American

SHELBI One of my fondest memories is of Mom cooking collard greens on Saturday afternoon in preparation for dinner after church on Sunday. It was like a mini–Thanksgiving feast! GINA It’s true, Shelbi grew up on collards, and she got that love from me. Nana’s garden had rows and rows of those big leafy plants. Sautéing these Southern favorites in a buttery onion-and-garlic sauce is the best, and putting them on toast is just another twist to stay creative with collards.

If there is a comfort food for teens, it’s mac and cheese. Spenser and Shelbi absolutely love it! These little mac-and-cheese cups are both fun to make and great to eat. Adding panko bread crumbs creates a nice crunch that will satisfy adults as well.

GINA This dish is the “queen of dressing,” because dressing and collards are two favorites of mine. I add bacon, ’cause you gotta have some pig, and the carrots give it a different spin from your traditional dish. You’ll want to think ahead with this recipe and make that corn bread the day before. It needs to be dry enough to soak up all the good flavors.

GINA Fried turkey was and is very big in the South. I watched Mama Callie make it many a time, and I was always thinking she was going to burn herself or the house down! She’d rub the spice mixture all over the turkey and into the cavity. (Hmm . . . I always thought Pat was the first spice-rub master, but maybe not.) When you fry a turkey, you are sealing all those herb flavors and juices right in. You also get outrageously crispy skin. Pat likes to fry with peanut oil, because of its high smoke temperature and great flavor. Try it; it’s easier than you think (see note), and leaves your oven free for all your side dishes!

GINA My man is the quarterback of the house—and I love him for it! He may call the plays, but when he does, I execute the sweetness all over the field. The dark-brown sugar gives these cookies the toasty football color, and the coconut, toffee-candy bits, and pecans will keep him from getting sacked. Who wrote that play, Coach? Maybe you should put me in!

PAT: Y’all know I’ve got to be smoking something for every summer holiday. No hickory chips for this bird: apple chips soaked in water and spread over hot charcoal will create a sweet, smoky flavor that’s just right. This citrus marinade works well with the apple chips, and will keep the bird nice and moist.

GINA Peaches are one of my favorite fruits, and cream always complements them. This dessert is refreshing and light: you don’t want to get your man too full, or else you will be watching him sleep. The sweet champagne and fresh vanilla will relax his senses just enough.

We like to refer to this dish as our sophisticated chicken potpie. Lord knows we love chicken, and when you add the sweetness of Vidalia onion, carrots, and celery, you are on your way to some classic Southern comfort food. And we all need a little bit of that sometimes, don’t we?

GINA You can’t celebrate the Fourth without watermelon. In Memphis, you’ll see trucks on the side of the road selling the ripest, juiciest, and sweetest watermelons in the country. And if you watch our show, y’all already know I loves me some watermelon. I can eat it every day in the summertime: it is so refreshing—but, more important, it’s a natural sweet, and you know we women are always trying to watch our figures. (I have watched mine walk right out the door and look back at me and say, “Bye, girl!” as it left.) I mention this so you know I do try to keep a lookout for those things that are just plain good for me. . . . So you take my favorite fruit and add in some fresh limeade (summertime in a glass), vodka, and mint simple syrup (OMG), and, baby, you can cross your legs and let ’em swing, because that’s a wrap!

PAT I have a confession—when I was a kid, I would jump my grandmother’s neighbor’s fence and pluck peaches from Mr. Johnson’s trees. I figured that there were so many of those little darlings hanging from Mr. Johnson’s trees he surely wouldn’t miss a few. Looking back on it, you could say those peaches helped me develop an appreciation for the simple pleasures life has to offer. Over the years, we’ve grown fond of grilling sweet fruit. (Yes, we do “grill everything.”) When you add the smoky flavor from the grill to the sweetness of the apricots and peaches, well, you are talking about a different kind of dessert from the shortcake you’re used to. Ours also calls for biscuits (talk about a Neely spin on things!). And the turbinado sugar is just a fancy name for sugar in the raw . . . like me!

