A good hearty, southern chicken stew, made from a stewed chicken, fresh potatoes and your choice of veggie add-ins.

Homemade Chicken Stew

A hearty stew is a good thing when the weather turns cold and this homemade chicken stew sure made me happy today. It's been a bit gloomy around here for a few days - overcast, rainy and then cold weather moved in here last night with a vengeance. I stepped outside with the pup - gotta watch over him because we've had a couple close-up encounters with possums and raccoons here lately - and brrrrr y'all. The temperature must've dropped 40 degrees in just a few hours! I was happy that I had this stew made up, that's for sure.

The shortcut version of chicken stew that I have posted before, is a super easy and flavorful recipe for anytime you're in a hurry for a quick stew, but when you have a little more time on your hands to stew down a chicken, the added flavor from that homemade stock is just amazing.

Hopefully by now you've worked through any Thanksgiving leftovers or at least gotten the stragglers put up into the freezer. I tell you what... we sure have a lot to be grateful for around here, having shared meals with three groups of family, together with the meal that I made for just the two of us, all providing us with plenty of leftovers. Turkey sandwiches on leftover rolls or just plain ole white bread are always my hands-down favorite leftover from the holidays.

Next to that would have to be Turkey Bone Gumbo or Turkey Carcass Soup, and my holiday bird carcass is in the freezer waiting for one of those. While it won't be quite the same as using a whole fresh chicken, this Chicken Stew would be another perfect opportunity to use up that turkey carcass that you froze and some of that leftover turkey meat you may still have hanging around too.

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My Roasted Turkey and a Happy Thanksgiving to You!

Oven Roasted Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving! We are lucky to spend these major holidays with family every year, so I don't host the typical large spread at my home. I do, however, always do a little mini spread either before or after the main event, just for The Cajun and me, where I roast a turkey and do some of my favorite sides, including homemade turkey gravy from the drippings (sometimes with giblets, sometimes without), homemade mashed potatoes and dressing at the very least. What else I add depends on my mood, or if I'm trying something new.

I'll be expanding on this post more at another time, but wanted to share what I did with my turkey this year, just in case it might be helpful to anybody... even at this eleventh hour!

• I bought a 15 pound turkey for us this year, left it in the fridge for several days for thawing, then finished with a sink thaw for about 4 hours when I was ready to cook, changing out the water out about every 30 minutes.

• I removed the neck and giblets and used a stockpot that would fit into my refrigerator to brine the turkey. My brine was enough water to cover the turkey, plus 1 cup of kosher salt, 3/4 cup of brown sugar, dried thyme, whole peppercorns and a small bunch of sage. I let the turkey rest in the brine, in the fridge, all day.

• Before I went to bed, I removed the turkey from the brine, rinsed it well inside and out, patted dry with paper towels, inside and out and set it inside a baker, uncovered, in the fridge overnight to dry. Just make sure the raw turkey doesn't touch the fridge walls, other food or anything else in the fridge.

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Waldorf salad is a fruit salad of apples, grapes or raisins, and nuts, tossed with a mayonnaise dressing. Served alone as is, or over a bed of shredded or whole leaves of lettuce, it's a holiday favorite.

Waldorf Apple Salad

Like the Hot Brown, Waldorf Salad comes to us from the kitchen of a hotel, this one the Waldorf in New York City. It is said to have been created oddly enough, not by the chef, but by the maitre d'hotel, or kitchen manager, Oscar Tschirky for a 1893 society party. I actually have made two different varieties of this salad, trying to get one that looked good in a photograph. Just ain't happening y'all, though I tried! Some foods just refuse to be photogenic.

Not particularly southern, but still enjoyed and shared at our holiday tables nonetheless, though we tend to call it just good ole apple salad down this way. Truth be known, our favored holiday fruit salad, hands-down, is always gonna be Ambrosia, whether it be true to its pure form of simply oranges and coconut (though it rarely is anymore), or made with a variety of fruit and add-ins and more like a fruit salad like I make. In my eyes, Ambrosia trumps Waldorf in the south for the holidays, though some people traditionally serve Waldorf at Thanksgiving and save the Ambrosia for the Christmas table.

Like Ambrosia, Waldorf Salad has undergone some changes over the year. Once in its purest original form, Waldorf was made only with apples, celery and mayonnaise. The addition of nuts came some 30 years later and somewhere along the line grapes, or raisins were added. I've had it both ways and prefer it with the additions.

