Family Dinner

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen and it's time to gather everybody in the kitchen because today I'm going to be fixing up an easy family dinner

In fact, I've got a surprise for you. Jamie and Bobby's going to join me in the kitchen and hopefully they're going to help their old mother out

And for starters, we're going to be fixing a delicious wild rice salad that I'm going to follow up with a creamy Mexican chicken casserole

And we can't have a casserole without some yummy green chili corn muffins with just the right spicy bite

And finally, at our house, you know, a meal's just not complete without a big old pot of fresh green beans and new potatoes

You would never believe that a veggie could be this flavorful. So get the dinner bell ringing, y'all, and gather around the table, because it's time for family dinner

Y'all, please join us

Come on in here in the kitchen with me today because it's all about family meals

getting in the kitchen and making more memories and more delicious meals

That's what we're doing today. We're going to start with a delicious wild rice salad

And, Bobby, what are you doing, son? Well, I'm going to make the dressing for the salad

Okay, great. Oh, you got a great jar. All right, on today's salad

we're going to use the real deal. we're using real wild rice

We're not using a mixture. It takes longer to cook. It does. It takes longer to cook

but it's worth the effort. Now, I've got a pot boiling. Let me help you. Is that hot

No, it's all right. All right, we're going to stir in our wild rice

into our boiling salted water, and then we're going to cut it down to simmer

after about 45 minutes to an hour. I've got a pot of wild rice that's been cooking

and should be ready. I have a spoon right here, Mom. Okay

Now, all you're going to need to do, ooh, all the water has absorbed, hasn't it

So we're not even going to have to drain it. So, Mom, does it matter? I poured the oil in

and I'm about to go ahead and put in the white vinegar. Does it matter in what order I combine this

For this dressing, son, it doesn't. Okay. A lot of times when you're making oil and vinegars

you'll want to incorporate your oil last, but with this dressing, it does not matter

So you put your celery seed in, you put your dry mustard. White pepper

Now you're going to put your white pepper, your paprika, your sugar

your fresh garlic, and last but not least, your fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Doesn't it look yummy? It really does. And when I shake things in jars I'm unsure about, son, I always..

There you go. That's a neat little trick. Yeah. But you can see it's still kind of loose

But when I shake things like that that I'm unsure of, just to protect my clothes and everybody else's clothes

you know, I put a rag over it. Got it. So there you go. You can work on that

And our wild rice is done. In case yours has still got a little water in it

then you'll just want to pour it into a colander and drain it. Okay. And what have you got, son

What have you got? Just a chopped spring onion. Mm-hmm. And we've got some bell peppers, chopped kind of medium

Mm-hmm. Cherry tomato's my favorite. Cherry grape tomatoes. Mm-hmm. I just love them

I do, too. Mm-hmm. You know, these seem to have flavor like all year round

unlike our summer tomatoes that... Add some small English peas. Hard to beat a fine ripe tomato, but I love the grape tomatoes

They are delicious. Artichoke hearts. And those have been marinated, right? Those are not just the canned

Wild rice is really not even a rice. It's a form of grass, and the American Native Indians have been eating it hundreds and hundreds of years

Did not know that. All right, Mom. Yeah. I got your dressing ready. That's what we need

Oh, good. You got something to put it in. Bobby, I'm telling you, this is made. Look how beautiful this is

It's beautiful. would park a piece of fish on top of it. So beautiful

What are we going to do with that dressing? You're going to toss that through here? Well, we actually made enough dressing, I think

for two batches of this, so we're just going to use half of this dressing on it

Okay. And this is one of my buddy Susan Green's recipes. You know, every year she kind of kicks off..

Hey, Gertie. ...quail and dove season by doing a dinner for all the hunters

Hey, Gertie. And this is one of the dishes that she serves some men They just love it Look how beautiful that is Just It is so pretty Mom what do you think on this Would you refrigerate it or would you serve it hot out of the pot

It's one of those things. You can serve this warm or cold

It's really pretty. These are toasted slivered almonds. I love the crunch in them

Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. It's really good. Wow. I love it. Mm-hmm. And Jamie, you're right, this would be perfect with a piece of fish. Yeah

Or chicken. Chicken would be good. Mmm, chicken. And that reminds me

Why don't we do chicken next? Okay. It's that wonderful Mexican chicken

Y'all stick around, cause we're going to Mexico. What do they do in Mexico? Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

To me, family meals is foods that suit all kind of appetites

and I like choosing dishes that are not hard to make. I like for all members of the family, whether they're good cooks or not

to be able to get in the kitchen and help prepare these dishes. So that's what we're doing today

And next up is one of my favorites. Mine too. Well, you know, just behind the candy food group, Mexican is Brooke's favorite

So this is something that we do at the house a lot. And it's kind of simple too, Mexican chicken

All right, now we know what Janie Dean's cooking up. But let's find out what Bobby Dean's cooking up

