Joey’s House of Pizza, Take Two

May9 by Sarah

If you have read this blog very long, or know either of us personally, then you know our very favorite pizza place in Nashville is Joey’s House of Pizza. They used to be located in Brentwood, but closed that location to open near downtown off Fessler’s Lane. We’ve had several comments on our original Joey’s House of Pizza post and our Joey’s in Brentwood is closing post saying that “Hey, they’ve reopened and are great.” We agree and didn’t want our other posts or urbanspoon to be misleading, so we decided to blog about them again.

I personally love their Italian dinners (pasta, chicken Parmesan, lasagna, baked ziti). We visited a little late in the day, around 1:30 pm, and they were already sold out of all things chicken Parmesan (the dinner and the chicken parmesan roll). I decided to get the lasagna, which was fabulous. Seriously, this is the best lasagna in Nashville. It has lots of mozzarella and ricotta cheese, big chunks of tomatoes and sausage, and a really excellent, savory tomato sauce. It comes with a side salad, which has the best balsamic vinaigrette and mixture of spices to accent the fresh romaine lettuce, Roma tomatoes, and black and green olives.

Cary likes the pizza and orders it whenever we go there. He says that they have good quality pepperoni, a crispy but slightly chewy crust, and a great sauce. Back when our little guy wasn’t eating solid food yet, Cary read that a child’s first taste of pizza predestined their pizza palate. The theory is that whatever type of pizza a child tried first, the child would measure all other pizza by that first taste. While we realize this is a little extreme because let’s be honest, our first taste of pizza was probably from Pizza Hut, why chance it? So, we made sure that our little boy’s first pizza came from Joey’s.

He was a fan. So, if you are in the area, stop by and try out Joey’s House of Pizza. The food is great. The people are great. It’s a fantastic place!

Chocolate Fudge Pie

May2 by Sarah

So, the Kentucky Derby is right around the corner, and that always makes me think of pie. Sometimes I make a more traditional pie for the Derby (recipe here). This year, I wanted to make something we don’t usually have.

My husband has always talked to me about his grandmother’s chocolate pie. Unfortunately, by the time I met his grandmother, she was pretty sick and I never could get the recipe. I’ve been on a hunt for something similar ever since.

One of the things that is hard when I want to make something, but don’t have a recipe is figuring out if the recipe I find is the one I was looking for (whew… that made sense in my head.. and hopefully here too!). Since I had something in mind, I searched Google images to see which pie “looked right”. I came upon this website and decided to try it out. The term easy really jumped out to me!

Preheat the oven to 350°C.

The ingredients are:

¾ cup unsalted butter, melted
1½ cups sugar
⅓ cup all-purpose flour
⅛ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup cocoa (I used dutch processed, dark cocoa)
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 unbaked 9-inch deep dish pie shell

Combine all the ingredients, mix well, and pour into a pie shell. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until you see some cracking at the top of the pie. Let cool and enjoy!

Papa Boudreaux

Apr29 by Sarah

It’s no secret that Cary and I love Cajun food. We’ve been to New Orleans several times, really just for the food. Cary read about Papa Boudreaux in downtown Franklin, and we just had to try it. We decided to go on a Friday evening and were a little dismayed at the 45 minute wait. There are only about 7 tables in the restaurant and several parties can be seated at one table. We don’t mind this at all, but that meant the nice couple on a romantic date shared a table with a toddler. The nice thing is that once you are seated, the food is served very rapidly.

We started our dinner with Boudin balls. I don’t think I have ever seen Cary so excited about an appetizer. Basically, these are fried balls with Boudin sausage and dirty rice that you dip in remoulade sauce. I think this is the Cajun answer to Italian rice balls.

The gumbo had bits and pieces of seafood throughout with a good spice and was made with a very well seasoned roux.

The shrimp Creole had big chunks of vegetables in a thick tomato sauce with shrimp and andouille sausage liberally sprinkled throughout.

Barbeque shrimp was the special of the evening. The spicy shrimp and sausage mixture was served over cheese grits with French bread on the side. It was wonderful.

This is the closest we have come to New Orleans style Cajun cuisine in Nashville. It is delicious and we will be back.

*While these dishes are a little pricey, the servings are HUGE. We had enough for lunch the next day.

