Southern Spin

Am I a happy girl or what this morning

There's three things that I really, really love. That's my Georgia food, my Georgia music, and my Georgia men

And you know what? I got all three in my kitchen this morning. So I'm cooking up my butternut squash casserole

It's so good, it's going to make Zach sing. Pair of jeans that fit just right

And the radio will. And Zach's going to cook for us venison medallions

medallions with a feta dipping sauce. Baby, that dog will hunt. And pair that up, y'all, with a baked Vidalia onion

just dripping with morel butter. There is nothing better. And we're going to finish it off with a rich, delicious butterscotch pie

Let me tell y'all who this precious young man is. This is Zach Brown, one of the hottest new stars

in New South Music. Tell everybody, hey, Zach. Good morning. Look how precious he is

And he's going to be helping me out today, showing me some of his favorite recipes

starting with his baked Vidalia onion with morel butter. You're a cook from way back, aren't you

Yes, ma'am. I love to cook, love to feed people. Everybody in my family cooks

and I was raised by nine women, seven sisters, a mom and a grandmother, so I had to know what I was doing

And in order to spend time with my family, I had to be in the kitchen, because that's where they work. I do too. And what is this you're cutting

This is a morel. It's actually a wild mushroom and it's native to Georgia, which I wanted the whole theme to be, you being a Georgia girl as well

Everything that we're doing today, you could harvest from the woods. So this is a really tasty mushroom. And so we're going to fold it into butter, which I know is one of your good friends

That sounds great. Well, what can I do to help you along

You can take these Vidalia onions and wrap them up in aluminum foil nice and tight for us

So when we bake them, they'll steam nice in the foil. Okay, well, now let me ask you, when I do my grilled or baked onions, I like quarter them almost to the root

Is that how you want me to do these or just wrap them just like this? Wrap them up whole and after they get nice and caramelized and tender, we're going to cut a nice little cone out of them

and put that morel butter nice down inside of them and let it melt and go down in the onion

Yes. in one layer of tinfoil or two? I would do two in case the juices get out of there

That's what I do, too. All right, now you want me to get these in the oven for us

Yes, ma'am. We're going to do it 450, 450 degrees and for about 35 minutes, 35, 40 minutes. Okay

Okay. I'll get these in the oven. Zach, what can I do next

Why don't we take these, we're going to put them over here, put a little bit of extra virgin olive oil in the bottom

and put these nice morels down in there just to tender them up a little bit

And then just put a little splash of white wine in them. And while you're doing that, I'm going to start working on the feta dip

Okay, that sounds great. Now, do you want me to slice up the rest of those? Yes, please

That'd be great. Okay. Well, let's swap. Okay. Let's do a dance

Sounds good. You going that way? I'm going that way. You going that way? So we're going to make up our feta dip now for the fried venison

So we're going to start out with 8 to 10 ounces of the feta cheese and an entire thing of sour cream

Just use the whole... I like this boy. So do you cook on the road

I do, and my favorite thing to do, anytime we have a business meeting or anything like that

I'm more comfortable in the kitchen or behind a microphone than I am just kind of sitting around a party

It's kind of awkward just to mill around for me. So I always like to be doing something

So what we always do is wherever we have meetings, we'll show up and whoever kitchen will host it

I'll bring groceries and I'll cook for everybody. Okay, so you don't cook on the bus? I don't own the bus yet

There's 13 big hairy guys on the bus right now. I'm sleeping on there, and I'm going to take some garlic, about a teaspoon or so

How's that for olive oil? How much is that? That's beautiful right there. Just enough to get them softened up and get that flavor pulled out of them a little bit

Okay. So your dad travels with you? He does. He does. He travels with you

How wonderful is that? It's great. My dad is one of my heroes, one of my favorite people in the world, one of my best friends

Doesn't get any better than that, does it? No, ma'am. He's my hero

Now, we're just going to take some fresh dill. Dill's great to kind of freshen up anything that's real heavy and creamy and stuff like that

Chop that up nice and fine. So you're adding about two tablespoons of chopped dill, right

Yes, ma'am. And I'm sauteing our chopped morels. We're using about half a cup

And a little salt and pepper. So how do these look, Zach

That looks beautiful. Okay, I'm going to cut them off then. So I've folded in some feta cheese with the sour cream and dill and garlic and a little salt and pepper

That took you two seconds to whip it together. It's really easy, yeah

How much wine did I put in here? Just a little splash

Not much. Perfect. That's perfect. So not much just enough to let it sweat That right In that liquid Okey Well I tell you what I think I going to turn this over to you Okay And I going to go down there and do my squash okay

Let's do it. Y'all, butternut squash kind of reminds me of rutabagas

Do you love rutabagas? I do love rutabagas. I adore rutabagas. But I swear to Pete, you need a man in the kitchen

