Cooking for a Crowd

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen, and whether you need to cook for two or 22, today's show is a real crowd pleaser

We're actually going to head to the Carolina Lowcountry to gather up the key ingredients for today's dessert

And then we're going to head back to my kitchen, where it's time to get started preparing some of my favorite dishes

No party at my house would be complete without my daddy's favorite food, chicken and dumplings

And then I'm going to be fixing up my cherry tomatoes with cream and the Lady and Son's onion cheese bread on the side

And then finally, it's a Carolina Gold Rice pudding with a buttery fruit sauce that will have your guests sticking around forever

So y'all invite the whole neighborhood because today we're cooking for everybody

Good morning

My mind's just ticking away because I'm getting ready to cook for a crowd on today's show

And some foods work very, very well for a crowd. And one of those foods is rice

So we're going to go get a very special rice today. Y'all come along with me

We're going to have a wonderful time. Would you believe my friend Hal tests each crop of rice by hand

to make sure it's ready for harvesting? By producing small batches of this golden rice

they're able to still make it here in the South the old-fashioned way

Hal watches over each and every step to make sure it's perfect every time

You know, I never realized how much effort goes into every little scoop full

Thanks, Hal. I had so much fun seeing just how it's all done

That was a nice field trip, Whitenin'. I learned so much about rice

Can't hardly wait to make that rice pudding. It's going to be delicious

But in the meantime, we're going to start on my chicken and dumplings

So I've got our pot getting hot here, and we're going to add our water. And we want to add enough to more than adequately cover our chicken

So we're just going to put our chicken into our water. All right, now we're going to add onion to our pot and celery

and a couple chicken bouillon cubes. and I'm gonna put in maybe a teaspoon or so of house seasoning

Now my favorite part to the celery are the leaves on it

So I'm just gonna snap that off, stick those down in there. And the last thing that's going in our pot is bay leaves

So I'm gonna put our lid on there and I'm gonna leave the lid cracked

Now I've already got a pot of chicken ready right here. Now I'm gonna go ahead and pull our chicken out of here

My mother and grandmother made their chicken and dumplings with whole pieces of chicken

Now some people don't want any part of the bone, but like I said, I love it just like this

Now we're going to move on over here and make our dumplings

Now I've got a bowl of just plain flour here, and I'm going to use about a teaspoon of salt

I lost my beautiful daddy when I was 19 and he was only 40

but his favorite food was chicken and dumplings. And it meant so much to me to be able to make his favorite dish

even though he wasn't around to eat them, but it was just real important in case he came back

I could make him chicken and dumplings. So I'm going to start by using my hand

and I can already feel that dough getting real, real hard. Now I'm going to add my ice water

just a couple of tablespoons at a time, and then I'm gonna come around and I'm gonna keep building my ball of flour. Okay, so I'm gonna come

back and get me a couple of more tablespoons of water and just keep working that dough until all

that flour is in there. All right, we've worked up almost every bit of that flour. I'm gonna pick it

up, kind of work it like that, and now I'm gonna bring it over here and I'm gonna put down plenty

of flour. So here we go. If this dough is like it should be, this should be a fairly

hard job. So this process does take a few minutes, but have patience or call in your

man and just keep working it and working it and working it. All right, now I'm just

going to dust that with a little bit more flour. I'm going to let that sit and dry

for a few minutes and while I'm waiting on that to dry, I'm going to put in a can of

cream of celery soup. And it just amazing the kick that that can of soup is gonna give our broth All right I just gonna stir those up I like my dumplings seasoned up with a black pepper So we gonna add some of that

Can you know what I'm gonna do? I think just to make sure those bad boys are peppered enough

I'm gonna come over here and do this, because I really do like those flavored with the pepper

Now we're gonna take just a butter knife, and then we're gonna start stripping our dough

Isn't that pretty, beautiful is that dough. Can't think of one other dough that's prettier

than that kind. All right. Look at that, beautiful thin

So we're just gonna break it in two and drop it into our pot. And the most important thing y'all

about making your dumplings is you don't wanna stir your pot because if you do, there's a great chance

could tear up your dumplings, and you don't want to do that

So this will take just about 10 minutes, and when they're done

we're just gonna lay our chicken back on top of our dumplings

I'm ready to finish up our pot, and all I'm gonna do is take a little fresh parsley

and give them a few whacks, because I do love what the green does to it

And now I think it's safe for me to put my spoon in the pot

These dumplings look just wonderful. All right, now this is ready for our chicken to go back in

and we're just going to lay it on top of our dumplings

So I think they're ready for me to sample. Look how good that does look

Look at that nice fat dumpling. And there is, there's been a bird out here raising cane

