Down South Recipes

My recent travels have me overwhelmed back here in the homeland. Yesterday was a 13 hour day, today might be the same, especially since I have family coming in tomorrow afternoon… So instead of getting creative, I’m just going to put up a couple recipes. I promised Diane the secret to easy Brunswick Stew. Enjoy!

The picture shows a couple gallons of stew cooking on a camp stove (in a 5 gallon pot). The recipe below is for a traditional sized crock pot.

Brunswick Stew

Cooked boneless chicken (somewhere around a pound of meat. I like to cook a whole chicken, save the broth for soup, but if you’re in a hurry, get a large can of boneless chicken. You can also use pork)
Cup of broth
28 ounce can of stewed tomatoes (sometimes I’ll also add a small can of tomato paste)
Package of frozen corn
Package of frozen lima beans
A couple diced up potatoes
An onion, sliced thin

Add a couple bay leaves, some (or a lot) hot sauce (or Worcestershire sauce), salt and pepper

Mix the above together in a crock pot and cook it 8 or so hours on low.

Hush Puppies

Contrary to popular opinion, we Southerners do not feed these little morsels to our dog (but occasionally I’ll let Trisket sample one).

Heat oil in a heavy pan or deep fat fryer.

In a large bowl, mix together:

1 ½ cup cornmeal (most Southerners use white, but often yellow often all that is available up here)
½ cup flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 egg (beaten up real good)
1 finely chopped onion
1 cup buttermilk
1 finely chopped jalapeno pepper (optional)

Form the hushpuppies with the edge of a spoon, rolling the dough up into a blimp like shape. Keep them small! Drop dough into oil and stick spoon into a glass of water (to clean the dough) before going to the next puppy. Turn puppies in oil, till both sides are a light brown, remove from oil with slotted spoon and place on paper towels to cool. Eat when they are still warm. Some folks eat with butter or honey, but when they’re warm, they’re great without any condiments.