MONDAY WEEK NIGHT MENUS - SHEPHERD'S PIE AND BLACK EYED PEA SUCCOTOSH

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Here are a few more very winter dishes to enjoy!

These recipes are designed to make week-night meal choices and planning easier and more delicious.  I call these "use every day" recipes.  They will feed a family of four, so adjust accordingly.  Most of the recipes (except the desserts) are chosen with health and nutrition in mind for week day meals.  If you are trying to watch your weight - leave off the deserts the bread and cut the cheese portions and sugar and butter in half!  Skip the potatoes.   Otherwise, enjoy making these pre-planned, nutritious and healthy menus for Winter:

MENU:  Creamy Cole Slaw, Best Buttermilk Cornbread Ever, Shepherd’s Pie, Black-Eyed Peas Succatash, Follow The Star Cookies

Salad:

CREAMY COLE SLAW

Ingredients:

1 head green cabbage finely shredded

2 large carrots finely shredded

¾ cup best quality mayonnaise

2 tablespoons sour cream

2 tablespoons grated purple onion

2 tablespoons sugar (or to taste)

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon dry mustard

2 tablespoons celery salt

Dash of salt and fresh ground pepper

1 Tablespoon Heavy Cream

Directions:

Combine the shredded cabbage and carrots and grated onions in a large bowl.  Whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream, sugar, vinegar, mustard, celery salt, salt and pepper in a medium bowl, then add to the cabbage mixture.  Mix well to combine and do a taste test for the seasoning.  Add or subtract seasonings as desired to your own taste.  When all is mixed and ready to serve, stir in one tablespoon of heavy cream.  This is the secret to making the cole slaw stay creamy.
Bread:

BEST BUTTERMILK CORNBREAD EVER

Ingredients:

¾ cup all purpose flour

¾ cup yellow cornmeal (or white if you prefer)

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. sugar

¼ cup melted butter

1 large egg

1 -1/4 cup buttermilk

3 tsp. canola oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees and drop the canola oil into a 12- inch cast iron skillet.  Heat for about 15 minutes until just hot; but not smoking.  Mix dry ingredients well; then mix wet ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix lightly until blended, but do not over-mix.  Pour cornbread mix into the hot skillet and return to oven for 20 minutes.  When the top is golden brown remove from oven and let cool until cool enough to place a plate over top of skillet and invert to remove cornbread onto the plate.

Main Dish:

SHEPHERD’S PIE

Ingredients:
1 Large Onion Quartered and Sliced

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

2 cups cooked diced roast beef

2 cups brown or beef gravy (use any beef gravy mix)

½ cup diced carrots

1 cup frozen peas, cooked

Salt and pepper to taste

1 egg yolk

2 cups mashed potatoes

Directions:
Melt butter in a heavy skillet over medium heat; add onions.  Saute onions until tender; add diced beef, gravy, carrots and peas.  Heat through; season with salt and pepper to taste.  Transfer to a baking dish.  Beat the egg yolk into potatoes and spoon potatoes over the meat and vegetables (press potatoes through a pastry tube if desired).  Bake shepherd’s pie at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes or until mashed potatoes are browned and gravy is bubbling. 

 Side Dish:

BLACK-EYED PEA SUCCOTOSH

Ingredients:

6 cups water

 1-1/3 cup dried black-eyed peas

1 teaspoon salt

 1 bay leaf

 ¼ cup unseasoned rice vinegar

 1 tablespoon honey

 5 drops hot pepper sauce

 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 16-ounce package frozen corn kernels, thawed and drained

½ cup finely diced red onioin

½ cup thinly sliced green onions

1/3  cup diced red bell pepper

1/3 cup finely diced green bell pepper

Directions:

Combine water, black-eyed peas, salt and bay leaf in a large saucepan.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until peas are just tender, stirring occasionally, about 35 minutes.  Drain well; discard bay leaf.  Whisk rice vinegar, honey, and hot pepper sauce in medium bowl to blend.  Gradually whisk in oil.  Season vinaigrette to taste with salt and pepper.  Mix into black-eyed pea mixture. 

 Dessert:

FOLLOW THE STAR SUGAR COOKIES

Ingredients:

1-½ cups powdered sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon almond extract

1 Egg

2-1/2 cups self-rising flour

1 can white pre-mixed icing

Blue food coloring

Directions:

 Make the batter for this recipe the night before and leave the batter in the refrigerator overnight before baking.   Mix all ingredients except icing and food coloring and refrigerate overnight.   Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees and grease a cookie sheet.     Divide dough in half.  Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of ¼ inch.  Use 2-1/2 inch star cookie cutters dipped in flour to cut out star shapes.  Place on tray for baking.  Repeat until all dough is used up.   Bake 7 to 8 minutes until edges are slightly brown.  Cool on a wire rack.  After cooled mix blue food coloring into one half of pre-mixed icing of your choice until it is the color you desire.  Alternate colors of white and blue.  Spread on top of cooled cookies.

OH THE PLACES WE SHOULD GO - CLASSIC ON NOBLE

Classic On Noble

(Written By Sheila Gail Landgraf)

 I wanted to tell you about a very special restaurant I discovered once upon a time as we were traveling through Anniston, Alabama.   It is called Classic On Noble, and it is located, just as the name implies, on Noble Street in Anniston, Alabama.

