Dixie Divas

Hey, y'all. Welcome to my kitchen today. Are you in for a treat? My kitchen is a-rockin

as my friend Dallas McCabe pops in to share her mother's recipe for Mexican cornbread

y'all. Look at that. Oh, Dallas. And we're frying up spicy sweet potato chili cakes with

a cilantro lime cream sauce. Those are fantastic. Mmm. And we're adding a little kick to a classic

with Mexican shrimp and grits. Y'all see why she's here in the kitchen with me

Finally, we have a few surprise vistas over to help us with the dessert

Two brothers banana splits. Do I have a spoon? Okay. Hey, y'all

Are y'all ready for a big show today? I walked into a radio studio in Atlanta, Georgia

met this girl with this huge smile, huge personality. You know, we got to talking about recipes, and she was just my kind of girl

and I said, Dallas McCabe, would you please come do my show with me? So thank you so much

You're so welcome. Thank you. I think we're two peas in a pod. Yes. So I wanted to do a dish that

kind of matched your personality, Dallas. I'm going to be doing sweet potato chili cakes

with cilantro lime cream sauce. How's that? That's a mouthful, isn't it

Yes, but it sounds fantastic. It is good. So Dallas is grating up our sweet potatoes, y'all

I want to wind up with four cups of grated sweet potatoes

at the end of the recipe. So now I'm going to put together our dry ingredients, y'all

and that is three-fourths of a cup of all-purpose flour into my beautiful vintage bowl

My grandmother had those bowls. Doesn't that bring back memories? I think she had the yellow ones

I think they came in yellow and pink. I mean, didn't every grandmother have a set of these bowls? Yes

And I'm going to use half of a teaspoon of chipotle powder

Yes. Spicy. Spicy. All right. Now I'm going to use a half a teaspoon of cumin

and about three-quarters of a teaspoon of baking powder. and that's going to help it puff just a little bit

All right, I'm going to use a fourth of a teaspoon of black pepper and about three quarters of a teaspoon of salt

All right, so I'm just going to mix up our dry ingredients and Dallas is chopping up a jalapeno pepper

Yes, not too spicy. I'm only going to use half because we don't... Oh, you're just going to use half

Yeah, I'm just going to use half of it because we don't like things real spicy. Michael loves spicy stuff

He likes to be hurt. I don't. So you're going to measure up..

A fourth cup of milk. Okay. And one egg. One egg. And we're going to mix that up

We've got to have something that will bind those grated potatoes together

Okay. Dallas, I'm going to take this jalapeno. Okay. And I'm just going to put them in

And I've got the egg and the milk mixed up. All right, well, I'm going to turn our eye on Dallas

Okay, you do that, and I'm going to make our sauce... Okay. ...for our potato cake

So I've got a half a cup of fresh cilantro, and we're going to chop that up really, really good

All right, now I'm going to fry our sweet potato cakes in about a fourth of a cup of olive oil

and I'm just going to combine our wet and our dry mixture. Okay

I'm going to add my four cups of grated sweet potatoes, and I'm just going to mix these up with my hand

because, you know, there's some jobs that a spoon just won't do

Well, exactly. It tastes better when you put your hands in it. Yeah, it does

That's what my mom always said. Yeah, absolutely. I've got a scooper that I'm going to use to scoop up our sweet potatoes so that they'll all be the same size

Then I'm going to come in with my spatula, and I'm just going to flatten them

And I'm just going to fry them until they're light brown on both sides. A minute and a half, two minutes per side

Looks good, doesn't it? They look awesome. Now, how are you coming with that sauce, Dallas

I'm chopping up our fresh cilantro and throw it in our bowl. We're going to zest our lime, and then we're going to squeeze in the lime juice

eight ounces of sour cream. Okay. Mix it up, and that is going to be a fantastic dipping sauce

Yes, it is. It's going to be nice and tart. Yes, yes

Have a really good bite to it. You're finished, and I've got my frying pan loaded

I can tell you it smells so good. We are ready. We are ready

Freddy! Good to go. Dallas, these look awfully good. They look fantastic

I'm just going to let them drain. How does that look, y'all

Mmm. Oh, gosh, those look good. Don't those look wonderful? Those look awesome. Sweet potatoes are so incredibly good for you

