First Cooking Show Segment: BLT Deviled Eggs Recipe

So, my first cooking segment with The Virginia Farm Bureau's monthly program "Real Virginia" which features Virginia-focused agricultural news, profiles as well as gardening segments is officially up and running. About a month ago, I was contacted by the Farm Bureau to step in for Chef John Maxwell (who has since taken a teaching position in Florida) as the new culinary segment host for "Heart of the Home", a televised cooking demonstration featuring the best of Virginia's produce, meats and locally made products.

We spent an afternoon shooting three segments at Sur La Table at Stony Point which houses my dream kitchen as well as a collection of cooking tools worth weeping over. If you haven't taken a cooking class there yet, by all means do. By the end of the day, we had all three segments in the can including this recipe for BLT Deviled Eggs, which essentially combines all the deliciousness found in a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich and stuffs it into a classic Southern-style deviled egg. It's a great recipe that's super easy to make, and man oh man, is it satisfying. Salty bacon meets creamy eggs yolks and home-canned bread and butter pickles for a sweet and savory combo that really hits the spot. Be sure to visit your local farmer's market to buy some Virginia farm-fresh eggs for this one. Check out the full recipe below or visit Heart of the Home online. In the meantime, check out the video.

Not my best "still" shot here ;)

Sweet and Savory BLT Deviled Eggs

Makes 12 deviled eggs

6 large hard-boiled eggs, peeled
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon bread and butter pickles, finely minced
3 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled into small bits
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
6 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
A handful of shredded iceberg lettuce, for garnish

Slice eggs in half long ways and pop out the yolks. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together yolks, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, bread and butter pickles and bacon. Add cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper, to taste.

Fill a piping bag or plastic storage bag (with the corner snipped off) and pipe filling into each of the eggs. Hint: place eggs on a paper towel so they don’t slide around while you fill them.

Once you’ve used up all the filling, assemble eggs on a platter and top each one with a cherry tomato half. Then sprinkle each egg with a little shredded iceberg lettuce. Chill until ready to serve.

©2011 Fatback and Foie Gras. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Bakin' Bacon Recipe

Gets even better w/ poached eggs, buttery biscuits and Mimosas

I'm a bacon fanatic. Certainly, I am not reinventing the wheel with this declaration, but facts is facts. Bacon is a big part of my life, and over the years I've tinkered with many a bacon recipe, from frying it in cast-iron (deliciously greasy, but time consuming and messy) to microwaving (quick and easy, but too dry and often inconsistently cooked) so when I stumbled across this very cool recipe for baked bacon, I just had to give it a try. What intrigued me most about this version of baking bacon in the oven was that the author recommends starting the process in a cold oven, which if you think about it, makes total sense in that it facilitates a slower, more even cooking process from start to finish.

So, New Year's Day became all about baking bacon.

According to the directions, I started by wrapping a large ridged sheet pan in heavy duty foil. Then, I laid out all the bacon side by side. I recommend using quality thick-cut bacon for this recipe. Next, I popped the whole shebang into the oven (center rack) and THEN cranked the heat up to 400 degrees. You must be sure to put the bacon into a cold oven. P.S. If you're really feeling creative, at this point you can also drizzle bacon with molasses or sprinkle it with brown sugar and cayenne pepper before roasting it in the oven for additional flavor. (Thanks Karol Thompkins!)

Next, I roasted the bacon for approximately 20-24 minutes. Obviously, oven temps vary depending on the make, model, age and accuracy of your particular oven, but I ended up somewhere in that time range. Also, about three-quarters through the cooking process, I flipped the bacon over to promote more even cooking. One thing I did notice of culinary note is if your oven is a bit cockeyed (or perhaps the floors of your kitchen slope as mine do) the bacon resting in the rendered fat will cook faster than the rest of the meat. With this in mind, I recommend turning your pan at least once during the cooking process. This should be your end result:

After your bacon is done the way you like it, remove it to drain on paper towels (be sure to save your grease for making cornbread). Once the pan has cooled, simply ball up the foil and toss it away for easy clean-up.

Serve up your bacon with your favorite accoutrements. Store any leftover cooked bacon in ziplock bags in the fridge for BLT's, biscuit sandwiches or nibbling.

