The art of brunch

Brunch is a break-from-the-ordinary type of meal. It feels festive especially when sipping on a mimosa. In keeping with our occasional feature on Raleigh eats, we wanted to explore the brunch at the NC Museum of Art. 

The Blue Ridge, the museum restaurant, provides the perfect setting for a leisurely Sunday brunch. The menu is a good mix of breakfast favorites and lunch specials from omelets to salads. The restaurant uses good local ingredients and puts a modern twist on Southern cooking. You know that's what we're all about. 

Coffee or tea and a glass of orange juice are included with meal. Treat yourself to your choice of desserts, too. 

Pictured are the Belgian Waffles made with lemon semolina flour and served with blueberry compote, maple syrup and whipped butter. They were awesome just like everything else I've eaten there. 

Friday January 23 was National Pie Day, to honor the history of pie as part of our American heritage. We at the Modern Southern Kitchen celebrate all things food, and who doesn't love pie? So we rose to the occasion, and created a special Shepard's Pie for your enjoyment.

We created a delectable but crustless Shepard's pie, but we make up for the calorie savings from the missing crust by smothering the veggies in a luscious mushroom gravy. The recipe makes some extra gravy for serving on the side, in case you need a little something to assuage the tingle of the spicy sweet potato topping on your tongue.


Vegetarian Shepard’s Pie
This dish requires several steps, first, boil to potatoes while you chop the vegetables and make the gravy. Sauté the veggies, toss in gravy, assemble and bake.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and lightly grease a casserole dish.

Sweet potato topping
8 small sweet potatoes
1 tsp. blackening seasoning
1 tsp. herbes de Provence
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp Hot Hungarian paprika (or smoked if you do not like spicy food)
1 Tbsp. butter
12 cracks of fresh ground pepper
1 tsp. garlic salt
1 tsp. Garlic Herb Mrs. Dash
1 Tbsp. milk
Boil sweet potatoes in skin until fork tender. Drain and let sit in the colander to cool. Remove skins, discard. Whip sweet potatoes with seasonings and butter and milk until fluffy. Set aside. If you do not like spicy food, replace the hot Hungarian paprika with smoked paprika.

Veggie filling
½ head of cabbage
1 or 2 carrots
6 small turnips
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
1 once of dried mushrooms, broken into bite size pieces and reconstituted with 2 cups hot water (reserve the water for gravy)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp. vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
Chop all veggies into small bite sized pieces. Heat oil in medium sized pot over medium high heat. Drain mushrooms and strain water into a bowl to use later in gravy. Sauté all veggies in oil and Worcestershire sauce for about 10 minutes until becoming soft and wilted. Set veggie filling to the side until you have made the gravy.
Gravy
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil
½ cup flour
1 cup of reserved mushroom water
1 ½ cups milk
½ tsp. thyme
½ tsp. Hot Hungarian paprika
½ tsp. Herbes de Provence
½ tsp. garlic salt
½ tsp. Mrs. Dash garlic and herb
Heat the butter and olive oil in a heavy bottomed sauce pan over medium heat. Add flour, let cook for two minutes . Whisk in milk and mushroom water. Add seasonings, bring slowly to a boil, stirring constantly, until thickened.
Toss veggies with half of the gravy. Reserve other half gravy to serve later with the finished dish. Pour veggies into lightly greased casserole dish and top with whipped sweet potatoes. Dot with additional butter if you feel like it. Bake for 45 minutes until top is browned. If top doesn’t brown in 45 minutes and pie is set, broil from the middle rack on high for 2-3 minutes until top is brown and crusty.
Let cool for 10 minutes, serve, with the rest of the gravy on the side.

Tamale Night

The Genius and I made festive Christmas tamales using Southern beet greens. I'll let her tell you how she pulled together those delicious veggie tamales that we served with rice, black beans, guacamole and a Salsa Verde.

I made the sauce, which was super easy and super tasty. The recipe is from La Posada's Turquoise Room Cookbook. My husband and I stayed at La Posada for our first year anniversary during our visit to Winslow, AZ. The food was some of the best I ever had.

Their Salsa Verde adds zip to any meal from breakfast to a late night snack. It's basically tomatillos, cilantro, chili peppers, lime juice, water, salt and pepper. Thanks, John Sharpe! You rock.

Cary Eats

I know. I know. Once again, this has nothing do with original foodie content. But dear readers it involves food so there!

