Chicken and Dressing Skillet Bake

This one's a winner, folks.  No, really!  When Sue Gulledge entered this recipe in the 1997 National Cornbread Festival, she took home first prize for the year.  And I can see why - the taste of good ol' fashioned cornbread dressing, but some of the work has been cut out for you.  Granted, it's not quite the same texture as that famed dish, but it certainly hits the spot.

Chicken and Dressing Skillet Bake

Yields 6 servings

Ingredients
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon oil (I used canola)
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten
1 (8.5 oz) can cream-style corn (I couldn't find one this small, so I used 2/3 of a regular can)
2 cups self-rising corn meal mix
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
3 cups chopped cooked chicken, seasoned with salt and pepper (or shred a rotisserie chicken like I did)

  Start off by preheating your oven to 450°F.  On the stove, put a 10 1/4 inch cast iron pan on medium heat.  Melt the butter in the pan, and cook the celery and onion for about 10 minutes, or until they are tender.  Pour the cooked vegetables and butter drippings into a large mixing bowl and set the bowl aside.  Pour the oil into the skillet and put it into the oven to heat up - 5 minutes.

  Return to the mixing bowl with the celery and onions.  Add in the rest of the ingredients.  Stir until everything is well mixed.  Take the skillet from the oven, and carefully pour the cornbread batter into the hot skillet.  Return to the oven and bake for 25-35 minutes, or until the cornbread is golden brown.  Split the cornbread into 6 wedges.  If you want to, you can garnish with fresh sage and top with chicken gravy.  I thought the cornbread was pretty darn good as is, but some people enjoy their gravy, too.  

Kitchen 101: Seeding a Pomegranate

  It was in Mrs. C's 7th grade reading class I had first heard of this 'exotic' thing, the pomegranate.  We were studying Greek mythology.  There's a story that explains the change of seasons - it had all the elements of a good read: a mother whose love transcends everything, a dark stranger, forbidden desire, and food.  Well, okay, maybe it wasn't a stellar read by our standards, but it stirred base emotions.  Demeter, goddess of fertility and vegetation had this beautiful daughter, Persephone.  Now we all know, that's a curse of doom for women - the Greek gods just could not resist a good lookin' woman.  Many tried to court Persephone, but Demeter didn't think any of them were good enough for her girl.  No sir.  None of 'em.  So, Demeter hid her off and left her picking flowers in the meadow, oblivious and innocent.  Bam!  The earth opened up and Hades, god of the underworld, erupted forth on his chariot, stealing away Persephone.  Demeter launched a full-scale search, and in her anger and sadness, the crops withered.  Eventually, Zeus grew tired of the mortals' cries of hunger and sent Hermes to fetch Persephone from Hades.  Wouldn't you know it?  Persephone had gotten hungry herself, and Hades tricked her into eating seeds from the pomegranate.  While she would return to her mother, she would come back to reside with Hades a month for each seed she ate, giving the world seasons.   Interesting story, but no way I could just pop a few seeds and be satisfied.  Poor girl must have been a twig.

  Pomegranates are an intriguing fruit - you eat the seeds, better known as arils.  They pop with a tangy, sweet and sour juice.  To harvest the arils, be prepared for some tricky business - but there is a way to do it with minimum fuss.

You'll need a cutting board, knife, a big bowl filled with water, colander, and some paper towels.

  Start off by finding the crown, the part of the fruit that looks like Jughead's hat.  Trim off the top 1/2 inch.  You will get a little juice spurting out on the cutting board.  Turn the pomegranate around, and trim off the bottom 1/2 inch.  You'll see parts of the aril pockets hidden inside the white pithy insides.  Take the knife and score sections all around the fruit, going from top to bottom.  Put the scored pomegranate in the bowl of water, and carefully start pulling the fruit apart, working underwater. 

Here's my pom after I pulled it into two halves.

 Working with a section at a time, take your fingers and work out the arils from the white part, again in the water bowl.  You'll see the white pith float to the top and the arils will sink to the bottom.  After you've freed all the arils, skim the top with a spoon or just pick out the stuff that's floating.  Pour the water and arils into your colander to drain.  Spread them out onto paper towels to dry a bit.  Move them to a plastic container, topped with a paper towel and seal.  Stash in the refrigerator, and these lil' rubies should last for 7-10 days.