©2011 Fatback and Foie Gras. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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Rotisserie Chicken Salad Recipe

This week I am on a mission, a mission of frugality, something which as a full-blooded Taurus is not in my nature. Fact is, I like spending money on food (a lot). I love nothing more than to spend a leisurely afternoon traversing the shiny, happy aisles of my local Whole Foods Market tossing high dollar cheeses into my cart at will, but life at home is about to get tight. I'm about to tackle a very big writing project which will involve considerable research, a buttload of words on the page, and more hours of complicated recipe testing than I can count.

What this means on a financial level is that I won't be able to do much of anything else, including any freelance writing for about 6-10 months, perhaps longer. Sure, I'll receive an advance, but as those of you who have have written cookbooks already know, unless you are Rachael Ray, Mario Batali or some annoying celebrity food writer wanna-be-chef like Gwyneth Paltrow, there's no way in heck you will be living off of any book advance money, especially when you figure in food costs, which can be quite significant depending on the number of recipes in the book along with complexity of their preparation and whether your penning a cookbook featuring lobsters or pinto beans.

Biscuits are super cheap to make and freeze well so you can make them in bulk

Moreover, lets not forget that an advance is exactly that-- an advance on future royalties from book sales, so asking for more money than you actually need up front is a great way to cut off your nose to spite your face as they say. When it comes to advance money, a writer must pay back the full amount of the advance before she sees one nickle of book royalties and figuring that from start to finish we're talking years here, I've found that it's best to stash as much cash as you can whenever you can. All I can say is thank god my husband has a real job.

So, here I sit, attempting to morph into my mother, who is the portrait of parsimoniousness and has a basement filled to the ceiling with on-sale canned and dry goods, two freezers toppling over with meats, ziplocked bags filled with frozen fruits and vegetables from last season's farmer's markets along with an entire separate room brimming with home-canned everything. This spartan existence comes natural to her, but then again, she's not a Taurus.

Oven baked bacon tastes as good as it looks.

For me, this whole saving money thing will begin with itsy bitsy baby steps, and step one will be designating Mondays as a make-a-bunch-of-crap for the whole week day. This morning I baked a pound of bacon in the oven (here's a fantastic recipe for roasted bacon by the way) and made a mess of biscuits to go with it. My dear husband is a breakfast sandwich addict and is often on the road for long hours at a time which makes the Mickey D's drive-thru line a fast, easy choice, so the first order of business was to provide him with all the bacon, egg and cheese fixin's he would need to easily recreate these sandwiches at home. Even better is that he now knows he's eating real bacon, eggs, cheese and biscuits.

Next up, I will be making a large pot roast. We'll have this for dinner tonight along with a big salad and some roasted sweet potatoes (sweet potatoes are super cheap and soooo good for you). Any roast beef leftovers will morph into shredded beef and bean burritos somewhere down the line later this week since I already picked up a big can of refried beans and a packet of large flour tortillas on sale for half off.

For the rest of this week's lunches, I'll make an easy rotisserie chicken salad made from a store-bought whole rotisserie chicken that I purchased for $6.00. In addition to sandwiches, said chicken salad might fill a tomato for an impromptu diner-style lunch or get spread on crackers for a last minute snack. Once we eat up all the chicken salad, I'll make a batch of egg salad, which will serve the same purpose using a similar dressing, and it's even less expensive. More to come as the cookbook progresses and operation "living lean" goes into full effect. In the meantime, enjoy this super easy chicken salad recipe.

Tarragon Chicken Salad Recipe

This is an easy to make basic chicken salad recipe. Feel free to leave out the walnuts and grapes or add in any other ingredients of your choosing such as diced apples, sweet pickles (or dill pickle relish) or curry powder. Also, go easy on the salt since many store-bought rotisserie chickens are already heavily salted.

Serves 6

Ingredients:

2 cups rotisserie chicken, both white and dark meats, cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 cup lightly toasted walnuts
1/2 cup white grapes, sliced in half
1 stalk celery, cut into a small dice
1/2 small sweet onion, minced
1/4 cup mayonnaise (I prefer Duke's)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves, minced
Salt and pepper, to taste

In a big bowl mix together your chicken, walnuts, grapes, celery and onion. In a separate small bowl, mix together mayonnaise, mustard and tarragon. Season with salt and pepper. Add dressing to chicken mixture and blend well. Check again for seasonings. Then, cover and refrigerate at least 4-6 hours or preferably overnight.

