Weekend House Guest

Hey, y'all. I'm Paula Deen, and I've got a crazy busy day ahead of me and an even bigger weekend because I'm going to be having weekend house guests, and I'm trying to get all my cooking done before they get here

First, I'm going to be cooking up some little loaves of zucchini bread that I like to offer to my guests in a gift basket

Some cold cucumber salad that goes perfect with conversation and afternoon tea

And I think they're going to love an award-winning crab soup. This blue crab earned a blue ribbon, y'all

And you can't have the savory without the sweet. So, our French coconut pie make the perfect treat

Now, I want to spend this weekend with my dads, so why don't you and I get to cooking

Because Southern hospitality is the order of the day. Hey, y'all

I'm just busy as a cat covering it up today because I'm getting ready for house guests

And one of the things that I want to send home with them is some zucchini bread. So why don't we get to cooking

All we have to do is just stir in our sugar to our flour

and our cinnamon. our nutmeg, and salt, and baking soda

Gonna give that a quick stir. All right, now I've got four eggs here

that I'm gonna just beat them with a fork where they're gonna turn a nice soft, light yellow

Now we're just gonna add some water along with our oil. Y'all know what I'm saying when I say oil, don't you

I have a lot of people kidding me about what is oil

That's O-I-L. All right, now we're going to take a zucchini. I have washed him, but we're just going to grate him

We're going to need about two cups of zucchini. You know, I've always heard that houseguests and fish have a lot in common

After about three days, they both start to stinking. And I'm going to try, try not to let my guests start stinking

Now I'm going to take a lemon and squeeze a little juice over that zucchini

you know, and that prevents things from turning dark on you like that

So we're just going to pile all that into our other ingredients

Isn't that zucchini pretty, pretty, pretty? and I just love it with the peelings on

So we're just going to mix this up and then I'll add the nuts last

All right, now I'm going to fold in our nuts and I'm using walnuts

You can use pecans or any of, a macadamia would be real good

but you can use just whatever your favorite nut is. And you can see how easy this batter was

for us to mix up. All right, now I'm gonna lightly spray our pan

with a non-stick spray. These make the neatest breads for giveaways at Christmas time

I love making homemade goodie baskets for friends. Now I've chosen today to make mine in the little mini pans

because they're to me just the right size. If you make a whole loaf of bread

there's a good chance it'll go stale before you eat it all. And I just like being able to pull out little loaves

And it's just enough for two people for one meal or one snack

Depending on what time of year it is, like around Thanksgiving and in the fall

I love making pumpkin bread. You know, it just really depends on what the season is

as to what fruit or vegetable you can put in this bread

Okay, these are ready. Like I said, I'm going to throw these into the oven

350 preheated oven, and I'm going to bake them for about 45 minutes

That's good batter. Tastes like banana nut bread. Now, as I said, I've got some that I had put in the oven earlier

and I put them on the counter to cool. So let's see what we've got here

These are nice and cool. Look there Anything worth having is worth a little work Look how pretty these are I going to leave those sitting there because I want to start our cucumber salad next So I going to take two cucumbers and I have peeled them and I going to slice them real thin

My grandmama and my mother always made a cucumber salad. It's so good

I want to keep these as thin as I can. A mandolin will work real well for this

All right, throw that end piece away because sometimes those can tend to be bitter on the ends

So I'm going to toss this in here. You can see the moisture when you cut them

It's already, the water is wanting to rise to the surface. But this salt is going to help pull that water out of them a little quicker

So, all right, a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of vinegar

Now I'm going to transfer this to a colander so it won't sit in that water

it can start draining. But I'm going to sit these to the side now

and let that water drain. And I think I'm going to just have to try one of these cakes

because, you know, I made plenty. So let's see what we've got

Now I've mixed up an herb type cream cheese. Mmm. Now you can use softened butter, but you can bet one thing I'll have plenty different options for my guest to try

Mmm. This is out of this world. You're going to love it

When we come back, I've got a friend, Wayne, who gave me a recipe for some wonderful crab soup

You're going to love it. It's got a lot of ingredients, but it's got a heck of a lot of flavor, too

So I'll look forward to seeing y'all back in the kitchen. I can't quit eating the zucchini bread

It's so good. All right. Now, I promised y'all crabs, and crabs it is

And we still got a lot to do. Look at all these ingredients up here

But don't let it scare you. I got to finish the cucumber salad

But before I do that, I've got four quarts of boiling water up here

And I'm going to add to it beef bouillon granules. You can use the little cubes

And some chicken bouillon granules. an old bay, which I just do love

some Worcestershire sauce, a little sugar, a couple of bay leaves, and some salt

Now, I was telling y'all a little bit about my friend, Wayne Brock

All right, now, Wayne tells us to take whole crabs and cut them in two. So we're gonna slip those down in there. These are beautiful

blue crabs. Look at those claws. It's just beautiful. Alright we're gonna stick

those down in there. Now I've got one more to cut and I'm just gonna take the

knife and hammer through him just like that. I'm gonna remove his little face

Oh see the yellow stuff? See that gold stuff? Now some people don't eat that but

when I'm eating blue crab I just love that rich crab flavor. And I'm gonna take

that juice from those crabs and I'm gonna go ahead and throw that in there

All right, so I'm going to let that cook for a few minutes

Now, I'm changing this recipe just a little bit because Wayne puts his crabs in there

and he leaves them the whole time he's cooking everything else. But I want to eat those crabs so I don't want them overcooked

So I'm going to let them cook for about five or so minutes

and then I'm going to pull them out and add my other ingredients, and then we'll add the crabs back to the pot when everything else is done

And now I just want to wash my hands. So let's move on and finish our cucumber salad

