An authentic Southern cookout – meat on a grill, classic side dishes, cold drinks, and spending an evening with friends on the screened-in porch or patio.
In the South, cooking out is an art form. It is a highly-organized event that feels completely relaxed and spontaneous. Most of the time, guests have no idea how much work a hostess puts in to creating a perfectly-casual cookout.
As for the grill, at the Ferguson home, we love a good sirloin, cooked medium rare. However, I’ll take a good piece of fresh salmon grilled on a cedar plank or a spicy Jamaican jerk marinated chicken breast anytime. And even though a gas grill is so much faster and easier, there is nothing like cooking over charcoal for the perfect smokehouse taste.
Years ago, I found a recipe for a Watermelon Salad in a Southern Living or Better Homes and Gardens magazine, made it for a cookout, and it was a hit. Over the years, I tweaked the recipe a bit, and it has become my most-frequently-asked-for recipe.
Tip: Get a seedless watermelon. It took me weeks to get all the watermelon sticky off my kitchen floor from trying to seed a whole watermelon. Huge mess!
Watermelon Salad
3/4 cup halved, thinly sliced red onion
1 large cucumber
1 1/2 quarts seeded, cubed watermelon
3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olive halves
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
½ cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
In a large bowl, combine the watermelon cubes, cucumber, feta cheese, Kalamata olives, and onions in a bowl. Mix lemon juice, parsley, and olive oil, and drizzle it over the salad and toss to blend.
My friend Bill Palmer makes some fantastic Cowboy Baked Beans – you know the ones with ground beef mixed in. In fact, he made some for our Mother’s Day cookout this past weekend – at my request. Delicious as always!
Here is a recipe I’ve made before. It isn’t as good as Bill’s, but it’s pretty yummy.
Cowboy Baked Beans
2-3 16 ounce cans pork and beans
1 pounds cooked hamburger
1 tablespoons ground mustard
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup ketchup
2 teaspoon cumin
Mix all ingredients together and place in 9 inch square casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Growing up, there were a few dishes that made my sisters and I always requested from our mother – chicken and dumplings, chocolate pie, fried chicken, strawberry cake, and on and on. But for a summer side, her double baked potatoes were about the best thing in the world. Serve it next to a New York Strip and some grilled corn on the cob, and it is the perfect Southern supper.
Double Baked Potatoes
4 large baking potatoes
8 slices bacon, crumbled
1 cup sour cream
1/4 to 1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
8 green onions, sliced, divided
Bake potatoes in 350 degree oven for one hour or microwave for three minutes per potato (poke holes in potatoes before cooking), just check for tenderness. Meanwhile, place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.
Once potatoes have cooled for 15-20 minutes, slice potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop the flesh into a large bowl leaving about 1/4 inch of flesh inside the skin to refill later. Mix potato with sour cream, butter, salt, pepper, 1/2 cup cheese, 1/2 the green onions, and milk to desired consistency. Mix with a hand mixer until well blended and creamy. Spoon the mixture into the potato skins. Top each with remaining cheese, green onions and bacon. Bake for another 15 minutes at 350 degrees.