Yes, they are. When I go out to dinner lots of times they offer a sweet potato or a baked potato I really trying to lean towards the sweet potatoes Well so do I but I like the butter and the cinnamon that goes with it I do too That the bad part

Well, come on over here, Dallas. Okay. I want you to taste this

So here's our sauce. Oh, that's great. Doesn't that look fantastic? There's a spoon

It looks fabulous. All right, I'm going to help your plate if that's all right

Oh, those look good. My hands are nice and clean. This would be delicious

It's like pork chops. Yes. Do you love fried pork chops? Love fried with gravy

Yeah. And biscuit. And rice. Yes. This is a girl after my own heart

That's exactly what I was... Y'all see why she's here in the kitchen with me. That's how my mother used to make it

I walked in and just fell slap-a-dab in love with this girl. So these look awesome

Oh, that looks so good. Mmm. Oh. Those are fantastic. Mm. Oh, my goodness

Those are awesome. The sauce just makes them fantastic. Coming up next, y'all, it's two great tastes that taste great together

Mexican shrimp and grits and Mexican cornbread. Wish y'all were here. And later, Jamie, Bobby, and Katie stop by to make these over-the-top banana splits

Are you going to put cream on that? Yeah. This is ours. Hey, y'all

Welcome back. I'm in here with my friend Dallas, one of Atlanta's hottest DJs

She has taken a little time away from the radio station to be here with me

I couldn't turn out an invitation from Paula Deen. Are you kidding me? I'm so glad you're here with me

Our next dish we're going to make is Mexican shrimp and grits, y'all

And I'm going to get our pot going. And poor Dallas. She has the chop, but chopping the onions

Look here, Dallas. I've got something in here that I keep in the drawer

Look what I've got for you, Dallas. I'm so excited. These are onion goggles

I love that. Poor thing. Is she hot or is she hot

All right. So I'm going to pour in my three and a half cups of shrimp stock, y'all

And, you know, the way you get shrimp stock is if you're lucky enough to have shrimp with heads on

you put the heads and all the shells in the water and just ball them down, and that's how we get our stock

All right, so I'm going to bring that to a ball because we're going to be cooking our grits in that

You like the goggles? I love them, and they're working very well. All right, now it's very important, y'all, that when you're cooking grits that you salt that water

While you're cutting on that, Dallas. Okay. I'm going to be chopping us up a red bell pepper

I've got a half a pound of chorizo. Did I say that right

Your guess is as good as mine on that one. I'll go with whatever you say

I'm not kidding, Dallas. My southern tongue. Listen, if you could hear my mother talk

Oh, my gosh. Does she sound country? Country as you would not believe

I love it. All right. Now, I'm going to take my chorizo and I'm going to put it on my paper towel

And I tell you what, I took the skin off this sausage, Dallas. So, you know, I could brown it like a ground beef

Okay, I'm going to take the glasses off now that I'm through with the onions. Well, you look so good

You may want to just keep them. I might want to hang on to those

All righty. So now I'm going to cut this on, and I'm going to add a little bit of olive oil

and I'm going to put my bell peppers in there and my onions

Now, some of that onion is for you, isn't it? Yes, ma'am. So you give me the onion that you want me to have

and you reserve what you want for you to have. Now, I'm going to add three-quarters of a cup of grits, y'all

and, you know, I always use the five-minute quick grit. And then I just cook them longer than what it calls for

These are your onions. These are mine for later. Now, remember, when you're cooking grits, you want to immediately go in there and start stirring those up real good because they'll lump on you if you don't

That's right. And you have your lumpy grits. Don't like golf balls in my grits

You know what I'm going to do? I don't see my lid, so I'm just going to..

