The weatherman was right

The weatherman was right: the predicted snowy apocalypse arrived overnight and I woke up in a winter wonderland. Our little corner of the woods is pristine when covered in snow.

I've lived in the South all my life and have never seen as much snow as in the past year - I think this is the fifth time that school has been canceled because the roads are impassable. The morning news is filled with warnings to stay off the roads and stay home. My Facebook friends are agonizing over how to entertain the kids and telling tales of power failures. I toss another log on the fire and decide to make soup.

My favorite soup book (and really one of my all-time favorite cookbooks) is Crescent Dragonwagon's Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread. If you're not familiar with Dragonwagon, who was born Ellen Zolotow, check out her blog where she explains her whimsical name. She wrote this book when she owned the Dairy Hollow House bed and breakfast in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. In fact, she was called the "Alice Waters of the Ozarks" during this time. Crescent Dragonwagon is more than a great cook, she's a great writer, and I want to cook just about everything in this book.

Soup is the ticket when a snowstorm hits, and because I'm not a fan of last-minute grocery store runs, I rely on my pantry to feed my family. Instead of pulling out the carnelian can of Campbell's, I reach for a can of tomatoes and make homemade tomato soup to serve with a pan of Crescent's Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread.

Tomato soup by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Snow Day Tomato Soup

adapted from Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook

1/2 medium onion, chopped

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon dried basil

1 cup whole milk

Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil and sautee onion until softened, about five minutes. Add diced tomatoes, brown sugar, bay leaf, and dried basil. Let this come to a boil, lower heat to a simmer and let bubble away for about 10 minutes.

2. Remove bay leaf and discard. Puree mixture in either a food processor or with an immersion blender. Return mixture to pot and gradually add milk Season to taste and serve.

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Cornbread Salad Days

There are few things more satisfying for a Southern cook than a freshly baked pan of cornbread, steaming and golden on the inside, crispy and bacon-scented on the outside. It's the natural go-with for a pot of chili or soup in the chilly days of winter. In summer, it sets off a meal of garden fresh vegetables. Sadly, my family doesn't share my love of cornbread and I can't bring myself to make less than a full pan, so I needed to reinvent cornbread today. I looked no further than Crescent Dragonwagon's masterwork, Cornbread Gospels, and the chapter entitled "Deja Food."

The recipe for Patsy's Cornbread Salad caught my attention, but since I was low on bacon (oh, the horror), I opted for Elayne's Southwestern variation, but inevitably came up with my own, might I say delicious, version. Here's what I did:

I crumbled up the remaining cornbread into big chunks and added one can of drained red kidney beans and two finely chopped leeks. I get wonderful young leeks from the CSA, otherwise I would use about a half of a chopped storage onion. I dressed this mixture with a half-cup of mayo mixed with 1/4 cup of barbecue sauce, 1/4 cup of sweet pickle relish and just the slightest bit of apple cider vinegar (to get the remaining barbecue sauce out of the bottle). I stirred this together and served it for lunch, to myself, of course, because the girls would rather have pb&j. They just don't know what they're missing. Elayne adds cheese to her salad, which I may do to individual portions, but I left it out of the big salad because I don't like the texture that cheese gets when left in a dressing. All told, the salad was a good excuse to make a pan of cornbread.

Bean Soup on a Snowy Day

Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 A rare snowy day here in Georgia, the first for my 2 year old who ran through the snow with her arms outstretched chanting, "snow, snow, snow!" She and her big sister built a snowman, and after placing the head lump on the body lump, danced around shouting "Fwosty uh foh-man!" You can tell she's very influenced by holiday cartoons.

While watching the flakes fall, I made bean soup with ham and Crescent Dragonwagon's skillet-sizzled cornbread (from Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread Book). The soup can be made with bacon or ham or kielbasa. Here's the recipe:

Bean Soup with Bacon

1 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
3 slices bacon or 1/2 cup ham or 1/2 cup chopped sausage
1 can chicken broth
3 cans navy beans, undrained, or 1/2 lb. dry white beans, soaked
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

1. Saute vegetables in olive oil until softened, and add ham or bacon or sausage. After meat is cooked, you may need to drain off some of the fat. Add chicken broth and beans and bay leaf and simmer for 15 minutes.

Grown up version: add a dried chile, seeds removed, to simmering soup. Discard bay leaf and chile before serving.