Southern Cookin'

My husband is from The South, an area that I never really thought about much until I met him, but once we connected I realized I'd had a special place in my heart for Southern men all my life. I am about as un-Southern a woman as you are likely to find, but I have come to enjoy some things (not the heat) about the part of the country south of the Mason-Dixon line.

I bought "Cookin' Southern Vegetarian" Style by Ann Jackson years ago to find things to cook for Rob's dad when he came to visit. I don't think we've actually cooked anything from this cookbook for his dad, but my dad loves the food we've made from it and this is one of my favorite comfort food meals. It is not healthy, but it will fill you up. This is the "Fried Chicken" Tofu and Gravy from the book, my mashed potatoes, and Rob's collards. We both excel at different things in the kitchen. I can make the fried tofu, but Rob is better at it while I'm much better at mashed potatoes. Rob grew up on collards where I didn't learn to eat them until I started visiting his grandmother and I instantly fell in love with collards. I don't know how to cook them though. I'm better at pasta sauce, Rob makes better rice and beans...you get the idea. Anyway, I used a little too much of the potato cooking water this time for the potatoes, but they were fine and everyone ate so much there were no left-overs. The collards and the potatoes were from yesterday's Farmer's Market which makes everything even better. Oh and we used our new salad spinner we picked up at the kitchen store near the Farmer's Market. I can't believe we've never had one and Rob thought I was silly buying it, but he had to admit it worked like a charm for the collards.

Josie went to her first beer fest/chili cook-off yesterday (to be fair it was the boys' first as well). Don't know why everyone was looking at us funny with a 2 week old babe tied to me via Storchenwiege wrap while we were standing in line for beer. :-) Don't freak, I wasn't drinking and Rob only had a couple before we said to heck with the lines and walked to a nearby Thai restaurant. Another first for Josie...her first dinner at restaurant. She ate her usual (breastmilk, of course) and Parker held her when she wasn't busy nursing. It took FOREVER to get our food, even though it was not busy. The kids ate a ton and the couple next to us actually commented on how well behaved our children were (Dema was getting tired and bored and struck up a conversation with them). Poor Josie obviously doesn't get enough lobe from her brothers. Not! I barely get a chance to hold her unless she is nursing or needs a diaper change and Parker even begs to change her diaper at times. This is why you will not see any pictures of me or Rob holding Josie. She loves the attention.