Traveling Sugar

We made a batch of sugar cookies to take on the beach vacation last week.

Classic Sugar Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
4 scant cups sifted flour
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
dash salt

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until fluffy.

Add vanilla, sifted flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well.
Cover and refrigerate. (Dough can be refrigerated for several days. In this case, I froze the dough for about a week.)

When ready to bake cookies, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour various colored sugars or sprinkles or what have you in bowls.

Pinch off dough and roll into balls. Roll in the colored sugar and place on a baking sheet.

The Child, who is six, enjoyed that part. Really enjoyed it.


Using a glass, smoosh the cookie dough down a bit to form disks.


Bake until done, about 9 to 11 minutes. Cool for a minute or two on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.


This was easy-peasy. When we finished and the cookies turned out so pretty and we all had such fun making them, I knew we'd employ this method again. So much so that when we visited the shops at Foley, we got an assortment of sprinkles with these very cookies in mind.
Can't you JUST SEE the autumn cookies - the sugar cookies rolled in sparkling pumpkin orange sugar and assorted fall-shaped sprinkles? Can't you?? BECAUSE I TOTALLY CAN.

Not that I didn't already have an abundance of assorted, seasonal sprinkles in the cabinet.
Now that I think about it that looks like an intervention waiting to happen.

Don't mind me and my obsessive tendency toward sprinkles. Enjoy the sugar cookies.


You can also roll out, cut out, bake, and decorate these cookies:

Working with a small portion of dough at a time, roll out on floured board until about 1/4-inch thick. Dip cutter in flour and cut out shapes. Place on ungreased baking sheets and refrigerate while working on the next batch; this will keep cookies from spreading, making their shapes more defined. (For best results, put cookies of the same size on each sheet.)

Bake cookies for 9 to 11 minutes, or until cookies are just beginning to brown on the edges.

Cool on pan for a minute or two then remove to wire rack to finish cooling.

Completely cooled cookies can be wrapped and frozen for weeks. Thaw cookies in packaging at room temperature before decorating.

Like these at Christmas.

Or these that made great Easter happies.

Again With Pizza

We eat pizza more often than I mention it here because I figure how many different ways can I write the same thing over and over? This time it is a little different in that it starts with homemade pizza dough.

I love homemade pizza dough. Love. It. It's not much trouble; I don't know why I don't make it more often. I think it's the idea of the homemade dough -- the kneading, the rising, the waiting, and whatnot.

This particular recipe is one of my favorites.


It's made in the food processor so the hand kneading is kept to a bare minimum (big plus). The dough is a joy to work with, too, nice and elastic and smooth - not sticky at all.

(One trick I learned from a bread baking class taught by Betsy Oppenneer is to use a bit of oil, such as olive or vegetable, rather than flour, when rolling out dough. Dough won't stick to the oiled surface and you don't run the risk of incorporating too much flour in the dough, as I almost always did when I'd use flour. The dough would stick to the surface, stick to my hands, stick to everything so I'd dust it with flour and more flour and even more flour, and the end result was often packy and heavy.)

Caveat: This recipe is from, um, Martha Stewart's Hors d'Oeuvres Handbook. I know. I'm generally not a fan of her recipes as they tend to involve ten steps too many, and obscure, often expensive ingredients and specialty equipment. Howevah, this book I really like. The handful of recipes I've tried in it have all turned out very well. I especially like this pizza dough because it can be made anywhere from 12 hours to three weeks ahead of time.

Pizza Dough
Makes enough for three 10-inch pizzas or four 14-inch pizzas.

1 cup warm water (110 degrees) - You may want to invest in a good instant read thermometer to be sure.
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 1/4-ounce (about 2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
2 3/4 to 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for oiling the bowl

1. Pour the warm water into a small bowl. Add the sugar and sprinkle in the yeast. Using a fork, stir the mixture until the yeast has dissolved and the water has turned putty colored. Let the yeast stand until becomes creamy and foamy, about 5 minutes.


2. In the bowl of a food processor, combine 2 3/4 cups flour and the salt, pulsing 3 to 4 times.


Add the yeast mixture and 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil. Pulse until the dough comes together, adding more flour as needed until the dough is smooth,not tacky, when pinched between two fingers. Transfer to a clean surface. Knead the dough 4 or 5 turns and shape it into a ball.