Serve chicken salad inside a hollowed out tomato or on dense whole grain bread with lettuce and tomato.

©2011 Fatback and Foie Gras. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Pin It Now!

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Blue Cheese

Photo Kendra Bailey Morris

Only recently, in my old age, have I come to love brussels sprouts. It's not that I ever disdained them, but enjoying them roasted, baked, steamed or casseroled was simply something my family never did. They were rarely on our dinner table, except maybe on Thanksgiving where they would be cooked until gray, soft and giving up the ghost, a la country-style, which not only made them unappealing to the eye and palate, but also the olfactory senses. Basically, overcooking them makes them stink like rotten eggs.

This is one of several reasons brussels sprouts get an undeserved bad rap in my opinion.

Brussels sprouts, which are a member of the cabbage family (hence, their cute, mini-cabbage appearance) can actually be quite tasty, especially when they're slow roasted in a medium-high oven revealing all that gorgeous, sweet caramelization. They're super healthy, too, and are loaded with Vitamin A, C as well as folic acid and iron. After eating a plate of sprouts, I am actually energized, much in the same way I feel after downing a big bowl of collard greens (and of course, plenty of pot likker).

When it comes to cooking your sprouts, all you need to do is toss them with a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil, add a little salt and freshly cracked pepper and roast them in a 375 or 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes or so, turning them frequently, so they brown and all sides. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar right at the last 5 minutes of cooking for some extra punch and them serve them up hot. Even die-hard brussels sprouts haters can't resist them prepared like this.

If you're looking for even more bang for your flavor buck, toss in some cooked and crumbled bacon and some mild blue cheese (or goat cheese) and you'll have a fantastic combo that works well as a first course salad or a warm side next to a plate of roasted chicken, grilled pork loin or a hearty New York Strip.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Blue Cheese

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

2 pounds Brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in half
3 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (with 1/2 tablespoon reserved)
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste (I like to be generous with the pepper)
1 1/2 tablespoons good quality balsamic vinegar (with 1/2 tablespoon reserved)
1/4 cup cooked and crumbled bacon (more if you're a bacon lover)
2-3 ounces mild blue cheese, crumbled

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In large pan, toss the brussels sprouts with 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread the sprouts out in the pan in a single layer and roast for 25 or so minutes or until nice and caramelized. Be sure to rotate the pan and toss the sprouts around a bit during the cooking process so they are evenly browned.

During the last few minutes of cooking add the tablespoon of balsamic and toss well. Then return sprouts to the oven for another 3-4 minutes.

Remove sprouts to a large bowl and toss again with the reserved 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil, 1/2 tablespoon balsamic, bacon and blue cheese. Top with additional blue cheese and another sprinkle of black pepper just before serving.

©2011 Fatback and Foie Gras. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission Pin It Now!

Because You Need More Meat: Breakfast, UK-Style

Start the day off right--a traditional Welsh breakfast

One of my many food resolutions for 2011 is to eat more big, fatty breakfasts. I've gotten quite lazy in this regard, and have found myself nibbling a couple of crackers, a bowl of fruit, maybe a couple of scoops of yogurt, or most of the time, simply endless cups of black coffee. And, what have I gotten out of this? By the time lunch rolls around, I'm famished and half out of it, with most of my spaciness attributed to one hell of a sugar crash. The answer here is clear. I need to eat more greasy meat.

Low fat granola bars are no way to live, especially when something like this can instead be enjoyed with vim and vigor:

Over the years, I've traveled somewhat extensively throughout England, Scotland and Wales, and what I've discovered (in addition to some seriously good beer) is that the Brits know how enjoy a hearty breakfast. Being from West Virginia, where my granny was known to known to cook meals where literally everything had some sort of meat or meat byproduct in it, be it country ham gravy, fatback infused collards or brown beans simmered in nothing but a ham hock and a little salt and pepper, I have always counted myself as some sort of meaty expert when it comes to all meals, especially breakfast. Growing up in our house, the eggs were fried in bacon grease, the white gravy made from country sausage drippings, and the biscuits rolled in pure lard, so when I sampled my first real British-style breakfast, I seriously thought I had been transported back to granny's kitchen.

