Summer and Southern blend in this okra-cheese grits recipe

When I saw the recipe, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Two of my favorite food items in all the world—cheese grits and okra—pulled together in one combo casserole. This must be my week for perfect pairings. Yesterday’s blog was about the dynamite combination of pears and apples in the most delectable pie ever. Now today I’m extolling okra with cheese grits. With all these dynamic duos, you’d think we were celebrating Valentine’s Day.

The only problem for baking this wonderful dish that I found described on www.myrecipes.com was my okra supply. Baby okra abound—we’ll have a bumper crop in a few days—but we’re waiting for the next wave. I did manage to scrape together enough mature okra for 6 small fresh okra pods called for in this casserole, but I could have added twice that amount and felt even more indulged.

The original recipe on myrecipes.com (originally from Southern Living October 1999) was called Baked Polenta with Cheese and Okra—polenta being just another name for something made from boiled cornmeal. We speak grits around here, so I subbed a name that described the casserole’s ingredients.

I can’t describe what a big hit this made around my house. Grown daughter happened in for a visit. When I suggest she sample something I’ve just made for a blog, I always can see trepidation in her eyes. Another weird veggie combination? I can read in her thoughts. But when the words cheese grits and okra emerge from my mouth, she’s a willing volunteer.

This basically involves cooking quick grits on the stovetop, stirring in okra, cheese, butter, and egg, and then baking in a casserole for 55 to 60 minutes. Adding the okra keeps the casserole from being boring and works a very Southern veggie into a very Southern dish.

Baked Cheese Grits and Okra Casserole

4 cups water, divided

6 small fresh okra pods

1 cup uncooked quick-cooking grits

1/2 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

2 large eggs, lightly beaten (or 1/2 cup egg substitute)

1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces

8 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese (or 1 8-ounce block sharp Cheddar, cubed)

In a large saucepan over medium heat bring 2 cups water to a boil; add okra and cook 10 minutes. With a slotted spoon remove okra. Reserve liquid in pan. Cool okra slightly and coarsely chop. Add remaining 2 cups water to reserved liquid; bring to a boil. Gradually stir in grits and salt; return to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 5 to 7 minutes. Gradually whisk about one-fourth of the grits into eggs; add this to remaining hot mixture. Whisk constantly. Whisk in butter. Stir in okra and cheese. Spoon into slightly greased 11-by-7-inch baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 to 60 minutes or until set. Makes 8 servings.

Cornbread croutons, veggies give this quintessential Southern dish new twist

What could be more Southern than cornbread? A recent issue of Southern Living magazine featured a variety of quintessential recipes (such as cornbread, grits, collards, and shrimp jambalaya) highly identified with our region of the country. The magazine gave each of them a new twist to make them more appealing to today’s lighter palate.

One that caught my eye and immediately went into the “must-try” category was Panzanella Salad with Cornbread Croutons. I have been the Cornbread Queen ever since my first cookbook, Way Back in the Country, was released some years back and I traipsed from TV station to TV station in the promotion of it. During this interesting time I had to learn a new skill: preparing food under the glare of TV cameras. The programming person at each TV station requested that I make Golden Cornbread, one of my family’s staple recipes. I can’t tell you how many batches of cornbread I whipped up for the TV lights so I would have the finished product on display while I stirred up a demo batch.

As a result of this blitz I grew to the point at which I could make cornbread in my sleep. So, to get this new recipe started, I tested myself to see whether I could remember the oft-baked Golden Cornbread Recipe (find it on page 23 of my cookook, Way Back in the Country) by heart. Once I baked a pan of it and let it cool completely, I cut up the cornbread into the 1-inch cubes that this recipe required and then toasted these cubes briefly in the oven so their edges would be brown and crouton-like.

From the garden the recipe called for red onion, a yellow bell pepper, tomatoes, and cucumber. How I look forward to some of those items being abundantly arrayed in my own garden a few weeks hence! (The tomato crop looks as though it will be particularly vast. As I gaze out my patio door, I see row after row of Hubby’s tomato stakes gleaming in the sun.)