That's the way my mama always did it. That's going to be my cover

All right, so now what onions did you want me to have? These are yours right here. Oh, okay

Well, you want to put them over in the pot for me? You want them here? Yes. Cut up the large onion was for you

Uh-huh, and the smaller onions for your cornbread. Smaller onion is for the cornbread. So when you're done with the jalapeno pepper, we can go down and we can get started on your cornbread

Yes, ma'am. So I've got these all chopped up, and I'm going to add just a few more for my cornbread

And then these are for you. Oh, great. Gonna put in with the onions and the peppers OK dope You know what I forgot to do and y are not going to believe this How did you forget that I don know because I was so intrigued by you What is it

I mean... I couldn't think. Oh, yeah. Mmm. That's so nice. Oh, those look fantastic

You know, you always add butter when you put them on your plate to eat them, but you have to add that butter, you know, to like cream them up

I'm going to move down and start on the cornbread. Okay, sounds great. Been looking forward to this

So now you tell me what you want me to do here for you. I need you to take a cup and a half of that cornmeal and mix it up with the egg here

And this is a self-rising, correct? Self-rising cornmeal, cup and a half

And while you do that, I'm going to mix a half a cup of oil

Okay, which is what makes it so good, Joan. Exactly. And I'm going to mix up a regular container, 8-ounce container of sour cream

I'm opening up a small can of cream corn. Okay. Not nibbling, y'all

No, no, no, no. You've got to have the cream. So dump the cornmeal and the egg into my mixture

Okay. And we'll get that all mixed up. Now we're adding a medium onion chopped up. Okay

And some jalapenos. The jalapenos. Mm-hmm. Oh, gosh. And see, that's good and wet and creamy

Exactly. And that's what you want. All right. So I'm going to spray this, and I've got a little story I want to share with you, Dallas

Y'all, this is my cast iron. Mm-hmm. Well, my Aunt Trina, as a young bride, she didn't have any cast iron cornbread sticks, so Mama gave Trina hers

How about that? So Trina returned these to me like two days ago

Brings back wonderful memories. Absolutely, yeah, me too. I can't thank my Aunt Trina enough of being so thoughtful to return those to me

So I think we can probably have enough batter to use both of these

I'm going to fill up every little corn stalk here. And I sprayed these real good, y'all, because you have to be careful with cast iron

Yeah. It will stick. It will stick if it's not seasoned well

All right, these are ready for the oven. Okay. And now we're going to bake our cornbread at 425 for 10 to 15 minutes

Coming up next, this meal is coming together, y'all, and it's out of this world

Dallas. Glad you approve. And later, my boys are fixing banana splits just the way they like them

Y'all gotta guess which one is which. Hey, y'all, welcome back to Best Dishes

I've got my friend Dallas in here with me, And we're going to be finishing up this wonderful shrimp and grits recipe

It's a Mexican shrimp and grits. Dallas has made us the most fabulous cornbread

Y'all, look. It's going to be so good with our shrimp and grits

All right, now I'm going to make us like a sauce for our shrimp and grits

Now, we've got our veggies cooked down, y'all. And to that, I'm going to add three tablespoons of flour

and Dallas is cutting up some pepper jack cheese and we're going to be

throwing that in our grits and I'm going to put in some more shrimp stock, y'all

to make this thick. Are we ready to put our cheese in

Yes, honey, put our cheese in. And you know, I'm going to go ahead and get rid of our chorizo

Toss it back in there. Okay. Y'all, grits ain't grits until you come in with a little heavy cream

Oh, yeah. So I'm just going to put like a couple of tablespoons. Now I'm going to add our shrimp stock, two cups

Ready for some cilantro today. Yeah, throw it in, sister. Throw that in. Throw it in

Then I'm going to chop up our onions. And you know what I'm going to add to our grits, y'all

It's going to give it just a little bite. If you'll cut that lime in two for me

Yes, ma'am. Please, Dallas. I'm gonna give a squirt of lime to our grits. Okay. That's gonna be a little teeny surprise

Just give it a yeah, just about a teaspoon about that. That's perfect. When your mom was cooking when you were growing up

She didn't use a lot of measuring cups did she? Oh Lord. Yeah, I think that's why it's so hard Dallas

For us to cook like our grandmothers and our mothers did because they didn't know how to..

It was hard for them to formula cook. Right. Because it was..

And no one wrote anything down. A clump of this, a lump of this, a pinch of that

A smidgen of that. That looks fantastic. Yes, if you'll get those. Oh, these grits

And look, this is thickening up on us. That looks awesome. All right, I think these..