Bekahry Bake Shoppe

Apr24 by Sarah

A new bakery has opened in the little town of Nolensville, TN called the Bekahry Bake Shoppe. We stopped in to peruse the offerings and ended up taking home a half dozen cupcakes.

From the top, left to right, raspberry, tiramisu, birthday cake, red velvet cake, and chocolate ganache with vanilla icing.

I was talking to the owner, Rebekah Maddox and her daughter, who bake all the cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and pastries locally (except the bagels). In the brief time that I talked with them, both ladies seemed very excited about their new business adventure and just were really kind. They talked about how hard it is to judge the business in Nolensville, apologizing because they only had 6 kinds of cupcakes on a Saturday about an hour before they closed. They said their cinnamon rolls were really popular and I should stop back by and try them sometime. They also bake and decorate custom order cakes.

This is a cross section of three of the cupcakes (tiramisu, red velvet and chocolate ganache), all delicious. The cupcakes were moist and tender, and the icings were very smooth. The red velvet had a cream cheese icing that was delicious. The other two had a vanilla icing that was smooth and not too sweet.

If you are in the area, you should stop in and try the Bekahry. They do great work!

Margot Cafe

Apr21 by Sarah

One of my dear college friends came into town a few Sundays ago. We decided to go to brunch at Marche Artisan Foods in East Nashville. We arrived at about 10am and were told the wait was about 45 minutes. We took the time to catch up and after an hour of waiting, were told it would be another 45 minutes. We decided that was just too long and looked around for another brunch place.

Just around the corner was Margot Cafe. There was no wait and the menu looked delicious. My friend ordered sweet potato pancakes with mascarpone cream. While I did not try them, they looked lovely and she proclaimed they were wonderful.

I opted for a little more protein and ordered the poached eggs over polenta with a venison ragout, topped with shaved Parmesan cheese. I had never tried venison and was a little worried it would be “gamey”. I was very wrong. The poached eggs added a richness to the polenta/stew mixture. The sharpness of the Parmesean really balanced the dish. My only minor complaint is that is was served with a fork and I really needed a spoon to enjoy all the delicious broth.

Margot was fantastic. I have a feeling it might be my next East Nashville brunch destination instead of Marche.

Orange Breakfast Rolls

Mar26 by Sarah

It’s no secret that I love Pioneer Woman’s recipes. I follow the blog, bought both the cookbooks, and even went to a book signing. I love her recipes, when they work. I’ve got about a 50% success rate. My hypothesis is that the climate in Nashville is different and I suspect that she estimates many of her measurements.

Two years ago, I tried to make her cinnamon rolls, but they failed miserably. I saw the recipe for her orange rolls in her cookbook, but put them in the same category as cinnamon rolls. Cary had the opportunity to watch one of her shows and saw her make these. He persuaded me to try again, and I’m glad I did!

Here are the ingredients:

Dough:
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 rounded teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Filling:
1 stick of butter, melted
8 tablespoons orange marmalade
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Icing:
Zest and juice of 2 oranges
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
Dash of salt
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) butter, melted

In a large saucepan, heat the milk, oil and granulated sugar until warm but not hot. Add the yeast and 4 cups of the flour and stir together. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and leave the dough to rise for at least an hour. So, I was a little alarmed because the dough did not rise as much as I thought it should, but I continued anyway.

Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. At this point, I had to walk away for about 30 minutes. The dough continued to rise, which made me feel much better.

Roll the dough into a long rectangle, about 30 inches wide by 10 inches deep. I’m a nutcase, so we actually measured it with a ruler. Drizzle the melted butter all over the surface of the dough. Use your fingers to smear it around so that it coats evenly.

Spread the orange marmalade all over the buttered dough, distributing as evenly as you can. I used much more than the 8 Tbsp she recommended. Probably half of a 32 ounce jar. (Remember up there, when I said that these recipes only work out half the time? Yeah… It could be because I also tweak the recipes too.)

Sprinkle the brown sugar over the marmalade (I’m pretty sure I used about a cup and a half of brown sugar here). Finish with a light sprinkling of salt.

Roll the dough towards you into one long log. Then slice it into 1/2-inch pieces.Preheat the oven to 375°F. Place the rolls in a baking dish sprayed with nonstick cooking spray and allow them to rise for 20 minutes.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes. While the rolls were baking, I made the icing.

