Georgia On My Mind

What's on your mind, fine

What's on your mind? George is on my mind. And today, Bobby and I are going to bring a little Georgia into your kitchen

Together, we're dangerous. We're going to start with a fresh spinach salad topped with a warm bacon dressing

Mmm, so delicious. Then Bobby grills up one of his favorites, y'all

It's tuna with a pineapple chipotle salsa nestled in a bed of my sweet potatoes that have a kick

It smells fabulous, y'all, in here. And for dessert, a decadent treat

Chocolate bread pudding with a rum toffee sauce. Man. It's beyond good

What do you think about when you think of Georgia? Oh, golly. You think of vegetables, and you think, look, look out there at the water

I think of Savannah, and I think of fresh seafood. Bobby and I was out in the garden, y'all, picking some spinach

I found that I love to grow all your green leafy things, lettuces, spinach, broccoli

Y'all, look at that beautiful spinach. And you got the best garden in Savannah, too, by far

Well, it's a little old bitty, humble garden. But, you know, it's amazing what you can render

I'm frying up some bacon, y'all. We've got about five or six slices of bacon

Bobby is going to be making us a fresh spinach salad. We're going to make it together

Yes, with a warm bacon dressing. And we're going to make some sweet potatoes, too

We're going to make a sweet potato even sweeter. Yes. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and peel up a couple of these sweet potatoes, Mom

All right, Bobby, I'm going to take this bacon up. Yep. Because, you know, I don't like my bacon for a spinach salad really, really crisp

All right, Bobby, I've got a pot, and I've got one potato already cut up in it

And I've got a couple more coming. You got a couple of more that you're gonna just cube up for me

Exactly. And I'm gonna get the rest of the ingredients in the pot

This is real simple. I'm gonna put two cups of packed light brown sugar

So it's really gonna enhance the natural sweetness of that potato. Now I'm gonna drop in just a few cloves

Give it a wonderful flavor. And then I'm gonna add one cinnamon stick

and as soon as you get the rest of those potatoes in to the pot, son

I'm going to put the lid on it and let them cook until they're tender. Now I'm just going to hit that with my spatula

and kind of stir that sugar up in there. I'm going to turn that down a little bit

And so now we're going to start on your spinach salad, right? Right, right

I got about eight cups of fresh spinach here from your garden, and it looks beautiful

It does look beautiful. and we're going to make a real simple bacon vinegarette

Okay, you ready to get started? Yeah, so I'll start on your dressing. All right

All right, tell me what I'm doing now. You're going to use a half a cup of red wine vinegar and two tablespoons of honey mustard

And you want me to just put this right there in the pan with the bacon dripping

And I'm going to chop up about a tablespoon and a half of shallots and we'll add this to your bacon dripping

Of course, the most important part is the bacon grease. Yes. Drippings, Bobby

bacon drippings. Grease, Marma. All right. Score this shallot just a little bit

A little salt and pepper. Look at that, how delicious that looks

I'm sure that it is already. Mm. Ooh. That bacon flavors it so good, son

It sure don't hurt nothing. Sure don't hurt the flavor. It's a great base, though, I mean

Yes. I love hot dressings. I do, too. On lettuce. I do, too

Right over some fresh spinach in the way it just wilts it up right away. And if you eat it right when it's hot like that

So should I reduce that down any, Bobby? Yeah, we don't want to boil it up

Okay, son, that looks like. Yeah, it's probably a couple tablespoons. Uh-huh, that looks good

All right, now I've got our dressing simmering, and I'll help you slice up our mushrooms

Toss in the mushrooms into the salad. Exactly. Okie doke. Wow, that shallot, I am so sensitive to cutting and chopping, you know, things like this

That shallot's already got me going. Bobby's chopping half of that red onion, y'all, and I'm going to be slicing up about two and a half cups of mushrooms

I'm going to toss these mushrooms and these onions into spinach a little bit

Okie doke. You know what? I know it only costs half of that onion, but I'm going to take a little bit more and slice it up. Okay

And throw in there. I do love that purple onion in a spinach salad

All right, son. Putting a stir on that. I'm going to chop this bacon up and toss it on, and you can come on down here and pour some dressing