A traditional English breakfast must include Heinz beans

Eggs fried in bacon grease? Check. Greasy sausage links? Check. Bacon (streaky bacon) or Rashers (which are made from pork loin versus all belly)? Check. Side of canned baked beans in a tomato sauce that contains way too much sugar? Yup. All that was missing was a buttery biscuit and a bowl of mom's homemade apple butter, and I can forgive the Brits for including a vegetable or two (hence, the tomato and the mushroom) since those were also cooked in bacon drippings making them perfectly acceptable.

And, there are plenty of variations to the "Full Breakfast" theme, making an English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh breakfast a veritable blank canvas of potential porky goodness. There's black pudding (a.k.a. blood sausage) which is a combination of pig's blood, suet, breadcrumbs and oatmeal that is pan fried and served alongside your eggs, sausage, rashers and beans. (See photo a top.) Apparently, Barbara Streisand is a pretty big fan of it, too, which makes it even more cool (or she ruined it).

In Wales, it's all about the laverbread (a.k.a. Bara Lafwr). Laverbread is a nutrient-rich breakfast treat made from Laver, a type of seaweed found off the coast of Britain. Traditionally, it's pureed an served alongside rashers, sausages and cockles, making it the most healthy breakfast additions of the bunch. While visiting Wales, I found it to be particularly tasty when spread on a piece of crusty, buttered toast.

Photo courtesy Welsh Foodie

Other additions to a full U.K.-styled breakfast range from bubble and squeak (made from a mixture of leftover roasted vegetables often including cabbage, potatoes and carrots), sauteed mushrooms, oatcakes, farl (Irish fried soda bread) or the pinnacle of all that's good when it comes to pieces-parts, Scottish Haggis.  Last, but not least, all of this grease-laden goodness must be washed down with pot of hot black tea or perhaps a pint of Guinness if you're doing it Irish-style and/or straddle the alcoholic line.

Making a hearty meat-laden breakfast in honor of the British Isles couldn't be easier. Start with your meats (bacon, sausage, rashers, black pudding etc...) and fry them well in a hot pan (cast-iron is best for flavor).  Drain on paper towels and reserve most or all of the grease, depending on your intended fat quotient. Next up, fry any vegetables like a sliced-in-half tomato, mushrooms (Portabello is deliciously woody) or cubed potatoes. Set those aside. Keep your pan hot and crack in your eggs. Fry them how you like.  I like over-easy best for its runny-ness factor. Toast your bread. Warm your beans and season the whole shebang with plenty of freshly ground black pepper and a little salt.

We added a little Toad in Hole action to our breakfast

Some recipes are not meant to be an exact science and are better off with a little of this added to a little of that. Hence, why I don't have an actual written recipe for you. However, for you anal types (and you know who you are) here's a link to Jamie Oliver's Full Monty Breakfast Recipe which I think is pretty close to an authentic English-style start to the day. Chef Oliver recommends serving his breakfast with my favorite condiment on the planet, HP Sauce, so that automatically makes it a good rec in my book.

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Fresh Butter Beans Sauteed in Butter and Bacon

Fresh butter beans somehow taste better when sauteed in a cast iron skillet

Every summer, I scour the farmer's markets in an effort to hunt down these rare little gems. Whether you shuck your own or buy them bagged and ready, the sweet, starchy flavor of fresh butter beans can't be beat. I consider butter beans a sort of ode to the end of the growing season since they seem to magically appear and disappear in a matter of months. Grab them up while you can because when they're gone, they're gone. 

For the complete story, check out my article in the Richmond Times Dispatch featuring the basics on how to identify and maximize the flavor of these small but mighty beans.

Fresh Butter Beans Sauteed in Butter and Bacon

If you can manage to score end-of-summer fresh butter beans, this decadent recipe makes an excellent accompaniment to grilled pork loin with sauteed apples, a couple of jumbo lump crab cakes or a pile of fresh-fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

Kendra Bailey Morris

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
4 slices bacon, chopped
2 cups fresh butter beans, shelled and rinsed
½ cup low-sodium chicken stock
Fresh herbs of choice, minced to taste (such as chives, oregano or basil)
Salt and pepper, to taste

In a cast-iron skillet, sauté the bacon and butter until crispy. Pour off half the bacon grease and discard. Add butter beans and stock and bring up to a gentle boil. Then cover and cook about 10 to 12 minutes or until the beans are tender. Season with fresh herbs and salt and pepper. Then uncover and cook a couple more minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated. Pin It Now!

