The Deen Bros. Take It Easy

The Deen Bros. Take It Easy

Introduction
 
We love food. It is our family’s past, present, and future. Every bite of green bean takes us back to our Granny Paul’s kitchen in Lee County, just outside Albany, Georgia, and her amazing garden. She would have us boys go out back and dig up the potatoes, snap the beans, cut the squash, wash the tomatoes, and pick the strawberries for her famous shortcake. She taught our mama, Paula Deen, to pass it on to us and others. Boy, did she ever!
 
For us, the end of a perfect day is when everybody’s feet are under the same table. Mama always said the most special thing in the world is for the whole family to share a home-cooked meal.… Sure we have a couple of pizzas in the freezer, and there are always some cans of soup rolling around in the pantry for the nights when our schedules are too tight to cook. But we don’t settle for that very often: Dinner is dinner, and we Deens don’t mess with dinner.
 
As you may know, we are in the restaurant business. Our Savannah restaurant, The Lady & Sons, offers thirteen meals a week, employs more than 250 folks, and served more than a half million people in 2008. We also saw our first retail space, The Paula Deen Store, open, and that’s a business we are still learning about every day. Plus, Jamie has a toddler at home, and Bobby is on his own, so most nights the fried chicken dinners with their slow-cooked collard greens, fresh creamed potatoes, and corn bread with cane syrup that were staples at Mama’s table when we were kids are an improbability. We are just like y’all—too busy and still waiting on that eighth day of the week to pop up so we can get everything done. Between the restaurant, company softball team, travel for work, keeping up with our Georgia Bulldogs (Go, Dawgs!), friends to see, and yards to take care of, there is simply no time for the traditional big Southern feast on a Wednesday night. We do, however, still want to find the time to sit down and relax as a family. What better time than dinner around the table?
 
So how do we put home-cooked meals on the table, despite our overstuffed schedules? By using the business plan Mama taught us: Keep it simple. We stick to the recipes that are quick, easy, and tasty. These recipes can be prepared in forty-five minutes or less and won’t break the bank, no matter how many hungry mouths you’re feeding. And to make things even more conve-nient for y’all, while most of the recipes are designed to serve four, you can easily cut them in half, or double or triple them to serve a crowd.
 
Most nights, Jamie and Brooke meet up in the kitchen at 5 o’clock. All you parents know dinnertime is not set up on a slide rule—dinner is on the table at 6 o’clock. Jamie’s son, Jack, makes sure of it! So we count on simple ingredients and fast favorites like Speedy Mini Meat Loaves or the Deen family recipe for Pimiento Mac and Cheese to get the job done. By the time Bobby gets home, he is way too hungry to start whisking up complicated sauces or prepping veggies. He is out the back door headed to the grill to get his Easy After-Work BBQ Chicken. Bobby’s grill is the most-used piece of equipment at his house. It’s his favorite way to create fast, good-for-you meals—and best of all, the kitchen stays clean.
 
Dinner at our homes has to be as easy to prepare as it is good to eat. If y’all have seen us on the Food Network on our show Road Tasted or read our first books, you know complicated cooking is not what we are about. The recipes in this book feature the food we eat at home, and our mama, the queen of slow cooking, loves the way we have tweaked the style and saved the essence. We have taken these flavors and updated them to keep up with our lives, so y’all will find them more streamlined than ever.
 
We keep it simple and affordable by using our favorite ingredients—rice, ground beef, canned tomatoes, cheese, and all the down-to-earth food that is easily found in every supermarket.
 
We still crave the deep rich flavors that Mama used to fix using basic ingredients and plenty of time back in the days when we were at school and she was home simmering soups and stews. Today, these meals mean throwing a handful of things into the crockpot before work and cooking up some noodles when we get home. Some of our modern favorites are done this way, so we have dedicated a whole chapter to getting those childhood flavors back on the table.
 
We are also trying to eat a little healthier … but let’s be honest. We are Paula’s boys, and we aren’t going to set weight-loss records anytime soon. But we do try to enjoy our butter, heavy cream, and fried foods in moderation. We think some nights you have to swap a salad for a twice-baked potato or a grilled chicken breast for a bone-in rib-eye steak. We can satisfy a burger craving with our Turkey and Black Bean Burgers with Corny Salsa, and some nights a dinner-size salad like our Spicy Honey Chicken Salad over Spinach really hits the spot. Sometimes we split the difference and balance both sides—a hearty dish like Spicy Beef and New Orleans Red Rice Skillet Dinner with a lighter side dish, like Aunt Peggy’s Pickled Cucumber, Tomato, and Onion Salad.
 
We have included some of our favorite side dishes with many of the entrées in this book. We think it’s fun to mix and match the sides with different main dishes and find matches made in heaven. Y’all feel free to change it up and find your own family’s favorite combinations. Just because Bobby loves to serve his Broccoli and Red Bell Pepper Salad with his Spicy Southern Shrimp and Pasta Bake doesn’t mean you will … although it’s a great marriage of flavors. The recipes here are flexible; when it comes time to put your meal together, go with your gut—and what’s easiest. Stay relaxed in the kitchen, and it will help you relax at the table. It will make everything taste that much better.
 
And, of course, dessert; we never forget dessert. We can’t tell you how many nights we have sat down to dig into pies and layer cakes and homemade meringues and cookies and fresh-churned ice cream.… Oh, we do love our mama. But at home for us now, we don’t have the time to do any real baking. Instead, for those nights you deserve a little something extra, we’ll show you how to use pantry staples to put together almost instant desserts. No matter how busy we are, we think there is always time for a sweet ending to a meal.
 
We know y’all are real busy and trying to watch your budget, but you’re also looking for ways to keep home-cooked food on your table. It’s about carrying on family traditions or, like with Jack, starting new ones. We hope y’all will enjoy how fast, simple, and economical these recipes are. If they can help you make time to enjoy a meal with loved ones, we’ve accomplished our goal.