A Child Of Atom

It's been a while since I shared a recipe so I'll give you the one pictured in 105. It is pretty much an open ended recipe, you and increase or decrease the ingredients as necessary.

It is named for a mining camp legend. A woman keeping a boarding house near a mining camp was running short on ingredients one day, so she ground up and tossed her husband's red flannel union suit into her potato hash to extend it a bit. The bright red hash proved so popular with the miners that she had to find a way to make it every day, and beets proved cheaper that red flannel union suits, so she substituted those, and a recipe was born!

Red Flannel Hash
1 cup beets, in small cubes
1 cup sweet potato or yams, in small cubes
1 cup white or red potato, in small cubes
1/2 cup yellow onion, in small cubes
1/2 cup corned beef, in small cubes (optional)
4 Eggs
Fresh rosemary
Olive Oil

Combine all ingredients except eggs in a large skillet and saute until the vegetables have cooked through and are tender. Salt and pepper to taste. Fry or poach eggs and serve atop the vegetable mixture.

My sister and I used to make this recipe on a nearly daily basis. I was so excited when she called me last week to say that she had come into possession of a copy of it again. Now officially these are called "No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies." We always called them "Dookie Cookies" for.... well... if you make the recipe you'll see the fairly obvious reason. We never bothered actually spooning the mixture out into cookie sheets and making actual cookies, instead we preferred just to eat it with a spoon directly from a bowl. But then like most kids I always did prefer the pre-cooked form of most sweets to the final form that they were supposed to be in. Regardless, it's a tasty recipe and I can't wait to try it again.

2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
1 cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups oatmeal
Waxed paper

In a heavy saucepan bring to a boil, the sugar, cocoa, butter and milk. Let boil for 1 minute then add peanut butter, vanilla and oatmeal. On a sheet of waxed paper, drop mixture by the teaspoonfuls, until cooled and hardened.

Every family has a way of making it. Everyone has their preferred method. Their perfect amount of sugar. Just the right number of tea bags. Here's mine:

First: Lipton Tea bags. This is important. None of that Tetley bullshit. Not the "cold brew" kind (more on that in a minute). And none of those single tea bags that are supposed to make whole pitchers. You'll need 8 tea bags.

Second: Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. Now... do I measure out two quarts? No, of course not. I fill my medium sized pot, (and yes I only have one medium sized pot, I'm not that gay) about halfway. I'm guessing that it's about two quarts. It's important that the water be boiling before you put the tea bags in. I hope it goes without saying but pull all the little papers tags off the tea bags. Some people go to the trouble of tying all the strings together so that the bags make a little bundle... I find this unnecessary but if you're feeling bored while you are waiting for the water to boil, go ahead. After the water boils, drop the tea bags in. You can drop the heat a bit, but keep the water at a boil.

A note about so called "cold brews:" Someone came up with the brilliant notion off dropping several tea bags into a cold pitcher of water and letting it "steep" for a long period. This, along with "sun tea" has to be some weird Yankee method of making iced tea. The resulting tea is weak, and flavorless, and has no place on the table of a southern home. Avoid it!

Third: In a gallon sized pitcher place 1 cup of sugar. One. ONE! I know people who put up to three cups of sugar in a gallon of tea. That's overkill. We're making a beverage here, not some sort of iced tea syrup.

Fourth: Here's where the real art comes in. I prefer a nice dark tea. Some people prefer a lighter tea. I usually let my tea boil for 3 minutes or so. Up to 5. The tea should be a deep mahogany color in the pot, in it's undiluted form.

Fifth: Pour the hot tea into the pitcher with the sugar. Use a spoon to keep the bags from falling into the pitcher. Gently squeeze the remaining tea out of the bags. Be careful not to rip or burst one of the tea bags or you'll end up with tea leaves in your tea. Stir the hot tea and sugar allowing the sugar to dissolve completely.

Sixth: Fill pitcher with cold water, stir, and refrigerate. The resultant tea should be a dark red-brown.

Seventh: Enjoy!

Advanced Preparations: Fresh lemon is a time honored tradition to southern iced tea, as is a mint leaf as a garnish. Either are acceptable. Raspberries are to be avoided. They do not grow in the south and are not an acceptable ingredient. Raspberries are a leftover holdout from the 90's. Remember when everything came in a raspberry flavor? If you are simply dying for a berry flavor go with blackberries. Lipton makes a variety of flavored black teas. Mint, blackberry, orange spice, or honey lemon would make decent additions to southern style sweet tea. Simply replace on or two of the tea bags with the flavored type, depending on how strong a flavor you desire. One is usually enough for me. Do NOT be fooled by Lipton's raspberry flavor. Ignore it. Every company makes mistakes. For further proof of their mistakes check the mixes and powders that they also make. Avoid these at all cost.

Enjoy your tea, and if you are not normally an iced tea drinker but you try it based on my instructions, let me know!

I love Paula Deen. I love her because her voice is a little piece of home. I love her because she looks like, and her voice sounds an awful lot like BFE Michelle's mother. I love her because, like a lot of southerners, she has pretensions of grandeur but if you just barely scratch the surface you'll find a pure redneck. In other words she gets a bit "above her raisin' " but in an endearing way. Don't believe me? Watch her show and see how many of her recipes use mayonnaise, canned fruit, or.. and this is the ultimate... canned biscuits.

Canned biscuits go into an odd category of life's adventures: the necessary evil. Canned biscuits, like instant grits and powdered tea mix are something that no true southerner would consume if the real thing was nearby. But they do in a pinch.

Last week Ms. Paula made a coffee cake that I thought would have to be either the best thing I ever tasted, or a culinary train wreck. The main ingredient? Canned biscuits.

While I was in Connecticut I mentioned the recipe to Michelle, and she agreed with me that this was a culinary experiment that had to be tried. The recipe is pretty simple, canned biscuits formed into a ball around a teaspoon of cream cheese, and rolled in a mixture of orange zest, nuts, sugar and butter. The biscuits are then shoved into a bundt pan and cooked as a mass. (You can find the actual recipe here.)

Our product looked like this:


And let me tell you that it was DELICIOUS. It was sweet without being overpowering, the cream cheese was perfect, and the combo of nuts and oranges is fabulous. If you are looking for a quick, fun, tasty recipe, this is the one I recommend. Get in your kitchen, get your redneck ingredients out, and get cookin'!!