I think I'm going to go out there and see. He may be after my cat

What a perfect day for chicken and dumplings. Mmm. They bring back so many wonderful memories

Y'all stick around because I'm going to be making some wonderful, hot, yummy Lady and Sons cheesy onion bread and cherry tomatoes and cream

All right, the next two dishes I'm going to start off with are just good, easy, simple recipes

I'm going to start by putting about three tablespoons of butter in a hot cast iron skillet

I'm going to let that melt, and I'm going to add about three tablespoons of brown sugar

and I'm going to add about half a teaspoon of salt. I'm just going to kind of let that brown sugar melt into that butter

All right, I'm going to add about a quart of cherry tomatoes

Oh, that looks good, good, good. So we're going to let these cook until the skin starts to split

and I'm gonna help them along by getting each one of those tart little morsels bathed in that brown sugar and butter

All right, so I'm gonna let those cook just a minute. And in the meantime, while those are cooking, I'm gonna come over here to our other pan and add about a tablespoon of oil

And I'm gonna start sauteing some onions because we're fixing to make the lady and son's onion bread

So we're just gonna kinda let those cook until they're transparent. And then I'm gonna step back over here

and give our tomatoes another, ooh, look at that. Look at that caramel down in there

Looks so good. All right, now they're starting to split. And now I'm gonna pour in heavy cream

Bet you think I couldn't make a tomato fattening, didn't ya? Don't ever underestimate old Paula

Okay, we're just gonna let those bubble along and look at the butter rising to the top over that cream

All right, let's look at our onions over here. I think those are good

because we don't want these mushy either. So I'm gonna pour them into our bowl

All right, to make this dish is easy and simple and quick

because we're going to start by using a biscuit mix. In fact, I've got a special little friend out there today

that I want to actually dedicate this recipe to. His name is Casey, and his mother and daddy actually brought him into the restaurant for a meal

and he was so cute, and I sat down and talked with him, and he told me that he wanted to be a chef

Well, Casey, a couple of months ago, became ill, and he told his mommy and daddy that he just wanted a picture of Paula to hang on the wall in his hospital room Oh I can tell you how that touched my heart So I immediately sent him

a picture and his mom and daddy let me know that he got it and it's hanging on his wall

So Casey, this recipe is for you because as soon as you get well, son, I want you to go

into the kitchen and make this up for mommy and daddy because it's so easy

All right, now I've added an egg and milk to my biscuit mix

And now I'm going to toss in some cheese, a nice sharp cheddar

I'm going to mix that up just like that. All right, now I'm going to just put our batter into the pan that we sauteed our onions in

And hopefully the heat from the pan will help get us started with a nice crispy crust

All right, now we're gonna spread that out evenly in our pan

Now I'm gonna sprinkle the top with a little onion salt. Gonna pour some butter over it

Just drizzle that all over it. All right, I'm gonna come in here and get me a little chive

Doesn't that look deliciously sinful? All right, we're gonna put this in our oven and let it start cooking

So that oven's good and hot. Now I've got another one over here that's almost ready

And I've got a little extra grated cheese that we're going to throw on the top of him

He's getting nice and brown

Now he'll be ready in just a minute. And while I'm waiting on that to brown, I'm gonna come up here and I'm gonna be dipping

up our tomatoes because they are ready. These are so good. To pile these on top of a big ol' bowl of steaming rice, oh it's so good

I think I want just a few chives sprinkled on top of those

Does that look delish or what? All right, this should be ready now

That cheese should be hot and ooey-gooey. Oh, and this one does just look at..

It almost looks like a cheese pizza, doesn't it? Speaking of pizza, I think I'm going to cut him

just like I would a pizza into wedges. All right, let's see

I don't want to burn myself. That handle's hot. Looks delicious. Would y'all think too badly of me if I just ate out of the bowl

I hope not. I think I'm going to stick that bread. It's so incredible

Y'all stick around because coming up next, I'm going to be making you the most delectable rice pudding

you've ever put in your mouth with a buttery rum sauce to go on top

I want y'all to look outside today

It's raining. My favorite time of all is to get in my kitchen and cook when it's raining

So I'm fixing to share with you today the richest, creamiest rice pudding that I've ever eaten

