Deep Run Roots by Vivian Howard

[Anna N]

If I gave anyone the impression that because terms such as "bunches of this and that" are deal breakers then I was misleading you. Often such things are dependent as much on the publisher as on the author. I will always be a proponent of more precise and hence reproducible units of measurement but if that were a deal-breaker I would own very few cookbooks.  I am quite, quite sure that scallions, spring onions, asparagus etc. do not arrive at the restaurant neatly bundled and held together with elastic bands so I am betting the SOPs that the cooks use call for something other than a bunch. 

 

Be that as it may, I am now the grateful recipient of a gift copy of said book. I hope soon to have more to contribute to this discussion. 

[rotuts]

My Own Copy :

 

 

 

 

 

and

 

 

from My Own copy

 

for review

 

[ed.:  this pic of the Roasted Basnanas is fully Own by Chef VH.  I  don't think she would mind it being here.  It in the Book ! ]

Edited October 7, 2016 by rotuts (log)

[Tere]

I've stuck it on my wishlist as I am sure my mother will love buying this for me and I am the world's hardest person to buy for. I guess I will get over the cups

[Anna N]

Well I have just started to read it and it is the first book I have read on the cooking of the South.  The ingredients and preparation seem almost as exotic as any Asian cuisine.  I am betting that dried shrimp are easier to come by for me than turnips with their greens attached or grits. I remember reading about a well-known chef who was working for one of the Toronto sports teams and had to have grits specially imported for one of the team members who was from the South.    They were simply not available in this region. So, if nothing else, it is stretching my horizons. 

[cyalexa]

On 10/6/2016 at 7:48 PM, blue_dolphin said:

How have you adapted it? Do the leftovers keep for a bit? It's on my list and I was thinking I should really give it a go while we still have plenty of good tomatoes here. I'd like to scale it down a bit as 3.5 lbs of farmers market heirlooms will put dent in my wallet!

I tried to send you the recipe. If it didn't work I can try again when I get home and have access to my computer. I use 7 cups seeded and diced tomatoes. I have not weighed that volume but I think a fist-sized tomato gives about one cup diced. Three cups are tossed with a little salt and sugar and drained. Four cups are roasted. I sprinkle a little parm on the bottom of the crust then layer the roasted tomatoes, sauteed onions and thyme, raw tomatoes, then a layer of a mayo-cheese mix (a little more than the original recipe) and another sprinkle of parm. It is definatly an investment of both time and money. It is best the day it is made but still good the next day.

[chromedome]

16 hours ago, Anna N said:

I am quite, quite sure that scallions, spring onions, asparagus etc. do not arrive at the restaurant neatly bundled and held together with elastic bands so I am betting the SOPs that the cooks use call for something other than a bunch. 

 

FWIW, that was almost invariably how I received them at restaurants. My impression was that restaurant-supply houses buy the same flats and cases supermarkets do, from the same distributors, and then dole them out to purchasers by the case or by the unit as ordered. A few of my company-defined 100 kg stir-fry or stew recipes did indeed call for "x" number of bunches or bundles, which struck me at the time as odd. 

[Anna N]

16 minutes ago, chromedome said:

 

FWIW, that was almost invariably how I received them at restaurants. My impression was that restaurant-supply houses buy the same flats and cases supermarkets do, from the same distributors, and then dole them out to purchasers by the case or by the unit as ordered. A few of my company-defined 100 kg stir-fry or stew recipes did indeed call for "x" number of bunches or bundles, which struck me at the time as odd. 

That's very interesting. I wonder if it holds for someone like Howard who is sourcing directly from the farmer.  I shudder to think of all those elastic bands around a food prep area.  

[chromedome]

I'm pretty confident that applies only to large commercial suppliers. When I bought from local farmers (which I did later, at my own restaurant) I was likelier to be handed a used plastic supermarket bag.

