongue, savor its sweetness like a fine wine.

haiku poets are more attune and appreciative of the seasons. it is a bonus gift for having chosen haikai no michi, or the Way of Haiku. i’d go so far as to say that we become one with the natural world and the seasons and are keenly aware that we are transient beings existing only for a moment in time...

solar flares...
a new sunspot
on my skin

Ripened Fruit

Lately I’ve often found myself dwelling on seasons and the expected versus unexpected timing of events in life.  It’s important to allow moments to fully bloom, large or small, long or brief, giving them the individual consideration and respect they deserve.  My oldest daughter recently moved into a great new apartment in a neighboring state.  My youngest daughter is poised to move to we-don’t-know-where-yet-but-still-outside-of-mama’s-easy-reach-too in order to more easily realize her career aspirations.  My husband of a bit over 5 years is retiring after a long and successful military career and will be moving home next week where we will begin another chapter in our lives together.  In preparation we bought a beautiful old girl of a house which we promptly all but gutted - it’s being lovingly put back together bit by bit.  So much change in a brief period sends mama to the kitchen where big issues can literally be chopped into digestible bits so I can pretend for at least a little while that I’m not forced to swallow them all at once. As serendipity would have it, my dad showed up at my back door with a flat of just-picked, still-warm-from-the-field strawberries on his birthday last week.  Talk about timing...

I’ll not give the recipe here for what I did with that flat of strawberries (a strawberry cobbler per Birthday Man’s request).  Instead I’ll offer you two recipes instead of one.  The first can be enjoyed immediately and will have probably disappeared from your kitchen before you’ve washed the prep dishes (admit it, we all love immediate gratification).  The second recipe best shows its beauty given a little time to reflect on the wealth of a season passed.

Chocolate-Strawberry Shortcake

½ c. shortening 1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 ¼ c. white sugar 1 envelope unflavored gelatin

2 eggs, separated ¼ c. cold water

1 ¼ c. sifted all-purpose flour 2 c. whipping cream

2 tsp. baking powder ½ c. sifted confectioner’s sugar

¼ tsp. salt 3 c. fresh strawberries, sliced

⅓ c. cocoa 3 whole strawberries (optional)

⅔ c. whole milk

Filling

1 ½ (4-ounce) bars sweet chocolate ½ c. chopped. toasted almonds

¾ c. butter, softened

Cream shortening; gradually add 1 ¼ c. sugar, beating well at medium speed.  Add egg yolks, beating well.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture.  Mix after each addition.  Stir in vanilla extract.

Beat egg whites - at room temperature - until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into batter.  Pour into 3 greased and floured 9” cake pans.  Bake at 350 F for 18 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out cleanly.  Let cakes cool in pan 10 minutes; remove from pans and cool on wire racks.

For filling:  Melt chocolate in top of a double boiler; let cool.  Add butter, beating at low speed until smooth.  Stir in almonds.

Sprinkle gelatin over cold water in a small saucepan; let stand for 1 minute.  Cook over low heat, stirring until gelatin dissolves.

Beat whipping cream in a chilled bowl at low speed, gradually adding dissolved gelatin.  Increase to medium speed and beat until mixture begins to thicken.  Add powdered sugar and beat at high speed until soft peaks form.

Place 1 cake layer on serving plate.  Spread ⅓ of chocolate filling over layer.  Spread ⅓ of whipped cream over filling and arrange ½ of sliced strawberries on top allowing berry tips to peek over cake layer’s edge.  Repeat procedure, ending with whipped cream.  Garnish with whole strawberries.

Balsamic Strawberry Preserves with Black Pepper

2 cups fresh strawberries, trimmed and quartered

1 ½ cups white sugar

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

Bring all ingredients to a boil in a small heavy saucepan.  Stir and skim and surface as the strawberries produce foam.  Simmer the mixture for approximately 15 minutes, skimming foam occasionally.  Cook until strawberries are translucent and thickened.  Remove pan from heat and wait for strawberries to cool completely.  Preserves will keep for approximately one month in refrigerator if they last that long!  Unlike many preserve recipes, this one does multiply easily if you want to double it, triple it, etc and preserve it in sterile jars.

reckoning

late winter empty nest and i don’t know how many more times i can bear noticing when the heating system kicks on or how long it takes to accumulate a washer full of dirty laundry or how difficult it is to cook in proportions that won’t result in a week of leftovers.  but mostly i wonder if they enjoy their lives as much as i prayed they would and laugh with their lovers at odd hours and still make it to work on time and dream big enough and work hard enough to smile for really good reasons and take time to be thankful for them. and i want to know how many more days it will be before i can open my house’s windows to spring breezes and warm winds and birdsong and take a really long, deep breath

swell’s cusp —

i stand on top

of rain

Frogpond - Volume 34, Number 2, Spring/Summer 2011

Inner Voices

Chalk it up as being one of those things you do -- knowing it was a bad idea all the while -- and, yet, you do it because you can’t help yourself. It’s like that time years ago when I was a young impetuous lad watching an electrical storm from my parents’ front porch. Mesmerized, I leaned against a metal railing to get a better view of the storm, streaks of lightning turning night into day, thunder exploding like the big guns of a battleship. An inner voice told me that it would probably be a good idea to go inside, but another voice -- much louder and more persuasive -- said, “OOOOoooo look at the lightning! Let’s stay a little while longer and see what happens!”

