Soul Food Recipes

Happy New Year’s Everyone! Let’s make 2013 the best year yet for all of us. My New Year’s celebration and cooking was a bit delayed this year, compared to years past. Typically, I make collard greens and black-eyed peas or Hoppin John on New Year’s Eve. However, this year I didn’t make them until January 3rd! I am not the kind of person to turn down a chance to create wealth and good luck in my life, which is what all the greens and peas are supposed to represent. However, my mom was traveling and I was a bit sick and didn’t have an appetite on New Year’s Eve.

Luckily for me, my neighbors invited me over for hot cocoa on New Year’s Day and they just happened to be making a big, steaming pot of those gorgeous black eyed peas. I decided that since it was technically the new day of the new year, that eating good luck food could still be worth my while. Besides, I am not the kind of person to turn down good, home cooked food! So, I had a spoonful, in order to keep fate on my side.

The peas had just been pulled off of the burner and were piping hot. They had not yet been seasoned with anything at. No salt, pepper, Tabasco, ham or bacon had been added to the pot while they had cooked. My neighbor handed me a gleaming silver spoon that was piled high with the delectable peas.

I could tell from looking at them that they had been cooked to perfection. All of the peas were soft, with no trace of a hard, uncooked core. Some of them on the spoon had split open from either the act of being scooped from the larger pot or from the heat coming off of the steam. And still others were whole, untouched and perfect with their black centers creating an appealing pattern in the creamy white mound on the spoon.

I took a small bite so as not to burn my tongue, which would be a bad way to start the New Year The black-eyed peas were beyond delicious. The bite had been off the top of the spoon, where most of the unbroken peas were located. Therefore, I could feel the skin of the black-eyed peas “give” in my mouth, revealing the soft and buttery tasting souls of the peas.

By now, the spoon had cooled and my second bite was more gung ho. This time around, I took in the peas that had been mashed and broken from the act of scooping and from all of the heat from cooking. Their texture was so fine and wonderful that they slid over my tongue and down my throat almost too quickly, before I could thoroughly enjoy them.

I was left wanting more, but did not want to seem rude by asking my neighbors for a new spoon and another helping. I left their home happy to have participated in one of my most loved traditions, but I was also dissatisfied and wanted more. Needless to say, when my mom got home on Jan 3rd and cooking and eating could be done by two people, we took to the kitchen to make Hopping John, collard greens and spoon bread. We had enough for 3 days of feasting. It was heavenly!

What are some of your New Year traditions for good luck and prosperity?

When I make these tender homemade buttermilk biscuits, people can’t wait to eat them. They quickly grab them off the pan before I can transfer them to a serving plate!

Since the biscuits are fresh from the oven, people tend to toss the piping hot biscuits back and forth between their hands while walking to their plates. From behind me, I can hear soft mutterings as the hungry try to nurse their red fingertips, “ouch”… “hot, hot, hot.”

Once seated, they tear open the homemade buttermilk biscuits in order to put a pat of butter in the middle. Steam wafts from the light, flaky center and the butter quickly melts and oozes down the sides of the biscuits.

Ingredients:

2 cups cake flour (White Lilly flour is the brand of choice for making biscuits in the South)

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon cold butter

¾ – 1 cup low-fat buttermilk

 

Preheat the oven to 500°.  Finely cut the butter into the smallest size pieces possible and then put it back in the refrigerator to chill while preparing the rest of the ingredients. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Using a pastry blender or fork, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the buttermilk until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Loosely form the dough into a 1” thick rectangle. Be careful not to overwork the dough. The rectangle should just barely hold together.  Cut the dough into biscuits and place on a greased pan. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until lightly browned on top.

I hope you enjoy these homemade buttermilk biscuits as much as my family and I do. Do you have your own favorite biscuit recipe? I’d love to read them.

 

 

 

Welcome to the Soul Food Recipes site where you can find mouth-watering, old-fashioned Soul Food, Home-style Comfort Foods, and Traditional Southern Foods.

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Here is the story behind my infamous cheese grits recipe. The first time I had cheese grits was at the Bluebird Cafe on Prytania Street in New Orleans. I had eaten grits with butter more times than I could count, but never grits with cheese. The idea of putting freshly grated cheddar cheese in my grits just about knocked me off of the quaint, neighborhood restaurant’s chair.
Nola.com’s write-up of the Bluebird best describes the city’s love for the cafe, “Waiting on the sidewalk outside the Prytania Street cafe is a New Orleans tradition for a good chunk of the population, particularly those who find diner-style breakfasts help erase damage caused by the previous night’s questionable judgment.”

Sadly, the Bluebird is now closed, but my love of cheese grits lives on!