I'm going to make green chili corn muffins. but I need a couple more items from the pantry

so why don't you get started, and I'll be right back. That sounds great, son. Tell me what you're going to start mixing over here, son

for your Mexican chicken. This is a cheddar cheese soup, a can of cheddar cheese soup

That's what we're going to start with. Okay, and what kind of soup was that again? It's cheddar cheese, Mom

It's cheese. It's of the cheddar family. I was just finding you. I was just finding you

These three things is the base of a lot of recipes in your cookbook I've seen. Yeah

And this is a cream of mushroom soup. and a cream of chicken

And another thing that's always been a favorite around our house that's so versatile is a can of tomatoes

And this dish is so easy that even my grandchild could put together

if I had one. Still practicing, Mom. Still practicing. I don't want to hear about the practicing

I want to hear about the results. All right, now we're going to start with a casserole dish

and we're gonna start with two flour tortilla shells. We're gonna layer this and then we're gonna layer the chicken

And the sauce is gonna, as we bake it, it's gonna run down over that chicken

I have, I wouldn't, let's put a little spray in here first

Okay, whatever you wanna do. Because those tortillas have a tendency to dry out

and if they ever suction to the bottom and cook on there, you'll never get that first layer off

Okey-doke. All right, so you ready for me to put them down now

And what all this is is a one-whole-boned chicken. We've used the dark and the white meat

because all the juice, a lot of flavor's in the dark meat. Oh, I love the dark meat. That's my favorite chicken

Got a layer of chicken and a layer of your sauce. All right, so two more tortilla shells

It's just that simple. Well, son, how about if I move you on over here

and you finish layering that. Now you've st... I'm sorry, I stepped on your toe

We're going to start with a tortilla shell and end with a tortilla shell, right

And then we're going to cheese the top. And then top it with cheese. Okay, Bobby, are you ready, son? I'm ready when you are

Okay, so tell us about what you're fixing to mix together. Well, it's pretty basic

Just a little cornmeal, a little salt, and a little bacon powder

And I'm going to mix these dry ingredients. So that's a plain cornmeal that you're using

That's all it is, a plain cornmeal. Since you're adding bacon powder. That's all. I'm going to stir together the dry ingredients

Just mix them up. Now, Bobby, you've already added your two eggs

Right. You could have beaten them and added them to the other ingredients

It really doesn't matter, does it, son? No, it didn't matter to me. No, okay. Next, you're going to add your sour cream

Thank you, Mama. You're welcome. For helping me with my show. You know, you don't want to overmix this

I kind of just dump it all in and just mix it at one time

So I'm gonna go ahead and add the oil. It really doesn't matter. The oil, and this is just a vegetable oil that we're using

just a standard oil like you'd make a salad dressing with. We're gonna add our green chilies

One can of green chilies. Mm-hmm. And you know those come in small cans in the supermarket

And we're adding a creamed corn. And we're using a canned creamed corn

In fact you know what would really make this cornbread delicious Use fresh creamed corn Am I safe to go ahead and add the cheese to this You safe to add your cheese You don want to do a bunch of stirring to this That about a cup of Yeah that looks about like a cup

Just blend that in and then I'll get our pan ready. Okay

You could use a regular size, but the little mini muffins, these are just cute

This is pretty well mixed together, Mom. I think that's ready to go. I wouldn't mix another drop to that

I'll take this spoon for you. Okay. And you just put a tablespoon of batter

into our muffin tins. You're going to fill every one of these up

In fact, before it's over, son, we're going to make three of these. All right. Because I know how you pop these down

We're going to need three of them, my problem. I know we are. Okay, look, Mom. That looks great, Jamie

So now we're going to put this in the oven. Everything's thoroughly cooked in this

so all you have to do is really make sure it gets hot and bubbly all the way through

Probably bake it at 350, 325, for about 25 or 30 minutes

Look at that. All right, son, if you would take those corn muffins out

that are ready. Look at this Mexican chicken casserole. Oh. Oh, the corn muffins look delicious

I'm gonna just pop those right out on the counter. Oh. Great time of day

Look at these beautiful little corn muffins, y'all. Is that too much for you, Bob

It wasn't too much for Mom. Well, I've got a whole muffin

Which one is the health nut in the family? Look at that. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm

I love them, y'all. They're super. They're yummy. Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. Mmm. I love the way you ended with a tortilla shell, Jamie, on top

It's almost like a south-of-the-border chicken pot pie. Mmm-hmm. It really is kind of, isn't it? Mmm-hmm

Look at that. Mmm. It's delicious. The cheese and the tortillas and..