We loved the honey-and-lemon vinaigrette that tied this unusual mixture together and gave it a slight Italian accent. I forgot to say that besides the other items in this somewhat unorthodox combination, the recipe also called for Hubby’s favorite condiment—black olives. I’ve always read that cornbread salad is a guy thing and that the heartiness of it makes it a man favorite. Truly, Panzanella Salad with Cornbread Croutons was a Hubby-pleaser through and through.

Panzanella Salad with Cornbread Croutons

One pan cornbread (made from your favorite recipe), cooled completely

1 yellow bell pepper, diced

1 small red onion, diced

1/2 cup olive oil, divided

2 teaspoons lemon zest

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon honey

salt (or salt substitute) and pepper, to taste

3 Roma tomatoes, diced

1/2 cucumber, quartered and sliced

1/2 cup black olives, sliced

1/2 cup torn fresh basil leaves

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut cornbread into 1-inch cubes. Bake in a single layer on a lightly greased cookie sheet 15 minutes or until edges are golden. Stir halfway through. Meanwhile saute bell pepper and onion in 1 tablespoon hot olive oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until pepper and onion are crisp-tender. In a large bowl whisk together lemon zest, lemon juice, honey, remaining 7 tablespoons olive oil, and salt and pepper. Stir in onion mixture, tomatoes, and next 3 ingredients. Add toasted cornbread cubes and toss to coat. Serve immediately. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Simple, elemental dish of Apple Salad recalls the quiet, gentle life of recipe's originator

Have you ever sampled a recipe that was simply the embodiment and the essence of the person who created it? Such is the case of my maternal grandmother’s Apple Salad dish that I prepared last night to accompany the remainder of my Creamy Broccoli Soup from an earlier post.

Among my most treasured of recipe files is a brief, typewritten (now slightly yellowing) card on which were typed the few but important ingredients for this salad and then at the bottom noted those valuable words, "Mama's recipe”. This helped me remember that my Nanny in the long-ago was the standard-bearer for this dish.

As I prepared it last evening and stirred the simple, smooth, boiled dressing on the stove before I poured it over some fresh, chopped apples, I envisioned Nanny as the epitome of the Southern cook and homemaker that she was. Her own mother, the legendary Grandma Harris around whom my cookbooks, Way Back in the Country and Way Back in the Country Garden, are anchored, had migrated over to East Texas from Mississippi after the Civil War. Like many who were among the early Texas pioneer families, her people were said to have fled plantation life after war desecrated their way of living. As they founded new communities on the promising Texas soil, they brought their plenteous skills with them.

Grandma Harris, who went on to mother 14 children, taught her girls that inimitable style of country gourmet cooking that I mentioned in an earlier blog about the foods of FBC Longview, TX. Growing up in Delta County in northeast Texas, my Nanny learned from her mother how to take the most elementary of recipes and turn them into a creation fit for royalty. Apple Salad is one of those dishes.

Besides the fresh, crunchy apples I chopped up for the salad, I also threw in a rib of chopped celery, since Hubby is (as I mentioned yesterday) intent on adding celery, for its hypertension-ameliorating properties, into every dish on the planet. Since the dressing is warm as it emerges off the stovetop, best to let the apple and dressing mixture chill in the fridge for an hour or so before you serve.

The sweet, creamy dressing folded around ingredients that most anyone would have on hand epitomized the gentle, simple life of a loving grandmother who made the most of what she had. When I'm gone from this earth 37 years, as she has been, may I still be remembered half so fondly.

Apple Salad

3 tablespoons vinegar

water (see below)

1 heaping teaspoon flour

1/2 cup sugar (or sugar substitute)

1 egg (or 1/4 cup egg substitute)

pinch salt

2 apples, peeled, cored, chopped

1 rib celery, chopped

Into a one-cup measure pour three tablespoons of vinegar. Add water to make a full cup. Pour liquid into a medium saucepan. To the saucepan add flour, sugar, beaten egg, and salt. Over medium heat bring mixture to a boil. Cook until thick. Pour over chopped apple and celery. Pour into airtight container and chill in fridge. If desired serve over greens. Makes 4 servings.