A few minutes later lightning splintered a nearby oak tree; the metal railing I was leaning on absorbed some of the dispersed electrical energy and quite literally jolted me into clear thinking. I hurried inside thinking that Benjamin Franklin was a very lucky man!

Sometimes it pays to listen to that inner voice.  

Which begs the question: Okay, Dunlap, where was your inner voice two weeks ago when you used canned biscuits in a crock pot chicken and dumplings recipe? I had a feeling that my pal, fellow Frugal Poet, Susan Nelson Myers, would and did call me on taking such a non-frugal short cut. After all, as she mentioned in last week’s Well, I never! post, “Dumplings are biscuits...just smaller and formed by hand.” The only excuse I have for using canned biscuits is that up until I met Susan, the only biscuits I knew how to make were mayonnaise biscuits and I ain’t about to post that recipe here. Nope. That would be foolish. Why, that would set Susan off again... Wait-a-minute! Maybe I should post my mayonnaise biscuits recipe! It sure was fun seeing Susan’s dander up, watching her fingers flying wildly over her computer keyboard in response to my canned biscuits snafu.

What’s that you’re saying inner voice? Speak-up. I can’t hear you! ;-)

All joking aside, Susan is my friend. I am forever indebted to her and her family for their neighborly kindness shown to my daughter and me since we took-up residence in Poet’s Cottage. In fact, I will go so far as to say that there wouldn’t be a Frugal Poet blog had it not been for Susan’s willingness to teach me how to can jars of marinara sauce, fire-roasted salsa, tomato bisque soup and icicle pickles, frugally preserving vegetables grown in her father’s garden for the winter months ahead. And while the two of us sharing a kitchen can be quite comical at times, I do know how to hush-up and listen when Susan switches into teaching mode. Followers of this blog saw Susan in teaching mode last week. ;-)

Here’s a tasty little hamburger sauce I concocted recently. Use this sauce instead of mayonnaise and/or ketchup. I’ll credit the name of the sauce to Susan’s daughters Lindsay and Deedee Grummett, two brilliantly gifted ladies with quick minds and a delightful sense of humor.

Furtis Sauce

2 tablespoons horseradish
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 to 2 teaspoons pepper vinegar (or use white vinegar with a dash or two of hot sauce)

Stir ingredients in a bowl until blended to a smooth consistency. My favorite go-to burger for this sauce is a cheeseburger topped with jalapeno peppers and onions, but a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and dill pickles will work with this sauce too.

Until next time, I’ll leave you with the following contemporary haiku I penned last year.

canning season --
an extra pinch of spice
in the pickle jar

"Well, I never!"

We Frugal Poets  normally divide our blogging duties such that one of us posts a personal recipe and poem each week.  Curtis graciously offered to write for two consecutive weeks when I needed to help one of my daughters move last weekend.  I certainly appreciate his willingness to help me out but...talk about a mouse playing while a cat’s away!

I never would have encouraged anyone to use canned biscuits in a recipe, but that’s precisely what Curtis did in last week’s Frugal Poet post.  Now I realize that many of us take shortcuts  when cooking but certain substitutions constitute no less than cheating in my book.  Rather than pick that recipe apart here, I’ll just suggest that any non-lazy person interested in a real dumpling refer to an earlier Frugal Poet post for a bona fide biscuit.  Dumplings are biscuits...just smaller and formed by hand.  If you’re looking for a chicken and pastry recipe...well, I guess I could help you but I simply won’t.  That’s a recipe from a different part of the state where they just don’t know any better.

I imagine that Curtis’ crock pot chicken and dumpling recipe will work fine enough in a pinch - we all deal with hectic schedules at one time or another.  But his substituting canned biscuits for handmade dumplings compelled me to think of other recipes which, while tasty and some even carved into regional culinary stone, were merely quick fixes to the problem of needing to put something on a table when the cook had little to no time to properly address a dish.  After reading Curtis’ post from last week, the first thing that came to mind was a recipe for a congealed salad that I’ve been served more times than I’d like to count but which I ate every single time.  I even asked someone for their recipe (sorry, but I can’t remember who to credit here.  I hope no one’s offended but, truthfully, I’ve had several versions of the same dish just the Jello changed colors - and you don’t want to get me started on the issue of food preservatives and dyes).  I even included this recipe in a handwritten cookbook I made for my daughters.  What you’ll read is precisely as written in their personal copies...just I’ve changed a name and omitted a few adjectives to protect the guilty.

