Compton's Kitchen

Generally speaking, I think I'm pretty much an "in the know" kind of person.  Well, two days ago I discovered that <lo and behold> there are things about this town that I don't know about.  I know, I know...I'm just as shocked as you.  So, you can imagine my surprise to learn about Compton's Kitchen over in Triangle City.  Clearly, this place has been around awhile but has managed to escape my attention all these years.  Granted, Triangle City isn't exactly my stomping ground, but come on!  How is the hell have I not even heard a word about the joint?  

So, after an appointment over that way, my mom suggested we go there for lunch.  It was like stepping back in time in a small town.  I googled Compton's first and read some reviews on their website.  So, going in I had been informed that biscuits are a must.  It's basically a "meat 'n three" kind of restaurant with tried and true Southern favorites. It's clear that they are blessed with a regular crowd.  And, I saw two guys I know from town that obviously crossed the river to have lunch here. 

The daily special was a "chicken pan pie" which sounded interesting but since this was my first time, I knew I had to start off with the ultimate classic...fried chicken.  The lady at the counter asked if I was ok waiting about 12 minutes for them to cook me a fresh chicken breast.  Heck yeah!  I'd wait 12 minutes anytime for a freshly cooked piece of anything.  And, it was well worth the wait.  It was a big, golden breast that arrived at the table steaming hot.  The meat was so tender and remarkably juicy.  Additionally, I had the macaroni and cheese and green beans.  The green beans were canned but were well seasoned.  The macaroni was homemade and the spoonful they gave me was so big it might have had its own zipcode.  

Mom chose the country style steak.  I'm really skeptical about this dish because it can be oh-so-good or oh-so-bad.  I tried a bite and WOW!  It was awesome.  Incredibly tender, which as we all know, can be difficult to achieve with cubed steak.  She also had cabbage, mashed potatoes and field peas.  Hallelujah!  Real field peas...you know, the little tiny dark brown ones that it seems you can only get here in SC.  

Then, there were the biscuits.  If you know a good biscuit when you taste it, then you know what I'm talking about.  This is that biscuit..enough said!

I'm still baffled about how I didn't know about Compton's until now, but I'm glad that now I do.  It's nothing fancy.  The prices are reasonable.  The staff is friendly and inviting.  And the food reminds you of Sunday dinner with your family.  If you haven't been over there, make a point of doing so.  

I couldn't NOT buy it. I know, right?

I just watched Jenny's video about saving on produce.  Ironically, I just snagged a deal on broccoli at BiLo this week.  Broccoli was B1G1.  I mean, really.  Think about it.  When was the last time you saw any fresh fruit or vegetables that were B1G1?  Probably close to never.  So, I went skipping down the aisle on a serious broccoli-seeking mission.  They had bundles of 3 big stalks that counted as "1."  This made each bundle $1.34.  That's incredible.  As much as I would have loved loading up the cart, I am realistic. Man cannot live by broccoli alone.

So now I had the task of coming up with something to do with lots of broccoli.  Time to conjure up some soup!  So, I made a double recipe of Cream of Broccoli.  Plenty for us to have for dinner and put some away in the freezer.

Green gold!

 

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble

 So, we made a nice little dinner of fresh broccoli soup and these C.R.A.Z.Y. twice-baked potatoes that I saw Rachael Ray make on her show.  Oh sure, it looks like a heart attack spud, but worth every bacony bite.  I highly recommend you try it out.  I'm sure you can imagine the look on any man's face when you present him with this bacon and potato bombshell!

This hit the spot!

 Now I need to decide what to do with the 2nd bundle of broccoli that I have.  I love the old classic broccoli with cheese sauce, of course.  I am human, afterall.  Chicken and broccoli always work well together.  Quiche.  Simply steamed with lemon.  A tidbit for you:  don't throw out your broccoli stalks.  You can peel them, slice into julienne and add to a stir-fry, eggroll stuffing, vegetable stock, you name it.  They pack just as many vitamins, folate and minerals as the prettier florets.  So, ignore President Bush and eat your broccoli.  Especially when it's B1G1.

