Tag Archive for: Alton Brown

Mining for Gems and Cuban Bingo

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Being back in Charleston for a week in extreme heat was enough, so we are back in the mountains.  Walker finally got back from all of his travels, and we picked him up at the Charlotte airport on Monday on the way up to Linville.  Waking up Tuesday morning to light rain and 58 degrees was such a welcome relief especially since our AC went out again Sunday night.  Since hiking didn’t seem to be an option, we decided to go gem mining.  I had gone once as a child and had the best memories of it, and I couldn’t wait to take Walker.  My brother and Corby came along with us as well.  It was just as good as I remembered, and Walker loved it.  For those of you who have not gone gemming, you get a big bucket of dirt and scoop the dirt into a screen bottom pan- they have little troughs of running water that you put the pan into to rinse the dirt through the bottom and see if there are any gems left.  Here is a picture of all the gems we found with their descriptions.  If you are in the mountains and anywhere near a gem mine and are looking for a great activity with kids- this is it.  And that would have been the best activity we did on Tuesday, except when we got back from gemming, there was Cuban Bingo night at the camp- which, just like gemming, is fun for everyone!  I should explain- it was not Cuban Bingo- the dinner they served was Cuban themed and then bingo followed.   Walker’s school serves Cuban sandwiches every once and a while for lunch, and he gets so excited those days because they are so good.  The recipe from Alton Brown of  the Food Network for Cuban Sandwiches is at the bottom- they are delicious!  The whole evening was so fun.   Just as an aside, I have been coming to bingo in Linville off and on for my whole life, and I have never ever won.  It is incredibly frustrating.  Walker knows this so of course he wanted us all to buy 10 bingo cards each so we could have a better chance of winning- we finally talked him down to 12 cards for the table- mainly because I only had $24.  Walker had 5 cards, I had 5 cards and Corby had 2.  My brother finally joined in the fun and bought 3 cards for himself.  The first game was stand up bingo- basically if they call a number you have on your card you sit down and the last person standing wins.  It is the only bingo game to reward a really terrible card.  Just my luck, it comes down to me and one other person, and they called B5 and I lost, and my cards proved to be pretty miserable from then on.  However, Walker won a game and Corby won the jackpot which was just about the most exciting thing EVER.  So much fun!  Well, it is a beautiful day today, and a hike and tennis are in the future.  Stay tuned for more adventures and yummy food from Linville.

Cuban Sandwich:

Ingredients

4 hoagie rolls

2 tablespoons yellow mustard

1/4 pound baked ham, thinly sliced

1/4 pound roast pork, thinly sliced

1/4 pound provolone cheese, thinly sliced

10 thin dill pickle slices, approximately 2 whole pickles

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature

Directions

Slice the bread horizontally in half, leaving 1 edge intact. Lay the bread open and spread each side with the mustard. Divide the ingredients evenly among the slices of roll. Start with the ham followed by the pork, cheese, and dill pickles. Bring the tops and bottoms together.

Heat your panini maker or sandwich press. Butter each side of the press. Place the sandwiches inside, press down and grill until the cheese is melted and the bread is flat and browned, approximately 10 minutes. If you don’t have a sandwich press, you can heat 6 fireplace bricks wrapped in foil, in a 500 degrees F oven for 1 hour and then press the sandwich between them for 10 minutes. Serve warm.

 

The Science of The Southern Biscuit

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Creating the perfect biscuit is a theoretical question with as many answers as there are scientists racing toward finding a unified theory of Everything. With Knoxville’s first International Biscuit Festival on the horizon (June 4th and 5th), featuring a biscuit bake-off, this blog would be amiss if it didn’t feature a favorite classic biscuit recipe right about now. Of course, any baker worth her salt should claim her biscuit is the True Biscuit, that’s to be expected, but in my opinion Alton Brown, food scientist galore, has a mighty good one and it’s simple as pie:

Alton Brown’s Southern Biscuits

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • 4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons shortening
  • 1 cup buttermilk, chilled

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don’t want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that’s life.)

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.

For more Alton, click here. (Can you tell we have a little crush on Alton Brown?)