Deep Fried Kudzu

Last night, I made the recipe for 'pistachio and cherry mexican wedding cakes' that was in the December issue of Bon Appetit. The original recipe is right here - it's enough to make 80 (!) cookies, so I quartered the recipe so that we would only come out with 20.

I changed the recipe only very slightly - just to add a little more of the pistachios, which Av and I both really like, and - rather than dried cherries - I used craisins (dried cranberries). I think I would like these with the pistachios only, even.

Here's how I made them - this is 25% of the original, with my tiny changes:

Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter (1/4 c.) at room temperature
1/4 cup powdered sugar (plus more to roll the cookies in for later)
1/4 tbsp. vanilla extract
dash salt
1/3 c. shelled pistachios (the recipe says to chop these, but I didn't because I knew they would get broken up a little when added to the mix in my KitchenAid - even the ones that didn't get broken were just fine - they aren't too big)
1/4 c. craisins
.825 of a cup of cake flour (I just estimated what that would look like in my measuring cup)
.415 of a cup of regular, all-purpose flour (again, I just estimated what that would look like in my measuring cup)

Directions:
First, I preheated the oven to 350* and prepared two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Since these don't spread out when they cook, I really could have put all 20 cookies on one sheet, though.

I added the stick of butter and 1/4 c. powdered sugar to my KitchenAid and let that mix until it was nice and fluffy. Next, I added the vanilla and salt, then the pistachios and cherries:


Once that was all incorporated, I added both flours and let that mix just until it was all worked in - not long at all.

Next, I took a spoon and placed the cookies onto the baking sheets. If you want to make them into their traditional shape, you can form them into football shapes, but I made mine a little abstract:


They went into the oven for about 18 minutes. The original recipe says to check them at 16 minutes, but mine were still under-done on the bottoms so I had to wait a couple of minutes. This is how they looked when they came out (and I put them all on one cookie sheet at that point to cool):


Once they were cool (about ten minutes), I rolled them in powdered sugar that I had put into a bowl. This is how they came out:

They were really, really good!

I think this recipe was included in the December issue of Bon Apetit - there was a feature on quince, but I didn't find any at my grocery so I used a pear instead. We had this for supper tonight and it was *so good*!

I made very slight changes to the recipe (mine is below) but the original can be found here at the Bon Apetit website.

Ingredients:
1 cup apple juice
1/4 cup sugar
1 pear, peeled, cored, and cut lenthwise into 1/4" or so slices
1 thyme sprig plus 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
3 lamb chops (this was enough for me and Av - I had one and he had two - but these were pretty big for lamb chops)
Olive oil for cooking lamb chops in
1 tablespoon aged balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
salt, pepper
**this recipe makes plenty of sauce, so if you are feeding more people, cooking more lamb chops will still leave you with lots to use**

I first started with the sauce. In a small pot, I added the apple juice and sugar and boiled until the sugar was dissolved:


Next, I changed the temperature to medium-low and added the pear and thyme sprig. I added the lid and let this cook for 20 minutes - that lets the pears get nice and soft but not mushy. Once the 20 minutes is up (you can test them earlier for doneness), I removed the pears from the sauce and kept them in bowl in a warm oven. I left the sauce on the stove, on simmer:


With about five minutes until the pear/sauce mixture was done, I started cooking the lamb chops (salted and peppered them) in a pan with olive oil. Ordinarily, I like to broil lamb chops like this, but this recipe needs the dried pan bits so the lamb needs to be cooked in a skillet. The recipe says that they should take about 3-1/2 minutes per side for loin chops. Mine had to take probably six-seven minutes on each side, but that's probably because they were so nice and thick:


Once the lamb chops were done, I moved them to a platter and kept them warm. I poured off all the oil and was left with the brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Over medium heat, I added all the pear juice to deglaze the pan. I stirred well and turned the heat up a little, and boiled the sauce until it was concentrated to about 1/4 cup:


Once that was ready, I took the skillet off the heat and added the pears, balsamic vinegar, oregano, rosemary, and chopped thyme:


The lamb chops were plated and I poured the sauce over the top. It was soooo good!

I've posted before about Magnolia Pearl - it's Robin Brown's shop of her bags and clothes that...well...you just have to see. These are "I'm queen of the world" clothes, not "going to the store" clothes. Soooo feminine and frilly and luxe.

She's featured in the January issue of Country Living in an article about tea staining, which I've been interested in trying for a while now. What I'd like to do is find some lovely but quite-used white linens at an antique shop or estate sale and try it. Something I haven't seen before is that the article in CL says that if you want a really dark stain, to soak the fabric in water that has a capful of fabric softener added to it before doing the tea process. Hmmm...

