full bellies | warm welcomes
Ok lovelies, its time for me to share a secret with you.
I have the easiest, fastest, most delicious pizza dough recipe and I’ve been keeping it from you. I know. It’s terrible and mean and horrible that I haven’t already shared this because it’s so darn amazing. And to top it off, I made pizza this weekend with fresh chantrelle mushrooms, bacon, ricotta cheese and arugula. Do you hate me?
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I was flipping through a cookbook the other day and found a recipe for a sweet corn pie (as a dessert.) I wasn’t really feelin that, BUT it struck me that a savory (sweet) corn pie wouldn’t be a bad way to leverage all this gorgeous summer’s bounty that I picked up at a farmer’s market the other day.
THEN, like it was fate or something, my cousins went flea market shopping with me and found me a copy of their favorite-of-all-time quiche and souffle cookbook… it recommended bacon and corn as one of those flavor combos that once you’ve had you just can’t stop thinking about, so, I went with it. And y’all, it is just simply GOOD. This is the PERFECT side for a big pile of fresh summer tomatoes, or skirt steak, or even a tomato sandwich. Considering how hot kitchens get in the summer, and how little I want to cook on the evenings when we’ve all been out swimming at the neighbors or drinking beers on the deck, this easy, pretty speedy, can-be-made-in-advance recipe is basically my Godsend. Plus it’s just the right about of sweet, savory, and creamy to make you want to eat the whole thing by yourself with a fork (this almost happened, but i stopped with 2 slices left in the pie plate. eek).
Cook it in a rectangular or square dish and cut into squares and serve as an appetizer if you’re feeling fancy. 
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After our vacation I should probably be sticking close to home, focusing on getting our house built, and only eating salads and juicing since none of my clothes fit anymore, but instead, I want to eat comforting foods and I want to share kindness and care with everyone I see because sometimes, we all need comfort food.
Sometimes the world goes sideways and upside down. I know it has this week. People I love and care about are afraid and anxious and worried about the future, and it is made worse because they’ve been terrified and nervous for almost as long as lots of them can remember.
My faith tells me that those who mourn will be comforted and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness will receive heaven but damn, y’all. Damn.
Thankfully, I’m reminded by people all around me that we still have hope. We still have hope…and we can still reach out to those in need of comfort and care from wherever we are.
If there are people in your life who could use some good comfort food, add this Portland brunch hash that I recreated and amended to your list of things to eat and share with people you love, along with your hugs and words of comfort. And pray. Pray a lot.
Did y’all read the article in Bon Appetit where this NYC hipster journalist went to Indianapolis to find out how much like Brooklyn it was? And how he was surprised by how cool and edgy and “authentic” the food culture had become?
That hurt me.
I can’t even count the number of times a big fancy food magazine or a chef in an enormous northern or west coast city get credit for “starting” food revolutions that small town, small city, or rural folk have known about all along or just consider it the way they like to cook. A couple of the folks whom the writer interviewed gave him an earful and called out his pomposity.
Take the food truck for example. Sure, LA, Portland or Austin maybe gets credit for making them a big, cool, part of urban American culture, and a place for higher-end, gourmet menus but I’m pretty sure people from Mississippi to Montana have been eating corn dogs and funnel cakes out of food trucks their whole lives at every small town festival they’ve ever been to. And my town had a down home fried catfish truck way back in 2002…well before it was en vogue.
Well, we just got back from Portland (AMAZING, y’all. the weather. the scenery, the locally grown and made food…) and of course, we hit up their food cart pods – tiny tracks of land where a handful to a couple dozen food trucks set up shop together. The variety of “truck food” was amazing, but I have to say the quality wasn’t ANY higher than what we can get right here. No joke.
That’s not to say that our town has fully embraced the food truck as regular eating spot thing yet. But our friends at Laurel’s own Gourmet Truck, BackRoad Bistro, are working to change that.
When Juice and Candice started up, they had to pay all kinds of silly city fees to park here or serve food there…because no one knew how to categorize them. Were they a restaurant? A one-truck Festival? A Delivery service? Geez, Bureaucracy. But finally, after making their case and clearing all the hurdles and hiccups, they’re off and running and making — I say this with absolutely no hyperbole — the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten.
For real. It stands up to every delicious thing I’ve EVER eaten from any food truck… from a Portland version of Chinese Bing Mi to an Austin Fried Avocado Taco.
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Is there really anything more satisfying than a popsicle in the summertime?
Ok, ok, homemade ice cream is waaaay up there, you’re right.
So, then, is there anything better than ice cream or popsicles in the summer time?
Oh. Well, you’re right… sno cones are pretty hard to beat when it’s hot out there.
Well, I’m pretty sure that sno cones, ice cream, and popsicles are the TOP three most satisfying things to eat in the summer. AmmIright?