Pumpkin Pie Spice

  Some of you out there are taking inventory of your spice racks, making lists to prepare for the holidays.  If you've got these four spices, don't shell out for pumpkin pie spice.

Pumpkin Pie Spice

Yields 1 teaspoon

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix together and use wherever pumpkin pie spice is called for.

Hot Artichoke Dip

  We are wading into the holiday season, replete with good friends and good food.  Deep into football season, Thanksgiving is around the corner, which means Christmas and New Year's Day are hot on its heels.  Time to break out the appetizers - easier the better.  Today I'm sharing with you a recipe I found in one of my Taste of Home cookbooks awhile back.   

Hot Artichoke Dip

Serves 12 - Yields about 3 cups

1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup roasted red pepper, chopped (I used jarred peppers for this)
1 (14 oz) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 1/3 cup French fried onions, divided

  Start off by preheating your oven to 375°F.  Spray a 9 inch pie dish (or a 1 quart baking dish) with cooking spray.

  In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, sour cream, Parmesan cheese, pepper, artichoke, and 2/3 cup of the French fried onions.  Spoon it into the pie dish and spread it out.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and sprinkle the remaining 2/3 cup of onions on top.  Return the dip to the oven for another 5 minutes, until your onions are a nice golden brown.  Serve the dip with crackers or bagel chips.

Kitchen 101: Roasting Garlic

Ah, the Stinkin' Rose, and just in time for Halloween, to boot.  Garlic has a way of, shall we say, making an impression.  Me?  I love the stuff anyway I can get it.  But if you don't care much for garlic's pungency, try roasting it.  It brings a mellow and slight sweetness that is just heavenly - a contrast to the sharp bite of raw garlic.  Roasted garlic is versatile and downright tasty spread on toasted French bread.  And roasting is too easy not to give it a try.

For the tools of the trade, you'll need a head of garlic, olive oil, and aluminum foil. 

A head of garlic?  Sometimes it's referred to as a garlic bulb, covered in several papery layers of skin, a bit like an onion.  The small, individually wrapped nodules that compose the head are called cloves.  Got it?  Great!

For what we are doing today, we need to keep the head intact.  With a knife, cut off the top 1/4 of the head, exposing the clustered cloves inside.

Tear off a square of aluminum foil, and place the trimmed head in the middle.  Drizzle with just a little olive oil.

I find that olive oil from a cat dispenser tastes the best....but I'm weird that way.  (All kidding aside, the opaque container does protect the oil from light.)

Wrap your garlic up tightly in the aluminum foil and pop into a preheated 350°F oven.  Bake for about an hour.  Remove and once it's cool, unwrap the head.  The cloves will be caramelized and brown in color.  The garlic has taken on a more mellow taste.  To remove the garlic, squeeze the head and the softened garlic will come out.

What's it good for?  Lots of delicious options - add it to mashed potatoes, make a garlic seasoning paste, squeeze it straight from the bulb and spread on toasted bread, and one of my favorite ways to use it is in a salad dressing.  And the roasting process I gave you is very flexible.  If I've got the oven going for something else - say baked potatoes- I just toss my foil wrapped garlic in on the rack to take advantage of that heat.  Cooking at a higher temp than 350°?  Just start checking your garlic at an earlier time.  I usually run about 30-45 minutes in a 400°+ oven for roasting.  Multiple heads going?  I've read other blogs where crafty cooks use a muffin tin and cover with foil; you don't have to retrieve multiple foil packs that way.  Just make sure to store leftovers in the fridge, covered with a bit of olive oil, and use within a few days.

Roasted Vegetable Spread

  Life gets hectic this time of year.  Meetings, responsibilities, and getting ready for all the upcoming holidays and events...meal planning is something I'm going to have to invest my time in.  This week, I'm planning out my lunches.  On the menu?  Fresh salads, fruit, and sandwiches.  Right now I'm roasting off some vegetables for one of my favorite sandwich spreads, a recipe from food geek - Alton Brown.