You will never find a more cozy and quaint dining experience.  This has become a place to go on special occasions for my family.  

We’ve always been for dinner in the evenings, but I’m told that their brunches are amazing, delicious and well attended.  I’ve had the brunch idea marked on my bucket list for awhile, and I know I will find it worth the drive when I get around to it.  Brunch seems to be the rave with the locals for sure. 

 In the meantime, my dinner experiences there have certainly been excellent. 

David and Cathy Mashburn are the restaurant owners.  It seems they were well established in the catering business when they noticed that the old Levy and Clark Building in Anniston’s historic district was for sale.  

The building was constructed in 1894, and had been boarded up and closed off since 1919.  When they first toured the dusty old building full of cobwebs, Cathy thought it was a hopeless case, but David thought it was “perfect.”  David won the disagreement.  Classic On Noble soon became a key element toward the revitalization of historic downtown Noble Street.  Cathy now openly admits that David had the vision from the start, and it has come together just as he imagined; “perfectly.”   

You enter the restaurant from the main street and step into an elegant fresh flowered entrance way that will either lead you back to many beautiful rooms of white linen covered antique tables graced by a lovely grand piano, or you can turn left and go upstairs via a winding stairwell to The Green Olive Room.  The downstairs interior has hardwood floors and is beautifully decorated in an elegant upbeat yet traditional style that compliments the building.  This is where brunch, lunch and some special receptions are held.  There is a station at the foot of the stairway where your hostess will greet you.  You may sign a guest book that is kept there if you like, and you will soon find yourself led to a pretty table and very comfortably seated and pampered by excellent service.

Classic Catering creates wonderful food art for a wedding reception, or any other special occasion.  

They have catered to small and large crowds for offices, events, and special occassions in homes around the Southeast, regularly delivering excellent services to people in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.   

They are willing to travel to you, or you may rent the space of their restaurant for your event.   

The last time my husband and I came for dinner a wedding party was just leaving their reception from the front door.  People threw rose buds at the bride and groom as they escaped to the outside sidewalk.  Once the wedding crowd cleared, we were able to enter the restaurant ourselves, walking in over a fresh trail of pink, yellow and red rose petals that had been left behind.  I felt like God had planned the time out for us to arrive just when we did.  It added a bit of whimsy to the time we were anticipating, and made for a great beginning to a wonderful dining experience.

Our table was reserved in The Green Olive, the upstairs upscale bar area that is full of unique original art, antique furniture, vintage chandeliers and beautiful woodwork.    There is an amazing antique chess set in one area, and some of the former wedding party I mentioned earlier, were having a mixed drink and playing a game of chess while waiting on their meal.  

Our cozy table by the window was all very quite though, and that is one of the things I like so much about the place, you can actually have a conversation and hear what the other people at your table are saying. 

The Green Olive Room proclaims selections from a well stocked wine cellar.  The atmosphere of the bar area might remind you of the fact that once there was a time in the early history of the building during the Prohibition era, when the Green Olive Room’s floors were covertly being used to sell alcohol.  There was also live dancing and music back in those days.  Often there were raids by the local law enforcement.  However, no such commotion is happening now.   It is quite the opposite, and there is such a peaceful, elegant, “living-room feeling” in the Green Olive Room.   

We chose an excellent wine from the wine list, although you may also order mixed drinks.   We sipped our wine in the comfort of the pleasant surroundings as our waiter took our order from the delicious choices found on the menu.  I was amused that the waiters have to carry the food up to everyone from the other floors of the building.   The building is three stories high, so I guess this means that every time they bring food they must navigate three flights of stairs.   In spite of this fact, our waiter was very accommodating and didn’t mind making extra trips for our requests.    

There are several menu choices available, and we have tried all of them on different trips.  I’ve found them all to be quite delicious.  The Chef here is wonderful, and adds an elegant, yet southern flair to everything.  I love that.  This girl is not ashamed of being Southern.  

The Nobel Salad is famous, and so is The Wedge, but my favorite salad is the Fried Green Tomato Salad.  It is very tasty, and the presentation is very pretty and unique.    

There are many excellent choices for entrée’s.  My favorites were the Shrimp and Grits, The Stuffed Pork Tenderloin and the Jumbo Lump Maryland Crab Cakes.

Dessert is never the same and changes each time we go.  I especially remember sharing some fried ice cream once that was” to die for.”  Whatever they are offering for dessert is always excellent and there are always plenty of special choices. 
   

I was not surprised to learn that Classic On Noble has been featured in Southern Living, Historical Restaurants of the South, 100 Places to Eat Before You Die, The Anniston Star, The Birmingham News and many other well known publications.  

Nor was I surprised to learn that many famous and well known personalities have enjoyed their fine food.  The list includes former President Jimmy Carter, US Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, Congressman, Mike Rogers, former and present Governors from Alabama and otherwise, Amy Grant, the band called Alabama, among many others.  We added some more people to that impressive list by bringing our daughter and son-in-law with us the last time we went.  They loved the restaurant too.

So what are you waiting for?  It is well worth the drive.  

Go for brunch, or an elegant dinner.  

Call them up for your next special catering occasion.   

Check out their website, it has excellent driving directions from anywhere. 

I'm told this is the perfect restaurant to visit during Christmas holidays, because it is always decorated like a winter wonderland. 

Bon Appétit!