Add the orange zest and juice to a bowl. Add the powdered sugar, salt, milk, and melted butter. Whisk together. Now, I had a big problem here. My icing was really, really thin. I added almost twice the amount of powdered sugar. I think maybe my oranges were really large, which resulted in more liquid.
Pour the icing on the rolls when they are warm and enjoy!

This recipe made 4 pans of rolls, with 7 to 8 rolls in each pan. I froze two of the pans, thawed them out, and reheated for about 15 minutes at 350°F for breakfast the next weekend. These will be making another appearance at our house for Easter breakfast!

*I know my tense was all over the place in this post. Please forgive me.

**Ok, so after I wrote this post, I kept thinking about the icing. When I was planning this recipe, I looked at the Food Network recipe here, the original recipe when she developed the orange rolls here, and the recipe in her second cookbook. Each place calls for a different amount of powdered sugar in the icing. When I was in my kitchen, making the icing, I followed the recipe in the cookbook. That recipe only requires 1 cup of powdered sugar. The other two internet recipes require 4 cups or 2 pounds, depending on which source you are looking at. I think there might be a mistake in the cookbook because if you only use 1 cup, the icing is very runny.

Walker Creek Toffee

Mar6 by Sarah

I’m on this diet, which surprisingly is working quite well for me (yeah, yeah… I know… It’s not a diet… It’s a lifestyle change… blah, blah.). One of the reasons I’m on a diet is because I ate delicious things like Walker Creek Toffee around Christmas (and I still have 15 pounds of baby weight, but I would rather not talk about that). A friend gifted me with this lovely package of almond toffee (really bad picture… I apologize. They have better pictures on their website).

I have to say, this is the best toffee I think I’ve ever had. I’ve never really been a big fan of toffee because I feel like it sticks to my teeth for HOURS after I eat it. This toffee just melts in the mouth. The Belgian chocolate really accents the nuttiness of the toffee very well.

This is a Tennessee product, made in the Nashville area. They don’t use any preservatives, so you have to refrigerate it (a bonus in my book). One day when I’m skinny again, maybe I’ll get to eat some more!

P.S. These people don’t know who I am. I just love their toffee.

Blue Plate Cafe

Feb28 by Sarah

Recently Cary and I hopped down the Memphis to visit some of our family. I’ve been visiting Memphis (Cary’s home town) for seven years and this was the first time that he took me to the Blue Plate Cafe. I thought maybe it was a little over-rated and that’s why we had never been, but boy was I wrong. (After I asked him, it turns out it was just poor scheduling and lack of opportunity.)

The biscuits were my favorite. I’ve been in the South my whole life and am a self-professed carb lover. These came to the table warm, had a delightfully buttery crisp top and were soft and doughy on the inside. (We recently had some biscuits at a restaurant that I love. Cary asked me what I thought about them… I said they were ok, but not as good as the Blue Plate. These are now my gold standard.)

The Belgium waffle was hot (Really, so much about good breakfast food is about the temperature it is served. A cold waffle just tastes like mush.) and had a delightfully crispy texture. It was so big, I could only eat about half of it. Of course, it could have been that biscuit or two I had as an appetizer…

Cary enjoyed the omelet with skillet potatoes. The potatoes had a nice crispy brown exterior, while maintaining a moist interior. The omelet was fluffy with a good mixture of sausage and cheese.

The entire Blue Plate Cafe experience was a pleasure and we will be visiting again when we are in Memphis.

Carrot Cake

Feb14 by Sarah

I love this cake. I mean, let’s be honest, I love cake in general, but this is my go-to cake for events. Cary and I have been a part of 3 small groups (Bible studies that meet in people’s homes once a week). In small group, each couple picks a night and brings dinner for the group. The first dessert I bring is always this carrot cake. The recipe is easy, tasty, and almost foolproof.

It’s funny though, whenever I show up and say that carrot cake is the dessert, everyone grimaces a little bit. They try it, because they want to be polite, and then they exclaim that hey, this isn’t so bad… It’s pretty good. I’ve seen it happen three times. Makes me giggle quietly to myself each time it happens.

The cake is an adaptation of Pioneer Women’s Carrot Cake.

