Southern Saturdays with Virginia - Vidalia Onion Quiche

Southern Saturdays with Virginia is back just in time for Mother's Day. This Saturday we're making quiche using sweet Vidalia onions. Virginia, being a good Georgia girl, loves her sweet onions. They are the Official State Vegetable of Georgia so I don't want to hear anything about those faux sweet Texas onions. Growing up on the East Coast, Vidalia onions were one of those things you could get once during the season when they were sold out of the back of a semi trailer much like Florida oranges and grapefruits. My mother would fry up delicate little onions straws out of those Vidalias, making me some kind of viscious fried onion junkie. Today, however, we'll be making a Vidalia Onion Confit as a filling to quiche.

Virginia's recipe calls for 5 - 6 onions or 1 1/2 pounds but I don't know if they had a spectacular growing season or they are feeding these onions steroids because they were huge!! I only needed two and they were two of the small ones.

A little blind baking of the quiche crust with parchment paper lining the crust and then a layer of dried beans as weight to keep the crust level while it bakes.

The sweet onion confit goes into the bottom and then the custard mixture is ladled on top. Baked in the oven until set and voila....

...a quiche fit for Mom. Happy Southern Saturdays and Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there and especially my mom. Can you make me some of those onion straws the next time I'm home? I promise not to whine too loudly.

Halibut Two Ways

Trying to find the new normal in my life. As usual, cooking brings comfort even though there's one furry face missing while watching me cook. Life does go on. Even though it's now April, wanted to drop one more Mapril offering to those of you who are still suffering under March's harsh ending (hello Northeast, so sorry for you). Took that peppery Lime/Maple/White Pepper/Cilantro marinade that I used on the chicken wings and gave a lovely piece of halibut a quick bath.

Just broiled it. Immediately scarfed it down. While the wings blunted the pepper, the fish totally embraced the white pepper and let the kick shine through. Thank you Whole Foods for fresh, wild caught halibut. Not to mention a side of bacon stir-fried brussel sprouts.

A week later, Whole Foods is still bringing the halibut and don't you know Virginia Willis got into the act even while she was at the spa. While technically it's not a Southern Saturday, we'll pretend that it is.

Cornmeal-crusted Halibut? Oh yeah, good stuff. So if you've got a Whole Foods nearby or have access to some nice halibut, fill up. If you've got a third way to serve this lovely fish, tell me about it, I'd love to hear.

Southern Saturdays with Virginia: Simple, Satisfying, Steak

Miss Virginia had a hankering for beef this weekend and we here at the Karmic Kitchen always strive to make women happy. So we put our best cast iron skillet forward to make her Grilled Boneless Ribeye with Porcini Rosemary Rub. But the question had to be asked....is it really Southern?

Now before any Southern Belles get their knickers in a knot, let me explain. When one thinks of steak and Southern cuisine, what often comes to mind is this.


Country Fried Steak. After a night of heavy barley pop consumption, a big slab of tenderized chuck steak, breaded, fried, and slathered with cream gravy is just the ticket for many a vicious hangover. But healthy it most certainly is not. So while country fried steak is Southern, Virginia is attempting to cut some fat out of the Southern diet. Which is a good thing for all of us. That's not to say that I believe it's the size of a woman's heart that's more important than the size of her waistline but the point is taken that we have to keep that heart healthy and strong with better food choices. Goodbye country fried steak, hello grass fed, organic beef.

Now Virginia has her own Southern resources for beef that weren't available to me. But if it's one thing they love here in the Midwest it's a juicy hunk of flavorful beef so it's not like I have to go far. The local Whole Foods carries Panorama Meats, a great source for grass fed beef. One small boneless ribeye later and we're off to the races. Again, it's a really simple preparation. Dried porcini mushrooms and rosemary are pureed until finely ground. One side of the steak gets the porcini crust and then the steak is either grilled or seared in a little oil in your finely seasoned cast iron skillet until your steak reaches the temperature you most enjoy. (Please....if you enjoy your steak well done, don't tell the folks here in the Midwest...it will displease them....) That's it kids.

Now Virginia didn't mention any sides to go with this juicy steak and normally I would happily plop down a hot baked potato with an obscene dollop of real butter and maybe even some chopped bacon but in keeping in the spirit of healthier eating I went with a trio of roasted vegetables and fun white bean, tomato and sage recipe to round out my meal. Let me tell you, I felt a lot better after eating this meal than any of the planks of country fried steaks I've eaten. I'm fairly certain you won't need a defibrillator after this meal so you can thank Virginia for that.