Steakhouse Style Bacon and Blue Cheese Wedge Salad

Photo Kendra Bailey Morris

One of my most memorable wedge salad moments was when the hubby and I were dining at one of our favorite steak joints Flemings Steakhouse. While sampling a bottle of Hall Cab (which is utterly outstanding with big, meaty NY Strip, by the way) we dove into crisp, cold chunks of iceberg lettuce, smoky bacon bits smothered in gobs of creamy blue cheese dressing. Perhaps it was the environment (or that second glass of wine) but for a moment, I felt my eyes glaze over as I muttered something along the lines of, "Dear god, that is good."

Naturally, as happens with many of us home cooks, I had to take a stab at recreating this salad at home, beginning with the dressing. Blue cheese dressing is one of those salad accents that can be out of this world (homemade with chunks of quality blue cheese) or fundamentally dull (commercial made with little to no blue cheese and nearly devoid of flavor altogether). I figured if I stuck to my guns and used only the highest quality ingredients I could find, how could I go wrong?

One of the aspects of blue cheese dressing, I love so much is just that hint of garlic, not too much to overwhelm, but just enough to lend a piquant savoriness. I also discovered that a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce really elevates the flavor of the dressing to something truly swoon-worthy. Maybe it's the fact that Worcestershire lends just a bit of fermentation or incites memories of flaming grilled meat. I honestly have no idea, but what I do know, is that it's an essential addition to any homemade blue cheese dressing.

Then, there's the blue cheese, the star of this show, with its naturally salty, cow's milk goodness. Here, quality should not be overlooked. Avoid the pre-crumbled (tasteless) stuff and get yourself a nice wedge of Maytag, Amish Blue, Danish Blue or Roaring Forties and crumble it by hand.

When it comes to your salad, select only the freshest iceberg (check the base of the lettuce, where it has been picked, for signs of browning when looking for the freshest ones). Good quality, thick-cut bacon is a must, as is plenty of freshly ground pepper over your finished product. In true steakhouse fashion, serve your salad as a first course to your meat-laden dinner with a nice big pour of Cabernet, Merlot or even a spicy Zinfandel to play off the freshly ground pepper. For an excellent steak recipe, check out Giuliano and Lael Hazan's uber-tasty Italian-style grilled rib-eye recipe.

Photos Kendra Bailey Morris

Bacon and Blue Cheese Wedge Salad

Serves 4

One head of iceberg lettuce

Blue cheese dressing (see recipe below)One medium-sized tomato, seeded and diced

4 slices bacon, fried and crumbled

1/2 cup blue cheese, for garnish

Freshly ground black pepper

One tablespoon minced chives, optional.

Cut lettuce in 8 wedges and plate two wedges on each plate.  Drizzle each wedge with blue cheese. Then sprinkle with tomato, bacon bits and blue cheese.  Season generously with black pepper and garnish with fresh chives.  Serve any additional dressing on the side.

 

Buttermilk Blue Cheese Dressing

Makes about 4-6 servings

½ cup mayonnaise

½ cup buttermilk*

One heaping tablespoon sour cream

1 cup crumbled blue cheese

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, or to taste

1 small clove garlic, minced

Coarse black pepper, to taste

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together mayo, buttermilk and sour cream. Add rest of ingredients and mix well, incorporating the blue cheese, but leaving a few chunks as well. Season generously with black pepper, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.  Note: this dressing is excellent served with Buffalo wings and celery.

*If dressing is too thick, simply add a little buttermilk until you achieve your desired consistency. Add less buttermilk if you want a chunkier-type dip.

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Five Kitchen Must-Have’s For Down-Home Country Cookin'

Kendra Bailey Morris

Things are getting rowdy over at CNN's kickin' food blog Eatocracy

Who knew that a Top Five Country Cookin' food post could incite such controversy?  From obesity in America to what defines Southern cooking, the comment section has lit up. Looks like the war between the North and South is back in business.

See for yourself ...

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