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A traditional old fashioned yeast roll, made a bit easier by using the equally old fashioned pan roll method.

Old Fashioned Pan Rolls

I will be the first one to say to you, please make my homemade yeast roll for a holiday meal. They are fabulous and worth every ounce of energy you will put into them.

But I also know that the most intimidating part for many people in making those is probably shaping the rolls for the second rise. It's really not that difficult, but on the surface it appears a bit complicated, and it is another step in an already busy kitchen. This old fashioned pan roll solves all of that.

I love the tenderness of the shaped rolls myself, because you have a much smaller, nicely browned crusty surface area, but when you pop it open, it's light and fluffy and tender on the inside. You still get that here, only in a different presentation, and unless you cut them smaller, in a bigger bite. These rolls are good for anytime you want a special roll, like any normal Sunday supper, and they are also fantastic for day after the holiday ham sandwiches.

I've tried dozens of the quicker 30 minute roll recipes and I've yet to find one that makes me happy. Frankly while they are not bad, the ones I've tried are really much more like biscuits than rolls to me, and to me there is a distinct difference between the two. But... in all fairness I am a bit of a bread freak so I guess my threshold is high. I'm telling you, if you set a block of butter and a basket of hot yeast rolls in front of me on one side, and a big platter filled with assorted desserts next to them on the other side, I'd go for the hot rolls every single time.

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Apple Dapple is a well loved heritage cake made with apples and pecans, and glazed with a crunchy brown sugar maple topping.

Apple Dapple Cake with Maple Glaze

This is such a tasty and moist apple cake, and you can make it a day ahead, because it gets even better, making it a perfect addition to the holiday table. I first met this cake 30 years ago, though frankly I'm sure it's been around even longer than that, meaning you can count on it being well-tested and reliable too.

Back in the day, when there used to be an actual "telephone" company - Birmingham, Alabama-based South Central Bell employees, both active and retired, through their individual chapters of the Telephone Pioneers of America, put together a community cookbook. The Mississippi Chapter published their first one calling it Bell's Best, in 1981, and next to my treasured 1973 red Betty Crocker cookbook, the yellow covered Bell's Best became the second cookbook I owned, and the first one I actually purchased for myself as a young bride. I'd be willing to bet there are a few of you who still own a copy, and maybe even own the Alabama versions of Calling All Cooks.

These basic, no frills collections, are often the most worn, beaten cookbooks we own, but ones that we all treasure too, because for many of us, they taught our generation and those younger than us, how to cook basic recipes. For many of our mothers and grandmothers, they provided a full repertoire of written-down recipes, something many of them had not had before, having had to rely mostly on experience in the kitchen and watching their own mothers and grandmothers. Cooks often held on tightly to "secret" family recipes. By the way, please don't do that. Recipes are meant for sharing!

I'm not sure where the name came from to be honest. Maybe because of its sort of dappled-in color caused by the glazing.  Really, the only thing that sets this recipe apart from a simple fresh apple cake, is that brown sugar glaze, that, by the way, goes hot, onto a hot cake, and left to cool right in the pan.

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Petit Pois Pea and Pimento Casserole with Carrots and Corn

A classic mixture of carrots, peas and corn is transformed with a few simple seasonings and a fabulous cream sauce into a wonderful vegetable casserole, topped here with panko.

Petit Pois Pea and Pimento Casserole

One of the most popular canned peas in this part of The Deep South is a petit pois variety, literally translated from French as little pea. They are the tiniest, sweetest little baby peas and not at all cheap either, but when you realize just how many peas have to be shelled to just feed a single person, like fresh crabmeat and pecans, you appreciate the labor that goes into them and happily pay the price because you understand. The petit pois have a very short fresh season, only a few weeks in early June, so we enjoy them mostly canned down here. These are the tiny little peas that usually grace the southern holiday table and thanks to their delectable sweetness, I'm not at all surprised. We do love sweet in The South.

One of the popular brands of tiny peas that I purchase often are Dubon Petit Pois Peas, a product distributed by Bush Brothers, as in Bush's Beans, out of Knoxville, Tennessee. The other are the Le Sueur Very Young Small Early Peas, although I always have to have a little chuckle about the fact that our well loved southern Le Sueur peas, are actually from the north. Le Sueur, by the way apparently translates as "sweat" but it's more of an interpretation of to labor really. Makes perfect sense to me!