[Anna N]

I am quite intrigued by her recipe for Pork Shoulder Steaks in Red Curry–Braised Watermelon.  

[rotuts]

@Anna N  

 

Indeed  Im looking forward to making this dish myself 

 

next year.  with the various blueberries   etc 

 

I have seen the full seasons   of the PBS shows.    I have them all on my omputer.

 

this book strikes a cod with you

 

looking backs to the various show  it agent that

 

not so much the Okra

 

Lets leave 

 

@Shelby  

 

to figure out that Next Spring !

 

Im  Soooooooooo Pleased  there not a chapter on the Greeen Pepper !

 

 

[blue_dolphin]

I made the Roasted and Fresh Tomato Pie, scaling down the recipe by half for a 6-inch pan. It's very good!  This dish was featured in an episode of A Chef's Life and the recipe, in a slightly different form, appears on the show website. Thanks also to @cyalexa for sending me a recipe that was adapted from the TV show version.

I scaled the recipe down because the 3.5 lbs of tomatoes called for, assuming I'm purchasing farmers market heirlooms, is a healthy investment for something that I haven't tried and may or may not make good leftovers.  Also, I wanted to use the Cuisi oven as my big oven puts out a lot of heat as it cools down and only so many pieces of diced tomatoes will fit before they are steaming rather than roasting.  It's still cool in the house but currently 95 outside and I'd like to preserve the coolness as long as possible.

First off, I went to my local farmstand and bought a mix of Cherokee, Celebrity and Pineapple yellow tomatoes.  This is about 4.5 lbs, including that already cut yellow one from my fridge.  Aren't they pretty?

I have leftovers earmarked for that Elbow-Lick Tomato Sandwich .  I had to order some wood chips so I can rig up a stove-top smoker to make the smoked corn mayo for that one.  Chips should arrive on Monday so picked the ripest guys to use today and the others to save for sandwiches.

Here's my little pie ready for the oven.  I mangled one edge of the crust at some point:

 

And the finished product:

It's very rich.  I think a small wedge with a green salad would be a fine lunch.  I tried it both warm and at RT and both are good.  There is a fair bit of liquid in the filling so I expect the bottom crust will not be as crisp after a trip into and out of the fridge but it held up as it cooled to RT.

I made an unplanned deviation from the recipe when I thawed a brown blob labeled "onions" from my freezer, assuming they were pressure-cooker caramelized onions and instead they were roasted onions with sage and balsamic vinegar - same texture of onion but different flavors so thought it best to omit the fresh basil and let the sage shine.  I will probably make up a mini version with the plain caramelized onions and fresh basil. 

 

[blue_dolphin]

22 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I am quite intrigued by her recipe for Pork Shoulder Steaks in Red Curry–Braised Watermelon.  

Me, too.  Trader Joe's had some small seedless watermelons so I picked one up yesterday.  Not sure if it's any good or not but we are having summer-like weather at the moment so if I decide it's not worthy of cooking with, I can make another batch of watermelon and parsley popsicles !

[Anna N]

16 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Me, too.  Trader Joe's had some small seedless watermelons so I picked one up yesterday.  Not sure if it's any good or not but we are having summer-like weather at the moment so if I decide it's not worthy of cooking with, I can make another batch of watermelon and parsley popsicles !

Ooohhh. I hope you make the dish. 

Edited to add:

 And then the watermelon pickles and then the bacon wrapped pickles!

Edited October 8, 2016 by Anna N (log)

[Shelby]

That looks delicious, BD!

[blue_dolphin]

2 minutes ago, Shelby said:

That looks delicious, BD!

Thank you!  It is very tasty.  It's rather a lot of cooking for a summer recipe, between the caramelized onions, roasted tomatoes, pie crust, etc.

I usually keep caramelized onions in the freezer (assuming I can find them ) and I think this dish could be made successfully by roasting good canned tomatoes and using some really nice cherry or plum tomatoes for the fresh ones.  Of course, I haven't tried it and it might not be as good, but I think it would still give a good tomato-y flavor!

