Beautiful Blue Ridge Heritage Area, Honey & Pimento Cheese! Day One

I recently had the pleasure of sneaking away from home and visiting the Blue Ridge Heritage Area for a quick 3 day trip.  Beautiful does not begin to describe it!

Two year old Wyndy "weaving" at the Gatlinburg Craftsmen's Fair

I have fond memories of the Smokies from childhood.  Growing up in Florida, a trip "to the mountains" was something terribly exotic.  My daddy grew up in North Carolina, and his people still live there.  A trip to the mountains always involved seeing "the cousins," which I loved.  They were a little older, and oh-so-sophisticated to my young, impressionable mind.  One of my earliest memories is of eating candied apples while watching candles being dipped and taffy being pulled the Craftsmen's Fair in Gatlinburg.  We stayed at a motel right off the road, which had a back porch that hung out over what seemed to me to be a rushing river (it was probably just a creek).  Pilgrimages to North Carolina always involved Golden Delicious apples, Cheerwine, lardy Moonpies and GooGoo Clusters.

Our primary destination on this Blue Ridge Heritage Area trip was historic Asheville.  The drive from Atlanta to Asheville takes about 3.5 to 4 hours or so, depending on your route, and is quite scenic.  We chose the route through Young Harris, which is extremely pretty.  [On a side note, UGA hosts a Beekeeping Institite is association with Young Harris.  Honey touchpoint #1, on what will become a recurring theme for this trip. Honey!]  We had reservations at the Sheraton Four Points downtown, which was ideally located for walking around the heart of the city.  Parking, internet and bottled water are free.



Day One: Asheville

Truffled Fries from Lexington Avenue Brewery

We pulled into Asheville about 1:30PM, and decided to eat lunch before checking into the hotel.  I knew just where to go, #LAB, thanks to a blog post from a friend recommending their Pimento Cheese slider.  I'd been thinking about that sandwich for days.  LAB is fun and funky, much like the rest of downtown Asheville.  We sat outside under a covered porch and watched the world go by while noshing on some amazing food.  I will be the first to admit that we over-ordered.  Hunger and I do not go well together, and my eyes are generally always bigger than my stomach.  The menu is eclectic and I could have happily ordered any of about a dozen delicious sounding options (for example, chorizo nachos). We decided upon their Truffled Fries with Tabasco Ketchup as an appetizer.  Amazing doesn't begin to describe it.  Earthy, rich, decadent...YUM.  5 Sliver Forks for the  Truffled Fries! For our main meal, my companion ordered the Andouille Dog with Blue Cheese Slaw and Cajun Mustard, while I opted for Grilled Pimento Cheese with Sprouts, Avocado & Roasted Tomato on house made Texas Toast.

Grilled Pimento Cheese w Sprouts, Avocado & Roasted Tomato

I'd give only 3 Silver Forks to the Andouille, which lacked in both presentation and taste.  I had such high hopes, but the sausage was mild and if there was Blue Cheese in the slaw, it didn't stand out enough to be recognizable.  The Pimento Cheese, on the other hand...5 Silver Forks! WONDERFUL.  Thus began my culinary love affair with Pimento Cheese, touchpoint #1 with Theme #2 for this trip.  Pimento Cheese!

Stuffed to the gills, we meandered along Lexington Avenue, window shopping and soaking in the crunchy ambiance of downtown Asheville.  I was rapidly falling for this quirky town, even as my companion was realizing that his vision of Asheville was more Biltmore Estate area and less funky fresh downtown.  I'll take the funk any day!

Circle to the right and promenade!

One of the things I loved about #Asheville was the preponderance of independently owned shops and restaurants.  Most had "buy local" signs in their windows, and many of the restaurants boasted local fare from sustainable farms. I was drawn into a vintage clothing shop by the colorful crinolines I could see suspended from the ceiling.  We are in the heart of cloggin' and square dancin', y'all, and to be properly attired, you must sport the proper swag.  If clogging isn't your thing, perhaps you'd be more interested in multi-colored leather bowling shoes.  Or a classic manual Smith-Corona.  Or a pocket watch.  Or Boyscout and military service medals.  Or a plethora of hats, circa 1920.  Or wire and stone jewelry made by local artisans.

