Mess of Greens

full bellies | warm welcomes

Appetizers

Mess of Greens Dip

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2017 was a bittersweet year for me. I lost my mama, but gained a new little boy. I’m looking forward to New Year’s Day as a way to move forward and look for the good in the world.

New Year’s Day (when there’s no hangover involved) has always one of my favorite days of the year. Everything seems new, full of possibilities, everyone sticks close to home, hanging by a fire, watching football, and eating greens, cornbread, and black eyed peas….it’s basically the perfect day for cold icy weather (which the south is getting in spades tonight).

The thing is, I know that not everybody is crazy about the New year’s Day tradition of eating greens for money and black eyed peas for luck.Maybe you’re the kind of person who loves a warm bowl of chili instead while you watch the game. Well, lucky for you, I AM crazy about it, and always try to find new ways to eat my greens & peas. My aunt passed along a version of this recipe to me last year and after seeing how fast it disappeared at my little get together last year, it’s going to be a STAPLE every time. It’s basically spinach-artichoke dip all southerned-up. Once you’ve tasted it, it’ll be on your table every year, too….

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Sweet and Savory Fig Toasts

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Fig week 2k17 continues folks!

So I never really understood the “Toast” phenomenon. I mean, WHOLE restaurants dedicated to what is basically an open-faced sandwich?

But you know, I DO get that sometimes two pieces of bread is too much for your sandwich ingredients and other times the food is just too pretty to cover up. My Pregnant lady brunch (prunch?)– which is basically an extra meal between breakfast and lunch since my belly is waaaaaay too big for regular sized meals these days– the other day was both of those things. Pretty AND light. Two pieces of toast would have overwhelmed it all. What I loved about this (beyond how yummy honey, figs, burrata, and a sprinkle of kosher salt was) was that the only real cooking involved was toasting the french bread, so this could be a fancy breakfast, a light lunch, or a killer appetizer.


Sweet and Savory Fig Toasts
 
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Recipe type: Appetizer
Serves: 6-10
What You Need
  • ¼ or ½ loaf of French Bread, sliced into rounds
  • 4-8 Figs, sliced in half
  • 1-3 Pouches Burrata cheese, cut open
  • 2-4 basil leaves, Chiffonade (or cut into ribbons)
  • 3 Tablespoons (or more!) Honey
  • Kosher Salt or Sea Salt
What to Do
  1. Toast the French Bread rounds until crispy.
  2. Spread with creamy Burrata cheese.
  3. Top with sliced ripe figs and place on the cheese.
  4. Sprinkle Basil ribbons.
  5. Drizzle honey. Season with kosher salt or sea salt and devour!

Easy, Crispy Fried Green Tomatoes

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“Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead.” -Fannie Flagg, from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Chefs and Food people get super excited about things like squash blossoms and green tomatoes, but honestly, it’s really hard for me to pick something from my own garden before it’s totally ripe. ESPECIALLY homegrown summer tomatoes. I just can’t stand the thought of not getting to enjoy them all fully ripened and sweet and juicy.

BUT, sometime around late August, it becomes harder and harder to get fruit from my vines that haven’t been sucked by bugs or withered by heat. That’s when I start picking them early and making relishes and salads, and fried green tomatoes. I’ve tried LOTS of recipes, but my dad’s really easy, super crispy take is the best one I’ve come across. Pair it with Comeback sauce, and well, you’ve got a truly excellent dish that you’ll want to share.

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If the Gods ate Pizza, this was it. Fig, Honey, Basil, Bacon Balsamic Heaven

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So I don’t know about where ya’ll are from, but down here in South Mississippi Figs are in their prime. Honestly, because their season is so short and because everyone I know has to contend with the birds for the pleasure of eating them, I treasure them.

I’ve been buying them at every farm stand I can, and since my aunts, cousins, and neighbors know my mama and I love them so much, they’ve been bringing them by if they have extra to share. Isn’t that some of the most fun of growing/finding/making your own food? Sharing it??

I’ve been disappointed my tomatoes haven’t produced as much as I’d expected since once of my greatest joys over the past few summers has been doling them out to friends and leaving extras on neighbors doorsteps… next year, we’ll be back in business.

This pizza was so good I made it TWICE in a day. Once as a sweeter breakfast pizza and then later as a more savory appetizer for some of my mama’s old friends who were coming over. I mean, what says “you’re special to us and we are so glad to see you” more than figs, honey, balsamic vinegar, fresh basil, and bacon?

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Jo Russell’s (Not) West Indies Salad (but kinda)

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IMG_2294This Easter my family and I spent the weekend at the beach. Some super generous friends loaned us their condo, so we drove down and spent time together, cooking, eating, and wishing it would stop raining long enough to sneak out to the beach to let Wagner play in the sand. We had some sun at the end and almost 2 hours of clear weather each day, so we “got our beach on” just enough for Wagner to know that the ocean is his favorite thing in the whole world, and somehow I’m still going home with a super attractive knee-sunburn. Geez Louise.

