on a southern roll

it's been about 10 days since my last post. i'm obviously not a good, everyday blogger. whatever.

i've been on a bit of a southern roll lately. i must be gearing up to go home next month. i am ready to visit nc! october (also of course known as rocktober) has always been my favorite north carolina month, and no it's not just because my birthday is in october. it's the best month by far. the temperature drops to 70/60-65 degree days and the nights start to cool off too - and, an important plus is those pesky mosquitoes start to disappear. light jackets slowly make their way back into your life and by the time the state fair rolls around, you are wearing a medium jacket at night to keep cool while you are outside enjoying roasted corn and elephant ears. mmm...

so, the point of this blog is the breakfast i cooked last week. i won't say much about it except it just heightened my need for a bojangle's biscuit when i arrive home on october 12th. i had bought some buttermilk for my fried okra the weekend before, and so i decided to make buttermilk biscuits because what the hell else do you make with buttermilk?? so, i made them and i thought they turned out good although, as commented by geoffrey, not as big as bojangle's. oh and in case you are wondering, those are long skinny biscuits. my grandmother use to make them too. you make them out of your leftover dough.




i also made gimmie lean veggie sausage. this is by far my favorite meat product. i pan fry it in vegetable oil - a hearty amount. the sausage is covered about halfway, not completely submerged. you just flip it as it cooks. then drain on paper towels. looks like i could use a new pan.




the grits i made were a super indication that i am ready for a trip home. i made them just right, not too thick and not too runny, with lots of salt, lots of pepper and of course butter.



i order my grits online here, from the Lee's Bros. Boiled Peantus Catalog. if you live outside of the south, far away, and don't get there too often this is the website for you. i buy the Guildford Mill Stone Ground Grits - wow, who would have known that their grits are made from heirloom white corn? i just found that out; this makes me like them even more. i do have one warning for you in regard to the lee's bros. catalog: if you are used to homemade boiled peanuts don't order theirs. i did once because i really wanted/needed some and wasn't going home for a long time. they disappointed because, first off they were expensive, i won't bother to tell you how much. second, they boil what appears to be spanish red peanuts - this is no good - plus i wouldn't be surprised if they also use dried peanuts to boil..ick.

i am used to the peanuts that my dad buys in pender county, nc. they are a type (i'm am not 100% of the actual variety) of "green" peanuts. "green" just means they are freshly harvested. all you do is put a bunch in a large pot and boil them with a lot of salt until they become soft and yummy (this can take a few hours). using a pressure cooker makes the process go a lot faster. each year my dad buys a bushel of peanuts (which is about 8 gallons) and boils them for me. then he freezes them. they last all year. it's awesome. when i lived in nc, just two hours away,i would eat them a lot faster. but being in san francisco now makes them last a bit longer, which my brother probably appreciates. i can't wait to have some when i am home next month!! one other thing, when i first tell people about boiled peanuts they think i'm crazy and they sound gross; maybe you are thinking the same thing. but i can tell you have converted many a naysayer and even made a few people boiled peanut addicts.

for a little more information on boiled peanuts you can check out wikepedia, although i think i could really add to their definition. when i go home next month i'll take some pictures and post them for you.

also, i have been known to stoop to eating these when my dad run's out, although that rarely has ever happened. yes, i know, canned peanuts - totally gross. sometimes you just get desperate. plus their not too bad if you warm them up.

the cookout vs. the bbq

have you ever been to a cookout? if you don't live in the south you probably haven't because you have been going to barbeques (or bbqs) your whole life. if you live in the south most likely you have been to both. there is a big difference between the two, that many people outside of the south just don't get. see, a cookout is when you have your family or friends over and grill out burgers and other meats, but not a pig. when you have a bbq in the south, there is a huge grill/smoker with a big, fat, pig slowly cooking on it. this is the big difference. oh, and then there is also a bbq sandwich (pulled pork) which you can eat whenever you want, not necessarily at a bbq. i won't even get into the different between eastern and western nc bbq (even though i of course do know the difference and besides this is a veggie blog).

i was so confused a few times when i first moved to san francisco. i heard that the bottom of the hill has bbqs every sunday with bands. i thought "wow, they actually cook a whole pig in san francisco of all places." nope, i soon found out - they call what should be a cookout a bbq or barbeque. that is when i realized that most of the country just doesn't get the distinction that is made in the southeast. and actually i am not really sure if this distinction is made all over the southeast, i just know that from durham to southeastern nc, expect a pig to be the focal point if you are invited to a bbq and expect burgers, hot dogs, chicken, etc. if you are invited to a cookout. of course you can expect delicious sides at both events.