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This week, while we were out at the farm checking on the construction of our gorgeous new home, my daddy walked my toddler back into the woods where I used to play as a child. “My Hideout” I called it… the milk crates I’d used for a picnic table and chairs were still there, over 20 years later. it smelled like moss and wet trees and earth and it transported me back to being 7 and having adventures all around that land.
My son was equally enchanted… I’m imagining so many more play times back in that little clearing in the woods now that the farm will be his to roam and explore.
Another thing I would do as a child in the woods was search for honeysuckle vines and taste the tiny, sweet drop of nectar in the center of the plant. It’s this one or two perfect, sweet, floral drops of syrup and I would tromp around gathering all the flowers I could so I could drink more than just a teeny taste.
When I realized I still had 3 cups of mulberries leftover after the cobbler, and the scones, I used them to make some gorgeous, deep purple, tarty-sweet mulberry syrup… and then I wondered, “Ok, now what?”
And what goes better with foraged mulberries than the fleeting, childhood-treasured flavor of honeysuckle? Nothing, I tell you. And then add lemonade and some lemon thyme, and fahgetaboutit. It tastes like a little kid singing a childhood song or catching a firefly in a jar on a summer evening… but with a little of Mississippi’s own Cathead vodka, it’s all grown up.
So, I introduce you to, the Mulberry & Honeysuckle Sister to the Country Thyme Cocktail…
The Backcountry Thyme cocktail
My dad is pretty much an exclusive scotch drinker, and my fella likes beer, so for both of them to taste my cocktail and say, “Hey, that’s sweet, but it’s REALLY good” was a feat. Even if you’re not into typically sweet drinks, if you’ve got access to mulberries and thyme, it’s worth a sip… especially to set the mood when it gets hot hot hot outside and you’re watching your kiddos catch fireflies out in the yard. OR use the syrup on pancakes, over the scones or in just plain lemonade.
But then, last week, that all changed. Our new, wonderful forager friend brought me two quarts of mulberries and a quart of dewberries and I basically died and went to berry heaven. I had SO many ideas for using these tart, sweet, perfect little treasures and not enough time to make them. You’ve hopefully already seen (and tried!) the mulberry scones recipe, and then that very same night, my daddy requested a cobbler. That seemed the PERFECT way to use the berries but not overwhelm their natural perfection… so he got his wish. Each of us had a personal sized one piping hot after supper, with OF COURSE, homemade vanilla ice cream.
Don’t have your own forager friend or a mulberry tree in your backyard? No worries. A combo of fresh or frozen blueberries and raspberries will do the trick. Your tummy will thank you.
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When I was a little girl, we lived in a little house in Laurel with the BIGGEST mulberry tree in the backyard. In the late spring, I’d gorge myself on the tart-sweet berries and stain my fingers reddish-purple. I also sat down in the ditch behind the house in my clothes and caught crawfish with nets, made up a very short lived and ill-fated “Recycler’s club” with the other neighborhood kids, and got my only two spankings for misbehaving in that yard. Oh, Memories.
I honestly hadn’t had a mulberry until this week when Joseph Hosey, also known as the Free State Forager, a member of Newt Knight’s #squad in the upcoming Matthew Mcconaughey movie, and founder of wild woods cuisine dropped a quart off by my folks’ house….
Can I tell you something embarrassing? I ate two whole watermelons in four days. By myself.
They are only JUST coming into farm stands and really aren’t that sweet yet, but I can’t stop. The fresh, clean, perfectly bright smell that permeates my house when I cut into one is, alone, honestly worth the cost of buying one. I’ve made cocktails, and salads, and this week, I tried Bryant Terry’s Basil Salted Watermelon, and damn. It was good and I’m not even a traditional watermelon-salter.
But down here in Mississippi (and I guess all over the country, these days) watermelons have had a shadow cast over their perfection.
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Grilled Pimiento Cheese Panini. Does it get any cheesier?
Ok, so with all this hubbub about Laurel, Mississippi, some folks have started noticing (especially when they get asked things by visitors like “where should we go out to eat”) that there’s not really a great source for non-natives about where to eat and what to get…
I mean, there’s technically Yelp and Trip Advisor, but they spotlight a pretty large number of chains…plus, since Laurel JUST got added to the Visit Mississippi tourism maps in 2016, our economy is pretty robust, but not really tourism-focused. (meaning that these sites haven’t gotten a ton of traffic until recently.)
Anyway, for this very reason, I’m going to be reviewing locally owned spots around and about this little town that maybe you haven’t heard of, so if you live here and are curious or happen to be stopping through, you’ll have an idea about where to go. Search my Tag “MOG Dines out” or “Dining out” to read more and please leave me a comment if there’s a Laurel place that needs to be highlighted (ESPECIALLY if you want to write the review as an MoG contributor!)
Up today, a great little spot for sandwiches, and an even better one if you need to feed your sweet tooth: Sweet Magnolia Bakery on Highway 15 N.
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