50 States; 50 Meals: Georgia

You know the song "The Devil went down to Georgia"?  Well I think the Devil must still reside there because the Devil was in the details this week.
First off, I had such a hard time finding recipes for this state.  Yes internet, they eat peaches and love pimento cheese, I get it!
So on my menu I had broiled peanuts, pimento cheese, biscuits and peach pie.  But that is not dinner.  Lucky, for me my boss is originally from Georgia so I went to him for some help.   After about 30 mins I left his office knowing that I should cook some kind of pork.  I settled on Smothered Pork Chops.

I made the peach pie and the pimento cheese the night before.

Devil detail #1:  Refrigerated pie dough (No, I didn't make my own) needs to be refrigerated.  When the groceries got put away the dough did not get put in the refrigerator until bringing it home much later.  It must have been longer than I thought.  The dough smelled funny the whole time.  I thought maybe it was because I was using an all natural brand instead of Pillsbury but it donned on me what had happened as the pie was just about to come out of the oven.  It was a beautiful pie and the dough was crispy and flakey.  It just smelled like feet.  So dear husband went out for more ingredients and brought back Pillsbury this time.  It didn't smell like feet but I wasn't as impressed as I was with the Immaculate dough.

As I was making the pie, I kept thinking about the part in one of my favorite movie's, A League of Their Own, when Kit yells, "I'm a Peach!"



Isn't that pie so pretty.  Good thing you can't smell a picture.  I adapted this recipe to use with my store bought crust.  I add to substitute a bag of frozen peaches since they are not in season yet.  I let the peaches thaw in a colander for about an hour and 30 mins.

During all that I also made the pâté of the South, pimento cheese.  This cheese gets tied to Georgia because back in the 1900's the pepper was grown and packaged there.  During that time there were several local mayonnaise's and orange cheddar was the only cheese sold.  So I guess you could say they were just doing the best with what they had.
We ate our pimento cheese with tortilla chips as an appetizer and then the next day the hubs and I had it on left over biscuits for lunch.   One suggested way we really want to try is on top of a hamburger.



 

Devil Detail #2 - Read your recipe! Everything was going so well.  Everything was going to be done at the same time until I saw put pork chops back into gravy, cover and let cook for ANOTHER HOUR!  Okay, so who wants appetizer number 2?

Boiled Peanuts.  Can't say I'll ever have them again but I wasn't scared from trying them.  They taste like baked potatoes and are VERY salty.  We had a few and them I bagged them up for my southern coworker.



 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally dinner was done!  We enjoyed our Smothered Pork Chops in Onion Gravy!  Not sure if it is a "Georgia" dinner but it was pork and covered in gravy so it was definitely southern, in my book.



After this work I wish I heading off to next week's location, for real!  Hawaii!