Strike it vintage with these bowlers

Where can you find all of these wonderful treasures? You may find these and many more happy surprises at the Honeypot, (Honey touchpoint #2) which lists itself as a museum/ art gallery on Facebook.  Gotta love a museum that lets you buy their exhibits!

I need this Audrey Hepburn-ish dress.  Really, I do.

The next luscious thing to catch my attention in Asheville was a beautiful pink concoction.  I made a beeline for the door, not waiting for my companion to catch up.  I was being drawn to the the loveliness in the window, and was instantly intrigued upon entering Royal Peasantry Design House.  Many of the items are redesigned, repurposed, reinvented vintage wear with a modern twist.  Yes, please!  And could you make that frothy pink thing in my size?  Please and thank you.  You can find a nice article on proprietress Daniella Miller and Royal Peasantry in The Laurel of Asheville.





We checked into the hotel and I was immediately struck by a waft of stale cigarette smoke odor--faint, but unmistakeable.  Ah, yes.  One of the not-so-delightful characteristics of North Carolina: people still smoke here.  Thankfully, our hotel room didn't reek of old smoke, which was good news.  We settled in and I began the arduous task of choosing a place to eat dinner.  Eeny, meeny, miney, mo!  After perusing the reviews on Urban Spoon, I had narrowed it down to one of two places: Early Girl Eatery or Tupelo Honey Cafe.  Both have collected accolades and are locally sourced, Southern comfort food kind of places.  The deciding factor came down to the menu:  Early Girl's "Meat plus two" menu was very much like what I can and do make at home.  Tupelo's menu offered more variety and was, frankly, just more intriguing.  Here's the not-so-intriguing part: you can't make reservations at the downtown location.  Tupelo's website suggests you call 90 minutes ahead and put your name on the list.  Tried that, but couldn't get anyone to answer the phone.  Instead of continuing in that vein, we walked a few blocks down and asked to put our name on the list.  The hostess seemed a bit annoyed by the request, and told us that we could call ahead.  When I explained that we had done that but couldn't reach a live person, she graciously added us to the list for our desired dining time.

Stroller full o' Yorkies, well-met at The French Broad

We spent the next hour wandering around downtown, soaking in the scenery and checking out potential restaurants for the next night.  We had planned to browse in Mast General Store while we waited, but it closes at 6PM Monday through Thursday.  Rats.  Mast was now on the To Do List for Friday.  One of the nice things about Asheville is that it is dog friendly.  Many of the stores and restaurants provide water dishes for four-footed friends on the sidewalk.  I discovered this fun fact only after stepping into one.  Be on the lookout.

Fluffy biscuit with house made blueberry jam

Our dinner at #TupeloHoneyCafe was delightful.  We were given the perfect table, under the awning where we were serenaded by street musicians.  Lovely!  The menu boasts classic Southern dishes with a foodie twist.  We decided to skip an appetizer, although I did gaze longingly after the Warm Pimento Cheese Dip (Pimento Cheese touchpoint #2). After ordering our entrees, we were asked if they could bring us biscuits and house made blueberry jam.  We said something along the lines of, "Oh yes, please!"  The biscuits they brought us were the size of my fist, light and fluffy, perfectly baked.  For those who decide they cannot live without these biscuits, you may order the biscuit mix from Tupelo Honey Cafe's online store.

Chorizo-Crusted Colosal Sea Scallops 

I ordered the Chorizo-Crusted Colosal Scallops with Basil Cream Sauce, while my companion went for Brian's Shrimp & Grits, which the menu described as "seven large delectable shrimp served over Goat Cheese Grits and anointed with a spicy roasted red pepper sauce."  I am not ashamed to admit that there was audible moaning when I placed that first plump, succulent, crusty, salty, spicy scallop on my tongue.  5 Silver Forks are not adequate to convey how good this dish actually was.  It was perfect, just like the atmosphere.