Cheese Grits Recipe:

2 cups whole or low-fat milk
2 cups of water
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1 cup of coarse ground cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper (you can add more if you like your grits peppery)
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter
2/3 cups of grated sharp cheddar cheese

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Directions:
Combine the milk, water, and salt in a large pot or pan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Be sure to stir occasionally to ensure that the milk and water combine well. Once the milk and water mixture comes to a boil, gradually add the cornmeal while continually whisking with either a whisk or a fork.

Once all of the cornmeal has been incorporated, decrease the heat to low and cover the pot. Every three to four minutes, be sure to remove the lid and whisk well to prevent grits from sticking or forming lumps. Make sure that you get into the corners of pot when whisking, otherwise lumps will grow in the corners. Cook the grits for 20 to 25 minutes or until mixture is creamy.

Remove the pan from heat and then add the pepper and the butter and whisk to combine. Once the butter is melted, gradually whisk in the cheese a little at a time, making sure it is evenly distributed throughout the grits. Serve this cheese grits recipe to your loved ones immediately.

Corn pone is a form of cornbread made without milk or eggs. Soldiers used to make a very similar recipe to this during the Civil War over their campfires.

Who knew there were so many corn pone opinions?? There is some confusion about the differences between corn pone, hoecakes, johnny cakes, cornbread and spoon bread. As I understand it, hoecakes are a mixture of cornmeal, water, and salt. They were so named because they were originally baked on the flat of a hoe over a wood fire. Johnnycakes and corn pone are somewhat thicker cakes that are cooked with grease or butter. Finally, cornbread typically includes egg and spoon bread is more of a corn pudding. There is also confusion about whether or not corn pone is one word or two words. Some say that it is cornpone, while others insist that it is “corn pone.” Personally, I think it is very similar to the debate about whether or not “cornbread” is one word or two words, but as long as it tastes good…who cares?

This corn pone recipe makes between 12-24 fried corn porn cakes, depending on the size of your little helper’s hands

Ingredients:

4 cups of ground yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon of salt
2 1/2 cups of boiling water
1/3 cup bacon grease, shortening, oil or butter

Directions:
In a medium pot, boil the water over high heat. Then reduce the heat to medium and add the cornmeal and stir constantly to prevent sticking, lumps and to get the water and cornmeal well combined about 1 minute. Remove the pan from heat and cover.

Allow the mixture to sit for 15-20 minutes or until all the water has been absorbed by the cornmeal. Test the moistness of the cornmeal by taking a small bit of batter in your hand and flatten it a bit into a pancake shape. Press your finger into it and if the finger print sticks then the cornmeal is just right. If the cornmeal is too dry, add more hot water to the pan, recover the pan and allow to sit for another 10 minutes.

In a frying pan or cast iron skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons of the grease over medium heat. If you add more grease then that, then the first couple of corn cakes will absorb too much grease. With your hands, pat together palm sized cornmeal cakes and add them to the skillet. Cook until lightly browned on each side and then transfer them to paper towels to drain. Continue to add grease to the pan and cook the corn pone until all the batter is entirely used up.

Fried Tilapia Southern Style:

1 large egg
1/3 cup of whole milk
1/2 teaspoon of salt
25 standard crackers like Saltines
1/3 tsp of cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
25 ounces of fresh tilapia fillets
6 cups of vegetable oil (Do not use peanut oil because of the taste)
2 – 3 lemons, sliced into quarters
Bottled Tartar sauce as a accompaniment

To Fry The Tilapia:

Pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees. For the first step, mix the egg, whole milk and 1/4 tsp. of the salt in a medium sized bowl and then set aside. Using a plastic baggie, like a Ziploc, put in the Saltine crackers and then mash them up until they are finely ground into almost a dust. This will make a nice coating for the tilapia fillets.

In a big and shallow glass casserole dish, pour out the Saltine crackers into the bottom of the pan. Then, sprinkle with the cayenne pepper, black pepper and 1/4 tsp. of salt and stir into the ground up crackers.

Place 1 tilapia fillet into the egg and milk mix and let any excess liquid to drip off of the fillet and back into the bowl. Then, dredge the fish in the Saltines and seasonings to coat on both sides and then place the coated fillets on a platter or large plate while continuing to dredge the remaining fillets.

In a very deep heavy, cast iron pot, add in the oil over high heat. Once a drop of water forms into a ball when dripped into the hot oil, it is time to cook the fillets. Carefully place a fillet into the hot oil and fry until it is golden brown and cooked all the way through, 3 to 4 minutes. Take out the fried tilapia with a slotted spatula and set on top of paper towels to drain for several minutes. Then, transfer the fillets from the paper towels to a clean cookie sheet or baking dish and keep the fish warm in the oven while you continue to fry the remaining fillets.