I think I'm going to lay these on a paper towel because I don't want our mayonnaise and our sour cream to be soupy

So I'm just going to toss this around to get as much of that water off of it as we can

All right. All right, now I'm gonna add mayonnaise, half cup of mayonnaise, and a fourth of a cup of sour cream

and a tablespoon of fresh chopped dill And I gonna add I think some black pepper to it Going to give that a quick stir And then we just going to put this in the refrigerator And like I said this

will be wonderful. It's just a light snack. And this is even wonderful on bread. I love

a little cucumber sandwich. Mmm. It's yummy. So

we'll tuck that in there and we're going to finish up Wayne's crab soup

And maybe some zucchini bread. You can see how quickly that crab cooks

All right, I'm going to take these out. I don't want them to overcook

The shells have already turned a pinkish-orange for us. All right. Now I'm going to add the rest of the ingredients to our pot

I'm using fresh green beans. You can certainly use a canned. I don't recommend frozen green beans, though

That's one of those vegetables that just is not meant to be frozen

Now, for your butter beans, you can use fresh, but frozen are just as good

And I'm adding frozen whole kernel corn. Now you can use canned on that, but I love the frozen kernels

to be there as good as the fresh also. All right, now I'm using fresh diced celery

fresh sliced carrots. I've got a cup of diced cabbage that I'm adding now

and diced yellow onions. All right, now I've got fresh red potatoes that I've diced

Add those to the pot. And just diced canned tomatoes. For now, we're going to cover this and let it cook 15 or 20 minutes

But I've got a pot of vegetables right over here ready because I'm actually making a bunch of this for the weekend

because we're going to go through this like crazy. So I'm going to add the crabs to our stock and our vegetables

You know, I think this is about the only soup that you may need a claw cracker to eat

So, okay, now I've got our store-bought pre-sorted lump crab meat. Look how pretty that is

And you'll want to make sure that you've picked all your crab free of the shells

All right, and then I'm going to add our claw meat, which you can see is a darker meat

And this is store-bought, too. All right, and I'm going to add our parsley

Look at that. Now, I'm going to add just a little Texas peat

Then I'm going to have my bottle out so people that like more heat can kick it up themselves

at the table. So now I'm going to cover this and let it simmer for about 10 minutes

I want to make sure that that crab meat is good and hot in there. But when we come back, I bet it's going to be soup

And guess what else it's going to be? Coconut pie. So y'all don't go anywhere

Some of my oldest and dearest friends are coming to spend the weekend with

Michael and me. So I'm gonna make a French coconut pie. Now I've got a half a

stick of melted butter here in my saucepan and I'm gonna add some sugar and a

little bit of flour and a cup of grated sweetened coconut, a couple of eggs and

And I'm just going to mix this up. And then my last ingredient that I'm going to add is milk

That phone has been ringing off the hook this morning. My phone almost never rings

But it's been ringing like crazy this morning. That's always the way it is, though, when you're busy and don't have time to talk on the phone

You're trying to get ready for company, trying to get everything done. And that's when everybody decides they're going to call you

All right. Now we've got our custard mixed up. I'm just going to pour this into our store-bought pie shell

I going to put this in a preheated 400 degree oven and I going to walk ever so gently with this pie I mean it full isn it y

But I'm going to bake this probably between 45, 50, and 60 minutes

I think we made it. And you can see I've got a bowl of fresh whipped cream here

And I've got another pie that's cooled. back here. This is what I've been waiting for

Oh, the aroma. I wish y'all were here with me. The aroma's just wonderful

Oh, wee. And I've got to have a piece of that crab

I'm going to strain some of that. Whoa, am I pouring it out

I've got me too much. There we go. I think this is just perfect for the soup

It certainly made a mess, though. That's what happens when I get excited and hungry and ready to taste

This is just such a fun bowl right here. I just love that

The pie's nice and cool. And the thing I love about this pie is you don't have to refrigerate it

I'll just put it under a glass dome and so it'll be right there on the counter for the

girls and they won't even have to look for it. It'll just be there waiting on them

If you'll take your scissors and just snip through that foil just like that

And you can see it will lay down, allowing you to get your spatula underneath it

And it comes out perfectly. I'm going to put just a little taste of whipped cream on my piece of pie

And I don't know about y'all, but I love coconut and chocolate together

I wish they were here to have the first taste with me, but they're not

Oh, my goodness. It's so delicious. And then we've got this coconut pie

I love it, love it, love it. Mmm. We're going to gain weight this weekend

I can just feel it. Y'all stick around. I've got a few tips to share with you

before we have to leave each other today and before I have to run

So I'll see y'all back in a few minutes. So good. Now when my girlfriends come to visit, I love to make it as easy as possible on them

So I'm going to have them a gift basket with everything in it to get them going that morning

I'm going to put zucchini bread in there. And I'm just going to tie it up in a pretty napkin

and just bind it with a ribbon. Now, I've gotten them a basket, and I'm using another napkin

I've got them a bag of potpourri. I'm going to put them a bag of coffee

and I'm going to put them some tea, and I'm going to put in some peanut butter

I'm going to put in different sugars for their coffee. I'm going to put in a spread for their bread

And then my favorite is the little sugar sticks. I'm going to stick in, and they can sweeten their coffee with this

And I think that this is going to assure me that my friends are going to come back to see old Paula again

Well, I can't believe that I got everything done with a few minutes to spare. I'm sitting here waiting for the girls to pull up

I got the zucchini bread. I got that wonderful crab soup. I got the cucumber salad, and I got that fabulous coconut pie

And I hope that some of these ideas will flow over into your own life, and you'll enjoy the heck out of them

So until next time, y'all, I send you best dishes and love

from our kitchen to yours