Cooking with "Deep Run Roots" by Vivian Howard

[Maison Rustique]

I did not buy them because I knew I would not use them before they went bad, but my Trader Joe's had fresh figs yesterday that were beautiful.

[blue_dolphin]

On 3/1/2017 at 4:02 PM, blue_dolphin said:

Brussels Sprouts, Apples and Pomegranate Salad with Blue Cheese Honey Vinaigrette

I put a little more blue cheese on a slice of toasted ciabatta to go along with.

I made a big batch of this salad for Christmas Eve dinner with my cousins and thought I’d give it another mention because it holds up so nicely on a buffet table. I used a colorful watermelon radish instead of the regular ones and subbed in shallots for the green onions. 
 

This morning, I piled some of the leftovers onto a smoked turkey sandwich and it was delish. Made me think you could easily toss in some cooked chicken, turkey or ham and make this into a great main-dish salad. 

[blue_dolphin]

With a nudge from @Smithy's  Princessmobile Cinnamon Buns, I decided to try the Sausage-Stuffed Honey Buns from Deep Run Roots p 376.  

These are a nice sweet treat, especially warm from the oven, but a little bit of a production.  Aside from the sticky dough challenge I've encountered with all of Vivian's yeast-powered recipes, nothing was particularly difficult but I seemed to end up with a lot of dirty dishes  Basically, you make a honey-sweetened yeasted dough, roll it out into a rectangle, top with a filling of cooked sausage, honey, brown sugar and butter, roll and slice. The slices are arranged in a cake pan containing a honey glaze flavored with orange juice and zest and thyme.  After baking, the pan gets inverted so there's a sticky honey glaze on the top.  I reduced the sweetening by about half and find them plenty sweet.  I really can't imagine them made with the full amount.  The glaze alone calls for 2 cups of honey - that's about a pound and a half!

 

The full recipe makes 20 buns. Vivian says to use 2 round cake pans but does not say what size. I found a version of the recipe online where they reduced the amount of glaze by half and put all the buns into a 12-inch cast iron skillet.  There's also a comment there that says the sausage filling was too sweet. I set out to make a half recipe, 10 buns.  I used half the recommended amount of glaze and for the filling, I used the recipe indicated amount of sausage but reduced all the other ingredients by half so instead of a honey-butter spread, I have coated sausage crumbles but I thought it came out fine. 

 

On the dough, I can only say that Vivian's baker is either a wizard with sticky doughs or scoops up 150g cups of flour.  The recipe gives cups, I always measure 125g/cup if no weights are given and with her recipes, I always need more flour.  Sometimes a lot more.  I reduced the honey a little in the dough and I forgot to add the tablespoon of sugar. 

Here we have the dough topped with the sausage filling.  This would be much more of a buttery spread if I'd used the full amount. 

 

Rolled and sliced.  It was a pretty squishy roll.  

 

Here, the rolls are in the pan with the glaze on the bottom, have proofed for half an hour and are ready for the oven:

 

They get baked, covered with foil, for 30 min, then an additional 15 min uncovered.  Out of the oven:

 

Inverted on to a plate.  Sorry for the unsightly reflections.

 

This recipe doesn't include any modifications for letting the dough sit overnight for morning baking.  I'm going to try wrapping up the roll of dough and refrigerating it overnight.  In the AM, I'll slice, arrange the slices in the pan with the glaze, cover and proof.  It will probably take at least 90 min - 2 hrs instead of the 30 min when starting with warm dough but still do-able for a late breakfast or brunch. 

 

 

[rotuts]

@blue_dolphin 

 

years ago I got interested in StickyBuns , Cinnamon buns , and the like.

 

easy to make , problematic to bake fresh for breakfast .

 

I came up w this technique :

 

place an individual just made roll in a pyrex glass bowl.that has some elbow room.

 

freeze .   the night before , take the unit out of the freezer , and place in

 

a kitchen cabinet .  the cabinet was key then.

 

if left on the counter overnight , Earthquake , who you see upper L

 

would have sampled it , to various degrees depending on the version .

 

in the morning , the unit was fully defrosted and risen.   hot oven did the rest.

 

units do not have to be single , and for sticky buns , you added the sticky, etc

 

to the bottom of the pyrex bowl , then the roll , then froze.

 

worked very well.   getting the very hot bowl out of the oven

 

might be a bit tricky , and the real difficulty , after flipping the bowl over

 

was waiting for the roll to cool enough so the burns in your mouth

 

were not that bad.