And I'm gonna start with three cups of water that's been boiling

and I'm gonna pour it over in here, along with our rice

This rice is gonna make this pudding dish so good. All right, I'm gonna pour that in there

and I'm gonna add about a half a teaspoon of salt. And then I'm gonna put a lid on it

and let it cook for about 30 to 40 minutes, and then I'll check it

In fact, I'm gonna move this to the back. because I have some that should be just the right consistency

And ooh, that looks good. All right. Oh, yeah, see, it's gummy and sticky, just the way I like it

Now we're going to add about a half a stick of butter to our rice

And I'm going to add one can of sweetened condensed milk. So that's where we're getting our sugar from

Now we're going to add our raisins, and look how that's looking

All right, now I'm gonna put this back on our eye, and I'm gonna cover it up again

and we're gonna let that cook for about another 20 minutes. And in the meantime, we're gonna come over

and make us a buttery fruit sauce to go on top of our rice pudding

And I'm gonna start by putting our butter in a hot little black skillet

and I'm gonna add just like a fruit cocktail to it and just let that sizzle in that butter for a few minutes

Okay, so I've got our fruit just bathing in that butter. I gonna get my potato masher and I just bust up and break down that fruit just a little bit so it won be chunky All right I gonna add our sugar and some lemon juice

Doesn't that look good? I'm gonna add some orange juice and actually I'm gonna put a little orange juice right here

because I need a little bit to break down my cornstarch. So I'm gonna take that cornstarch

and just stir it into that orange juice. And then when this starts to boil

I'm gonna add that to the fruit and that'll thicken it. Okay, our fruit sauce is boiling rapidly

So I'm gonna take our cornstarch that I've mixed with a little orange juice

pour that into our pot and that should immediately start getting thick on us

And we're gonna just let that continue to rapidly boil until he's the thickness that I want him

And I'm going to let him cook for just a minute. While he's thickening up, I'm going to come over here and check our rice

And that looks so good. Now I've just got one more ingredient to add to this, and that's the vanilla

So I put a teaspoon and a half in there. And we want to do this at the last so that vanilla won't evaporate out

We want him to stay in there good. This is going to be just delicious. All right, now I'm going to come in here and add half a teaspoon of rum flavoring

All right, I'm going to spray these lightly. I mean, ever so lightly

Oh, I know it. Isn't that right? Just out of this world. All right, now I'm going to put our rice pudding in our little custard cups

Now you can actually serve it out of this cup or you can unmold it

I have already have some made and I put it in the fridge. So let's go see if that's looking pretty good

And ooh, look at this. Now as I said, you can let this sit on the counter and chill and thicken

or you can stick it in your refrigerator and kind of rush it along. So I'm going to unmold one of these now and loosen up that pudding

and just unmold him onto my plate. Ooh, look how pretty he looks

And I'm going to take a little fresh nutmeg and just grate all on top of him

And I'm going to bring it around my plate so that when I come back and get me some of that sauce, it'll be there

Mmm. Doesn't that look yummy? Now, I've actually got me two bowls up here

I'm going to grate a little fresh nutmeg on that warm. And then I'm going to try the one that's kind of chilled

and see which one I really like the best. Look at that, that nice fat raisin

Mmm. The fruit sauce gives it a totally different taste. Now, for you diehard rice pudding fans

you may want to just eat it straight up and warm. They're both yummy, though

Well, it looks like it's almost about to quit raining. So I guess I'll end my cooking for the day, won't it

But y'all stick around anyway, because I'm going to share some tips with you

on how to cook for a crowd with no sweat. Lord knows I have cooked for some big crowds in my day

so I just want to share a few tips with you. We cook tons of rice a year at the restaurant

Every speck of rice that we cook is actually baked in a pan in our oven

and you can serve your rice pudding right out of this. Put you some fresh nutmeg and sauce on the side

and let everybody dig in. And for your breads, you can actually make them

in the shape of a biscuit or a muffin using an ice cream scoop, bake them off

throw them in the freezer, pull them out the day of your party, cover them with cheese and run them back in the oven

And then you're all ready to be the hit of the party. My table is just groaning with all the food

that's sitting on it right now. I hope that when it's time for y'all to cook for a crowd

that you'll enjoy the lady and son's cheesy onion bread or the creamed tomatoes are just out of this world

and the chicken and dumplings. What can I say? They'll cure what ails you

And last but not least, this yummy rice pudding. So, Casey, honey, this show is for you today

and I'm sending you love and best dishes from my kitchen just to you

Thank you