Cornbread is perfect with it. Perfect combination. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. You know, there's nothing like being in the kitchen with your family

Making wonderful memories. So, you know, thanks for the memories, guys. Just making more beautiful memories here with me

And coming up, we're going to make even more wonderful memories. Because we're going to be eating green beans with new potatoes

I wonder how long it'd take to get to a tater. Welcome back, boys and girls

I hope y'all got mamas and grandmas around the TV with you because I'm fixing to share a recipe

that's so, so special to my family. We don't have a family meal

that you don't see these green beans and new potatoes on the table, do you

So you say, are you cooking butter today? Well, you know I'm gonna put some butter in it

And I know you can't cook those without that. No way. Now, Jamie's snapping our green beans

And, Bobby, you're just cutting the center out of the new potatoes, aren't you? Right

And there's really no reason why I do them like this other than I just like them

I think they're pretty. I love showing the red skin and the white of the potato

I'm gonna get the seasoning meat started for our green beans. Now, I've got some extra bacon grease

around my kitchen. I always have bacon grease in the kitchen. Now, I'm gonna fry up salt meat or salt pork

for our green beans. Now, you can use a ham hock. So I'm gonna fry these up in our pan

It takes a minute for that seasoning to cook out of that salt pork

and that bacon grease is gonna add more flavor. It's a different kind of pork from the salt pork

It's gonna add more flavor, and it's gonna give our salt meat something to fry

All right, now I've fried that up really nice. Now what we're gonna do

and you washed all those green beans before you snapped them, right? I did

Just toss them over in there. Come on, this is a lot of popping hot grease. There'll be no tossing in this kitchen today

All right, now I'm doing this for a reason. I wanna sear those green beans in that bacon fat

and coat every one of them before I add any, any liquid at all

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna toss some of this onion in there

Now I don't know that Grandma Paul put onion in there, but I am

And I'm gonna put my house seasoning. And then I'm gonna add just a small amount of chicken stock

And then we're gonna put the cover on these green beans, and we gonna cook them for about 30 minutes And I don want to drown these green beans so we gonna let these cook for 30 minutes and then we

gonna toss in our potatoes and we're gonna see if it needs a little bit more

juice and we're gonna finish adding the rest of our chicken stock we're gonna

let those potatoes get done and then we're gonna take that lid off and just

let any extra moisture in them evaporate okay mom all done with the potatoes okay

That's great, son. I'm going to just sit those back there because they're going in the pot of potatoes back there

And in the meantime, I've got another pot that's already cooked. Now, Jamie, if you want to get out some butter

I'm going to finish the pot off. I love just topping those potatoes with fresh ground black pepper

Doesn't it look just divine? They look like Grandma Paul's. They look just like them, don't they

Maybe because she taught me how to make them. Maybe. Isn't that good

And I'm just going to just top it with, like, about a half a stick of butter

because I just love the flavor of the butter. Do you? Yes

I'm just going to let that simmer. They smell so good. And the thing is, you want your beans to, like, sweat

You want to sweat out that moisture in them. But everything is done

and it can sweat after we taste. Here, I got us a spoon

And look at the beautiful little new potatoes. I just love the way they look

So you cook the beans, and then you're going to add the potatoes later? Yeah, you cook the beans for about 30 minutes

You want your beans about half done. And depending on the size of your potato

it's going to take, allow about 30 minutes for those. And throw those in your pot

And like I said, you'll want to check your liquid, but do not drown them

Are they good? Mm-hmm. And I'm going to get me a piece of that salt pork

I'm not going to complain about these. Mm. This is just my favorite vegetable

You know, some things never change, and I love it. Y'all still love your mommy's cooking

and I so appreciate that and love it. And, you know, family meals are not complete

without a sweet ending, and that's what I've got coming up next for y'all

a butterscotch dip that's delicious with fruit. So I'll see y'all back in just a second

I want to share with y'all a quick tip for a wonderful ending to any meal

I'm going to make a tray of fresh fruit, and there'll be something for everybody on that tray

And we're going to dip it in a velvety, luscious butterscotch dip

We've got two cans of sweetened condensed milk. Our butterscotch morsels and two tablespoons of butter

Now to this we're going to add two tablespoons of vinegar, one tablespoon of cinnamon

and one tablespoon of vanilla flavoring. And we're just going to mix all that together

It's just that simple. And now I'm gonna just pour that luscious dip into a bowl

And I'm gonna surround it with everybody's favorite fruits. So what a way to end a fabulous meal

You can please everybody. Look at that. It's kind of like eating a caramel apple

Mmm. I want to thank y'all all so much for letting my crazy family and I into your home today

I hope that you'll enjoy these recipes when you and your family are all together

hungry and wanting to have a good time. I just can't imagine anybody not liking the chicken casserole

I can't imagine anybody not liking us. Oh, I can't. So simple

And the wild rice salad. So versatile. We don't do anything at our house without the green beans and the new potatoes

And, of course, to go with this, you've got to have cornbread. And the green chili cornbread is so good

And the butterscotch dip I've been feeding y'all for years. Love it

Isn't it just yummy? Love it. From my family to y'all's, we send y'all best dishes, hugs and kisses

From the Deans to y'all