Memory Buffet

Today, I'm kind of walking down memory lane

So, I'm sharing some Lady and Sons buffet favorites that a few of our celebrity guests have really enjoyed

like our tender and juicy pot roast. Mmm! Then we keep them coming back for more

with this popular side dish. Mmm. Mashed rutabagos. Love them, love them, love them

And that's the decadent classic, and we're just gonna pile it up

A Lady and Sons frozen chocolate mousse pie. And finally, Vidaea onion relish that's just perfect for those famous fried green tomatoes

Let's dig in, y'all. I'm going to start by preparing our pot roast, which I cooked for somebody that I think is a very special human being

And that's Harry Connick Jr. His wife, Jill, they popped in the restaurant unexpectedly

unexpectedly. And of course, they chose the buffet and he just loved my pot roast. So what can I say

I'm going to mix up now something that we're going to rub our roast down with. I put in a half a

teaspoon of black pepper, a teaspoon of seasoning salt, and one teaspoon of house seasoning. That's

got our salt, our pepper, and our garlic. And I'm just going to mix that all together. And I'm just

going to kind of rub this into our meat, and then I'm going to brown it off. But so anyway, he really

appreciated the flavors of that pot roast. I remember you asked if I was going to your concert

and I said, you know, I never was able to take the time to get out and get tickets. And he said

well, you've got tickets now. We're going to flip him over and rub the other side

down real, real good. So I kind of refer to this now

as like the Harry Connick Jr. pot roast. Now I've got our pot roast rubbed

I'm going to add just a little olive oil to my pan because we're going to sear this off

and kind of sear the flavorings in there. While this pan continues to heat, y'all

I'm going to chop up this onion. And then in the pot he goes

All right. So we're going to brown this off. And over here, I've got our onions ready to go in the pot

I've got a few cloves of garlic, and I'm just going to kind of bust those up

And they don't have to be too, too tiny. And then I'm going to prepare the liquids that's going to really make a wonderful sauce for our pot roast

So I'm going to start with a can of cream of mushroom soup, about a fourth of a cup of a little red wine

a couple of tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, a couple of teaspoons of beef bouillon granules

and then we're going to be ready to just pour that over our pot roast when it's done browning

Here, let's flip our roast. So there we go. Look at that nice brown color

Ooh, because he looks about ready. All right, and I've got a few bay leaves here

So I'm just going to throw our onion in with this roast, y'all, along with the garlic

and kind of let it kind of do its thing in the pot

All right, so let's move this on over here, and I'm just going to roll those around with that olive oil that's got that chuck roast flavor in

them. All right, so we're just going to cut this off, pour that on top of our beef

throw in the bay leaves. I'm going to pour this on top of our roast and this gravy is going to be

So good. Now, I'm going to add about three-quarters of a can of water

because I don't want to run short of gravy. Now, we're just going to cover that with tinfoil

We're going to put this in our oven at 350 for about 2 and 1⁄2 to 3 hours

I had a wonderful, wonderful surprise one night. Clint Eastwood and his adorable wife, Denise, came to the restaurant

and they chose to have the buffet. And that night I had rutabagas on the buffet

which is one of my all-time favorite vegetables. Now, to start this dish

I'm using a stricoline to season our pot with. And stricoline is a shorter strip of meat

but it looks a lot like bacon. and it's called streak-o-lean because it has that streak of lean in it

but it also has much more fat in it It just going to season this pot unbelievably good So now I just kind of cutting this up into pieces So in the pot this goes and I probably used about five slices

So all we have to do now is cover this with water, and I'm going to let it cook, you know

and start getting tender on us. I'm going to add a little salt

And this is going to have some salt in it, the strickling. So I'm going to let that come to a boil

Let that cook for 15 minutes. We got the Harry Connick Jr. pot roast in the oven

And next, we're going to get those wonderful Clint Eastwood rutabagas going

Coming up, y'all, it's one of our buffet favorites, mashed rutabagas. Love them, love them, love them