 

Excellent description of the DRR buns

 

thank you

Edited December 29, 2021 by rotuts (log)

[blue_dolphin]

4 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@blue_dolphin 

 

years ago I got interested in StickyBuns , Cinnamon buns , and the like.

 

easy to make , problematic to bake fresh for breakfast .

 

I came up w this technique :

 

Thanks for those tips!  I had a couple of rolls that didn't fit into my pan and considered trying to freeze them in single-serving portions.  I ended up tossing them out but I'll keep your technique in mind for next time. 

[Shelby]

It's that time of year again where I pull out DRR and pour over it.  I don't think I'll ever tire of reading this wonderful cookbook.  Our sweet corn is ready and I've been shucking around 10 ears a day/blanching/and then freezing.  Yesterday I thought of Vivian's Fresh Corn Roasted in Chicken Drippings on pg. 222.  Instead of freezing this batch, the corn went into this dish.  @Katie Meadowalso made the dish and posted about it here.

 

 

Vivian says to season the chicken with salt and pepper and brown it slowly in a skillet with oil.  As the legs did their thing I tossed the corn with a little more salt and pepper.

 

 

 Like @Katie MeadowI omitted the teaspoon of sugar that Vivian calls for.  This corn is so sweet that I didn't want to add to that. I also didn't have any fresh thyme so that didn't happen either.  Anyway, I placed the chicken on the corn and roasted it in the CSO at 400F.  Vivian says to do it for 45 mins but I couldn't hold out that long...the chicken would have been too done IMO.  I was only using 2 smallish quarters.  I didn't get the edges of the corn done quite like the picture in the book but we didn't care--this is SO GOOD.  I plated the chicken and then stirred the corn around so all the juices were mixed.  I could have just dove head first and swam around in it.

 

 

Another stellar meal from this book! 

[rotuts]

@Shelby 

 

Im always pleased to see dishes from Chef Howard made.

 

Ive only made a couple , but I can tell from reading them

 

they might bet good w something from the supermarket

 

but would be much better ' fresh from the garden '

 

when are your watermelons ripe ?  do you plant any other melons 

 

for a watermelon sub ?

 

do you freeze On the cob corn ?

 

or slice it off and vac freeze ?  w butter ?

 

stunning stuff to pull pout of the freezer in January and february.

[Shelby]

2 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@Shelby 

 

Im always pleased to see dishes from Chef Howard made.

 

Ive only made a couple , but I can tell from reading them

 

they might bet good w something from the supermarket

 

but would be much better ' fresh from the garden '

 

when are your watermelons ripe ?  do you plant any other melons 

 

for a watermelon sub ?

 

do you freeze On the cob corn ?

 

or slice it off and vac freeze ?  w butter ?

 

stunning stuff to pull pout of the freezer in January and february.

Our watermelons should be ready in 2-3 weeks.  We have a TON this year (that is if the damn raccoons don't carry them off grrrr).  We also have a lot of cantaloupes --just picked the first one this morning.  Haven't cut into it yet.  I hope they are good.

 

I get a pot of water boiling and then put the shucked corn in and blanch for 4 mins.  Take out and plunge in ice bath.  Then use a knife and slice it off and vacuum pack ----love love love that Vacmaster (I'll post on the preserving thread some pics).

[rotuts]

@Shelby 

 

if you are not done w your corn

 

try a big or two w/o blanching :  cut off the cob , add for butter to the bsg

 

and Vac.   label of course and see if there is a difference you notice 

 

between blanched  , cut , butter,  Vac.

 

look forward to your results Late Jan. '23 .

Edited July 27, 2022 by rotuts (log)

[kayb]

I cut mine off, scrape the cobs with a knife to get the “milk,” and freeze; I’ve done with and without blanching. Don’t add the butter until I thaw and cook it.

 

I froze 24 ears Friday. Need to get some more.

[Katie Meadow]

17 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Our watermelons should be ready in 2-3 weeks.  We have a TON this year (that is if the damn raccoons don't carry them off grrrr).  We also have a lot of cantaloupes --just picked the first one this morning.  Haven't cut into it yet.  I hope they are good.

 

 

Do you grow watermelons that have seeds? I'm totally convinced that the seedless watermelons that have taken over the world don't taste as good as ones with seeds. This is driving me nuts. My favorite is a yellow watermelon with seeds, and it is so hard to find these days.

