Cheddar

Any Southern cookin’ conjures up corn bread. Ours is sweet and mellow and goes great with the tanginess of our bar-b-que.

Here’s a twist on a classic British pub recipe. The beefy base of the pie gets flavored up Dino-style and topped off with savory mac ‘n’ cheese instead of the traditional mashed potatoes. It makes a hearty meal. Just add salad.

Because we’re a barbecue joint, we’ve always got pulled pork on hand, so it was just natural for us to turn it into a delicious appetizer. Don’t let our habits limit you. Make these quesadillas with some cooked turkey or chicken thigh meat or any chopped or shredded leftover meat you have lurkin’ in the fridge.

There are as many versions of this casserole as there are southern cooks and church cookbooks. Beth’s is a compilation of several. I like the potatoes shredded instead of cubed and not as much butter as some recipes have (don’t worry, there’s still plenty!).

This casserole belongs on a plate with roast beef, rice, and gravy for Sunday lunch. We probably didn’t have it every Sunday, but it was often part of the standard after-church meal. I’m a little surprised that as children we ate asparagus, but Daddy always said we’d eat anything with Mama’s cheese sauce on it!

My mom made this cheese sauce when I was a child, mostly to pour over vegetables she was trying to get us to eat. I was a grown woman before I realized that steamed broccoli didn’t have to be served with cheese sauce! It does make this homemade mac and cheese taste amazingly good, though!

Everybody has a tried and true basic lasagne recipe, but occasionally it’s nice to try something different. Somewhere along the way, I decided to replace the meat with beans, and the result was a hit. This lasagne keeps well in the refrigerator, and if you have leftovers, they freeze well. When I was single and living in Nashville, I would cool this lasagne and freeze portions in individual freezer bags. It was perfect to pull one out of the freezer in the morning before I went to work in the studio, then microwave it for a minute or two when I got home in the evening.

This casserole is hearty and contains everything you could want on the table in one dish. It’s a favorite of our whole family. It makes ten servings, but my husband likes it cold for breakfast the next day, so in my house you’d better take your serving at dinner the night before, ’cause that’s all you’re gonna get!

You see this recipe a lot in the South. It’s great because you do all the work the night before; the next morning, this wonderful meal bakes while you’re having a nice, leisurely cup of coffee! Beth makes this on Christmas Eve so it can bake Christmas morning during the present-opening frenzy.

My family likes casseroles because they get the whole meal in one pan, and this is a favorite. It was probably born as a result of my mom’s trying to put food on the table on a budget, and while a lot of people cook with ground beef because it is relatively inexpensive, I would pay big bucks to get to eat this every now and then! This is similar to a shepherd’s pie, but a bit heartier, I think.

Like most families, we struggle to get enough vegetables into our diets. This pasta salad, served cool, is full of great greens and reds, and it is so tasty! The sunflower kernels give it a nice crunch.

Garth has to claim this recipe because he modified my basic pasta salad to suit his tastes and changed it completely! He likes to eat it warm because he loves the way the cheese melts into the other ingredients, so he doesn’t wait for the pasta to cool down at all. He also says the secret to making the tomatoes taste so good is salting them separately. Who knew he was Gartha Stewart?

What’s great about this salad is that it only involves opening a few cans and layering the veggies with shredded cheese. It’s simple, healthy, and looks pretty in a glass bowl to boot!

The best description I can offer of my sister’s baked potato soup is that it tastes just like the best potato bar you ever tried. I always used to love twice-baked potatoes, mainly because the work of “fixing” a baked potato with the sour cream, cheese, and so on, was all done for you. It’s the same with this soup. It’s like someone fixed the ultimate baked potato just for you and put it into a bowl. All you have to do is enjoy it.

Chicken tortilla soup became really popular in restaurants a few years ago, but it was never something I made at home. Garth loves this soup and orders it almost every time he sees it on a menu, so I started studying the different versions at each restaurant and questioning Garth about what he liked and didn’t like about each one. This recipe I finally came up with doesn’t actually taste like any of those we tasted in restaurants, but we love it—and now we can enjoy it whenever we want!

A pimiento cheese sandwich made on very fresh white bread is a true southern staple. Nothing goes better with Gwen’s Fried Chicken (page 93). Mama slices the crusts off the sandwiches and cuts them in half for family reunions—very southern belle!

This is my sister’s go-to appetizer for church socials, Super Bowl Sundays, and Christmas munchies. Several years ago, she put too much of the ranch dressing mix into the recipe, and it was hard to serve. My dad renamed it the “cheese wad.” We think Ranch Dressing Cheese Ball sounds more appetizing, but at our house, it will forever be known as Cheese Wad!

I’m sort of a snob when it comes to trying new recipes. I just seem to like my old tried and true ones best, and it takes a lot for something new to grab my attention. I had to have the recipe for this dip after I tried it on Super Bowl Sunday 2006. Garth is a die-hard Steelers fan, so it was an exciting day. Everybody always brings something for the party, and this was my friend Kim’s contribution. Being a good southern girl, I love anything with black-eyed peas in it, but for you folks who are right now turning up your noses at the idea of eating black-eyed peas, all I can say is just try it. In fact, maybe I should name it something else for those skeptics. How about Pea Dippy?

I’ve laughed a lot while writing this cookbook—and gotten very hungry! I laugh because most people consider these tasty meatballs the perfect small bite for a party or wedding reception, but I sometimes make them just to satisfy a craving! They are usually served cold, but when I make them at home, I serve them warm, right out of the oven, and they are awesome! So to answer the burning question, can you make an entire meal out of sausage ball appetizers? Yes!

I love cheese! I would eat a piece of Cheddar cheese over a piece of chocolate cake any day. That probably makes me a little weird, but if you love cheese like I do, you’ll love these cheese straws. My mom used to make them for baby showers and wedding receptions. In 1991, the year my career started to really take off, she made them for me to give as Christmas gifts to everyone who had been so supportive. We laughed about how these cheesy treats were baked in a small kitchen in Monticello, Georgia, and ended up on the desks of some of the biggest movers and shakers in Nashville.