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

That looks delicious, BD!

Yes, Kerry and I were both smacking our lips. 

[Anna N]

 So there is a definite language barrier between Howard and me.   What she calls butter beans I call lima beans and what I call lima beans she calls butter beans.  But she does offer a recipe for a lima/butter bean dish which if one were to replace her pork with my lamb seems awfully close to a recipe I have been searching for for years.

 

 Here is another recipe that looks amazingly good.

 

Baked Figs and Goat Cheese with Caramelized Onions and Pecans.

 

 

 

 

[Okanagancook]

She has a show on the butter beans....pbs series

[blue_dolphin]

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

So there is a definite language barrier between Howard and me.   What she calls butter beans I call lima beans and what I call lima beans she calls butter beans.

Did you read the whole section?  She explains how she learned that her beloved butterbeans, something she thought unique and so very special to her home, are indeed immature limas, picked very young, before they mature into the dreaded limas.  Sounds like she was rather crushed to learn the fact. 

 

[Anna N]

5 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Did you read the whole section?  She explains how she learned that her beloved butterbeans, something she thought unique and so very special to her home, are indeed immature limas, picked very young, before they mature into the dreaded limas.  Sounds like she was rather crushed to learn the fact. 

 

I certainly did!  And I found it very, very strange. I thought everybody considered those icky pale green beans to be lima beans and to be avoided at any cost.

[blue_dolphin]

1 minute ago, Anna N said:

I certainly did!  And I found it very, very strange. I thought everybody considered those icky pale green beans to be lima beans and to be avoided at any cost.

I've never had fresh-picked baby limas and will give Vivian the benefit of the doubt that they are somehow different from the frozen baby limas I've had.  

I have no plans to try and obtain them or try any of the recipes, with the possible exception of the butterbean hummus.

[Anna N]

Yep I'll give most of the pea/bean recipes a wide berth but this sounds very much worth a try:

 

Blueberries and Cucumbers with Pistachios and Yogurt

 

Not ingredients I would think to put together but certainly something I'm willing to try. 

[Katie Meadow]

Currently I'm reading Ronni Lundy's book "Butter Beans and Blackberries." Lundy claims that Butter Beans typically refer to the small variety of Lima beans, most notably when they are fresh and in season only. However she waxes downright poetic about what she calls the Speckled Butter Bean. She says it is a variety of Butter Bean (or Lima) that is notable for its speckled purplish-greenish-blackish-brownish appearance, and she claims everything about them puts those big Limas to shame. It sounds like they are available fresh in the deep south, and also seasonally fresh frozen and sold in local markets. According to Lundy, the precious Speckled Butter Beans are mainly found fresh at farmers' markets and farms.

 

Then it gets even more weird. Around Montgomery Alabama she says the Speckled Butter Beans are also called Rattlesnake beans. I'm a devotee of the Rattlesnake Bean that is commonly said to be a cousin of the Pinto, and which is only reliably sold by Purcell Mountain Farms as far as I know. They are a rather blackish brownish mottled color, and don't vary. All that means is that perhaps Purcell only has one supplier. It's quite likely that the deep south Rattlesnake or Speckled Butter Bean is a very different bean than what I've been eating for the past few years. Or not! You could imagine many reasons for calling a bean Rattlesnake, since rattlers are all over the place. And of course--at least all the slithering Rattlesnakes I've ever seen--are speckled. What a tangle. Best get those 'snakes in a pot.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I beg to help.  When I was growing up in Philadelphia butter beans were yellow pods, otherwise indistinguishable from haricots vert.

 

[gfweb]

10 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I beg to help.  When I was growing up in Philadelphia butter beans were yellow pods, otherwise indistinguishable from haricots vert.

 

 

Me too. I grew up outside Philly and thought them tough and unappetizing not-green-beans, but not choke-worthy as a despised lima bean.