Little White Lies?
I have a new favorite cooking show. My husband can't understand why when he makes the mashed potatoes, the kids don't eat many. When
I make them, they devour them. Do you want to know the secret, girls? It's called FAT. If mashed potatoes are to taste good, they need fat, and lots of it! Whipping cream, salt, butter. The essentials of any good dish.
But there my DH goes, innocently putting in the non-fat milk (milk should NOT be blue, am I right?), little Smart Balance and maybe a pinch of salt. In a restaurant, DH eats his baked potatoes with nothing on them. I know, huh?
So this new show:
Down Home with the Neelys is this darling couple making very fattening, southern food. You know what I love about southern cooking? They make their vegetables unhealthy. Ever had collard greens in bacon grease? That's what I'm talking about!!
So Gina, the wife, made "Get yo Man Chicken", "Southern Creamed Corn" and "Brownie Crunch" I dare say she used a good quart of heavy whipping cream in the dinner and -- I love this, she says, add bacon grease, and she goes to this cute, little jar and opens it and scoops out some bacon grease. You have got to love someone who doesn't pretend to use Canola, oil and is comfortable enough with herself to have a bacon grease container at the ready. That is FREEDOM!!
And you know what? Gina and Pat are happy! You ever see scrawny people who don't enjoy food that happy? I think not!
So for dessert, she takes a brownie mix, mixes it up. Adds an extra egg to make it more cake-like. Pours half of it in the pan, drops a ton of pecans, then lines up Kit Kats, THEN pours the rest of the mix on saying you don't waste chocolate. Amen sister! THEN, she makes a chocolate ganache to go on top with chocolate and whipping cream. THEN, she mixes whipping cream and cognac to go on top of that! And then she sprinkles chocolate over the final concoction. Now that is a finish!
I saw Marylu Henner on Celebrity Apprentice and she eats all that raw, no dairy, no life food, and she looks like a skeleton with this giant head on a little body. And for all the work, she does not look any happier and certainly not any healthier than my new friend Gina. I'll tell you, if I get an extra three years out of eating dirt, you can have it!!! Give me tiramisu and joy and I'll take the years God gives me with gusto!
Big day today, I'm using my new fake Tod's my friend brought me back from Taiwan. It's yellow and happy and sunny, perfect for Spring!
She got her man! And he's too lethargic to move! I want to let you all know, while she had him under her spell, she asked for a new handbag. That is my kind of woman! You go Gina! I LOVE her!!!
Delicious
18 Comments:
Amen, sister!!! Whoohooo!!! That dessert sounds to-die-for! :-)
My mother used to keep a jar of bacon grease on hand! And she can cook southern with the best of 'em!
I've seen that show advertised on the Food Network but hadn't see it yet. Their style sounds a lot like Paula Dean's. Another Southern lady who doesn't skimp on the fat! My grandma from Alabama cooked her veggies to death but she could make fried chicken and black-eyed peas like nobody else. Of course the peas had a ton of bacon in them. I used to love wilted-lettuce salad until I learned about the evils of bacon fat. Maybe I'll make some anyway and say so what! Just once. LOL.
I've had bacon grease kept from time to time. Not at the moment though. I don't use whipping cream in mashed potatoes but I DO use lots of butter. We don't have non fat milk in the house. Blue milk is not healthy. LOL
My mother had a tin cannister with the word "Grease" impressed on it. Matched the one that said "Coffee." She'd add bacon grease to the can every morning and use it to cook with at dinner time. Life was good then, and people, it can be good again!!!
Here's my favorite line from one of my all-time fave books, Trinity by Leon Uris.
"Don't be afraid of the butter." ;)
Katy www.fallible.com
Have you ever eaten barbecue at Neely's in Memphis? Yum! Love their show. Love Paula Dean too, and that thick as butter southern accent. Think I'll go fry me up some thick bacon...oh man, I don't have any? How bad do I want to make a run to grocery store at 8am?
