Southern Hospitality

Sometimes random lyrics make an impression on me for no real reason. One example of this is the line "If I gave you peaches, out of my own garden/ and I made you a peach cobbler, would you slap me out?" from "Hate on Me" by Jill Scott. I think it has something to do with the way she enunciates "peach cobbler". Either way, I've been obsessed with the idea of making peach cobbler ever since I first heard the song. Today, I finally got around to it. The 4th of July celebrations that the girls in London were emailing and posting about inspired the nesting instinct, and so I decided to attempt a Southern meal.

First up - King Ranch Casserole
This turned out to be an American version of the first dish my mother ever taught me to cook. It was really easy to make, though I did end up tweaking a lot of the recipe by using chicken broth with dried porcini and mascarpone cheese (leftover from last week's salmon en croute) instead of condensed milk. I couldn't find "chiles" or chilli beans, so subbed with cayenne pepper and portobello mushrooms. The human guinea pig gave it the seal of approval.

On the side, we had corn pudding. I'd never had a proper version of this before (sorry, missus Whaley!), I don't think, because it was first introduced to me at Thanksgiving 2008 or so, when Mrs Whaley accidentally added Blueberry muffin mix into hers. This recipe didn't have any flour, which surprised me, but the cornstarch in the creamed corn, as well as what was added, made it set despite my expectations. I also cut back on the egg. Five eggs seemed too much for something that wasn't an omelette. This was surprisingly good, despite needing absolutely ages to cook. Definitely one to repeat.

Finally, the finale, the cobbler! I subbed two peaches for some cherries but followed the rest of the recipe. I had expected the cobbler to be similar to crumble, but it was actually much stodgier, almost suety. Either way, it was delicious, and (considering it was an American dish) not as unhealthy as I'd expected.

I did want to take lots of pictures for this post, but am still unable to work the camera, so sadly wasn't able to get any. Boo! Hope you can take it on faith!