Having had their start in a town called Le Sueur, the original location of the Green Giant headquarters, and an area still known as "the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant," ho-ho-ho, ya'll! Sorry, couldn't help myself. Anyway, Green Giant was bought by Pillsbury, which was bought by General Mills and while they are still canned in Minnesota, it's now in a town called Montgomery. I recently received an email from a student in Minnesota working on a project about the history of Le Sueur brand, and oddly found out that they are rare to find up there. Guess that means we southerners are hoggin' all the tiny peas!

This recipe is sort of an interpretation of the old-fashioned classic English Peas and Pimento casserole dish that's been around since the dawn of time and found in one form or other in just about every old community style southern cookbook in print. Usually made with more common and much larger garden peas, a little onion, celery, pimentos and cream of mushroom soup, at minimum, it is a well loved vegetable casserole in Our South. I thought it wouldn't hurt to use petit pois and then take it up a notch with a homemade cream sauce, especially since this delicious casserole would be a wonderful addition to a holiday table. Make it a few days ahead without the bread crumb topping and refrigerate until needed. Let it come to room temperature about 30 minutes, top with the bread crumb mixture and bake.

Let's make it!

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Butter Bombs - Mini Bite Sized Biscuits

Little bite sized biscuits made with plenty of butter and sour cream, enough that I had to call them Butter Bombs. I feel pretty certain these would make Paula Deen a happy gal.

Butter Bombs

If mixing up, rolling out and baking traditional southern biscuits makes anxiety rise in you, these little bite sized drop biscuits are so easy it's sinful.

It's also sinful the amount of fat in them, so if you're a deputy on the fat police patrol, just move along please. There's nothing for you to see here.

Honestly the fat is what makes these so darned divine, so pop one or two and enjoy them and don't hate on me. Let's just agree to save these for occasionally, rather than everyday. I literally have to stick these in the freezer or my husband will stand in the kitchen, popping them into his mouth like popcorn! They do freeze well thankfully.

Did you know that southern biscuits didn't really start out as the huge "cat head" style biscuits that we've gotten used to? Indeed not! They started out as little bite sized biscuits, like this. Somewhere along the line we super-sized them. Imagine that.

By the way, since these freeze well, they are a great make ahead for the upcoming holidays. After you thaw and warm them, stuff them with some thin slices of warm country ham, or a nice chicken salad, egg salad, pimento cheese, or shrimp salad as an appetizer to hold the masses off until the big meal.

It seems silly almost for a tutorial, but I took pictures, so here they are. At least you can see how the dough looks. Here's how simple it is.

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A gumbo of beef, made with a 7-steak, and cooked down with The Trinity trio, okra, and a little bit of chopped tasso for some heat.

Seven Steak Gumbo

As far as I can discern, 7 steak gumbo had to have been born out of frugality. Unlike its more pricey seafood cousin, it is a gumbo of beef and okra, but of a fairly inexpensive cut of beef, similar to round steak. Seven steak requires slow braising or stewing in order to bring out it's delicious, tender flavor, making it a suitable candidate for a gumbo. It's called 7 steak because of the bone in it that is shaped like the number 7, when you can find it where the butcher hasn't removed it already, that is. I fix it most often as a Cajun smothered steak, but it can be used pretty much anywhere that you would use a braising steak.

Chef Frank Brigtsen talks of this unusual gumbo in his oral history on the Gumbo Trail. He says that in the early days of Chef Paul Prudhomme's restaurant, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen in the French Quarter of New Orleans, a Creole chef there, by the name of Stanley Jackson, made a Seven Steak Gumbo. Brigsten said that Chef Paul and Chef Stanley worked on the recipe together and that it later appeared in Prudhomme's first cookbook. Outside of that, most people probably have never heard of it, and, well, y'all know how I feel about bringing back heirloom and heritage recipes. It will always be a primary goal at this website.

Turns out, it's quite a delicious gumbo and while I guess if you're totally opposed to okra, you could potentially omit it. I happen to love it and most especially in a gumbo. To be honest, after stewing for two hours with the beef, the base of this gumbo can stand all on its own too. It is that good. If you happen to have leftover gumbo but no leftover steak, go right ahead and eat that over a bed of rice. So good.

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