Because they're like as hardy as these countertops. and this butternut squash has that same texture

Why don't you take hold of the onion and I'll do that. You got a deal, Lucille

Now while I give this onion a rough chop, Zach is gonna peel and quarter the butternut squash for us

All right, so I got my onion done. How are you coming on that squash

Coming along good. She's doing good for me. I'm throwing the onions in my pot

And Zach is removing the seeds from our squash. Y'all don't go anywhere because we're going to see just how good this guy is in the kitchen

Coming up, we're going to start blending up my butternut squash casserole and frying up those venison medallions

I love it. Good, thank you, y'all. And our Vidalia onions come right out of the oven

There is nothing better than a Vidalia onion, y'all. That's good. And finally, it's my butterscotch pie, y'all

You deserve the whole pile. All right, y'all, we've got our butternut squash and our onions all cooked until they're tender

It smells so good. Doesn't it smell good? Have a taste. All right, now what we're going to do, Zach, is we're going to cream it

Okay. And we're going to need three eggs. So you just pick up my little mixer

Yes, ma'am. and you just beat the heck out of it. All right, ready to start it

I'm ready. Now, Zach, beat up that squash real good while I get our eggs going

I'm going to sweeten up our butternut squash by adding half a cup of coconut milk

Now I'm going to add one and a half teaspoons of curry powder. I'm going to add a little salt, a little cracked black pepper

Isn't that a beautiful color? I love curry, and I haven't been into it that long, but the last truth of the year, anytime I get to get some good Thai food, I really love it

I love the coconut and the curry together. I do, too. Now, I'm just going to pour this into your butternut squash, so you just keep a beating

Now, we're going to just put it in our casserole dish sack, and I've sprayed it with a nonstick spray

So, you just pour that in there, and now I'm going to measure out

a half a cup of raisins, and I'm going to use a half a cup of coconut

And I'm just using a flaked coconut. And you know what? I think I used all my bowls

So, you know what? Ooh, that pan's hot. Just mix them together

And now, ooh, this is a cast iron pan. It's heavy as lead

All right, so we're just going to sprinkle that on top. Doesn't that look good

So now we're going to bake this, y'all, at 350 for about 40 minutes

And while this is baking, Zach is going to be over there in front of the stove, honey, strutting his stuff

So how does that look, y'all? Yummy, doesn't it? I think our onions are just about done

That sounds great. If you want to stick that in there, Zach, I'll take your onions

Okey-doke. 40 minutes, 350 degrees. Okay, so let's get started on those fried venison medallions

This is a venison tenderloin, just like the tenderloin on a piece of beef, only not as big

If you'll just get my wet ingredients and my dry ingredients together, I like to dredge with buttermilk

I do, too. It feels more southern. I do, too. Than an egg wash

So we'll just go ahead and pour you about a good, you know, half an inch in the bottom of there. Okie do

Love cooking with buttermilk. Perfect. All right, so how much mustard do you want me to add

Just take one of those big old scoops full right there and put it in your hand. About like that? Yes, ma'am

About a tablespoon. And just kind of stir it in there. I'm going to take one of these tenderloins and go ahead and start slicing it

What I like to do, too, is to slice it against the grain a little bit. So slice it at an angle so it would be nice and tender

but any kind of tenderloin is going to be nice and tender. Look at this, y'all

Venison is such a lean meat. So tell me what to put in the dry

In the dry, I'd say around two cups of flour, but just coach a good casserole pan in the bottom with your flour

Okey-doke. And this is some kind of fancy salt. That's some gray salt

Gray salt. It's from France. It hand and it just a pure sea salt Go ahead and sauce it Put your two or three good pinches in there And then we going to take some dry mustard powder and put it in there I say a little less than a quarter of a cup or so

That's perfect right here. Go ahead and put your little bit of cayenne in there

just for a little bit of heat afterward. You don't want to make it spicy, but even people that don't like spicy food

like a little cayenne at the end of it, like a little... Okey-doke. All right, so is that it yet

Always got to use black pepper. I've got to have a little taste of that in there. Okie doke

And you know what? You ain't sang me not the first tune

Do a little tune for me. You know it like my chicken fried. A cold beer on a Friday night

A pair of jeans that fit just right. And a radio whip

Something like that. I love that. Hopefully we get to play it for you here

Oh gosh, I hope so. Out of all the arts, I want to sing so badly

And you know what? I got my wish. I sing so badly. All right, a little olive oil

I like to use olive oil because it's just nice and clean and light. And I wanted to have enough to fry it in there a little bit

My granny used to fry in lard, and it tastes really good, but your arteries don't love it

I love your granny. All right, well, you ready to get to frying

I'm ready. Let's do it. I'll switch places with you, honey. Okay. Because you're in charge of the frying pan

So I'm just going to put it all in there. There you go. Let's do it. Until you scream at me