Yeah, I think we're good. I'm going to go ahead and turn this off. Perfect. This looks beautiful All right this is really hot I right behind you okay Okey Now for spinach salads you wouldn want to dress the whole bowl

unless you were going to eat it right then because you can't put this in the refrigerator and save it

Bobby, you just, your little eyelashes. I'm just crying all over the place. Your little eyelashes are just wet

Boy, howdy. Those onions get me every time. Look how good this does look. Beautiful

Delicious. Yes, it do. Cluff a stool. Let's dig in and try this salad

Mm. Isn't that great? It's not greasy in any way? No, there was not that much drippings

It's delicious, son. Nice balance. The naughty and the nice. The naughty and the nice

You think? Coming up, Bobby and I are going to put a kick in our sweet potatoes

That's what makes it so good, y'all. Plus, we got some beautiful tuna to throw on the grill

That's a nice medley of flavors right now. And later, a southern guilty pleasure

I know it's going to be good. It's going to be out of this world. All right, Mama

What's on your mind, son? These sweet potatoes are on my mind. I think they're ready. so I'm going to go ahead and drain these

Okay. And I've got to go back to the conversation that we were having earlier, Mom. Okay. You're so sweet and so pretty

You asked me first thing, what do I think of when I think of Georgia? Ray Charles kind of comes to your mind

Our beloved Georgia Bulldogs, University of Georgia comes to mind. The Braves, you know, Atlanta, the mountains

What's me being pretty and sweet got to do with all this? And you said vegetables

You didn't say peanuts. You didn't say Jimmy Carter. You didn't say planes

I didn't have an hour. You said vegetables. I'm mashing these up

I'm adding a teaspoon of cinnamon, and the recipe is entitled Sweet Potatoes with a Kick

and this is where the kick comes in. A little cayenne? Half a teaspoon of cayenne

And a pinch of cloves. Just a little pinch. But they smell awesome

Cloves are very, very strong now. They smell very good. What you gonna do with that

I was gonna say, what you gonna do with that stick of butter over there? three-fourths of a stick

Oops! That happens to me so often, son. Had you already eaten a quarter of the stick of that butter

No, it was a full stick. It was a full stick. Had you already gnawed the end off of it

I've been known to lick on a little butter. A little salt and pepper

All right. So as soon as those are mashed, son, just put the lid back on them, why don't you

All right. So they'll stay hot. The rest of our meal is not going to take but a minute to pull together

No, it's not. Bobby's making us a grilled tuna with a pineapple chipotle salsa

So I see you've got me a lime sitting here. I need for you to juice that lime

Okay, the whole thing? Please. I'm going to go ahead and dice up this green bell pepper

Okay. And you taught me that's the only thing you throw away on a bell pepper boy if you work for Paula Deen

You better not find anything bigger than that. You see this in the trash? I'm guilty

Somebody's going to get their legs whipped. I'm guilty, y'all. So I need a quarter cup

And how much green onion do you need? About three tablespoons. And I'll add a little bit of salt and pepper

All right, so I'm going to use a little of this chipotle. The chipotle, we need about a half a teaspoon of that

That stuff is really, really strong, and if you use more than that, it would be kind of overbearing

A chipotle is just a smoked jalapeno. Okie doke. and now we're gonna move over here to this pineapple

Okay. Nice fresh pineapple. You could use a canned pineapple if you wanted to for this

and we're certainly not opposed to using things out of the can or out of the freezer

but today I've got a nice, beautiful, fresh pineapple. Yeah. I'm gonna kind of skin this thing

I love pineapple sauces. I do, too. And it goes perfectly with a piece of tuna

Now, I see that you've got the olive oil sitting up here. Yep, I have. We need a tablespoon, please, of olive oil

Okay, well, I'm just gonna eyeball that. All right. So I'm going to reach down here, tweenched your legs

Well, don't do that, but you can go into that freezer if you'd like. May I rub it with a little olive oil

Yes, you may. May I use house seasoning on your tuna? I would like for you to, please

We don't have any garlic in this recipe at all, so use house seasoning. Okay. May I put your tuna on some while you're doing that