Brian's Shrimp & Grits

Brian's Shrimp & Grits earned 5 Silver Forks as well...those goat cheese grits were out-of-this world.  This was truly one of the best variations of Shrimp & Grits I've ever tasted, and I've had some great ones in places like Charleston and Tybee.  Kudos to Chef Brian Sonoskus.  Well done, sir.  Well done!  Dinner at Tupelo Honey Cafe was a delight.  Next up: dessert!

The French Broad Chocolate Lounge on a Thursday evening

Through real-time social networking (read: stalking your friends on Facebook), another Asheville-savvy friend suggested that we seek out The French Broad Chocolate Lounge and try a Liquid Truffle.  When we arrived, there was a line out the door, and it was a Thursday night.  You can obtain all things chocolate here, from hand-rolled truffles to chocolate bars to chocolate cake. (If you bring back their beautiful robin's egg blue handmade truffle box for a refill, they'll give you a discount).  The Chocolate Lounge has tables downstairs plus a couch and armchair area that provides a front row seat to the live music, as well as an upper room for overflow.  The place was packed and for good reason, it seems.

Buddha Liquid Truffle: dark chocolate & coconut cream

After a bit of negotiation (my companion could not be convinced to try the Cayenne & Cinnamon version), we ordered the Buddha Liquid Truffle (dark chocolate & coconut cream).  Again with the moaning.  Googly moogly, this stuff was GOOD!  Be careful, though...it's served piping hot.  These liquid truffles are very much like the chocolate I was served in Brazil.  The closest I've found stateside is the Sipping Chocolate from Trader Joe's, which is only available around the holidays. We came back to #TheFrenchBroadChocolateLounge the next night for another hit of chocolate crack.  I wasn't participating in the decadence this time, so my companion ordered the milk chocolate version, which he highly recommends.  5 Silver Forks (or maybe Spoons) for the Liquid Truffles at The French Broad Chocolate Lounge!

Next up: Day Two and the Biltmore Estate

Smokin' Hot: Ode to Spicy Sauces

I'm somewhat of a chili head, I'll admit.  If the bridge of my nose and scalp aren't sweating, the food isn't hot enough.  Although I understand heat isn't for everyone, I have what might be described as an unholy passion for Sriracha.  Enter Twitter, and a tweet from @FamilyFoodie highlighting a homemade Srirachi recipe from @FarmgirlGourmet.  Uh oh.  My imagination had been captured.  Must make homemade Sriracha, thought I.  Obsessively, in fact.  Although FarmgirlGourmet's recipe looked delightful, it wasn't shelf-stable.  As much as I love hot sauces, I cannot imagine being able to use up a whole recipe within 30 days.  The search for a canning recipe was on.

Although many of the sites I visited had stunning #foodporn quality photography and purported to contain canning recipes for Sriracha, I didn't find any that actually provided the type of water bath canning recipe I was after.  Simply decanting your delicious concoction into Ball jars and affixing lids and settling the beautiful treats into the fridge is not shelf-stable canning.  Call me weird, but I don't have room for 24 half-pint jars in the fridge with everything else that is currently in residence.  Additionally, I'm just not willing to take the chance of killing any of my friends and family by giving them a jar of botulism-tainted hot sauce.

After what I considered an exhaustive internet search for an actual canning recipe for Sriracha (it wasn't; I just got tired of looking), I reached for the Canning Bible, the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, edited by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine.  Shock: the book devotes 6 pages to canning recipes for chili sauces of different varieties.  Oh boy!  As I was still fixated on Sriracha, the tomato based versions didn't appeal.  But wait:  Singapore Chili Sauce.  That's the ticket!  The Ball recipe had a few more ingredients than the commercially produced Sriracha bottle listed, so I knew it wouldn't exactly be a true Sriracha.  It did sound quite similar to the Iron Chef Thai Sweet Pepper & Garlic Sauce sold at Publix.  Game on.

Dried Thai Chiles

My sister was an Ex-Pat for several years.  One of the things she brought me from Thailand or Singapore or Malaysia or some such faraway place was a bag of dried Thai chiles.  Yes ma'am.