with all of this said, last sunday, geoffrey and i hosted a "cookout, not a bbq" for our friends. we had a good turn out and i tried really hard to make some good southern sides. i made some potato salad, the way my mom does, except i added some dill. i made some coleslaw almost exactly the way my dad makes it which is actually the kind of coleslaw you would usually eat with fried fish (catfish or flounder most likely), on hot dogs, or with bbq (the pulled pork plate or sandwich i mean). i also made some really good fried okra.

fresh fried okra
cut up a pound of okra into bit size pieces.
beat two eggs (and half a cup of buttermilk if you want to be extreme).
soak the okra in the egg mixture for 5-10 minutes. start heating up your oil while the okra is soaking. i recommend using a cast iron pot or a shallow wok to fry the okra.
use a spoon (with holes) to scoop up the okra and then place the okra in
a mixture of 1 cup corn meal and 1 cup flour. add salt and pepper liberally to this mixture.
after you add the okra to the mixture, stir it around to get it coated and then start adding the oil.
i usually put a test piece in to make sure my oil is hot enough. the okra should sizzle as soon at you put it in the oil. depending on how big your pot of oil is you may not be able to add all of the okra at once. just make sure you don't add so much that the temperature of your oil goes down.
once the okra is looking nice and golden brown, scoop out of the oil and put on a plate that has 4 or so paper towels on it (to soak up the oil).
salt again and serve hot. yummy.

i would give you the potato salad recipe but it's pretty long. i do recommend every vegetarian check out this amazing southern veggie cookbook: heart of home. it's my favorite cookbook of all time and the tofu fried chicken recipe is something i cook at least once a month. the potato salad recipe is similar to what i made but i left out some of the fancy extras (like poppyseeds). i also substituted celery salt for fresh celery because geoffrey doesn't like celery and i found out that's what my mom does.

mm, what else. besides the potato salad and coleslaw (by the way it's top secret) i tried to make these "city 'chicken' legs" that are in the heart of home cookbook but they really did not turn out. in defense of the book i have to say it's the first thing i have made from there that didn't turn out awesome. i did make the bbq sauce in there (a sweet/spicy red sauce) and it turned out amazing. it made a TON of sauce though that we will be eating for a very very long time. i made tons of veggies for kabobs which all turned out yummy even after i spilled a ton of them on the brick patio. i marinated everything in a tomato vinaigrette i threw together. it just had the gooey seedy parts of 4-6 tomatoes, some lemon olive oil, salt, pepper and some basil. i thought it was pretty good. for the veggies i had onions, tomatoes, squash, and also halloumi cheese. if you don't know halloumi cheese you should go straight to the grocery store and get some. it's great for grilling or pan frying. it doesn't get very melty and retains it's shape. it comes from cyprus. delicious.

i made some pineapple salsa also and it turned out really great. i was pretty surprised by this because sometimes when i make salsa i tend to put too much garlic or onions in it. i tried really hard though this time not to over do it and i think it paid off. i just made a basic salsa fresca with 6 tomatoes (no seeds), half a red onion, about a cup of cilantro, two garlic cloves, 2 jalapenos chopped fine, and about a cup of fresh chopped pineapple. the salsa gets pretty juicy from the tomatoes and pineapple so you have to drain some of the liquid off. i drained what i thought was a ton off and it just seemed to get juicy again, so my point is at least drain some of the juice off. i let this sit and chill in the fridge for about 2 hours before i served it. it allowed the flavors more time to mingle. i think the juice from half a lime would have been a great addition to this but i forgot. it still tasted amazing, not to brag or anything. i got this recipe from a friend who lives in hawaii.

for desert i made some brownies. i got the recipe from epicurious. this is a really easy recipe and the brownies turn out gooey and perfect if you cook them for 35-40 mintues. i recommend getting some nice chocolate to melt. i would like to try some recchiuti chocolate sometime but i used some semi-sweet ghirardelli chocolate which of course is pretty good chocolate. however, recchiuti is my favorite chocolate and i will definitely try the brownies with their bittersweet bar sometime.

and finally, last but not least, i made some banana pudding. all you do is layer vanilla wafers (aka nilla wafers), vanilla pudding, sliced bananas and then top with whipped cream. i decided to make my pudding fresh. it was easy, i got the recipe from allrecipes.com. i forgot to ask my parents how they make their banana pudding so i used a recipe from my trusty our state magazine. my grandmother has gotten me a subscription to this for christmas every year since i moved to san francisco. this was the first time i made one of their recipes. basically i made the pudding recipe - i think it made about five cups and then into it i folded half a cup of sour cream and half of the whipped topping. i made fresh whipped topping; i used a pint of cream (which i added half a cup of sugar to - yes intense but soooo good). then i just started out with the nilla wafters in the bottom of my dish, then bananas on top, then pudding. then i started over. i think i had three layers in total and then covered the top with the other half of my whipped cream. i let it sit overnight so it would get cold and the nilla wafers absorb some of the cream and take on a more chewy texture. by the way i must give a special thanks to geoffrey once again for cutting the bananas so expertly and also for eating the left over vanilla pudding for dinner on saturday night. waste not want not.