Blueberry Congealed Salad

“Yes, I’m including this recipe since it reminds me of my childhood, my aunt Midge, and [the potluck dinners after] church revivals that I thought would never end.  It probably contains enough preservatives for you to set it afloat on the Atlantic in a piece of Tupperware, and it would arrive in England in pristine condition years later.  Don’t ever tell anyone where you got this recipe, or I’ll brand you a liar and a cheat.”

2 small boxes black cherry Jello
1 large can crushed pineapple, drained
½ cup chopped pecans
1 14-1/2 ounce can blueberries, drained
3 medium bananas (too bad these don’t come canned too)
1 8-ounce package cream cheese softened
1 8-ounce carton sour cream
¼ cup white sugar

Mix Jello according to package directions.  Fold in pineapple, pecans, blueberries and sliced bananas.  Pour into casserole dish and refrigerate.  When Jello has become firm, mix cream cheese, sour cream and sugar - spread on top of Jello.

And, finally, a senryu for your enjoyment...

what he says
what you hear -
funhouse mirrors

Prune Juice, Issue 8, Spring 2012

Stew Pot Conversations

I had the pleasure of spending a day with an amazing person last November. Melvin Nelson is a man of many talents. He’s a beekeeper, selling jars of honey to locals and to restaurants; he grows vegetables in one of the most productive gardens in the county; he can build, weld, mold, shape anything he sets his mind to do; he’s a master storyteller, Brunswick Stewmaster and he can cook a hefty pot of some of the best chicken and dumplings you’ll ever taste. Melvin is also a master at frugal living and the father of my friend, Frugal Poet, Susan Nelson Myers.

At (soon-to-be) age 77, Melvin shows no signs of slowing down. I learned many things while helping him stir the dumpling pot outside near his garden that day, but one of the most important things I learned was to hush-up and listen when he starts a sentence with a slow southern drawl of “Well...” What often follows is a bit of wisdom or a story steeped in good old-fashioned common sense, sage advice from which anyone can benefit. Many of us have a family member or someone we know like Melvin, willing to share their real world experiences if we’ll take time in our schedules to pause and listen. Spending time with Melvin that day was a treat for me. I hope I have the pleasure of spending time with him at a stew pot again.

Conversation has always been easy around Melvin. We verbally traveled the world that crisp November day. Highlights of our talk included Sandy Ridge, NC (where Melvin was born and raised), to the western states (Melvin enjoys Louis L'Amour’s Sackett series of movies while I’ve read the novels), to Australia (we are both fond of Tom Selleck’s motion picture Quigley Down Under), to Africa (we discussed Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan movies), to back home, here, not far from Tobacco Road where I confessed to Melvin that Gene Tierney's performance in the movie Tobacco Road was among my favorites by the glamorous movie star.

Here are a few pictures I took  that day.

Melvin's 25 gallon stew pot

Melvin Nelson stirring the dumplings

Melvin Nelson storyteller and stew master

Melvin with his granddaughter, Lindsay Grummett

Chicken and dumplings southern style

The recent cool April mornings have set my appetite to craving chicken and dumplings again. Here is a scaled-down crock pot version of chicken and dumplings. I use a seven quart crock pot for this recipe. It is also one of the few recipes I use that calls for canned biscuits.  (Susan’s on hiatus this week so I’m using ‘em where I can get away with it.  For purists, please see a homemade biscuit recipe here.)

Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings

6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
(You can also use thighs, just cook the chicken until the meat falls off the bones. Remove the skin and bones when the chicken is thoroughly cooked.)
½ stick butter
1 - 26 ounce can cream of chicken soup
1 - 10.5 ounce can cream of celery soup
chicken broth
1 - onion diced
2 - (10 ounce) packages refrigerated biscuit
dough, torn into small pieces

Directions:

Line the bottom of your crock pot with chicken.

Add butter, soup and onion.

Add enough chicken broth to cover the previous ingredients

Cover with crock pot lid and cook for 5 to 6 hours on high.

Add the torn biscuit dough (dumplings) to the crock pot an hour before serving time. Allow the crock pot to cook the dough until it is no longer raw.