3. Brush the inside of a medium bowl with olive oil, and place the dough in the bowl, smooth-side up.


Cover tightly with plastic wrap, and place in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 40 minutes. Remove the plastic wrap, and push your fist into the center of the dough to punch it down. Working in the bowl, fold the dough back onto itself 4 or 5 times. Turn the dough over, folded side down, cover with plastic wrap,and return to the warm spot to rise again until the dough has doubled in size, about 30 minutes.


4. Punch down the dough again, and transfer it to a clean surface. Using a bench scraper or a sharp knife, divide the dough evenly into three or four pieces, kneading each piece four or five times.

TO MAKE AHEAD: Follow the recipe through Step 3, tightly cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to 12 hours. When ready to use, remove the plastic wrap, punch the dough down with your fist, and let it sit at room temperature until ready to soft and pliable, about 30 minutes. Which is what I did last Sunday afternoon when we made pizza.

TO FREEZE: Punch the dough down after it first rises in Step 3. Fold it back onto itself 4 or 5 times as instructed. Divide the dough and roll it out to the desired-size rounds. Stack the rounds, separated by parchment paper, then double-wrap the stack tightly in plastic wrap and freeze. To use,m unwrap frozen dough and thaw slightly until the rounds are easily separated. Place each round in a lightly oiled bowl and thaw at room temperature for 3 to 3 1/2 hours, until each is completely thawed and the dough has doubled in size. Proceed as in Step 4 of the recipe.

About an hour and a half before we planned to eat, we began caramelizing a yellow onion in olive oil and butter.

We preheated the pizza stone, along with the oven, to 450 degrees. After rolling out the dough, I plopped it on the hot pizza stone and topped it with our usual: pesto, shredded rotisserie chicken, roasted red peppers, sun dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and mozzarella.


The pizza baked until the cheese was melted and the crust nicely browned.

Saturday Night Dessert

Here is what we made for dessert on Saturday night. You might have remembered reading about it here. We didn't make the Sock It To Me cake, just the ice cream part. And after sampling just a small, small bit of it on Sunday evening, it can tell you it was great!

Y'all come back now ya hear!

Southern Saturday Night Supper

Hey all! Keetha and I are so into it being summer down here despite the high temps and humidity (girls aren't the only ones who can have bad hair days!)! We decided that we'd celebrate the Summer Solstice with a tried and true Southern staple of veggies.

Now, first off, you absolutely know that if it's going to be a meal of veggies down here something MUST be fried! And of course, what better to fry than okra!


You can almost smell the oil frying in the skillet can't you!



Mmmmmmm! Trust us, they taste just as good as they look!


Along with the fried okra, we fixed (yes, I realized that I didn't use proper English here, but hey, nothing else would sound right!) some great summer squash with sweet onions. Basically, you just slice up some squash into small medallions and place into a black cast iron skillet with a chopped sweet onion. Add about 1 cup of water, top with four or five pats of butter, and then salt and pepper to taste. Bring the mix up to a nice hot simmer and cover. WOW! I'm getting hungry again just remembering how good it was!



Check out Keetha doing her thing! :-)



And just to top it all off, we have cornbread. Enough said about that!!!


Well, we sure enjoyed that wonderful meal. And trust me, no wine is good enough to pair with this meal, it was all sweet tea and Diet Coke.

We did have a dessert planned (and cooked), but we didn't have any last night. Keetha and I will try to share that experience a little later.


Y'all come back now ya hear!!

Over at the Other One

How do you like your ribs? Dry? Wet? Not at all?

How about neighborhood joints with tons of character?

Come see.

Nothing Like It

There's not much I love like gathering with family, especially when food is involved. This past Saturday, Jeffrey and I traveled to Jackson, Tennessee to celebrate my niece's second birthday.

We sat around on the deck, talking, laughing, and carryin' on. I took photos of random objects:

We were making homemade ice cream, see. That's why boxes of Morton salt were setting around on the deck.

I loves me some homemade ice cream. My sister in law mixed up homemade banana ice cream.

4 eggs, beaten
3 cups sugar
2 (14 ounce) cans condensed milk *
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 dash salt
6 ripe bananas, mashed. Very ripe. The riper the better.
2 1/2 quarts whole milk (or enough to make one gallon of liquid in total)

* What is condensed milk? Anyone? We used sweetened condensed milk. The final product was a bit soupy, but still mighty tasty.

