A Summertime Southern Meal From The Garden

We made a trip to Tellico Plains the other day to meet some friends for lunch and on the way down we stopped at the Tellico Community Market for some produce, so while our meal ingredients didn’t come from our garden, they did come from the gardens of this Mennonite community (except the onion from our neighbor’s garden).

We always over-buy when we visit a FM so the purpose of this meal was to help use them up, so we invited three others to join us.  Our meal consisted of boiled bi-color corn, green pole beans (can’t recall variety), Alabama scramble, and cucumber salad.  And for dessert, it was the best cantaloupe we’ve had in a long time thanks to the young man at the FM who knew what to look for.

Old Fashioned Green Beans (can’t recall the amount)

Ingredients:

Pole beans, broken and washed

1 qt. homemade ham broth with meat chunks

1 cup small chopped onion

1 t. black pepper

1 T. Tiger seasoning

Water to cover and as needed

Salt to taste

Directions:

1. Add everything to a large pot and cook for a couple of hours then taste and add some salt if needed.  

2. Check seasoning again in an hour and add a little more salt as needed.  Add more water as needed to just keep beans covered – I like my beans with plenty of broth but they can be cooked dryer to your liking.  

3. When nearly done, taste and adjust seasoning one last time.

Alabama Scramble – 6 good servings

Ingredients:

1½ lb. Yukon gold potatoes

¾ lb. fresh okra pods

1 fairly large green tomato

1 c. chopped onion, not to small

S&P

AP flour for dusting

Buttermilk

Cornmeal mix for dusting

Directions:

Note: Since I was cooking a pretty large amount, I decided to use two skillets for cooking so I could get everything in a single layer for browning.

1. Prep all of the veggies by cutting into your desired sized pieces.

2. S&P the okra then bread with cornmeal mix plus a little extra flour (Bev doesn’t have a recipe).

3. Salt and pepper the green tomatoes then bread by shaking them in a bag with flour.

5. Add the floured tomatoes to a bowl with buttermilk and stir to coat them.  This method is designed to get the breading to stick to the tomato skins.

5. Pour them in a colander and shake to remove excess buttermilk.

6.Then shake them in a bag with cornmeal and set aside.

Skillet one:

7. Preheat a 12” skillet over medium high heat and add three tbsp. of oil.

8. Add the potatoes to the pan and season with S&P.

9. After the potatoes have cooked for five minutes, stir in the onion and add a little more S&P.

Skillet two:

10. Preheat a 12” saute pan over medium high heat and add three tbsp, of oil.

11. When the potatoes have cooked for 10 minutes, add the okra and tomatoes and cook until golden brown on all sides.

12. Mix the potatoes and onion into the okra and tomatoes and serve.

This is my plate.

The Verdict:

I’ve never actually documented the recipe for the beans as we usually just add and taste but these were very good and next time I’ll weigh the beans.  I liked cooking the Alabama scramble in two pans and the breading for the tomatoes worked very well but most of the okra breading came off.  It was a very good summertime southern meal.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

06/28/22 event date