Roasted Vegetable Spread

Ingredients

1 small zucchini, sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced into rings
1 onion, sliced and seperated into rings
4 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 ounces cream cheese
salt and fresh ground black pepper

  Start by preheating your oven to 400°F.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

  Take the zucchini, bell pepper, onion rings, and garlic cloves and put them in a small mixing bowl.  Drizzle the veggies with the olive oil and mix them up until all the vegetables are lightly coated in oil.  (Clean hands are awesome for this job.)  Spread them out in a single layer on your prepped pan.  Put the pan in the oven and roast the vegetables for 30-45 minutes.  The time depends completely on how thin or thickly you sliced the vegetables.  You will need to pull them out and stir them occasionally.  They will be ready when you are getting brown edges on the food.  Keep an eye on that pan - there's a fine line between roasted and burnt.  Let the vegetables cool.

  In your food processor, combine the roasted vegetables and cream cheese.  Pulse until you reached the desired consistency.  AB likes his spread slightly chunky - and so do I.  I like seeing what's in there.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Notes:  If you are wondering which episode this recipe was featured in, it's "Sandwichcraft", season 8, episode #114. One of my favorite episodes, it was written to get families - adults and kids - together working in the kitchen.   Now before you think I'm off my rocker, no, I don't have the episode numbers memorized.  But I am a big fan with AB's new cookbook.  Being as meticulous, he has it divided by episodes with tons of info.

Pepper Palace & Kyle Carver Orchard

  It has been a jam-packed weekend in my neck of the woods. Friday night, after work, I went to the National Storytelling Festival- as I told you last week. Saturday, my hubby and I got up and a drive up to Gatlinburg in the heart of the Smokies. We took the back way in, driving the roads through Cosby that sinuously wind through the mountains like a snake. It was a beautiful drive that will become even more stunning in the coming weeks as the leaves change. And the trip wasn't just eye candy - we experience a couple of places that must be shared with the masses, the Pepper Palace and Kyle Carver Orchard.

  The Pepper Palace - what can I say?  It lives up to its name.  The scent of pepper beckons you as you pass the store front in the Mountain Mall- not heat, but the pure essence of pepper that is utterly inviting.  On the left as you enter, you'll find numerous trophies and ribbons for many of their award-winning sauces and salsas - several you'll find on this list.  Not only do they carry their own house brands, but any kind of hot sauce you could want.  Curious about the heat level?  Check the shelf. The sauces are rated for your taste buds.  There are sample bars to try many of the sauces, and samples using their products.  I walked out with my favorite, Southern Peach and Vidalia Onion, slightly sweet and of medium heat, and my hubby's pick - Autumn in the Smokies, a good, solid medium heat sauce that screams buffalo wings.  But if you aren't a chile head or a hot sauce connoisseur, don't despair.  The Pepper Palace has tons of BBQ sauces, marinades, rubs, salsas, and dip mixes.  But what impressed me the most was the fact you could tell the folks that worked there loved what they did.  They were extremely friendly, encouraging customers to try samples and assisting them in the floor with their impressive product knowledge.

  On the way home, we stopped at Kyle Carver Orchard, or as locals refer to it - Carver's.  A sprawling orchard that grows apples, peaches, grapes, and vegetables, Carver's has a candy store, barn market, and the Applehouse Restaurant.  This was my first time eating at the Applehouse, but it will not be my last.  We were greeted by a very professional hostess, who was 9 at most (filling in for the busy hostess, she did not want to see us waiting), but undoubtly the next generation to run the orchard.  She promptly requested us to follow her, and seated us next to one of the windows that looked out over the apple trees, heavy with fruit. 
The meals were served with a small glass of apple cider, a basket of apple fritters - hush puppy-like critters with finely diced apples, and apple butter.  Mmmmmm....apple butter.  I can't think of a thing that wouldn't be better dunked in that apple butter.  As you can see, I came home with a jar.  After a wonderful meal, we headed over to the barn where I snagged the apple butter and honey.  Boy, the apple cider was tempting to get, but I needed a reason to go back soon.  Curiously, among the many items they had made from the things they grow there, there was a hot sauce made with peaches and Vidalia onions, like I picked up from the Pepper Palace.  I just might have to do a comparison between the two sometime.

Notes:  Need some place to feed your hot sauce needs?  You can find the Pepper Palace at www.pepperpalace.com or on Facebook.  Carver's doesn't have a website, but they, too, have a Facebook page.