Then the dessert of choice, our frozen chocolate mousse pie. And later, I get geared up to make my five-day onion relish

for those fried green tomatoes. Okay, while y'all were gone, I took the pot roast out of the oven

Look at this. Does that look delicious? Chuck roast has a lot of fat on it

You can see the grease sitting on top of this, and I really don't want all that grease

so I'm just going to... You can't believe I said those words, can you

All right, so I'm just going to skim that off. There we go

All right, he looks pretty good. Oh, gosh. And look how tender

Oh. So tender. All right, so I got our pot roast out, and I can see a few bay leaves

so I'm going to take those off. Your gravy that comes off your pot roast, you know, don't fret

If it's real thick or if it's real thin, we can fix it no matter what

I'm just going to add a little bit of hot water to mine to just thin it down a little bit

So I'm going to start scooping out this gravy. Doesn't that look wonderful

All right, so look at that. To me, that's just like the perfect consistency for gravy

So I've just got to have me a little bite. Oh, my goodness

Oh, my goodness. Mmm. Mmm

Mmm. Oh, my goodness. So delicious. All right, well, let's move on to those rutabagas, y'all

Listen to them. It's like a rock, and you can see it's got a coating of wax on it to protect it

Now, you can try to do this a couple of different ways. You can just try peeling it, or you can use a paring knife

There's really no easy, quick way to do this. It smells very much like a turnip root off the turnip greens

Now, once you get it peeled, then we're going to cut it in slices

and we're going to cut it into strips, and then from there, we're going to cube it

Too bad Michael's on the ship this morning. If he was here, I would certainly have him in here doing this job

I'm going to add a little salt to our strickling, and I'm going to add one little teeny pinch of sugar

And now I'm adding some fresh cracked black pepper, and we're going to just put our rutabagas in

And you can see that I have cut them in the style of a potato

So in the pot that goes, and we're going to cover it and let it cook for about 45 minutes

All right. So let's move on down here to our dessert. and it's a frozen chocolate mousse pie

I just couldn't have a buffet meal without making a wonderful, sinful dessert

Now, I'm using a refrigerated pie crust. I love any pie that is frozen

because the life of it, you know, is just nice and long

If I have, like, a chocolate cream pie, I feel like I have to eat the whole stinking pie

like in one setting, to kind of get rid of it. I just love these refrigerated crusts

I swear I think they're a little flakier. And I just going to fold that extra underneath the edge of the pie plate and just kind of crimp that edge up but gives it a nice kind of finished homemade look to it

Now I'm going to take my fork, and I'm just going to prick the bottom of my crust

so that it won't blow up. I'm going to bake this in the oven 350 degrees for 11 minutes

So, in the oven that goes. And when we come back, I'm going to put that pie together

We're going to see what our rutabagas are doing in their pot

And I'm probably going to sample that pot roast one more time

to make sure it's still good enough for Harry. Up next, the most delicious frozen chocolate mousse pie

you've ever put in your mouth. So good. And later, top off your fried green tomatoes, child

with this Vidalia onion relish. Our celebrity meal is getting very, very close to being complete

Look in that pot. With that stricoline, the way we minced it up

it's just like all through those rutabagas. I just love it. So because I'm going to mash these

I'm gonna pour off just a little bit of that liquid. Now if I left them cubed, it wouldn't matter

But because I'm gonna mash them, and I'm gonna use just an old timey potato masher

This just reminds me of mama and the way I ate them as I was growing up

I'm gonna add a little bit of butter. That's really not much

But it's enough to give it a nice buttery flavor. Mmm. All right, now I'm going to add a little bit more cracked black pepper

I think they could stand just a little bit more salt. I'm just going to transfer those now, y'all, to the bowl

Those are ready to eat. Beautiful color. I just want a little bit kind of meltdown over them

Mmm. Love them, love them, love them. Well, something else I adore

Our frozen chocolate mousse pie. I'm going to use one tablespoon of chocolate cream liqueur