Is your cheese melting? Everything is melted. Okay, well, I'm going to cut that off

And fantastic. And I have got this as high as it will go

Okay. And it's bubbling. You got to get the shrimp out of the fridge. I got to throw the shrimp in

I was about to forget. The most important thing is our shrimp Well it won take but a second for these to cook Let come down here and let take our cornbread out while our shrimp are cooking

And you take the cornbread out, and I'm going to dip us up some grits in our bowls

Cornbread here. Get them out for us. And sometimes you have to encourage them by running a knife around them

Oh, look at there. Look at that. Oh! Dallas! It smells divine

That is awesome. Mmm. Paula, these look fantastic. Haven't we? All right, now we've got to have some butter on our cornbread

And our grits. And I like to top my grits with a little bit more butter

Yes. There's nothing wrong with more butter. It makes it more better

Makes it more better. All right. Now for our shrimp. Look at that

Oh, my goodness. That looks so good. I cannot wait to dig into that

I cannot wait for you to dig into it. This smells unbelievable

I'm telling you. Want to make sure you have plenty of shrimp, honey

All right, let's dig in. Get you a seat, honey. Okay. We got some diet soda here

Yeah. Because Dallas and I are on a dime. All right. Ready

I'm ready. Give it a little taste. Okay. Mmm. I'm glad I have some cornbread with it

Because that is phenomenal. A little spicy. Got a little kick to it

Tim and Michael would adore this if we would invite them. Yeah

Yeah, but they're not here, so I guess we'll have to eat it

Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. I got a surprise for you. What's that

My boys are going to stop by. No. Yes, and they're coming in with a banana split

Coming up next, I can't hardly wait to taste these banana splits

Do I have a spoon? Do I have a spoon? Okay. I'm in here with my friend Dallas

She's like the DJ of Atlanta. Miss DJ. I've got my children

My kids have walked in, y'all. And Bobby's sweetheart, Katie, has joined us, y'all

And we're doing the boys' recipe for banana splits. Two ways. You and Jamie are going to make the healthy version

All right. Bobby and Katie are going for the full-on socket to me, baby

We're going to make the good one. What kind of motion is that? Sock it to me. Is that a banana split motion

So what kind of ice cream are y'all using over there, y'all? Because y'all are making the healthy one

We are. We've got sorbet down here, which is really good. Yum

And we've got black cherry yogurt. Now, Bobby and Katie, what are y'all doing

I'm starting with peanut butter. I think that I'm going to start with some whipped cream

Oh, that sounds delicious. What do you got going, Bobby? You got peanut butter

Y'all don't worry about what's going on down here. What you doing? I don't want to give it away because I don't want everybody biting off of my style

Uh-huh. Wait, what about our ice cream? On top. I'm following Katie's lead

We're going to put it on top. Oh, okay. Okay. Should we have a little more? Should we have a little more? Technically, yes

Okay. Let's put some ice cream on it. Okay, let's put some ice cream. There's your scoop. Woo

Put your chocolate one in the center. I'm fixing to. Wait, in the center, baby

In the center. All right, now another vanilla down here because Katie's favorite is vanilla

Thank you. So you want to have two scoops. You're thinking of me. All right. I'm going to leave y'all to finish that off. Right

All right, now I want to go down here and find out what's happening on the skinny end

We're sorbet in frozen yogurt down here. And I have to tell you, it looks perfectly beautiful

It's going to be beautiful. I'm going to add a few blueberries. Uh-huh. Now, I'm not a teetotaler, so I'm going to enjoy a nut

A nut. One nut. On top of mine. I'm going to have a little whipping cream on mine

Okay. Okay, so this is two brothers, banana splits. Guess whose is whose

Cream it. Okay. Do it. Are you going to put cream on that? Yeah. Oh

This is ours. Oh. Oh, we got to have a cherry or something

It's a taco. There you go. Yes. Which looks better. Yeah, but whose belongs to who

Well, I think that's yours. I'm like a money. See you. Guess whose is whose

I thought something was mighty fishy here. because he's the help eater down here

and this one... If not. Dallas, eat up, honey. It looks fantastic

Oh. Do I have a spoon? Do I have a spoon? Oh, okay

Too healthy. It's healthy, but it's good. It's very good. Dallas, thank you so much

I've had a ball. Katie, love you, girl. We'll see you all next time

Until then, best dishes with love, y'all. you