Have a great day!
So what were the little white lies and who was saying them?
That blue milk tastes the same as white milk?
That margarine is a good substitute for butter?
For Christmas, I gave my daughter and husband the gift of "cooking." I promised to cook sometimes (my husband is the cook). Thing is, I don't cook health-consciously like my husband. They are going to gain weight if I keep cooking. Maybe that's my excuse for getting back out of the kitchen?
One of my favorite blogs is written by a ranch wife and hilarious woman. She actually has 2 blogs -- one for cooking (http://thepioneerwomancooks.com/) and one about her family and their ranch (she's also an awesome photographer).
She definitely doesn't skimp on the butter! If you need a fun, yummy, not necessarily healthy recipe, check her out!
My grandfather ate butter and buttermilk and came to Montana in a covered wagon. Do you know, he is going strong at 91, so whatever!!
The little white lies are that I don't tell my husband my potatoes are fattening, and he's just happy to have a meal set in front of him.
I usually do cook healthy, but I really believe mashed potatoes need to be fattening to taste great.
Have you ever tried cream cheese in your mashed potatoes? YUM! :o)
Ane--Girlfriend! That sounds amazing. I will try it. I HAVE added sour cream to my mashed pots, and it's yummy, too.
I eat my baked potatoes plain too when I'm in a restaurant.
At home I put salsa on them.
Not bad once you're used to it.
Ane, I haven't tried it. See, a southerner. I'm telling you, they can always make something MORE unhealthy. They had to be the ones who came up with the deep fried Snickers bar.
Hahahahaha. That's the kind of cooking I've eaten all of my life! Everyone in my family has a beloved container of bacon grease. My grandma even took a container of lard when we went on vacation for fear you couldn't buy it in the store wherever we were going. Heaven forbid she would have to cook without it!
Oh, I love the south :) Makes me crave fried chicken and sweet tea just thinking about it.
I am a southern girl. My mimi uses bacon grease in the black skillet before she puts the biscuits in. Yum.
I love love love blue milk! It's all I drink. The top shelf of our fridge resembles the dairy case at Wal-Mart--whole milk, 2% milk, soy milk, Mom's "watered down" milk. But I also love real butter. Trans fats are evil. I grew up near my grandparents' dairy farm where we had to skim the cream off the milk and shake the milk jug before we could drink it. My grandma knew how to cook. Her bacon grease tin sat on her stove and she poured drippings into it daily. I'm a little more health-conscious these days, but that brownie recipe sounds to die for. Yum!
I'm a blue milk kind of gal myself, but I have a good excuse. During a childhood visit to my grandparents, I asked my grandmother for a glass of milk. She got out a milk jug and poured it. I had not reason to suspect until the first sip. Not only was it straight-from-the-cow thick, it was still warm. Makes me queasy just thinking about it. Give me skim any day. Hasn't helped the weight any, though.
And as for the bacon grease, I was in my mom's kitchen the other day when she used some to fry an egg (biscuits, gravy, bacon and fried eggs for dinner, maybe that's why the skim milk doesn't help). yep, we're Southern. I started to tell her the smell of bacon grease would always remind me of my Mammaw Jones' and we finished the sentence together. Mammaw didn't think it was breakfast unless there were four kinds of pork on the table (bacon, ham, sausage and pork chops). Both she and my grandfather lived well into their 90s.
ok I never leave comments on your blog K, BUT I have to speak on this one. I am skinny and LOVE good food!!! It's all about portion control. Give me steak smothered in rich Bernaise sauce, crab with drawn REAL butter, a sugary margarita, whatever the indulgence any and every day and I will eat just enough to satisfy. I don't think people that over-eat are as happy as healthy people. I bet they would like to have more self-control, feel good about themselves and enjoy the good life at the same time. You can have your cake and eat it too, just not as much as you think you need or want. ;)
Portion control? What's that? Hmmm...interesting concept.
Katie from Albuquerque
Post a Comment
<< Home