I keep going back to the Magnolia Pearl website to see how Robin decorates her home - from her den (and here) to her bedroom, powder room, porch, and most especially, her kitchen! Ohmystars. Yes. Love it.

When I went to Av's parents' home for a lunch date this week, I noticed that they have lots and lots of daffodils just about to bloom:


This is the first one to open:


All this flower activity - their daffodils, our outside paperwhites and camellia, a neighbor's Japanese magnolia starting to bloom - has really got me in the mood to start placing orders in some of the plant/seed catalogs I've been getting.

The main big thing I want to plant this Spring is a couple of 'Pink Perfection' camellias. I really fell in love with that variety last year when we visited the Old Courthouse Museum in Monroeville (that post here), where we saw hundreds or maybe thousands of those beautiful blooms. Here are a couple of pics I took there:





When I did a search for 'Pink Perfection' camellias, one of the nurseries that popped up was one in Georgia that I was thinking of going to, especially because they're just one state away and have these available right now in the 15 gallon size - but after I Googled that particular nursery, I saw some *very* bad reviews which led me to their Better Business Bureau rating (here). Scary!

I know the BBB is on television a lot advising people to check out companies before doing business with them - which I did when it came to picking our plumbing and heating/electrical companies - but it just didn't occur to me to check out a plant nursery...

I was looking forward to a little roadtrip to Georgia, but now I'm going to look a little harder and see if I can find a place more local that I can support. That's really what I should be doing anyway!

Suzanne wants us to drive out to Jemison, Alabama, to a place called "Petals from the Past". They specialize in heirloom shrubs and antique roses (I love cabbage roses, especially), herbs, etc. Now that I'm looking at their website, I'm interested in tea olive, the American Beauty climbing rose, Swamp rose 1824, moon vine, and maybe even a couple of satsumas (satsumas are like sweet, sweet oranges)...

Back in November, I posted about Suzanne and her beautiful pottery - and she has started teaching me how to make things with clay!

When we were talking about it, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to make first - but I thought it would be neat to make something to go outside, like on the porch or in the garden.

A few weeks ago, Suzanne showed me one of her pieces that had gotten broken during her last move - it was a really pretty snake (if you can imagine a pretty snake). It made me think of a cast iron snake that my great-grandmother, MawMaw Fossett, kept on her porch. I don't know if it was something connected with folklore, but it was always on the porch. He wasn't a scary snake, just an old heavy black snake - maybe cast iron - not even very big.

I decided that I would make a snake too...a pretty, happy one, though...maybe just snake-y looking enough so that if I put him around the eggplants in the garden this summer, it might make our squirrels think twice (the last time we planted eggplants, the squirrels (or something) ate every single one of them and we didn't even get one! I don't mind them taking some of everything, but it's not nice when they take it all!).

This is a 25lb. bag of terra cotta. I used a teensy portion to make the shape...


Suzanne helped me with the beginning part. At first, I was thinking that the clay would be like Sculpey in that you need to condition it in your hands to get it ready to work with - but it's exactly the opposite - you want to be careful to *not* overwork the clay. Here's the beginning shape:


I made him into an 'S' shape:


Then he needed texture, so I took a piece of coral and it made these really neat scale shapes. I didn't want the scales to be uniform or even all over, just here and there:


Here's his face - I gave him some little tiny catfish whiskers just for fun so he doesn't look completely serious:


Right now he's drying, and I plan to glaze him with Duncan glaze in Spanish Moss. I can't wait until he's completely dry and ready to be put in the kiln! I'll post more pictures once he's all done.

I'm going to start decorating for Mardi Gras soon, and today I was thinking that it's past-time we have a king cake this year!

We've had king cakes from Gambino's (ah, I love their doberge!), Haydel's, Randazzo's, McKenzie's (which Tastee makes now), but my favorite is still Paul's Pastry in Picayune, about fifteen minutes from Slidell. Paul's recently moved - they're still in Picayune - but the new place looks soooo much nicer!

Here's a pic I took last year of a king cake we got at Paul's:

Okay, does that not make you want to run out and get a king cake right now!?

When Av and I were driving around downtown Decatur, we saw this sign for a place called "C.F. Penn Hamburgers" on East Moulton Street downtown. They've been around since 1927, and it looked really *really* old-school from the outside too - so we decided to go in and try it out:

I haven't had one in Corinth MS, but I think they serve the same kind of hamburger that people there in Corinth call "slug burgers" (and not in a derogatory way...it's because the burgers were sold originally for a nickel, which was also called a slug). Either way, it's a hamburger that has bread mixed in with the hamburger meat to make the meat go further - a holdover from the Depression years.