PAT Every Fourth of July, Mama Neely made her famous baked beans: she’d brown ground beef and then doctor that beef with molasses, brown sugar, and plenty of spices. Let me tell you, those beans were good. And so are these. We’ve found that using smoked sausage in place of the ground beef (or pork shoulder, as in our restaurant recipe) adds a smoky depth to the dish. Once you make these beans, there is no going back. If you want to put your own spin on it, you can use kidney beans instead of pork and beans, but I say my mama’s way is best.

PAT Grilled corn is good enough all by itself. Here we feature it in a light, slightly smoky salad with rice, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and kidney beans. It’s an awesome combination, but once you add in the feta cheese, “Girl, you did that!” That’s what Gina’s mom always says. We used white rice, but brown will work just as well and give it an earthy, nutty flavor.

PAT My brothers and I are all “bourbon men.” We take ours neat, or lacquered to our ribs. Enough said. GINA I can’t believe I ended up with a bourbon-and-ribs man. Growing up, we always had chicken, hot dogs, smoked sausages, and burgers, but for some reason the ribs were always center stage. The women in my family were often throwing some crazy ingredient or other into their rubs and sauces—and don’t you know that we kept bourbon as one of them. We always had bourbon around for “ailments,” and not just the cooking kind. So what do I do? I go and marry a rib-grilling bourbon lover—was my life being planned even then? To this day, ribs and bourbon are like the “main act” in my life! Remember: in all grilling, the sauce and the rub must work together, like a good marriage. And when smoking those ribs, Pat will remind you to keep the heat “low and slow.”

If you’ve got a smoker or kettle grill, here’s your recipe—you’ll make much more pulled pork than you need for the nachos, but are you complaining? Ever heard of that Memphis classic, a pulled-pork sandwich? Make some Neely’s coleslaw (see page 150), BBQ sauce (see page 37), and toasted hamburger buns, and go to town with the leftovers.

You don’t always have to have an outside smoker, hickory smoke, charcoal, or even indirect heat to create delicious pulled pork. The secret lies in the smoked paprika and the fruit flavor from the apple juice; the lid should stay tight on your Dutch oven to keep in the tenderness. We don’t need much of a dry rub for our pork, because the hot sauce, Worcestershire, and soy already make the Spice Fairy’s presence known!

Everybody in the South has their own potato-salad recipe, and our version, using red potatoes and the coarse-ground, zippy Creole mustard, makes this a winner. Be sure to drain your potatoes thoroughly, because additional water will dilute the fantastic ingredients in the salad. It’s best to dress the potatoes while they’re still warm, so they can fully absorb the flavors.

This is it: the famous sweet and spicy slaw from the restaurant that people come and buy by the bucketful. Make extra; trust us, you’ll need it!

One of the essential Southern side dishes is fried onion rings, and the key to great ones is the batter. Ours calls for buttermilk, cornmeal, hot sauce, and cayenne. The buttermilk and cornmeal will create a thick golden crust, and the hot sauce and the cayenne pepper give the rings a little kick.

PAT Let’s see . . . the cocktail queen has delivered something frothy, minty-fresh, cool, and spiked with bourbon (I like Jack Daniel’s). Do I need to sell this any harder than that? Forget the Derby and those silly hats—cool down and get down for Memphis in May!

PAT Let me tell you, there’s nothing like a perfectly seasoned smoked beef rib. Don’t be intimidated by their size; beef ribs are easier to cook than pork ribs. Removing the silver membrane on the inside of the ribs is key, particularly with beef ribs that have thick skin. (Start at the end of the bone with your fingers and it’ll pull right off.) Once the film of the membrane is removed, the sweet cherry-cola rub can really penetrate the meat. Cooking the ribs with indirect heat and hickory wood gives them a pull-off-the-bone tenderness and smoky flavor, and the sweet cherry-cola sauce added near the end infuses syrupy goodness into these beauties.