Howdy Y'all!

Seth said to me awhile back that he rather missed Carolina Barbecue, so I looked up the recipe for the sauce and found a hushpuppy recipe that didn't involve buttermilk. I already had the canned potatoes from "the Place" and so this last Sunday I put some pork chops (gasp! blasphemy! for all you true Carolina guys) in the crock pot (I know! I know it's not authentic!!) with some pepper and onions. After church they were tenderly delicious. In one big flurry, we got the sauce made, microwaved the potatoes and green beans, and deep-fried the hushpuppies. Deep-frying on a whim, you say? Yes, and it came out REALLY WELL.

Here are the recipes for a heart-of-the-Rockies-Carolina-Barbecue-Feast:

Meat: pork something, grilled until tender, smoked until tender or crock-potted until tender.

Barbecue Sauce: Jack Daniels Old Time Cookbook Version 2 from homecooking.about.com

2 c. white vinegar
1 T. cayenne pepper
1/2 t. black pepper

We used this recipe because we already had all the stuff for it, except we used crushed red pepper instead of cayenne. We had the cayenne, too. I'm just saying. Also, open the windows while you're bringing it to a boil and simmering for 10 minutes because it is ZINGY.

Hush Puppies: from the cookbook River Road Recipes, published by the Junior League of Baton Rouge, from 1959 to 1969. Recipe from Mrs. Robert Bowlus.

1 c. cornmeal
1 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 t. sugar
1 c. flour
1 egg
3/4 c. milk
dash red pepper
chopped green onion tops
1 T. grated onion

Sift dry ingredients into bowl. Beat egg, add milk, and add this to cornmeal mixture. Add onion and red pepper. Drop by spoonful in hot deep fat (375 F) and fry until brown. Should you like a lot of crust, these may be patted flat. This makes approximately two dozen. While there is a great deal of speculation as to the origin of hush puppies, there should be no speculation on the tastiness of these.

Except that I omitted the green onion tops and used onion powder for the grated onion. Next time I might double the baking powder because I think mine's not acting as well as it used to. Plus I scooped them out with the little mini P-Chef scoop and they came out SO CUTE and roundy.

So you get the hot pups and the pork-n-sauce on the table, get the canned potatoes and green beans out of the micro, put the white bread on the table, pop open some cole-slaw you got at "the Place" and chow! Too bad we don't drink sweet tea!