Let's do it. Let's get it. If I can find my tongs. All right, I'm cutting this pineapple up

I kinda, I wanna get it diced up pretty well since it's gonna be a salsa

I don't want it to be too, too chunky. And what are you thinking, son

Couple of minutes? Those are eight ounce tuna steaks and they're about three quarters of an inch thick

On that heat, probably two or three minutes a side. Yeah, not much, son

We're gonna need to watch it close. But everything's really ready. Well that what I like about cooking fish is you know it doesn take a whole lot of time And I love a steak don get me wrong I just love fish And not to mention that you can eat pretty much all of it that you want

I know you do. I know you love fish. It's a brain food

Well, I'm a brainiac, we all know that. And Bobby, how much pineapple did you add

It's about a cup of pineapple, Mom. All right. That looks so good, son

Mmm. Mmm, that's good. I love the salt with the pineapple. The sweet and the salty

That's a nice medley of flavors right now. You can see this tuna's already starting to turn a light brown on one side, son

So if you want to come down here and get our sweet potatoes. I do. And put them in our bowl down there

Golly, look at that tuna. Looks delicious. It does look good. Yum, yum, Bobby

You know, we really should make a habit of working more sweet potatoes into our diet

because you don't think anything about having a white potato or rice every meal

Good for you in there. A little bit lighter. Aren't you ready

I am ready. Are you? All right. I'm going to take that tuna, and I'm just going to kind of nestle it down in your sweet potatoes

That looks good. Do the same with mine. Top it with some salsa

It smells fabulous, y'all, in here. They're beautiful, Bobby. They are beautiful

Well, I know if we don't eat them all, you'll want to take one home for a salad

For sure. Bobby loves fish. Just a good old piece of fresh fish on a salad

You ready? I like sweet toast. Mmm. The tuna's beautiful. The tuna

Tastes just like steak, doesn't it? Mmm. Better. Mmm. Better. Way better

Look how easy and how fast. This is yummy. Golly, that's good

All these things together are good, too. Get you a little bit of all of them. Mm-hmm

Good job. The sauce is fabulous. Mmm. Great. Up next, we've got a decadent Dean dessert

Oh, my goodness. How delicious does that look, y'all? Plus, we're going to top it with a luscious rum toffee sauce

Rummy to my tummy. This bread looks so good and it's so soft and spongy

This is a wonderful bread. What we're fixing to make, y'all, is a chocolate bread pudding with a rum toffee sauce

And we're using a Hawaiian bread, and that's a sweet bread. It just almost smells like cake

It smells very, very good. Oh. I'm going to just cut it up how you want it, just like into little cubes

Just cube it up, Bobby. It doesn't have to be all that little. And I'm going to break up about eight ounces of some semi-sweet chocolate

I think Lady Bird wants some, too. Well, she can't have chocolate. Maybe she can

I bet she does want some. And I'm just going to go ahead and drop all this into the bowl, right

Yeah, just throw it all in the bowl. Bread pudding is so easy to make

You know, there's almost no right or wrong. It just depends on what you want to do

And, you know, you can use any kind of bread. Of course, to me it's better if you use some type of sweet bread

That makes sense. We had our share of this growing up. Yes, we did

You've got a pile of pecans right there. You just chop those nuts, toss it in

All right, so there we go. In the meantime, I'm going to make the custard for it, y'all

Now, into my pot, I'm going to put a half a stick of butter, and I'm going to melt that

And in my bowl, I'm going to put one and a half cups of heavy cream

So this is the light version? Yes. Yes, it is light because I'm using regular milk

I'm going to use one pint, which is two cups. What'd you say, son? Nothing

I'm just always tickled every time I cook, will you? I love it. We just throw caution to the wind whenever we're cooking together

Well, you know, I tell everybody, as much as I would love to, I don't eat this way every day

I really don't, y'all. Because you have to use some kind of moderation. Sense

And then next, I'm going to add four eggs, and then just whisk it all together

How finely do you want these pecans chopped? You want them kind of... Oh, that's good. Just like that

All right, now I'm going to add a cup of sugar to our custard. Just right into the bowl