I'll close with a contemporary haiku I penned during my time with Melvin.

hoar frost...
gleaning stories
around the dumpling pot

Food Portions

In the world of food television shows and upscale restaurants, I have a difficult time understanding why someone would pay an exorbitant price (especially in this economy) for an entrée that appears as a tiny circle in the middle of a plate. Sure, I know “presentation” is an important element in the dining experience and all that vacant space left on the plate helps the eye to focus on the morsel in the center, the bull's eye of the meal if you will. I’m just of the mind that I won’t pay for an entrée that, in this humble poet’s opinion, should be demoted to appetizer status. I don’t want to eat dinner and be hungry an hour later. I want my appetite satiated completely. I want plenty of good food at a decent price. Fill my plate and if I can’t eat it all, I’ll take leftovers home.

Before I go further, let me clearly state that I’m not dissing food television shows, upscale restaurants or chefs for that matter. I’ve enjoyed meals, in one form or another, by all three. In fact, I have a friend who’s attending culinary school and is well on his way to becoming a chef. I blame my gluttonous love for large portions of food on my southern upbringing and will vehemently claim that the good state of Texas ain’t got nuthin’ on its southern sister states in the BIG department when it comes to supper time. Dining is an event here in the south; it’s something to be shared and enjoyed. We often cook so that there will be leftovers. Sometimes we cook for the sheer joy of cooking then deliver a hefty amount of food to a friend or neighbor as a token of appreciation and love. Southerners learned long ago that you don’t have to skimp on portions to eat frugally. A couple of biscuits smothered in tomato gravy with several dashes of black pepper thrown in for good measure can occupy those aforementioned vacant spaces of even the largest plate and be a tasty inexpensive meal.

I’ve already shared a dining experience I had at my grandmother’s table in the form of a prose poem. Here are two additional food moments that helped mold me into the kind of guy that would frown on being served a tiny Cornish Hen breast with a broccoli spear, drizzled with a sauce for dinner. (Okay, that was a slight exaggeration but maybe the reader will understand the gist of my complaint. Sometimes, less is more but not at the supper table!)

Margaret is a lady who lives in the community of Shiloh, a few miles east of Mayodan. Occasionally, I’d stop by to visit her son, a longtime friend. I cannot remember a time when Margaret failed to feed me while I was there. It never mattered that I’d already had supper at home. This wonderfully, splendid cook always insisted that I have something to eat while I was in her home. Margaret’s hospitality was as big as her heart and the portions were amazing! I’ve dined on as little as a slice of homemade chocolate cake (a slice being nearly ¼ of the cake) and as much as a plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, biscuits and gravy. To refuse food when Margaret offered it would be impolite. And I’ve never been one to be rude where food is involved.

Ruth was a member of my church. Sadly, Ruth died a few years ago. She was a unique woman who gave selflessly of herself to her community and church. I am not ashamed to admit that I’d planned on skipping church one Sunday to go fishing with friends until I found out that a covered dish would be served after the sermon, which could mean only one thing: Ruth would be there with her amazing caramel cake. I quickly canceled my fishing trip. I went to church and listened patiently to the sermon that day. Later, I enjoyed a good old fashioned heartfelt hug from Ruth and two slices of her caramel cake. Sometimes, a way to a man’s soul is through his stomach, especially when good food is in abundance.

The following is my recipe for tomato gravy. Serve this with a sausage patty over biscuits. Figuring in the frugal factor here, use whatever tomatoes you have on hand. Just be sure to use enough flour to thicken the gravy to a desired consistency and season it with salt and pepper to your liking.

 Tomato Gravy

• 2 to 3 tablespoons oil (I usually fry bacon or sausage and use the drippings, but for the health conscious folks, vegetable oil will do.)
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour stirred into a 3/4 cup of water (This is an old trick for thickening gravy during the stirring and heating phase.)
• 1 16 ounce can of petite diced tomatoes (or whatever you have on hand. I’ve seen my mom use tomato juice.)
• salt and pepper to taste

Set your stove top burner on medium-low. Add oil and one tablespoon flour to a skillet. Turn the heat up to medium and stir until the flour starts to brown.

Add the can of tomatoes including the tomato juice to the pan. Stir to break-down any globs of flour that may form.

Turn the heat up to medium-high. Start seasoning with salt and pepper. Stir constantly to avoid sticking.

When the pan starts to boil, add the flour water mixture and continue stirring. Turn the heat back down to medium. Stir until the gravy thickens. Continue seasoning with salt and pepper to your liking.

Serve over southern biscuits with a side of bacon or sausage.

Here’s a picture of a pan of tomato gravy I made with hog jowls.

During this time of soaring gas prices, when we pay more and receive less wherever we shop, it’s nice to know that there are still a few tasty meals that can be prepared in abundance. We live in times when many of us are spending less on extravagant meals. People are focusing more on necessities. Perhaps the following haiku I penned on my way home from work illustrates this shift back to basics and the essential things in life:

down sizing...
a satellite dish
shelters the wood pile