[Shelby]

3 minutes ago, Katie Meadow said:

Do you grow watermelons that have seeds? I'm totally convinced that the seedless watermelons that have taken over the world don't taste as good as ones with seeds. This is driving me nuts. My favorite is a yellow watermelon with seeds, and it is so hard to find these days.

Oh yeah.  Tons of seeds.  You can spit all you want. 

[rotuts]

seeded are better .

 

people wont buy them when a seedless melon

 

is right next to the one w seeds

 

thus , seedless varieties .

 

if there were a rindless, seedless  melon , they would buy that  buy that .

 

 

[heidih]

4 minutes ago, rotuts said:

seeded are better .

 

people wont buy them when a seedless melon

 

is right next to the one w seeds

 

thus , seedless varieties .

 

if there were a rindless, seedless  melon , they would buy that  buy that .

 

 

My favorite apple grower specializes in Fuji but has other varieties. He has some extra land and sometimes did seeded watermelons. His sign was very clear and people moaned with joy - "oh I miss those!". 

[rotuts]

and they were Sooo big !

 

I used to go for the center piece

 

that almost fell oif   1/4 mellon

 

because the seeds seeds wee so mature 

 

it pulls off  seedless !

 

very very hard to refrigerate those melons.

Edited July 27, 2022 by rotuts (log)

[lemniscate]

The old Grey Stripe watermelons were/are the best watermelon.   So sweet you were sticky down your forearms to elbows at the picnic table from the high sugar juice that escaped the wedge you were chomping into.

 

I can't recall a seedless that made my elbows sticky at all.

[lindag]

I'm so glad this book was so well-recommended here, I ordered my Kindle copy this morning and I'm happy I did.  Reads like a novel.

[blue_dolphin]

37 minutes ago, lindag said:

I'm so glad this book was so well-recommended here, I ordered my Kindle copy this morning and I'm happy I did.  Reads like a novel.

It's a treasure to read and to cook from.  One of the few books that I own both the paper and Kindle versions. 

And for anyone on the fence,  the Kindle version is still $4.99 on Amazon in the US and Canada. I believe Vivian said that price would be through the end of this month. 

 

[SLB]

Yellow-meat watermelon, oh God. 

 

It's been too, too long.  I think not since I left Mississippi in 1997.  

 

ETA:  I think I'm gonna cave and get this book.  My inflation theory is, same ole' meat, tricked out sauces.  The LGD alone seems like such a great ambassador of the rest . . . .

Edited August 3, 2022 by SLB (log)

[Shelby]

38 minutes ago, SLB said:

Yellow-meat watermelon, oh God. 

 

It's been too, too long.  I think not since I left Mississippi in 1997.  

 

ETA:  I think I'm gonna cave and get this book.  My inflation theory is, same ole' meat, tricked out sauces.  The LGD alone seems like such a great ambassador of the rest . . . .

I PROMISE (and I don't promise lightly) that you will love this book.

[Katie Meadow]

46 minutes ago, SLB said:

Yellow-meat watermelon, oh God. 

 

 

Yes, yellow watermelon, when it's good is fantastic. It has a very subtle vegetal taste that red doesn't have. 

[Anna N]

On 7/27/2022 at 10:51 AM, Shelby said:

Another stellar meal from this book! 

Gotta be that garden corn! My only option was canned corn which I seasoned well with salt, pepper and smoked paprika. I used chicken thighs because that is also what I had. Meh!

 

The chicken is not burned. It is just smoked paprika. 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Anna N
Typo (log)

[Shelby]

9 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Gotta be that garden corn! My only option was canned corn which I seasoned well with salt, pepper and smoked paprika. I used chicken thighs because that is also what I had. Meh!

 

The chicken is not burned. It is just smoked paprika. 

I'm sorry....it must be the fresh corn.....

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

I'm sorry....it must be the fresh corn.....

Oh please don’t be sorry. I had to try it even though I knew that someone else had the same opinion as me!  And she did use fresh corn. It appealed to me because it was so simple. I can’t even tell you what it was except it was just meh. It’s one of those things that’s so simple that it’s never going to work unless you’ve got top quality everything. I’m glad I tried it. 

[Shelby]

29 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Oh please don’t be sorry. I had to try it even though I knew that someone else had the same opinion as me!  And she did use fresh corn. It appealed to me because it was so simple. I can’t even tell you what it was except it was just meh. It’s one of those things that’s so simple that it’s never going to work unless you’ve got top quality everything. I’m glad I tried it. 

I still wish it was decent.  

 

When I move in with you I will bring corn and duck guts and make it alllllll 🤗