The ingredients are

2 cups of Sugar
1 cup of Vegetable Oil
4 whole Eggs
1 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
2 cups of All-purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon of Salt
1 teaspoon of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of Baking Powder
1 teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon
2 cups of Grated Carrots (grating the carrots takes the most time)

Preheat the oven to 350°. Spray a 9 x 13 pan with non stick cooking spray.

Mix the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and eggs in a large bowl. In another bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon together. Combine the two mixtures. Add the carrots and mix well.

Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle of the cake.

For the frosting, I use the Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting from Vintage Cakes that I also use on my red velvet cake. I sprinkled the top with pecans, but that is totally optional.

I also love making this cake at Easter.

A Tale of Two Cakes: Red Velvet

Feb7 by Sarah

My absolute favorite cake in the whole world is red velvet cake. Growing up, my mom made red velvet cake as Jesus’ Birthday Cake at Christmas. She talked about how the red color symbolized the blood He shed for us and the white symbolized that our sins were washed away. I can’t help but think of that symbolism every time I make this cake.

I also know a lot of people like to make red velvet cake around Valentine’s Day because it’s just so gosh darn pretty. So, if you are that person, ignore the Christmas sprinkles in the last picture.

Anywho… back to our regularly scheduled programming…

When I was looking through Vintage Cakes, I was really interested in their red velvet recipe. I wanted to see how it stacked up against my mom’s recipe.

The Vintage Cakes recipe calls for

2 and 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of sea salt
3/4 cup of canola oil
2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of red food coloring
3/4 cup of unsalted butter
1 and 3/4 cup of sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
2 egg yolks, at room temperature
1 cup of buttermilk, at room temperature

Preheat the over to 350º. Spray a 9 x 13 dish with nonstick cooking spray. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together. I don’t normally sift anything, but I sift this recipe. If this is not sifted, you get big clumps of cocoa in your cake. Bleck.

Combine the oil, vanilla and food coloring in another bowl. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together (about 5 minutes). At a low speed, add the oil mixture to the batter. Slowly increase the speed to medium, mixing until the batter is fluffy again. Blend in the egg and egg yolks one at a time.

With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with buttermilk in two parts. You should begin and end with flour. Mix until the flour is incorporated.

Pour the batter into the greased cake pan and bake for approximately 30 minutes. Let the cake cool completely before icing.

Speaking of icing…. The frosting I used was a Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting from Vintage Cakes. Here are the ingredients.

Marscarpone Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz of cream cheese, at room temperature
8 oz of mascarpone, cold
1/2 cup of heavy cream, cold
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract

Using the stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese until it is uniform in texture. Add the mascarpone, cream, and the sugar. Beat on low speed until combined. Gently ramp up to high speed and blend the frosting for one minute. It should look creamy and thick. Turn back down to low speed, add the vanilla, and gently mix until it is blended. Frost away… (P.S. The book says it keeps in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Normally our cake doesn’t last that long.)

My mom’s recipe calls for

3 cups plain flour (sift before measuring)
3 tablespoons of Dutch-processed cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups sugar
1 cup Wesson oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 large bottle (1 oz.) of red food coloring
2 eggs, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350º. Spray a 9 x 13 dish with nonstick cooking spray. Sift dry ingredients together (seriously… if you don’t sift, then the cocoa stays clumped together and it is not good). Add the sugar to the flour and mix. Add the liquids in the order listed above, mixing well after each addition.

Bake at 350 degrees about 40 minutes or until cake pulls away from sides of pans.

My mom uses a traditional cream cheese frosting that I’ve never really liked. It’s nothing specific, I just don’t like really any cream cheese frosting. I love the Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting from Vintage Cakes.

Now, the Vintage Cake’s red velvet is very dense, with a finer crumb and more of a chocolate flavor. It also tasted a little dry. My mom’s cake is more moist, with a bit larger crumb and a lighter chocolate flavor. Plus, it’s a little easier to make. I like my mom’s cake better.

So, to recap, the perfect Red Velvet cake is my mom’s cake recipe and Vintage Cake’s Mascarpone Cream Cheese frosting recipe. Yum.

*Note: If a lot of food coloring gives you the heebie-jeebies, don’t add it. You’ll just have a light chocolate cake. Whole Foods also has natural food colorings too. They tend to be a little duller, but they still should work in theory.

**Note 2: If you want another color, say green for St. Patrick’s Day, substitute green food coloring for the red.

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