The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel (27 page)

Turn the dough out onto a floured board and pat out 'til it's ½ inch thick. Grind black pepper over the dough and fold it in half. Pat it flat again and pepper it again. Then pat and fold it two more times—but don't pepper it any more unless you're really into pepper.

Re-flour your board and roll or pat out the dough until it's about ¼ inch thick. Cut into a dozen or so biscuits and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet 'til brown—about 8 to 10 minutes. I am thinking that a hot one would be pretty tasty with some of that 'minner cheese on it!

POTATO SALAD—REINCARNATED

Damon Lee is THE smartest man in the world, I swear. You know how when somebody dies, about a thousand people will bring some version of potato salad and although you love it more than air, there IS a limit, after all, and you end up with assorted wads of rotting potato salad in the refrigerator but you can't bring yourself to throw it out until it truly is totally rotten because (a) it was a gift and (b) it's potato salad? WELL! Damon Lee has GOT the answer—to this and so many of the world's problems—seriously, go buy his cookbooks! This is, like, a whole new WORLD of potato salad—and no matter how much potato salad you've eaten over the course of the visitation, you'll be ready for more when it's reincarnated.

 

Just take any and all leftover potato salad (BEFORE it rots) and dump it into a 13 by 9 by 2-inch pan. Melt ½ stick butter and then stir in 1 cup bread crumbs or Ritz cracker crumbs—or even potato chip crumbs (just omit the butter for these). Put the crumbs on top of the potato salad and BAKE it at 400°F for about 25 to 30 minutes and serve it hot. It's so good, you will just DIE!

 

Here's another little Damon Lee decadent delight: Make
real
popcorn—as in
not
microwaved. Put the hot popcorn in a paper sack and drizzle in a few spoonfuls of HOT BACON GREASE and shake it 'til your arms fall off. Then salt it a whole lot and eat it up. We do so love Damon Lee.

BEULAH LAND BOO-BOO PIE

Queen Jeanne got this recipe from a Queen in western Kentucky and it was called Boo-Boo Pie because the Queen who made it first apparently screwed up the original recipe (now lost to the ages and who cares?) and this is what she ended up with and it is mighty fine. I added the Beulah Land to it in honor of my daddy and his buddy Brooks Jones from Nashville. They loved ol'-timey gospel music and used to do a helluva rendition of “Beulah Land,” with Brooks bellowing out the chorus, which went something like “I've FOUND the land of CORN and WINE and ALL I see is SHIRLEY mine,” to the everlasting delight of me and my seester, Judy. We don't know any other words to that song—but we learned those real good.

 

Mix together one 7-ounce bag sweetened flaked coconut and one 14.5-ounce can sweetened condensed milk and set it aside—don't eat it, no matter how BAD you want to. Melt together 1 stick butter and 3 ounces (3 squares) unsweetened chocolate—you can nuke it for a few minutes, no big deal, just don't burn it. Then stir in ¾ cup sugar, ½ cup flour, 3 eggs, and 1 running-over teaspoon vanilla. Put all that into a greased 9-inch pie pan. Spread the coconut stuff over the top—but leave about a ½-inch border uncovered all around the edge, because when you bake it, the chocolate stuff on the bottom will come up and form a kind of crispy crusty thing for you—yum! Bake it for about 25 minutes at 325°F. And die happy.

COSMIC CLIMAX COOKIE CAKE

Courtesy of Queen Melissa—a crowd-pleaser for sure, if you give 'em any, that is.

 

Crush an entire 12-ounce box of Nilla Wafers and set 'em aside for a minute. Cream together 2 sticks butter, 2 cups sugar, and 6 eggs. Then slowly add, alternately, the mashed Nillas and ½ cup milk. Then add one 7-ounce bag sweetened flaked coconut and 1 cup chopped pecans. Bake it in a greased, floured tube pan at 275°F for 1½ hours. You'll be too fat but certainly happy enough to ascend directly unto heaven.

HEAVEN IS A PLACE CALLED HICKORY PIT

In Jackson, Mississippi, you can go to this little barbecue place and get some very fine sweet tea and all manner of excellent barbecue, BUT when you say the name of it, Hickory Pit, what EVERYBODY immediately thinks of—and craves—is their Hershey Bar Pie. It is truly To Die For and definitely From, if you overindulge.

 

Make an Oreo crust in a 9-inch pie pan with enough butter to hold the mashed Oreos together. Heat ½ cup milk and 15 large marshmallows in a double boiler until melted. Add 6 Hershey bars with almonds and stir until that's all melted together. Let cool and stir in ½ cup Cool Whip. Pour into the Oreo crust and chill overnight. Before serving, top with the rest of the Cool Whip and sprinkle with Oreo crumbs and either hide with it or expect to share a whole lot more than you'd like.

DELICIOUS DEATH DUMP CAKE

Lord, we do love a dump cake down here. There are umpteen variations on this theme and all of 'em are fabulous—poison, but fabulous. By poison, I mean that if you eat these cakes—and any other recipe you got from me—all the time, you will die. And you will die with a HUGE ass. However, that being said, it's all very good for your disposition and I like to think of that as my contribution to World Peace. So here, courtesy of Queen Trish, is one more dump cake.

 

Dump (hence the name) one box butter pecan cake mix into an 11 by 8-inch Pyrex dish. Dump a couple of 15-ounce cans crushed pineapple, juice and all, on top of that. Cut a stick of butter into little chunks and put 'em all over the top of that pile. Bake it at 350°F for about 30 minutes or however long it takes it to get kinda bubbly and crispy on top. And if you die from it, don't come whining to me about it: I warned you—it's poison.

 

As Queens, we make no bones about it, we KNOW HOW TO EAT. We love to eat, and whenever we can get away with it, we eat the most fattening crap we can get our paws on. We are not too proud to eat stuff made with Cool Whip and cream of mushroom soup—if somebody's mama made it and it's really yummy. If it tastes good, we'll eat it. We offer no excuses for our plebian selves. Queen Cherie G. from Pueblo, Colorado, wrote to tell me that her sister Diane is always nagging her about eating healthy—and Cherie staunchly resists. She claims she has eaten so many preservatives over the course of her life, she will most likely never die and, in fact, will remain ageless. However, should she be proven wrong and, in fact, die, Cherie G. good-naturedly suggests that her loved ones have her chemical-laden remains cremated out in the open—where she is likely to burn brightly with many varicolored flames, like that fancy stuff you can throw in a fire to create that effect. Truly heartwarming.