Yeah, just right into the bowl. All right, now I'm going to add our half a stick of melted butter

I love this custard. All right, and that, I believe, is about a cup of chopped nuts

Okay, well, you can't add too many nuts. So just go ahead and get them all in, son

And then just toss in the chocolate. Leave that chocolate just like it is You don want that When it bakes it going to be like chocolate and vanilla You know it not going to be already mixed up So get every drop of that chocolate every drop

I'm going to pour the custard over it, and then you just take that spoon right there

I'm going to try to fold this and be kind of gentle with it, right? Yeah. Oh, my gosh, that looks so dadgum good, Bobby

And that's a semi-sweet chocolate, right? Yes. All right, now I'm going to take my 13 by 9 by 2

Okay. And I'm going to spray it so it won't stick on us

Zero fat. Zero fat. All right. We're just going to pour that in, son

Just pour it in. How about driving that spoon for me while I... Okay. Oh, my goodness

There you go. That looks perfectly wonderful, doesn't it? Yeah. All right

I'm just going to kind of push that around, son. All right. Now I'm going to take, I had about a half a cup of heavy cream left over in my carton

so I'm just going to pour that on top because I know you want it

God. And just to make sure it's sweet enough, I'm going to just, like, sprinkle it with a couple of tablespoons of sugar

This is for you, sonny boy. I think I'm gonna run before

because I'm not gonna be able to run after. All right, let's put it in the oven, y'all

We're gonna bake it at 350 for one hour. Coming up, whoa, we're making a toffee sauce

that's so good. It's simple. You wanna make a rum sauce? Yes, I wanna make a rum sauce

All right. It's gonna be fabulous on top of that chocolate bread pudding

Yes, we're probably getting to the part that you like. Yeah, this will be all right. So don't look, Bobby

Two sticks of butter. Like you said, you don't eat this way every day

And I don't eat this way every day, so it's all right. All right. Put three quarters of a cup of rum, please

Three quarters of a cup? All right, now, Bobby, I want three-fourths of a cup

of heavy cream, please. A little more heavy cream? Mm-hmm. Two cups of light brown sugar

I know it's going to be good. It's going to be out of this world

Golly. And the only thing left to put in is a little vanilla flavoring

but we're going to come down here, and I'm going to put that in after it comes to a bowl

We just want that sugar to melt and that rum to cook off a little bit

Ooh, rummy. Rummy to my tummy. So this is almost going to be like a rum toffee sauce

Exactly. The brown sugar is bringing in the toffee flavor, and of course we know what the rum's coming from

Should I pull the bread pudding out of the oven? Yeah, let's take it out, son. I'm liking the way this is looking

Alright. It's hot, Mama. Alright, son. Yeah, just sit it right there

Whoa! That looks and smells pretty good. I know, doesn't it look delicious

I'm gonna add our vanilla extract, and I'm gonna add about a teaspoon

All right, so Bobby, all I need for you, son. Careful. Uh-huh

Is to just... But if you're like me, you've pretty much burned off most of the feeling from your fingers over the ears

They're almost numb. I'm just gonna take my spoon, my one-cup measure, and I'm just gonna pour that

Now, I'm just going to come in here with little slits and just let it kind of run through

See, son, the way that's drinking up that toffee rum syrup. Believe it or not, I don't think we're going to need all of this, but you know what

You and I can't eat all of this in one sitting. So what I'll do is I'll put this in a container, put it in the fridge

and so tomorrow when I go to have me a bowl, oh no, I can't have one tomorrow

I have to wait till the next day because I don't eat this way every day

Just every other day. Should it set for a little while or is it ready? Well, you can set

I'm going to set my fat butt on that stool. Right. And I'm going to eat this bread pudding

I'll be right there with you. So give that a taste, Bobby. Good, great

And tell me, what you think about now when you hear the word Georgia

Man. It's beyond good. That's great. That is great. It's almost as sweet as you

No. It's exactly the opposite of sweet. It's sinful. I love you

That's delicious. I love you too, son. It was great. It was great fun

Best dishes, y'all. Good. Great. From my sugar coma