Smells so good. not overpowering. Alright, I'm going to add three tablespoons

of heavy cream. We're going to get a little liquid going in our pot

because we want to melt our chocolate chips and they're just going to melt

a lot easier for us if they've got a little liquid in there

Alright. So two cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips into our pot

And this is not going to take but a minute for those little pieces of chocolate to melt for us

See how that little bit of cream is helping loosen up those chips

Mmm. You'll want to be careful not to have your eye too, too high

because you don't want to scorch that chocolate. And it's almost melted

And look how that's smoothing out on us. So that was easy enough, wasn't it

And we've just got one more ingredient, and that's about a teaspoon of vanilla flavoring

That's going to give it a nice little extra kick to it

I'm going to give it a quick mix, y'all, and then let it cool. Now down here, y'all, I have one quart of heavy cream

And I'm going to sweeten it by adding three cups of powdered sugar

That's one. And I'm just going to beat it for a quick second

All right, so let's come on back in now and add our last two cups of powdered sugar

Two and three. And this looks like a lot of sugar, doesn't it, y'all

But it's really not all that much. And then we're just gonna continue to whip that until they form nice kind of medium stiff peaks

And then we're gonna fold in that chocolate. Just that simple

The longest part to making this pie is folding in our chocolate

And remember we use semi chocolate pieces so it will take every bit of that sweetened sugar to make this pie And we going to fold it into our cream

And you'll want to kind of have a rather gentle hand with this

I don't want my cream to lose all that airiness that I put in it by whipping the cream

And you can see it's starting to work in, and I just go down and up and over

until all that chocolate is incorporated into that cream. So it looks great

And let's see how it tastes. Mm. And now we're just gonna transfer this

to our cooked pie shell, and we're just gonna pile it up

And that goes. And I can't stand little old skimpy looking pies, y'all

I like tall pies. So I'm going to just take my spatula and I'm going to shape this kind of like a dome

The last thing I'm going to do to our pie is grab me a handful of chocolate chips

And I'm just going to sprinkle them on top of that pie

Just like that. Just going to cover it with a plastic wrap. and pop this in our freezer for about two hours

until it's had a chance to freeze. Coming up, y'all, keep your fried green tomatoes company, y'all

with our five-day onion relish. Fried green tomatoes, y'all

I'm gonna share with y'all today how we make this at the Lady and Sons

and how simple and easy it is and how delicious. The first thing you want to do

is start with a clean green tomato. It's simply a red tomato

that has not ripened on the vine. Now, the first thing that I would do

after I've sliced my tomato is sprinkle this with salt. We're going to run it through

a little buttermilk. And from the buttermilk into flour, seasoned with a little black pepper

and then into the deep fryer. And you want to fry them until they're a nice golden brown

I so enjoy these fried green tomatoes, but I especially love them with an onion relish

that we serve with our fried green tomatoes at the Lady and Sons

And we're going to be using two whole onions. One of them has been diced, but they really smell a little strong

So if y'all don't mind, I'm going to pull out my onion goggles, which have a nice line of foam that will seal my eyes and keep those onions from burning my eyes and making me cry

So let's finish up our onions. And we're just going to dice these up

So dice, dice, dice. And let's put that in our bowl. A couple of tablespoons of chives

And then we're going to add about a half a cup of mayonnaise

Two tablespoons of brown sugar. And we're going to add about a half a cup of our rice wine vinegar

So there we go. Okay, I think we're safe now. And I've got one, y'all, that I already have ready

that has been in the refrigerator for a little while. And those flavors have married together

All right. So let's come in here and get us a few tomatoes

And we'll spoon a little relish on top of them. and let's dig in, y'all

And by using the buttermilk, y'all, on our tomatoes, it's giving them a real crispy coating

So good. I love the vinegar flavor. With that mayonnaise and onions, it's so good

Well, look on up here, y'all. that beautiful frozen chocolate mousse pie

Here we're getting the added bonus of that nice crust. Mmm. Tastes like the richest, most velvety

chocolate ice cream. And as always, I enjoyed my time spent with you today

and I always send you love and best dishes from my kitchen to yours

Until next time, y'all. Mmm