I consulted the recipe and was off to the farmers market in search of ripe jalapenos and another ingredient, which shall remain nameless for a bit longer. [Sidebar:  if you are one of those people who are highly suggestible about food flavors once you know what is in a dish, please stop reading when I describe making the sauce and give the ingredients.  Just skip to the pictures.  Trust me.  My son used to love Trader Joe's Habanero Lime salsa until the day he read the ingredients, which included carrots.  From then on, all he could taste was the carrots.  I will tell you with total honesty that no carrots were harmed in the making of this hot sauce.]

Ripe jalapenos, or red chiles

Given the seasonality of ripe jalapenos, I was quite lucky to find them, and in the quantity needed.  Since I was also using rehydrated Thai peppers, I bought a little less than 2 pounds of beautiful red chiles.  I decided to double the recipe as written in the Ball book, as I really don't think all the effort is worth it to yield a mere six jars of heaven.  Unlike jam, this recipe can be doubled without problem.  My water bath canner will hold 12 half-pint jars, so that's how much sauce I made.

All righty then.  I had the chiles. I had the secret ingredient.  I also bought organic Demerara cane sugar to substitute for granulated sugar for two reasons: standard sugar production methods are an environmental problem and raw sugar provides a lovely hint of molasses.  I opted for cider vinegar over white for the added depth of flavor.  Many recipes call for rice vinegar, but some of those are sweetened and I didn't want to make the sauce even sweeter than it was destined to be.

Red chiles, Thai chiles and sultanas

Time to prep!  After washing the chiles, I donned plastic gloves and wished for a breathing mask.  Although many recipes suggest leaving the caps on the chiles for a floral note, I opted to remove stems and caps from both the Thai chiles and the red chiles.  The remaining pepper carcass was tossed into the food processor along with [If you fall into the aforementioned suggestible category, skip down to the next paragraph NOW!] the secret ingredient, which is secret only because I don't want anyone to be turned off before they even taste the finished product.  Ahem.  So back to the secret ingredient: sultana raisins, or golden raisins.  I find them infinitely more desirable than high fructose corn syrup or artificial thickeners.

Pre-puree

Into the pot, my pretties...Based on the prep intelligence I gathered during the initial search for a suitable recipe, I decided to do a two-step cooking process.  In the first step, vinegar and sugar were combined and brought to a boil.  Once the sugar was dissolved, chiles, sultanas, garlic, grated ginger and salt were added to the pot and allowed to boil for a bit.  This stage had two purposes: soften the peppers so they would puree more easily, and reduce the liquid to create a thicker sauce.  After the sauce had reduced a bit, I allowed the mixture to cool and then processed it in the blender in batches.  An immersion blender would have been preferable, but alas, mine was dead and had not yet been replaced.  Note: if the sauce is steaming, don't try it in a traditional blender.  The hot business will explode and you will have hot, sticky sauce everywhere.  And I do mean everywhere.

Thickened sauce, ready to be canned

Fire burn and caldron bubble.  After pureeing, everything went back into the pot for a good long simmer.  I've had trouble with my canned salsas turning out juicier than I want after the canning process, so I really wanted to make sure this sauce was nice and thick.  Once the sauce had been reduced to the desired viscosity, it was time to jar it up and send those babies for a soak in the hot tub, so to speak.

Jars need 10 minutes processing, 5 minutes cooling time

Let me get up on my canning soapbox for just a moment.  Guidelines for safe home canning were developed for a reason.  It is NOT SAFE to seal jars by inverting them, putting them through a dishwasher cycle, or baking them in the oven.  If it's acidic, it needs to be water bath canned.  If it isn't acidic, it needs to be pressure canned.  I really don't care how Grandma or Aunt Ethel used to do it; if they didn't follow safe canning procedures, they are stinkin' lucky no one died.  Please be safe, my friends.








So how did it turn out?  Oh my mercy, y'all!  After tasting the first batch, I hied it back to the farmers market for more red chiles and this time, habaneros.  The habanero version is even hotter than the Thai chile sauce.  My lips are tingling and my taste buds are singing.  So far, the sauce has been used as a glaze and dip for grilled shrimp and pork.  It would be wonderful over cream cheese with crackers as a spicy-hot appetizer.  This Sweet & Spicy Thai Pepper/ Habanero Pepper and Garlic Sauce will be a staple in my pantry.

Singapore Chili Sauce Recipe