Caesar Salad, Pg. 211

The "Ice Cream" section of Charleston Receipts is longer than the "Salad" chapter. Shocker.

Undaunted, I charged forth this evening in my quest to initiate a post-Thanksgiving health kick with this cookbook in hand. (Definitely too much road trip fast food, too many leftovers, and way too much wine over the holidays.)

I chose Mrs. John McGowan's receipt for Caesar Salad, the "Charleston Adaptation." It was definitely delicious. Healthy, not so much.

"Drain on brown paper, until crisp."

There are fried croutons (yum.) Anchovies packed in olive oil (yum.) Parmesan Cheese (double yum.) A couple of raw eggs (trust me, it works.) Oh yeah, and lettuce, too.

The receipt called for tarragon vinegar and I found some with actual tarragon in it!

I served the salad with a rotisserie chicken (as Ina would say, "How easy is that?") and my husband loved it. He doesn't even like anchovies, but this salad doesn't have a fishy taste at all. I used my food processor to combine the lemon juice, anchovies, egg, tarragon vinegar and oil to ensure that the dressing was as smooth as possible. Next time, I may reserve a few of the anchovies, rough chop them and throw in the larger pieces into the salad. I do love anchovies.

Finished product

Bottom line - I don't want to attempt to calculate this receipt's calorie count (let alone the sodium), but it did offer up a vegetable in a raw, crunchy, non-casserole form. Anything is an improvement over the Thanksgiving smorgasbord.

On a final note, we have 13 followers - at least a third of whom are family members, but after returning to Spartanburg this past week for the holidays, I can't tell you how many of our faithful readers approached me complimenting us on this blog! Thank you all for reading!

-Lauren

Well...I liked the Crust.

scooping out some pumpkin guts, unaware of the disaster ahead

Yep, that sums up this pie. Meaning my guests only liked the crust of a store boughten pie dough. Which also means, I experienced my 2nd week of a row of Charleston Receipts failure.
  This week, an in anticipation of my sister and her in-laws visiting me in NYC for thanksgiving I decided to make Mrs. S. Edward Izard Jr.'s (Ann Kirk) Pumpkin Pie. It appeared straightforward and I thought if it turned out well I would make it for the Baileys when they visited next week. Well, glad I gave this one a test run!

steaming the pumpkin for mashing

 
   I really have no idea what went wrong here. I followed the receipt to a T. I must admit that I have never stewed a pumpkin and have always relied on Libbys Pumpkin Pie Mix. Last year, if you recall, there was a random shortage of Libbys Pumpkin Pie. So I scavenged 3 grocery stores in Spartanburg looking for the magical stuff. I ended up with a lot of canned pumpkin. We had pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, and pumpkin roulade. What can I say, my father and I love pumpkin. We went twice last weekend to Shake Shake for pumpkin pie concretes.

Overflowing!

Leftover Pumpkin Pie Filling, I think enough for another pie itself!

    So I really have no idea what went wrong. I think I stewed the pumpkin properly. I scooped out the guts. I believe I used the proper sugar pumpkin required for pies. I knew that when I added the 2 cups of milk I was going to have a problem. It was WAY too much liquid. Perhaps the pie should have been deep dish. Not sure, but when I poured the ingredients in the pie shell (premade, I admit) it poured all over and out of the dish. There is no way it would all fit. It was a HUGE mess. And unfortunately the beaten eggs, I believe due to their slimy texture, were the first to run out of the pie. I literally put the pie in the oven and scooped some eggs out of the spillover from the baking sheet I put below and put it back in the pie in the oven.
  The receipt did not mention how long I should cook the pie. I can't recall how long I baked it for. All I know is that I was about to go to bed and give up on this disaster and it finally looked finished. But it took an unusually long time and created a mess! And tasted not so yummy.
  So long story short. I tried making the pie the old fashioned way. And I honestly I miss my Miss Libby's. Oh well. Can't say I didn't try!

just a glance at some of the mess of prepping for a pumpkin pie

I have no idea what that gross white stuff is, egg perhaps?

xoxo

christine

Likker Pudding, Not To Our Liking

the finished product, twenty minutes before it was thrown away

So this week I decided to make Mrs. W.T. Hartman's(Betty Blaydes)Likker Pudding. I figured, well I love sweet potatoes, I love liquor, what is there not to like? Well, a lot apparently. While Lauren had great success last week, I had no such luck this week.
    First, it takes forever and a day. I am not sure if this could have been accomplished with a food processor or not, but if it can, do it. I don't own one (I only own pyrex dishes, a skillet, and very dull knives to whip up culinary wonders with). When you grate a sweet potato, whatever you do, don't cut it in half to grate. I thought it would be easier to hold and grate that way. It is not. It is much, much easier to grate if you just keep the entire peeled potato whole. I learned this the hard way after spending 45 minutes grating and also loosing a thumbnail and almost my thumb!

some rum to add

  Once you have all the potatoes ready, it still takes 2 hours to bake. 2 hours is a long time in my book for something involving sweet potatoes.
   And the main reason I think I did not like it was actually the liquor. I made a dish very similar to this one for thanksgiving last year. I think it was from the 'Pon Top Edisto cookbook. It also involved sweet potatoes and liquor. I made the mistake of using the only bourbon I could find, which was fighting cock. Let's just say that is the only thing anyone could taste, meaning my father was the only one who liked the potatoes. I used rum this time, but I ran across the same problem. I don't really like dark liquor, so it shouldn't be a surprise to me that I would not like it. But poor Andrew dutifully took a bite and said, "this is really sweet". And I replied, "It is awful, I know, you can only taste the liquor, and I didn't even put it all in." And he agreed and looked relieved that he did not have to eat it.

   So this is where the Likker Puddign ended up: the trash! And it takes a lot for me to throw away something that took 3 hours of my time. It was that bad!

likker pudding meets its maker