Our beach trips usually revolve around seafood cooking and eating (no suprise) and we get crazy excited when my dad goes to Joe Paddy’s in Pensacola (more on this later).

This time, Daddy brought back jumbo lump crabmeat and made a version of a recipe that his mother made that she got from her best pal, Jo Russel.. and it is so fine, so delicious, so amazing that when Brett had it for the first time he ate his entire plateful in about 2 minutes because he was worried someone else might try to eat it directly off his plate before he could.

Basically, the recipe is kind of a version of the West Indies salad that they serve down on the Gulf coast and in the Florida Keys, but probably better. (also, when I mentioned to my family that it seemed like West Indies Salad to me, I was corrected indignantly).  It’s SO simple that the crab meat really shines through, and you just get lost in the perfect texture and flavors. The next time you’re down this way, or get your hands on some jumbo lump crab meat, I hope you’ll give this recipe a whirl. …

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These Deviled Eggs are so good they should be called “Angeled”

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Have you planned your Easter menu yet? We planned ours like a zillion weeks ago because I LOVE thinking about what I’m going to eatnext, even if “next” is a zillion weeks away… plus I had wanted Ham and Deviled Eggs and oh, um, what if we had grits and grillades, too? Or Quail with tomato gravy??   IMG_2262

But now it turns out we’re heading to the beach for my favorite religious holiday because my mama snagged a condo for us, so all the menus I had in my mind got thrown out the window. We’ll be having fresh gulf shrimp something-or-other (which will be oh-so-fine) instead of our traditional dishes. Since we won’t be around next weekend, I insisted that we have our favorite Easter foods this past weekend instead. Ham, asparagus, and deviled eggs…y’all! It was divine! (no Easter pun intended.)

According to my cousin Virginia, my mama makes THE. BEST. DEVILED. EGGS. IN. THE. WORLD. As Virginia travels all over the country nearly every day of the week for her job and fun, and eats at all the best highbrow AND the lowbrow places, I’m pretty sure she knows what she’s talking about.

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Crawfish Elegante’

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I’ve shared so many of my Grandmother’s recipes here that I’m a bit worries my cousins are going to hunt me down for giving away family secrets. Well, I would be worried except that my cousins and I all feel the same way about our Grandmother… that she was the warmest, kindest, most loving woman on the planet and that if we can be just a little bit like her in our lives, we’ll be doing things right.

Somehow she made all of her children and her grandchildren believe that we were her absolute most favorite (and, you know what, I bet we ALL were.) She was forever sewing something for a friend, or cooking something delicious for one of us, or making up something fun for us to do together.

My cousin, Amy, gave us the most wonderful Christmas gift a couple of years ago…she painstakingly typed up and bound all of Grandmother’s recipes into a cookbook of sorts.I use it every week at least once, and I’d bet they do, too (if they haven’t memorized the recipes yet.) Grandmother has some Louisiana roots, which is why a bunch of her best recipes have a creole/New Orleans flair.

Her recipe for Crawfish Elegante’ is a super delicious, very versatile dish that can be made ahead, frozen, and eaten in a variety of ways. It’s perfect for spring when crawfish are in season, but also pretty great whenever as you can get frozen peeled crawfish at the store. Here, I’m sharing it as a dip with toasted New Orleans French Bread, but it’s also great over rice as a main dish OR as a filling for puff pastries. We also had it as a catfish topping this same night, and as my cousin Virginia would say “it didn’t suck.” 😉

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Delta BBQ’d Pecans

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When I was in high school, this cute little gift boutique gave me a holiday job wrapping presents. I think I spent most of the money I earned buying these crazy expensive praline pecans that we sold there so I could stuff my face while I worked… typical.But on the upside, I was REALLY able to sell the you-know-what out of those pecans to just about everyone who walked in.

I’m not going to try to do that to you, but I will tell you that these BBQ pecans are mighty fine as a happy hour snack, afternoon pick me up, party-food, or a little nibble between the hours of midnight and the next night at 11pm. They’re just the right amount of salty, crunchy, roasty, and spicy and turn just the most lovely brown color, and also go super well with a robust craft beer or bourbon cocktail.

Plus, they are SUPER easy.

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Channeling Little Bankok: Collard Greens & Venison Larb

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For the past 5 years of  my life, the closest Thai restaurant has been two hours away in Memphis or Jackson. Since this is one of my MOST favorite kinds of food, and we lived around the corner from an AMAZING hole-in-the-wall place in Atlanta where we ate at least once a week, this had been one of the hardest parts of small-town Mississippi life. It meant that I needed to figure out some approximations of my favorite dishes…and I can say that I’ve gotten pretty good at massaman and green curry and larb.
But y’all! NOW, we live 30 minutes from a nice little spot in Hattiesburg, so we can basically eat Thai food whenever the craving strikes. It’s so fantastic.

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