Southern Saturday with Virginia

While Superbowl Saturday may have found most of the country shopping and prepping their chip dips, their wings, pre-ordering their delivery pizza and stocking up on carpet cleaner, Virginia Willis was not convinced that her Southern Saturdays should be spent elbow deep in dip. Instead she found herself hungry, hungry for Breakfast. Be still my cholesterol-laden heart!
I adore breakfast. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, French Toast, Benedicts, I love it all. Apparently Virginia loves breakfast too because she offered up FIVE different recipes for this week's episode of Southern Saturday with Virginia. What the heck should I make? The Mini Country Ham Cheddar Biscuits are always a good choice but I've still got yeast rolls hanging around so that was a no. The Fried Apple Pies look great especially a recipe with dried apples but I think I'll save that for another day. That left the frittata, the baked eggs or the Dutch Baby Pancake. I settled on the pancake because I'd never made one before. And it's really easy.

Here's how easy it is, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Melt half a stick (1/4 cup) of butter, put it in your black iron skillet and put that skillet in the oven. Mix together 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 2 large lightly beaten eggs and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Pour the mixture into the hot skillet with the melted butter and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until it gets all puffy. Once it comes out of the oven you can slice it up and top it with any sort of sweet treats like blackberry jam or sliced strawberries or you can just dust it with powdered sugar. Hot, savory and sweet all at once. It's a great way to start your day.

Of course, I couldn't just leave it at that. I mean the oven was on anyway, why not take advantage of it. I blame Virginia with her damned Baked Egg suggestions. So I decided to make muffin size pancakes in some of the cups of my muffin tin and in the other cups? Come on people.....it's ME! Bacon nests with a baked egg. Once they were all baked, I put the bacon/egg nest in the mini Dutch Baby Pancake and made my own freaky McMuffin.

Now it wasn't perfect, the muffin tins proved too small for the mini-pancakes if the bacon nest was going to fit better. I'm thinking a glass custard cup next time which will solve my other problem. My eggs cooked quicker than the pancakes but since they were in the same muffin pan, not much I could do. With the pancake in it's own cooking vessel, I can take the eggs out when they are done and leave the pancake to keep cooking.

Not that any of these issues kept me from eating this combo recipe. Because you know no bacon goes wasted in my house.

Southern Saturdays with Virginia - Mama's Seafood Gumbo

Virginia Willis continues her weekly series Southern Saturdays with Virginia. Each week she picks a recipe from her cookbook, Bon Appetit Y'all and asks her readers to cook the recipe. This week she picked Mama's Seafood Gumbo. A stew with crab and shrimp? I think we all know what I was doing today.

While I enjoy a wide variety of ethnic foods, creole cuisine is not something I normally find myself cooking or ordering in a restaurant. I have not had the pleasure of visiting New Orleans nor do I remember ever having had gumbo let alone a good gumbo before. So I was definitely in uncharted waters this Saturday. That wasn't the only issue. There was also the roux. The roux for a gumbo can be a bit tricky.

It starts out like all roux, with fat and flour. In this case, unsalted butter. The directions seem simple enough: In a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour, stirring slowly and constantly, and cook to a medium-brown roux, about 30 minutes. Check out that last part. 30 minutes of stirring so your roux doesn't burn. No wandering off to see if the dog is barking at something important or just another squirrel mocking him from the tree outside. No checking your email for the latest Groupon coupon. You're on Roux Duty because your Gumbo depends on it! Once you get that done, it's all smooth sailing from there.

I even had time to make Virginia's $20,000 Rice Pilaf. How was the gumbo? Well it was certainly warm and comforting, thick with crab and shrimp. Just a bit of spice with the addition of the hot sauce at the end for my mild mannered tongue. The filé powder was another new experience for me. I love okra so I was curious how a little bit of dried and ground sassafras leaves were going to thicken up this stew in place of the okra but it certainly did and added a wonderful new flavor as well.

So the next time the weather prognosticators are predicting a major snow dump, instead of stocking up on milk and toilet paper at the grocery store before it hits, get the makings of Mama's Seafood Gumbo and spend that snowstorm productively practicing your roux making skills and warming up your loved ones with some spicy seafood goodness.

A Southern Challenge

Virginia Willis, author of Bon Appétit, Y’all, threw out a challenge on her blog. She's started up Southern Saturdays with Virginia. She posts a recipe late in the week and her readers make the recipe and report back to Virginia. The premier recipe for Southern Saturdays is her grandmother Meme's Yeast Rolls.

Yes, I do love my Kitchen Aid mixer because this is a whole lotta dough to mix. I forget how wonderful rising dough smells, that yeasty beast working hard to achieve that smooth elastic dough. After two rises and a quick trip into the oven you get some wonderful and delicious rolls.

Wish I had made these back when I made the Black Bean and Pumpkin Stew. Delicious slightly sweet rolls perfect for creamy butter and a generous drizzle of honey. What a great start to fun Saturday cooking.