Gettin' Down in the South

We're getting down in the south, aren't we, baby

Yep. Today, my husband Michael is here showing off some of his favorite recipes

starting with his succulent coffee braised short ribs. Oh, my goodness. And then Michael keeps his party going with his deluxe twice-baked potato with shrimp

This sucker weighs over a pound, and I contribute with my fluffy coconut and lemon curd cake

Oh! Oh, today, me and my sailor man are getting down in the south

What are we going to get down in the south with? We're going to cook my favorite, twice-baked potato stuffed with shrimp

Michael used to make these twice-baked potatoes all the time before he married me

All of a sudden, he just forgot how to cook. Didn't you

Well, yeah. So prick your potatoes, Daddy. Okie doke. We're going to prick our potatoes

We're going to grease them down. By us all, and our potato skin's down real good

it's going to cause them to get crisp, and it is going to make a wonderful container for the potatoes

once we put them back in, right? Yep. All right, so grease them puppies up

Okay. There you go, and just rub it in. Okay, we're going to bake these potatoes

and then we'll cut the inside out and smash them. We're going to twice bake these potatoes

Twice bake potatoes and then add shrimp to them. Okey-dokey. Okay, now we're going to bake these potatoes at $4.50 for an hour

My man Michael, y'all, is a real beef lover. He loves his beef

So it's only natural that he would choose to cook a beef dish today

And that's his coffee braised short ribs, y'all. All right, so put me to work, darling

What we're going to do is you're going to braise the short ribs and braise them with a little olive oil

Okey-doke. And then I'm going to cut an onion and three cloves of garlic

and put them in the crock pot. Okay. And, Michael, it looks like we've got about three pounds of short ribs

Yep. So I'm just going to salt these real good, and I'm using a kosher salt and pepper

Uh-huh. And into the pan they go. There you go. Whoa. There's a lot of fat on short ribs, y'all

That's what makes it so good. That's what gives it all that flavor and makes it so tender

So there we go. We're just going to turn these on all their sides and let them brown up real good

All right, so tell us what else we're going to do. Okay, once we braise these off, we're going to put a cup of wine and a cup of coffee

Oh, my goodness. And we'll deglaze the omelet pot. Okay. So why don't you be measuring out your wine

and measuring out your coffee. I'm going to go ahead and turn our crock pot on

Ooh, that's strong coffee, Michael. That's good coffee, yeah, perfect. So, Michael, you know you really tricked me for a while

You said, no, I don't really cook. I forgot. See? He met me and all of a sudden

he just completely forgot how to cook. I can cook, though. Yes, you can cook

These are looking good, Mikey. You know, I've heard different stories about what wedding cakes do to women

but I tell you what, our wedding cake gave him cooking amnesia, y'all

All right, Mikey, do your magic. Okay, we can put those in there. All right, so you want me to remove the meat

Yeah, put them in the crock pot. Okay. You know, that's not many ribs, but it sure fills up our crock pot, doesn't it

Okay. I'm going to get all the goodies from the bottom. Yes, I'm going to come in there and loosen all that up

And coffee. Sounds great. Okay, we put one teaspoon of oregano. Okay

And two teaspoons of chili powder. And we'll reduce the wine and the coffee

Okey-do. And now we're going to dump it right in our crock pot. These are going to be a little teeny-y bit spicy

Perfect. I'm going to put just a little bit more salt. Okay

That smells good, doesn't it? Oh, it looks good and smells good, Michael

You got it? Yes, I have it. so I will sit it into our crock pot

We're gonna let that wine and that coffee do its magic, y'all

Smelling delicious. And we're gonna let this cook for about three hours

And when we come back, we're gonna make Michael's shrimp stuffed twice-baked potatoes

Yum. Coming up next, we stuffing Michael twice potatoes full of shrimpy goodness Whoa that is loaded to the gill Michael Then my sailor man fixes me a meal fit for a queen

Delicious, Michael. Thank you so much. And later, a dessert that's got us feeling the love

Michael Groover and a piece of cake. You've never seen such a love affair. Welcome back to the Paula Groover Show

I'm teaching my wife a few things that she doesn't really know. Paula Groover Show

Yeah, that's your name. You know, it is. I know. It sounds funny, though, every time I hear it

Because, you know, people still call me Paula Deen. All right, Michael, now I've cooked this off a few strips of bacon

Now, why don't you show me how we're going to cut these potatoes? Okay, I just cut a little sliver out at the top

Like a wedge. Like a little wedge, kind of. Okay. And then dig the meat out of the potato

So you're actually stuffing a whole potato. Right. I saved the whole potato skin for a container

Well, I've never done it this way. Well, I'll just pay attention, and I'm going to teach you something. So I'm just cutting like a potato wedge out

Kind of, yeah. You want to save that part of the potato, right

Right. So I'm just going to come in here, and you'll want to let your potatoes cool just a little while, y'all

Otherwise, you would burn the pure tar out of your hands. So these are still warm, but they're not piping hot

You want to make sure you leave about a quarter of an inch of the potato so you have a bowl to put your mashed potato back in. Yes

You know, if your potatoes are huge, once I do that, you can cut them in half. Yeah

But this way it just stays, you have your little container. Have a beautiful whole potato

Yeah. I'm picking up what you're putting down, baby. I hear you

Okie dokie. Like I said, normally I've always cut mine in half and scooped it out

But I really like this. This is going to be pretty. All right, so Michael, I cooked some bacon because I know you like to sprinkle bacon on top of yours, correct

Right, right. All right, now I've got a pound of shrimp here. Now, do you want me to cut those up, or do you want me to cook them whole

Well, you cut them in half. If they're a bigger shrimp, you cut them in thirds. So I cut that in half

Yeah. And because it's curly, it winds up three pieces. So that suits you

That'll work. You can see the way I'm taking my shrimp, and it yields me three pieces

Okay, we're going to add a third cup of sour cream and four tablespoons of mayonnaise

Okay. And, Michael, aren't you missing something? The, what, the butter? Yes

Yeah, we're going to add, let's add a half a stick of butter to start with. And if we need to moisten it a little bit, we add more butter

Okay. More sour cream and more mayonnaise. And there's a good chance Paula will add more

There is a good chance, y'all. All right, our shrimp are ready

Now we're going to mix the cheese into the... Okay. So how much cheese do you want, Michael

All of it. Let's put the whole cup. Now you get a cup of cheddar cheese, and we're going to just fold that into our potato

All right, now I'm going to be dicing our green onions. All right, now I think our pan's hot enough, Michael

Oh, yeah. It doesn't take long for a shrimp. All right, there we go

And say about a teaspoon and a half of Cajun seasoning. right? There you go

There you go. And a little more salt, you said? Yeah, I would put a little bit more salt

because, you know, potatoes require a lot of salt, y'all. Uh-huh. How about butter? How do you think we're doing on butter

Well, let's just put just one little more speck. So that's three-quarters

of a stick that we used. Here goes the rest of our

green onions. All right. So how much green onion, Michael? All right

There we go. It's raining beautiful green onion. All right. Now, I'm not going to overcook these shrimp, y'all

because remember, these are going back in the oven, so I don't want them tasting like rubber

Right. Michael, that's all the cooking I'm going to do for the shrimp

Sounds good. And I left a few shrimp whole to garnish the top

Oh, my goodness, Michael Grover. I might have to spank you. Okay, into potatoes, Paula

Don't those look good? Michael, they look positively delicious. Okay, now we got these mixed up

Let's, um... I just going to reach in here and Okay I getting my potato skins Michael that is positively perfect

Delicious. Okay. All right, so you got our spoons? Yep. Now we're just gonna add it in

Okey-doke, I'm very gently gonna just kind of push mine together to open it

Does that suit you, Mikey? Yeah. Don't be chintzy, though. I've got our bacon crumbled up, so I think I'm going to put the bacon next

Uh-huh. And then two full shrimp. Yeah. That was good. Look at that, Michael. Mm-mm

That's a loaded potato. This sucker weighs over a pound, I know

Okie dokie, dumpling. Oh, doesn't those look good? Out of this world, darling

Now we put them in the oven another 15 minutes at 450 degrees

Melt all that cheese. Oh, look here, Paula. Oh, that looks delicious

It does look delicious, Michael. Okay, we've already cooked this for three and a half hours

We'll take the lid off and cook it in an additional 45 minutes with the lid off

This meal is coming together. My sailor man has really cooked us up a fine meal, y'all

But you ain't seen nothing yet. Stick around, because we're plating up our short ribs and potatoes

They look so good. And later, we're making a delicious seven-minute icing for our fluffy coconut and lemon curd cake

My favorite time, Michael. Cake time. All right, Paula, I'm going to grab the potatoes

Oh, they look so good. I am so hungry. Oh, look how good they look

Starving. You going to eat them now? Yep. Why should we wait

All righty. Look at these short ribs. Look how rich this stock is

Oh, they look delicious. They look so good. We need a piece of white bread, don't we, to sop up that gravy

What's that potato do? That potato, I'll sop it up. I'll load mine up

This looks heavenly. So good. All right, now for my potato. Look at that

Isn't that that yummy? It looks so good. Let's dig in. Nothing better than short ribs

Except maybe that twice-baked potato. What are you tasting? Potato. The potato

Oh, Michael. Delicious. Did your mama used to make these, Michael? No, this was one of my concoctions

I just come up with it. Well, it is so good, And I think the only thing that could pull me away from this right now would maybe be some dessert

I hear you. Let's do it. Delicious, Michael. Thank you so much

You're welcome. Now let's do this. Okay. Y'all, now we're getting ready to make a coconut lemon curd cake

I am using a yellow cake mix, y'all. And I'm following the directions on the cake

One and a third cup of water. Three eggs. Half a cup of oil

This is going to be delicious because it's got my all-time favorite recipe for the frosting

We're going to make a seven-minute icing. But in between these wonderful layers of cake

we're going to have lemon curd. So just beat that up good, Michael

Okay. Or here, let me help you. Let's just do it like this. Okay

And that'll help it go faster. And while I'm doing this, if you would spray the pans

I'll do it. And don't be stingy. All the corners and crevices

And what we're going to do is we're just going to divide this cake batter now. Okay

I can do that. between those two pans. I can do that

And I'm going to take my other set of beaters because I'm going to need this to make our frosting

Now, this seven-minute frosting, I call it like divinity icing because it is like divinity candy

How long does it take? Seven minutes. It's called a... You're tricking me

It called a seven icing So I going to separate my two eggs with a third of a cup of water I don need the yolks y

I just need the whites. Okay, Paula, I'm going to put the cakes in the oven, 350 for 30 minutes

Okay, chuck on them after about 25 minutes, y'all. Okay. All right, so into my bowl

I'm going to add one-and-a-half cups of white sugar, A fourth of a teaspoon of cream of tartar and a pinch of salt

Now, what I want you to do is, and in goes our egg whites. So what I want you to do is just take that and mix up those ingredients real good

Okay. And we're going to start our seven minutes as soon as we sit the bowl on top of our boiling water

And then you're going to see a wonderful love affair going on between the sugar, the water, the egg whites

And me. And you. Yes. Michael Groove and a piece of cake

You've never seen such a love affair. All right. Now, you want to turn that up pretty high, Michael. Okay

Higher? Now, I think seven is as high as it'll go. I know

That's what I was going to tell you. Now, you have to be careful. If it's raining outside, this icing will not work

The humidity will not allow it to get thick. So time us now seven minutes

So you just keep beating, plow boy. Keep beating. Don't make me have to beat you

Y'all don't go anywhere, because when we come back, we're going to put that curd in between those layers

and frost it with that seven-minute icing. Get busy, boy. Get busy

Coming up, I'm going to show you how to assemble, frost, and garnish this beautiful cake

I don't tell you how to dock chips. You don't tell me how to frost cakes

My favorite time, Michael. Cake time. What you want me to do

I want you to go over there and get the lemon curd. I don't want her to do the seven-minute icing

No. I am going to very gently, y'all, because I cut our two cake layers in half

So I'm going to very gently sit that on some pieces of wax paper, y'all

Now we've heated up an 11-ounce jar of store-bought lemon curd. I need for you to zest that lemon

All right, perfect. Perfect. All right, so we're going to take our lemon curd

and we're going to put a couple of dollops. Okay. And we're going to just spread that around

And heating it up, y'all, just makes it nice and easy to spread. And then..

All right. A little icing. I'm just going to spread that out, Michael

On top of that lemon curd. Perfect. Now I'm going to take a little coconut

and I'm going to sprinkle a little coconut in there. Mm-hmm. All right, now for the second layer

a little lemon curd a little coconut

okie doke now the third layer it's gorgeous it looks great Mm-hmm

All right. Put that out of the layer on that. Oh! Oh

I'm going to take our divinity icing, Michael, and I'm going to kind of drop it right on the edge of my cake

Uh-huh. And then I'm going to take that, and then I'm going to work it down

And I'm going to frost my sides first. All right, now I'm going to take our coconut, and I want you to watch now

I'm going to nestle my hand very close to the sides of that cake

Uh-huh. And my hand is going to help that coconut stick to the sides

Great time of day. What you think

It's out of the world. Delicious. Well, thank you, baby, for being with me

Well, thank you. I had fun. I did, too. And if you want to get down in the south

we're down here in Savannah, Georgia. Y'all come see us, and we'll get down with you

And until I see you here, I send you love and best dishes from our kitchen to y'all's

Have a great day. Bye, y'all