Beat eggs and sugar together.

Add next four ingredients to the ice cream maker and add enough homogenized milk to make 1 gallon liquid. (Or after adding what you've stirred up, add enough whole milk so that it comes to the fill line in the ice cream maker canister.)

Freeze in maker or churn until frozen following manufacturer's instructions.


We enjoyed ours with birthday cake.



What's your favorite kind of homemade ice cream?

The Pleasures of Homemade Ice Cream

During the summer, try to keep cool by thinking about the comforting, healing powers of homemade ice cream. Anything made of such pure, simple things like milk, sugar, and fruit has to be good. Toss in a hearty dose of family remembrances, a front porch and a tall tale or two, and you’re looking at a delightful afternoon.

Homemade ice cream reminds me of my grandfather, Daddy Bunk. One summer Sunday when I was about eight, he and my grandmother were down from Houston for a visit. We enjoyed a huge lunch after church and made ice cream with fresh peaches. We ate it out of white Styrofoam cups while watching Paper Moon (remember, with young Tatum O’Neal?). Eventually most of us took a nap, nodding off to the whir of a cool fan and the scent of ripe peaches.

Homemade ice cream also reminds me of Sunday afternoons; I don’t know if we made it any other day of the week. Watching Dad break the bags of ice was always the best part for Lan and me (besides eating, of course). Heaving the bags onto the back porch looked like great fun, and we never could figure out why the grown ups wouldn’t let us handle that job.

The making process seemed something of a mystery: chunks of ice glistening in the hot sun with rock salt from blue boxes poured over it and towels wrapped around. A lot of mechanical noise and an eternity later, homemade ice cream was magically produced from the cold cylinder, dripping with ice.

Our family always enjoyed rich pound cake, warm from the oven, with homemade ice cream. My grandmother’s favorite recipe, and the one we all use, is called Sock It To Me Cake, which we usually make without the “Sock It,” a combination of cinnamon, nuts, and brown sugar. The result is a very creamy, evenly textured cake baked in a Bundt pan. It surely complements every kind of ice cream known to man, except maybe those low-fat versions, on whom its richness and taste would be lost.

If you should happen to have ice cream left over, make ice cream sandwiches to have for another day. Spread about 1/8 cup softened ice cream between two chocolate chip (or peanut butter or shortbread or oatmeal – whatever you like best) cookies. Quickly roll edges in a shallow bowl of colored sugar crystals, chopped nuts, and/or colorful nonpareils. Wrap sandwiches individually in plastic wrap and store in the freezer. These look great and are real crowd-pleasers, especially if you have any youngsters around.


Fresh Peach Ice Cream
This recipe was given to my mother by Ginger Denson, a family friend from Cleveland, Miss.

8 pasteurized large eggs*
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 heaping tablespoons flour
dash of salt
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
1 12-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
8 to 10 peeled, pitted and sliced peaches
1 1/2 tablespoon vanilla

* I've never used a pasteurized egg in my life. I always use just regular old hen eggs and it comes out fine. But if you're apprehensive about the raw eggs bit, by all means, go with pasteurized eggs.

Beat eggs until light yellow in large bowl. Mix sugar and flour together and gradually add to eggs; pour into ice cream freezer. Add milk to fill level. Stir in peaches and vanilla. Freeze according to manufacturer’s directions.

For plain vanilla ice cream, also hard to beat on a hot summer’s day, omit the peaches and proceed.

Banana variation (my dad’s favorite): Mash 5 to 7 very ripe bananas and add to mixture in place of peaches. Proceed with recipe.


Sock It To Me Cake
Maybe not gourmet, but talk about good!

1 (19.25-oz) box butter-recipe cake mix
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
3/4 cup oil
4 large eggs

“Sock It,” which is optional:

3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour a Bundt pan and set aside.

Combine cake mix and sugar. Add oil and sour cream. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each addition.

Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Top with brown sugar, cinnamon, and chopped nuts. Add remaining batter. (Or leave out the spices and nuts and add batter all at once.)

Bake for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.

Excerpted from Culinary Kudzu: Recollections & Recipes from Growing Up Southern