This is like a deep south jambalaya.  I found it by googling “southern side dishes” and it sounded good, and it is really good.  It what I would consider a BBQ vegetable, which means it’s mostly sausage and beans and rice and a couple of greens for color.  Tasty, though. Ingredients: 1/2 pound of smoked… Continue reading Hoppin John

Regional specialty of Nashville (of course).  This stuff is great.  It’s just perfectly fried chicken that is then tossed in this incredibly rich hot sauce, although that’s not even the right word.  It’s not really a sauce in any way I usually think of it, it’s a mix of hot bacon fat, cayenne pepper, and… Continue reading Nashville Hot Chicken

I will freely admit that this is something that most people can’t do at home. But if you have a good stand mixer, you can get a meat grinder attachment for it and make your own!  It’s fun!  and it tastes DRAMATICALLY better than anything you can buy in the stores. Now, I’ve only made… Continue reading Homemade Italian sausage!

Better than anything you will buy in the store. Couple notes: The cabbage will have to sit overnight in the brine.  So don’t prep all your ingredients at the beginning, because then you will be like me and staring at a bowl of sauces that you can’t use until the next day. Also, once you… Continue reading Kimchi!

This isn’t really a recipe as much as description of a thing that you may find useful.  What you do is, you take a bunch of lemons, as many as you can fit in a container you can seal.  Peel them and keep the peels.  Pat the peels dry (we don’t need the meat of… Continue reading Lemon Sugar

This will be a running tally of the different kinds of fruit preserves I’ve made.  Ratios for spices will be given for 1 cup of fruit, except later when I started to experiment more. A note on making jams: you want to temp at least 218 F, 220 F if you have the patience. I… Continue reading Fruit Preserves

Stupid easy to make your own, and it tastes better than the store bought stuff.  The only thing to be aware of is that it comes together really fast (it honestly takes maybe 15 minutes once you start cooking) so you would do well to measure out all the dry ingredients beforehand in to a… Continue reading Red Enchilada Sauce

I made this with a corned beef brisket a few weeks ago because I didn’t know what it was but I’d heard the name a lot.  Turns out it’s basically chicken noodle soup, but instead of noodles you use matzo balls.  Which I have to say seem far superior to noodles. One note on the… Continue reading Matzo Ball Soup