Av ordered one of their hamburgers, which I had a bite of (I wasn't very hungry at the time). It tasted different from a 'regular' hamburger, but not in a bad way. They're super-similar to what we always called 'bread burgers' from the Busy Bee in Cullman. People seem to have strong opinions one way or the other about those - either love or hate them!

Here's the grill and prep area: if you order a hamburger "all the way" they add onions and mustard to it. That's it! We sat at the counter so we could chat with everyone and watch them cook all the orders. Everybody was super-nice and friendly.
-----
For supper, we went to Big Bob Gibson's, which Av and I both think has the best barbecue in all of Alabama (and is the birthplace of white barbecue sauce) - and it was *wonderful* like always. Yum!

I was going through some of my older pictures to put up on Flickr, and found this one of the Big Red Dog in Northport, Alabama:


Isn't it great!? It's by metalwork artist Steve Davis, who owns SunHeart Metalworks.

Once I uploaded the pic to Flickr, I added it to the group, "Big Things - Big Kitsch and Big Tacky, Big Strange & Big Weird" which is really fun (and I love the giant jackalope in South Dakota that someone just added!).

The other pics I have in that group are:

The giant buffalo at the Tupelo Buffalo Park in Tupelo, MS:


The Rooster El Camino at Ms. Billie's in Irvington, Alabama (this is my favorite!):


This alligator in Lake Charles, Louisiana:


The Tale of Two Cities Pelican in Pensacola, Florida:


This catfish in Belzoni, Mississippi:


Tin Man with Heart at Jim Bird's in Forkland, Alabama (my other favorite):


The Pike County Cattlemen and Cattlewomen Bull Sculpture in Pike County, Alabama:


A giant cow at the State Farmer's Market in Montgomery, Alabama:


A big chair in Thomasville, North Carolina:


...and this rooster made out of car bumpers at ArtWurks in Brundidge, Alabama:


I need to find our picture of the "Big Texan" at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas and add it, too!

The Alabama Chanin website is up now! It's the new line by Natalie Chanin, who lives in the Shoals area of Alabama and started the Project Alabama line, which closed in the Fall of 2006.

The new "Alabama Chanin" line will include clothes but also jewelry, a book, home furnishings, and textiles. I can't *wait* to see what she comes up with!

---

Also - the February edition of Food and Wine, they have a feature on Natalie and her friends having what the magazine calls "Alabama's Best Covered-Dish Dinner". The article is here and includes recipes. I made the pecan sandies (recipe here):




Av thought they were good, but they weren't my favorite. What I'd like to try next is Natalie's recipe for biscuits - I've got my own recipe but I always like to try new things!

Today, Av and I went to Huntsville (I got a new camera!!) and Decatur, Alabama.

While we were in Decatur, we stopped in for a few minutes at the archives building there on Bank Street. I didn't take any pictures (if you have a purse, they ask you to leave it in a locker in the building foyer) but wish I could have, because the building used to be a bank and inside there is a *huge* safe that's so big you could practically drive a car in! After we finished looking through some microfilm, we drove through the Bank Street Historic District there, where some of the most beautiful homes are.

It was overcast so the pictures aren't as bright as I wish, but the houses still came out amazing:

I love the blue and green colors together on this home - so different:

...and all the detailing:




The owner of this home has a collection going on in their side yard:


Beautiful:










This was the only home of this style that we saw:


...this one's really unique:


This is the Carnegie Visual Arts Center there:


...and this is St. Luke's Episcopal - sooo pretty:

I love making magnets and thumbtacks from different things - my two favorite are to make picture marble magnets and bottlecaps - so this weekend I thought I would try something new and make some using dominoes.

I got this set of 28 dominoes:


They're really pretty:


To make the magnets, I just needed disc magnets and a hot glue gun. I made sure to test which side of the magnet 'sticks' to metal, then put a dot of hot glue on the other side and placed it in the middle of the back of the domino. The glue is set in just a few seconds:


Once that was done, I got out my big quilter's thumbtacks that I buy from fabric shops. Quilter's tacks have a bigger top and a longer pin than regular ones, I think - so that's what I like to use. I just picked up a thumbtack, placed a dab of hot glue on the cap, then pressed it onto the back of the domino:


I like the way they turned out!: