Home Sweet Home

Y'all, I can honestly say that I had the most delightful childhood

Today, my brother, Bubba and I are reminiscing about the good old days

and just cooking up some family favorites. First, it's a hearty beef stroganoff

Whoa! About lost my noodles. Then, it's our mama's recipe for okra and tomatoes

I'm not going to tell you no. For dessert, how about Grandma Nellie Lou's never-fail pound cake

And to finish it off, Grandma Paul's delicious apple fritters. Our two grandmas

I'm in here in the kitchen with that sweet little brother who's not so little anymore

He's still sweet, but he ain't little. We are recreating some things that we remember our mother cooking in the kitchen when we were growing up

And one of my favorite things, Bubba, was Mama's beef stroganoff. Do you remember her beef stroganoff

Oh, gosh, yes. It was so good. Bubba has cut the round steak and tossed it in a little bit of flour

and he's browned it off in half butter and half olive oil

I'm going to be slicing up the mushrooms and the onions. You know, Bubba and I try to set aside a little time to spend with each other

because we live in very, very busy times. Yeah. And invariably we wind up talking about the good old days

You know, I remember us girls having spend the night parties. What I remember about your girlfriends, they put me in a blanket in the living room

and y'all would all grab a corner and throw me to the ceiling

And I was just having a big time. You don't remember that. Oh, I do

Hurry. I'm going to take the meat out, and thanks for chopping my onions and my mushrooms

You're welcome. Now I'm going to be adding these. I've got my water boiling for the noodles from our stroganoff

so you can just finish that. All right, I'm going to saute the onions and the mushrooms

Okey-doke. So we'll let that cook for a few minutes. And you know, Bubba, one of my favorite vegetables

What's that? As a kid was Mama's okra and tomatoes. And down here, I've got some fresh tomatoes

You want to come down here and slice the okra? Okay. And I'll peel these tomatoes

I'll keep an eye on your mushrooms and onions. Paula, I was thinking, do you remember Daddy's office number

I was going to ask you. I absolutely do. What was it

His office number was 20336. 20336. And I would remember calling Daddy and saying, Diddy, Diddy

He said, oh, no. Can I borrow 50 cents? And he'd say, yeah, Blue, come on down here and get it

Now, why did he call you Blue? Because I dyed my hair so black it was Blue

Let me tell you what, Daddy's nickname for Bubba. He was so mean to me, wasn't he

No, he was. He loved you to pieces. But he called Bubba Mildred

Now, I don't know why. He really did. He called me Mildred

Do I look like a Mildred? It's a wonder Bubba was not screwed up for the rest of his life

Because Bubba would act kind of like an old woman, I think, sometimes

I don't know. But do you remember Bubba? Now, sit, Daddy, I know you're up in heaven

You shouldn't have done this. But you encouraged Bubba not to fight. Every minute he was home

Which story are you going to tell? What do you remember? You remember you would hear a new joke

and you would just save it. That's the story I was going to tell. I would tell it. Well, no

So we're still remembering the same stuff. Uh-huh. Well, Daddy would come home, and I'd heard a joke

And I wanted to tell Daddy this joke. And Paula would pretend like she had never heard it

And she'd be standing, Daddy, I'd be facing Daddy. I was about this tall

And Paula would be standing right there on the side. And as soon as I'd get to the punchline

she would jump in between us, and she would tell him the punchline

And I would just go to whaling on her. You. I'd get these little hands going like this

and she'd be backed up in the corner just laughing. You would go bonkers

You would go bonkers when I'd give the punchline. He'd be standing over there laughing too

Uh-huh, and Daddy would get so tippled. No wonder I ain't screwed up

Get her, Mildred, get her! And I'm doubled over in the corner just about to wet my britches laughing

because Bubba is so mad. All right so Bubba you can toss that meat in there Go ahead and Okay well let me add a teaspoon of flour And I got our tomatoes peeled And I just kind of rough chopping them

because they're going in the pot. And they will cook down. You know, you can use canned tomatoes for this

Canned tomatoes work beautifully. But if you got fresh, you know, if you're making this during the summer

there's nothing better than fresh tomatoes. All right, I'm going to check my noodles

All right. They're doing fine. This is looking delicious. Our mushrooms and our onions are tender

Oh, it looks good. All right. Now, all we're going to do at this point, y'all, is add a can of beef broth and a can of cream of mushroom soup

I'm going to turn that up a little bit, Bubba. All right. Ten and three quarter ounce can

You know, Mama was good at making dishes that you ate along with, like, rice or mashed potatoes or noodles

I remember. Mama made the best short ribs of anybody in the world

I remember her being a good cook. Oh, God, she was fabulous. I don't remember every dish that she made

Ever dish. You don't remember every dish? Uh-uh. Every dish. You're so country-sounded, Bubba

I know it. I guess because I'm just old country boy. Of course, I don't sound a bit country

How long are we going to cook this for you, babe? We're going to put it on low heat and simmer it for about 30 minutes

Okay, that sounds great. And I'm going to gather up our tomatoes and our okra

and they're going to go in the pot. Okay. The pasta's almost ready, so we'll take a quick break

Okay. And then we'll come back and we'll pull these dishes together

and continue our walk down memory lane. Oh, good. We'll see y'all in a minute

Up next, y'all, it's my mama's ochre and tomatoes and later, grandma's pound cake

and the most delicious apple fritters you have ever put in your mouth

Oh, that's beautiful. Look at that fritter. Oh, yes. Bubba, I think this is ready

Oh, it looks delicious. It does. Now, all I've got to do now, y'all, at this point

is add some sour cream to it. So why don't you get the noodles ready, Bubba

And I'm going to stir in the sour cream. Now, you want to make sure that you add the sour cream

the very last couple of minutes before you serve it. Looks great, Bubba

The noodles look delicious, too. Well, I'm so glad. I mean, a noodle is a noodle is a noodle

You know what I mean? So see how that sour cream has taken it from kind of a dark brown to a nice light brown

And you can serve this, y'all, on any type of noodle, anywhere from a fettuccine

Heck, you could serve it on a macaroni noodle as far as that's concerned

or, like I said, the way Mama used to serve it was over rice

Now, after you put in your sour cream, you really don't want this to come to a ball

You just kind of want to simmer it on low. So I'm going to cut this down. Okay

And I'm going to dip you up. Whoa! About lost my noodles

I've done that on more than one occasion, Baba. How about you? Um, yeah

Every now and then. There you go. You know what? And I like to mix mine up

Oh, well, then I'm fixing my own bowl because that's the way Michael eats

Now, see, I like mine right on top. Really? And I don't like to mix it

I like to go through the layers because, see, mine's much prettier than yours now

Oh, yes. Oh, I forgot the parsley. This is a great belly warming dish

You know, Bubba. Mm. Mm-mm-mm. Isn't it good? Mm. You know what finished it all

The sour cream. It's out of this world, Bubba. Wow. Well, let's move on down here, Bubba

Okay. To our okra and tomatoes. All right. Now, y'all, I've got a flat skillet heating here

I've got some bacon down here. You can go ahead and eat your beef stroking off, Bubba. I'm just going to dice up some bacon. Okay

Probably about six slices, Bubba, that I'm dicing up. We're going to render that fat

Okay, yeah, smelling good already. Out of that bacon. And I'm going to add just a wee little bit of oil

Okay. And just a wee little bit of butter. A wee? A wee little bit

Yes. What's a wee? We is we can sometimes be this or we can be that We like mother too Yes depending on what kind of mood we are in All right well let me tell y what I have

You just wear these on. What did you get, though? These are onion goggles

Really? Yes. All they need is some diamonds around them now. Well, I'll work on that next

Because some people are just very, very sensitive to onions. So this is the perfect

Smell that onion. Is it burning your eyes? Just a little bit

Well, you don't have makeup on, so you don't have to worry about it. Not too bad. The bacon is smelling good

That's got my attention. You know what? I've always said I wanted to come up with a room deodorizer that smelled like bacon and onions cooking

Oh, I would buy it. Now, I'm going to go on and throw in our garlic

Got a couple of cloves of fresh garlic. And I'm going to toss in our onions

One medium onion? Yeah. Okay. And I got a bell pepper over here

All right. And I'm going to finish dicing it up. So this is our mama's recipe too, isn't it

Well, you know, yeah. Yeah, this is the way mama cooked it. And what did she serve us with it, Paula

Oh, my goodness. You know, mama always cooked all those vegetables, Bubba

But you always, when you had okra and tomatoes, Mama always cooked a pot of rice

All right, Bubba, I'm going to toss in about a half a teaspoon of seasoning salt, about a tablespoon of chicken base. Okay

Garlic powder? Yeah, garlic powder. Maybe just like a fourth of a teaspoon

Four cups of tomatoes, and those are going to cook down. Now I'm adding four cups of cut fresh okra, y'all

a cup of water. Now, if we were using canned tomatoes, you know, they come

with the tomato juice. So you might not have to do this. So we're just gonna let that

stew down, Bubba. Okay. Probably for half an hour. Uh-oh. Uh-oh, I dropped one

Lost an okra. But let's clean up this mess. And when we come back..

What are we gonna do? We're gonna make one of your favorite cakes that the

sweetest little grandma in the whole world used to make. Coming up, it's just the perfect never-fail pound cake

Oh, yeah. Look at that. And later on, it's crispy apple fritters, y'all

Hey, y'all, I'm so glad that you came back. Bubba and I in here in the kitchen

It's all about home sweet home today, y'all. And our okra and tomatoes look great

And, you know, I told you that Mama always served this with rice

Yes. So let's put a little rice in our bowl. And a little butter

You know, just a little bit of butter. I'm not going to tell you no. All right, dip you up some of those ochres and tomatoes

and see if that doesn't bring back some sweet memories. Oh, my goodness

And, of course, Mama always had, oh, I'll just dip me a little bit. But you eat a little bit more than I do, Bubba

Believe it or not. There you go. And, of course, if we were back at home at 1600 Whitney Avenue

we'd have a piece of lace hoe cake next to it. Oh, my goodness

Oh, I love the lace. Remember the bell she had on the back porch

And she'd come out there when it was time for, if it was a weekend for lunch or mainly supper time

She'd go out there on that back porch and ring that bell. She'd ring that bell for you. And I could hear it half a mile away

I know. You knew it was... And I was barefooted in my shorts with no shirt on

running down the alley. I've got so many pictures of you like that

in those little shorts and barefooted. We got so many funny stories

I'm telling you. Remember the horse, the pony? Oh, gosh. Get on down here and let's make cake

We'll wind up here talking all day long. I know. Those are so funny

Yes, I'm telling you what. That day did. Let's get to making this cake

Okay. I'll see if I can't tell this story. This is Granny Paul. No, Granny Hire's

This is Grandmother Hire's Never Fail Pound Cake. And it's one stick of butter that's been softened

Three cups of sugar. Now, we're just going to cream this butter and sugar together

until it's kind of creamy. And then I'm going to crack these five eggs

that I've got here in front of me. Okay. And I'm going to just drop those in one at a time

while you continue to cream. All right. You got all the eggs in here? Yes, I got all the eggs in there

Okay, it was looking good. Yeah, it does. It looks real good. Now we're going to alternately add three cups of cake flour

with one cup of milk, and we're going to start with our flour and always end with your flour. Okay

Just makes for a creamier cake. Now this is finally I finally got the last of the flour This is the last cup Mm Now Grandma Hire always flavored her pound cakes Bubba with some kind of extract

Okay. So we're going to put in two teaspoons of lemon extract

Mm. And I remember these as a kid. Mama always saved us a beater, didn't she

Oh, yes. All right. So, in our pan, this goes. But you'd always get my beater, too

Yeah. And I was pretty smart, Bubba, even baby. You know, for so long, I was bigger

Uh-huh. And brighter. You know, I was bigger and I was older than you

All right, Bubba, I'm just going to give that a shake to level it out. So if you'd get this in the oven, I'll start cleaning up everything

Okay. Granny hires her recipe called starting out in a cold oven

Once you put the cake in, then you put it on 325 degrees and cook it for one hour

For one hour. Okay. Sounds good to me. And then we're going to cook it at 350 for half an hour and not open the oven at all

You cannot peek. Uh-oh. while you're baking this cake, y'all. So remember, cold oven, no peaky

That sounds great, and this is going to be so, so good

There's nothing better than I love than a warm pizza pound cake straight out of the oven

None better than me either. Up next, it's apple fritters and pound cake, y'all

You know, you're the best brother I have. Now, we just took our Grandma Hire's Never Fail pound cake out of the oven

Now, I'm just going to turn this out and let it rest just for a minute

because that's all it's going to take us to get our apple fritters together

And they're so easy to make. I've got my self-rising flour here

Okay. I've got an egg. Beat that up. And I'm going to add a half a cup of milk

Okay. A couple of teaspoons of sugar, a teaspoon of cinnamon, and one cup of sour cream

I've got some all heating up over here. I'm using peanut oil, y'all

Maybe a half a cup. So now I'm going to add one cup of self-rising flour

Now, you've been pairing our Granny Smith apples. You've got them peeled

Right. And Bubba is cutting them about a fourth of an inch thick

These look great. So we'll just niche out the core. And then we're just going to run these through our fritter batter

So from the batter to the frying pan. I love cooking with you

You know that. I know it, and I love cooking with you. Look at that, y'all

Look, Bubba. Oh, that's beautiful. Look at that fritter. Oh, yes. Doesn't that look great

Oh, you ain't kidding. This is going to be delicious. And like I said, it's not going to take but just a minute or so on each side

And you can see when your batter starts forming bubbles that it's about time for you to turn it

All right, so Bubba, our apples are ready. All right, good. Don't they look delicious

Oh, absolutely. I'm just going to put them on paper towels. Going to let them drain a little bit

Let them drain a second. Okay. And I've got some powdered sugar over here

Okay, good. I'm just going to sprinkle them with a little powdered sugar. Oh, I love that sugar. And I think this is so wonderful

You and I standing up in our kitchen at our age preparing one recipe from each grandmother

It's taken me back, Paula, so many years. I know it. I know it has you too

Let's come on down here now. Okay. And check out little Nellie Lou's pound cake

Nellie Hires. Nellie Lou Savage Hires. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Doesn't this look good

Yeah. Mm. Mm. Mm. Our two grandmas. That's ham, please. Mm

It's perfect. Mm. Oh, my goodness. Look at that. Mm-hmm. Perfect. Mm-hmm

You know, you're the best brother I have. Oh, you're the only brother

Well, you're the best sister I got. I'm the only sister he's got, y'all

Best dishes and love from our kitchen to yours