Since we explored some good places to eat in our fair Southern city of Raleigh, I'd like to share a great place to eat in nearby Cary. Behold Gypsy's Shiny Diner, one of the best places to have breakfast or a late night meal in Wake County.

I went last weekend with a friend and gorged on the eggs Benedict, a poached egg and a slice of ham served atop a toasted English muffin smothered in tangy hollandaise sauce. The dish came with a side of homefries. Classic.

Cookies!

Today's post was going to be about delicious whole grain bread from the bread machine. Well, I forgot to put the yeast in when making the bread, it didn't turn out and *I don't want to think about it* anymore. So instead, I'll post a Christmas cookie recipe and a review. Sorry about the lack of original content.

I got this sugar cookie recipe from the "Mom's Who think" web site. The cookies taste delicious, but I really had trouble with the dough. I let the butter and eggs warm to room temperature, but the dough was very dry and crumbly, and wouldn't come together. I added an additional 1 Tbsp. cream drop by drop, which took an additional 45 minutes of mixing by hand to incorporate, and was quite arduous. The cookies came out great, though, so I would recommend if you decide to make this recipe, decrease the flour by 1/2 cup to decrease your work load. Add the flour back in little by little if the dough is too wet. Also, I would increase the baking time by about 4 minutes.

Sugar Cookies (as posted at Mom's Who Think)

Ingredients
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar
1 cup butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) .
2. Sift together all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.
3. Cut in butter and blend with a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly. Stir in lightly beaten egg, vanilla and
cream. Blend well. Chill dough for one hour for easier rolling.
4. On a floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into shapes. Place on ungreased baking sheet and
sprinkle with sugar.
5. Bake for 6 - 8 minutes, or until lightly brown.

Raleigh Eats

Our little Southern city is turning into an epicurean's delight. Downtown Raleigh is home to several good restaurants from the super tasty Humble Pie to the joyful Dos Taquitos Centro.

This weekend, my partner in food blogging, the Genius, bought an assortment of cupcakes from the Cupcake Shoppe Bakery on Glenwood Avenue. Any shop dedicated to cupcakes gets a big thumps up from us. 

The concept aside, The Cupcake Shoppe Bakery impressed. The moist cake was the perfect cushion for the fluffy frosting. The peanut butter chocolate cupcakes were to die for. So were the strawberry and the mint chocolate. Oh, and did we mention the carrot cake? Those were great too. 

Of course, you probably figured that out. 

Sunset soup

One of the most basic aspects of Southern cooking is vegetables. They play a hugely prominent role as side dishes in classic Southern cooking. One of the beloved classic Southern veggies is the humble sweet potato.

I must admit that my initial experiences with sweet potatoes were not great. I have no memory of them, however, up until about 3 years ago, the mere thought of a sweet potato could make me a quite queasy. However, I figured out that my problem with sweet potato is when it is prepared to highlight the sweetness. When sweet potatoes are prepared in savory way- viola! I think they are delish.

Sweet potatoes are a great source of vitamins, especially A and C, along with fiber. This soup was created as a way to ward off colds, and includes vitamin filled sweet potatoes, beet greens, and tons of garlic, onions, ginger and Cayenne. The golden and purple colors in this soup are sure to warm your heart, and the spices sure to tickle your lips!

Sunset soup, Serves 4

Ingredients

1 small sweet potato, cut into 1 inch by 1/2 sticks
1 small bunch of beet greens, stems and leaves chopped fine
1/2 of a small red onion, finely diced
1 head of garlic, finely chopped
2 inch segment of ginger, peeled and grated
2 Tbsp. Jamaican curry powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 bay leaf
5 cups water plus 2 no salt veggie bouillon cubes dissolved, or 5 cups veggie broth/stock
1 small pat of butter plus 1 Tbsp. peanut oil
1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped

2 chopped green onions, lime juice, sour cream/Greek yogurt (optional for garnish)

Saute garlic, onions and ginger in butter and peanut oil for about 5 minutes until fragrant and onions are translucent. Add beet greens and stems, sweet potato, curry powder, cayenne, bay leaf and broth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Blend about half of the soup with an immersion of regular blender for a creamy texture. Return to a boil, add salt and remove from heat. Stir in cilantro. Divide between 4 bowls and serve at the table with lime juice, green onions and sour cream or yogurt to taste.