A Traditional Southern Meal

Today my team made a wonderful, hearty traditional Southern meal. On the menu was biscuits, fried chicken, string beans, smashed potatoes, mac and cheese, sweet potato casserole, and peach cobbler. I personally helped make the mac and cheese and smashed potatoes. The mac and cheese was a relatively easy recipe. We simply combined cooked macaroni with a cheese, milk, and egg mixture. We poured this into a baking casserole dish and then layered more cheddar cheese on top. This cooked in the oven for about 25 minutes. We made this first since it could be easily reheated in the oven right before serving.

The smashed potatoes were more fun to make, in my opinion. We cooked red skin potatoes and left the skin on. These were then mashed with butter, salt, pepper, and sour cream. We didn't have an exact recipe for this, so it was a bit of a guessing game. We would add some of the flavorings, taste it, and then see what else it needed. We made a ton of smashed potatoes and there was no one who didn't get their full share. This is the kind of recipe I could see myself making in the future since it was so simple. I loved the taste of the red skin potatoes instead of normal potatoes. I think it gave the dish more flavor, especially with keeping the skin.

The other dishes turned out very well. My favorites were the fried chicken, biscuits, and sweet potato casserole. The fried chicken was great and the guys who made it certainly had the technique down. It was flavorful and crispy without being too greasy. The sweet potatoes were almost like a dessert. They were baked with toasted pecans and brown sugar on top. It was simply delicious and I had seconds of that dish. The green beans were also tasty. I normally do no like green beans, but I liked these. They were extra mushy from being cooked in chicken broth. I normally hate the hard cooked green beans from the can or when steamed. The peach cobbler was pretty good, although it was a bit too runny in my opinion. I like thicker cobblers served hot with vanilla ice cream.

All in all it was a great meal and a great way to wrap up the cooking!