i think everything was pretty much eaten (except the not so good fake chicken legs i tried to make) which made me happy. it's fun to cook for everyone. i should mention also that my friends stephanie and tanner brought some excellent deviled eggs, deena brought her family's cole slaw recipe (which as noted by hao was sweet compared to my savory coleslaw and of course was delicious), and chantal and jamie brought some wonderful pasta salad. everything turned out great and i was glad i got to share our backyard on a sunny sunday, labor day weekend.

the return of dinner club

last saturday geoffrey and i went out for a fun dinner at a relatively new restaurant in the mission, maverick. i had read about maverick on the latest edition of the san francisco magazine, in their best restaurants august issue. maverick had been voted one of the top three new restaurants in the city. once i read the review and noticed they had a southern edge i was intrigued and checked on open table for a reservation. we were lucky to get one that night for 8:30pm.

the main point of this post is not write a new review of maverick, i already have one yelp, but to let you know that with this meal geoffrey and i revived our monthly dinner club. we had a strong dinner club going for about a year during the 2004-2005 year. sadly it ended about a year ago when our friends sean and katherine moved back to nc. they were our steady dinner club companions and we miss eating with them. you are probably wondering by now "what exactly is dinner club?"

well, dinner club, you see is a once a month visit (sometimes every 2-3 months due to scheduling problems) to a restuarnt of choice. each month, in a rotating order, a dinner club member picks a restaurant they really want to try. before this choice is made official they have to check to make sure no other members have been there before and if they have, they cannot have been to the restaurant within 12 months - this is the only way a veto is made. no one in dinner club is allowed to veto that month's selection based on their own food likes and dislikes - this allows for some picky eaters (not naming names) to try some new, exciting dishes for the taste buds to savor. (although i will have to say that an official rule is there at least be one vegetarian entree since geoffrey and i are veggie, although sometimes i will eat fish if it sounds amazing.)

we had a fabulous dinner club with sean and katherine. our friend chris was also a frequent dinner club member and came into the mix a little later in the game. we tried some great places, see for yourself:

Bissap Baobab
Firefly
Slanted Door
New Ganges
Chez Panisse
Foreign Cinema
Medjool

for this past year we have grieved the loss of our dinner club friends - yes, i know it's a little dramatic... chris still lives out here but we hardly ever see him. we hadn't much thought about having dinner club since last summer. we still of course ate out a lot this past year and tried new places but i never really felt like dinner club until this past saturday. i don't know why, it just came back to me. SO, dinner club is officially back!! this means we'll be recruiting some of our friends to join. i think we already have hao in the mix.

here is what i wrote about maverick on yelp:

"i went to maverick last night after reading a few reviews and seeing they were voted as one of the best new restaurants by the san francisco magazine's best restaurants august 2006 issue. i looked over their website and was excited to see they did indeed have a vegetarian entree in addition to plenty of appetizers and sides.

i was easily able to make a same day reservation for 8:30pm through open table. and once we arrived, we didn't have too wait long, just about 10 minutes to be seated.

we (2 of us) started with the fig salad and the fried green tomatoes. first off the portions were generous which pleasantly surprised me. i thought the salad was good but a tad boring. the fried green tomatoes were wonderful and the goat cheese complimented their tangy flavor.

for dinner we only shared one entree, the pan fried tempeh. we were going to order two but they only had one left. i found this a little surprising since it was only around 8:45. however, it all worked out fine because we ordered the roasted cauliflower and the mac&cheese as supplements. this ended up being more than enough food and left plenty of room for dessert. i thought the cauliflower was amazing - make sure you order it. the mac&cheese was standard. i loved the tempeh dish. you get two hearty pieces of tempeh that have been pan fried in a vinegary gravy with mushrooms and baby bok choy. i love vinegar so i had no problems with it. i also appreciated there being an interesting vegetarian dish even if there was just one.

for dessert we shared the pecan pie and the double chocolate bread pudding. i thought the pecan pie was excellent and the bread pudding was enough to share between two. i wished it had been a bit more gooey.

overall i would go back to maverick just probably not anytime soon. i'll probably keep an eye on their menu for changes. also, be prepared to drop a little bit of cash here. our meal, as described above, plus one beer and a glass of wine totaled 95 dollars (with tip). of course you could do it cheaper if you didn't get appetizers, drinks, and desserts but what's the point?"

i look forward to more fabulous meals like this made possible through dinner club.