And we're just going to marinate our meat in the buttermilk just for a bit to soak up a little extra flavor

But in the meantime, I'm going to get started mixing up the morel butter for those baked Vidalia onions

Just fold in the morels that we sauteed up earlier. Got them nice and the flavor pulled out of them

You got them room temperature now and you got the butter at room temperature. Just take them and fold them into the butter until it's all mixed up nice

and we're going to lay that out on a wax paper and roll it up. We have three sticks of butter, but three onions

You can always put it in a Ziploc bag and put it in the freezer. So we're not going to use it all on the stick

We're not going to use a stick per onion. That would be a big old onion

That would have to be a big onion. Down comes my butter

Is that about the size you like your logs? Yes, ma'am. All right, I'm going to stick this in the freezer, Zach

All right. Okey-doke. That is looking good. How are you coming? Doing good

I love it. Looking good. Thank you, darling. Coming up, it's my butterscotch pie, y'all

Doesn't that look good? And later, Zach's going to sing for his supper

Get it, boy, get it. Zach, I can't hardly wait to taste everything

We took our venison medallions out of the fryer, and we drained them on some paper towels

Now, are we going to... These are our Vidalia onions that are caramelized

Oh, my goodness. Let's leave them in the fold. You want to

That sounds good to me. To keep that juice, let that be our little bowl

Get that nice caramelized onion syrup. Oh, honey, that's so sick. Onion syrup. Yes. Beautiful

So you're going to take the paring knife and now you're going to... You want to grab our morel butter that we put up

Yeah, I got it in the freezer. Oh, and my goodness, it's..

I mean, it didn't take it long. Oh, yeah. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take these, I cooked them right in the skin, so

what I'm going to do is just take a paring knife and I'm just going to work it in in

a nice little triangle here. Look at that butter, y'all. And while these are still nice and warm

you just kind of make it where you got a nice little lid in there. Open it up

I love it. There is nothing better than a five-day onion, y'all

That is good. Well, I'm going to get our butternut squash out

Oh, gosh, it's heavy. I'm going to cut a piece of our morel butter off and take it and just seed it in there nice

Put it in there, and when that onion's nice and warm, it'll just blend together

Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. All right. For serving reasons, put your little hat back on

Oh, how cute is that? Mmm. All right, now I'm going to get us some of our venison tenderloin

This is just like fit for a king. Well, I'm ready to eat

All right. Oh, look at that venison, y'all. See, it's still got a little pinky to it

You didn't, like, overcook it. You didn't, like, fill it. You can dry it out

It out of this world The cayenne is now coming to life in my throat Mm Make you want to keep on eating it Uh

It's delicious. It really is. Ooh. Look at this. Look at that, y'all

Will that hunt? It'll hunt, baby. That dog will hunt. Dig into that casserole

Mm. Is it good? That is insanely good. Put a piece of this in my pocket

Take it with me. All right, well, listen. Now, you keep eating

But if I don't move down here to this pie, we ain't gonna have no dessert

I'm gonna cook you up a butterscotch pie. So, now, I'm gonna put in..

one and a half cups of packed brown sugar sack, a half a cup of all-purpose flour

one tablespoon of cornstarch, about a half a teaspoon of salt. And now I'm just going to mix that together

And we're cooking these over medium heat. And now I'm going to slowly add four cups of milk to it

And I'm going to cook it until this gets thick. And then once that happens, I'm going to add some eggs

Ooh, look at that, y'all. So stinking good. Yeah. Coming up, Zach serenading me in the kitchen, y'all

You know a lot of chicken fried. You know a lot of chicken fried

And his reward is a big old bite of butterscotch pie. He's serenading me in the kitchen, y'all

How good does this get? Now I'm making Zach a butterscotch pie

Now I've got all of our mixture cooked, and it's nice and thick

so I'm just going to temper those eggs, Zach. And I've beaten two egg yolks here

And then back into the saucepan it goes, and that's going to make this real custardy and rich

So I'm just going to let that cook just for a couple of minutes

Now before I chill this, there's just two more things that I need to add

And that would be a little butter, a couple of tablespoons of butter, and about two teaspoons of vanilla flavoring

That's it. I'm just going to put this in the fridge and let it chill

Now I'm going to take our already chilled filling. and fill up our pie shell

Doesn't that look good? And before you start singing, I'm going to just add a fourth of a cup

of butterscotch morsels to one cup of heavy cream that I whipped with a fourth of a cup

of powdered sugar. So you hit it, baby. All right, let's do it

You know a lot of chicken fried. Cold beer on a Friday night

A pair of jeans that fit just right And the radio Well, I was raised up beneath the shade of a Georgia pine

And that's home in a sweet tea, pecan pie We'll be right back

I might have to take a break here

for a second. Mmm

Y'all, we send you best dishes and love from mine and Zach's

kitchen to yours. You deserve the whole pie