Far East meets Down South

Here in good ol' S.C., we all rang in the New Year in our traditional way.  Food, drinking, and food.  The food is integral and is pretty much the same for us all. Superstition and tradition dictates it.  Every January 1st, all us South Carolinians (and other Southerners too) cook up some kind of pork (for good luck and wealth), collard greens (for cash), black eyed peas (for coins) and cornbread because, well you know, we like it with just about everything.

So, I chose to do BBQ in the crockpot and cooked my peas and collards low and slow for most of the afternoon.  Mom and Dad came over and we all feasted.  It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself!  And today, we are fortunate to have lots of tasty leftovers to not only reheat and enjoy again, but to experiment with and reinvent!

Neil and I got the idea in our heads to go the route of the eggroll.  And, I'm so glad this thought crossed our minds.  

First, I made one with just collard greens inside.  Super.  Then, I added a little cream cheese to make the filling just a little more silky.  Good idea.  Next, we added black eyed peas to the mix.  Still going strong.  And lastly, I put some of the BBQ inside with the others.  Neil ate three of these.  And gave me a thumbs up. And, the little one ate one as well and proclaimed that it was "fantastic!  Keep up the good work, Mommy!" as she slapped me on the fanny.

I'm so glad we tried this.  It really worked! It sounds a little far out, but trust me, it works well.  Tomorrow, I'm using some more of the black eyeds for some pea cakes.  Maybe with a big ol' salad.  Or maybe with more BBQ...it was awfully good too!

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The Juicy Lucy

I love Food Network.  I don't think we go through one single day without watching something on it.  My daughter recognizes chefs by name and just the other night proclaimed who was going to be chopped because his dish wasn't "balanced."  I swear she said that; Neil and I almost fell out!

I think it was Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives where I saw a piece about 2 restaurants in Minneapolis that battle over who serves the Original Juicy Lucy burger.  The Juicy Lucy is a burger with tons of ooey, gooey, American cheese oozing out from the inside of the patty.  Interestingly, Neil lived in the twin cities area for many years and he's never heard of this phenomenon.  Nonetheless, we have been destined to try one.

The J.L. isn't difficult to make, but there are a couple of details that I think are important.  They are as follows:

• REAL CHEESE.  I shouldn't have to put this in all caps, but the American public has been duped by marketing execs for decades.  Kraft Singles are NOT real cheese.  Real the package.  Don't buy anything that is called cheese food, cheese product, cheese thingie.  It should simply say American Cheese.
• Kosher salt and a good, healthy dose of it.  You have to season meat.  Period.  Don't believe me?  Watch Food Network.  You'll see more people get their asses handed to them because they failed to just add some salt to the meat.  
• Technique.  Practice makes perfect.  The key here is to seal the patties together really well so you don't have any cheese rupture toward the end of cooking.  You want all that gooeyness to stay inside where it belongs.
• The right meat.  You can't get a good, juicy hamburger that holds together well from 90/10 meat.  It's gotta have some fat in it to bind it and to flavor it.  If you want to make burgers for dinner, buy the meat that day and cook them fresh.  You'll notice the difference for sure.

Measuring out what we need

Divide into two thin patties, stuff and put back together

Cook 'em up old school in cast iron

Viola!  Final product

So, our Juicy Lucy's were a great success!  The little one gave it her signature "10-thumbs up."  Neil hardly said a word as he was busy devouring his and I've changed out of my jeans and into yoga pants! You know what I'm sayin'. 

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All ham is not created equal

Here in the South, we like pork.  We grow up eating pork chops, ham, ribs, BBQ (all year long!), bacon and sausage of all varieties.  Most people in other parts of the country are familiar with these pork preparations too, but there's one thing that you can only get here.  Country ham.  It's different.  In a good way.  It's Southern.  

I first realized that not everyone gets the ham thing when I was in Colorado one time.  Hardee's is a Southern-based fast food chain that has been serving breakfast biscuits since about the time I was 8 or 9.  When my sister moved out to CO, she was surprised to find a Hardee's in Fort Collins.  When I visited, we decided to swing by for a biscuit.  Of course, I ordered my old stand-by, the ham biscuit.  I unwrapped the biscuit and exclaimed, "What the hell is this??"  It was a beautiful Hardee's biscuit filled with sliced, pink, DELI ham.  I thought, "OMG, they mixed up my biscuit with a hot ham 'n cheese!"  But, then my sister looked at me, almost apologetically and said, "Oh yeah.  They don't get the whole country ham thing here."  

***SCREECH***  They don't get it?  What's to get?  Ham biscuits are made with country ham.  Period.  End of story.  Deli ham on a biscuit?  It's an abomination, that's what it is.

If you're unfamiliar, country ham is a style of curing.   A whole ham is smoked and salt cured, sometimes up to 3 years before being packaged in a cloth sack and hung up in your butcher shop.  It's a big ham too; the whole enchilada.  Picture all those European cooking scenes with sausage links, hams and upside down chickens hanging around the butcher shop.  

Most people seem to always think of country ham & red-eye gravy.  But it's also good just warmed up in a skillet and served with eggs, grits, toast, etc.  And of course, on biscuits. In fact, down here, it's not uncommon to find little mini ham biscuits at even the  most formal bridal showers or other elegant affairs.  But here's a tip:  remember that scene in the American President when Prez Shepard sends Sidney that Virginia ham?  Bad idea.  You can't cut up a whole country ham at home.  Unless you keep a table saw in your kitchen.  

Why am I telling you this, you must surely be wondering?  Last year, my sister and her husband received a whole country ham at Christmas from a friend.  They stared at it.  And stared at it.  They wielded knives at it but then thought better of it.  Hmmm.  What to do?  They bought an electric knife.  That helped.  Little by little, they sawed away at this big boy and finally the last of the country ham had been cut and happily consumed.  Then, just a few days ago, <<Ding Dong>> the doorbell rang.  There at the door was a cheerful delivery man holding that familiar cloth sack with you-know-what-inside.  

So, long story short...you're still awake, right?  At the end of our Christmas weekend, our parents transported that big lump of yumminess back to Columbia.  They found a butcher who sliced the entire thing  for FREE.  Free is oh-so-good.  So, now, we all have delectable country ham ready for immediate use!  

Now even though I've gone down my Southern road in this post, I'm not going to talk to you about old standards like biscuits or red-eye gravy.  Instead, I want to share with you one of our favorite recipes from my Dad.  He originally got this from a magazine that featured a recipe from a restaurant in Charleston.  Over the years, we've all tweaked it a little and since that restaurant isn't around anymore, I think we can claim it as our own now.  

Dad's Kiwi Shrimp

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 1/2 oz country ham (if you don't have the real deal, you can use proscuito
• 1/3 chopped shallot (remember these are not scallions, which is another name for green onion)
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 lb shrimp (peeled and deveined of course,  duh!)
• 2 med. kiwis, peeled and cubed
• 1 cup cream  (don't rob yourself by using milk here)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper

Heat oil over high heat.  Saute ham, shallots & red pepper for about 30 seconds.  Add wine & boil until reduced by half (about 2-3 minutes)

Add shrimp, kiwi and cream.  Reduce heat to med. low.  Cook shrimp until they are pink and remove them from the skillet.  Boil the sauce 2 1/2 to 3 minutes.  Add shrimp back in, salt & pepper.  Serve over rice.

Lick your lips and smack Loretta; 

this is some good damn eatin'

Asheville Eats

I hope this post finds you all well and happy after celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah.  I'm sure everyone has had their fill of other people's holiday tweets, Facebook posts and photo sharing, so I'm not going to do that to you.

Instead, I want to tell you about a little restaurant we checked out while in Asheville over the holiday.   My sister Katherine took us to Universal Joint.  What a cool, cute, funky little place!  It's totally got the kind of vibe that gets me and Neil going.  It's an old gas station building that has been turned into a local microbrew and sandwich shop.  There are photos of what the place looked like in the old days as a gas station and the garage's roll-up doors are still in place.  The garage contains a bar, tables and displays a chalkboard with a pretty extensive list of microbeers.  We chose to eat in the garage.  There is also outdoor seating available.