For some reason, I never seem to finish all of the fruit and healthy things I buy at the beginning of the week…I wonder why that is? Maybe because I went on a 7-day fast food binge last week (completely disgusting!). Anyways, I had some leftover banana and decided to make some banana cupcakes.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Frosting:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 3 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

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1.  Bulldog Tour Building
2. Dixie Supply Bakery & Cafe
3. Charleston Cooks!
4. Lucas Belgium Chocolates
5. The Spice and Tea Exchange
6. Market Street Sweets
7. Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q 

 1. Bulldog Tours

All 12-individuals on the tour met at the Bulldog Tour office space off of Market Street (the tour has a max capacity of 12). Every participant is handed a goodie bag with some brochures, water bottle and Bulldog coozie.

2. Dixie Supply Bakery & Cafe

Our first stop was Dixie Supply Bakery and Cafe where we sampled stone-ground grits and sweet potato cornbread. The cafe seemed like it was a local secret, it didn’t look as fancy or new as some of the other restaurants along the downtown area and in size, it was fairly small. Our 12-people troupe pretty much took up most of the restaurant. However, their grits were my first attempt at stone-ground grits and they were yummy! My only exposure to grits before had been when Tricia and Dawn cooked them for me for dinner and I believe they use the instant kind. See, my knowledge of Southern food is very limited and if I didn’t have Tricia or Dawn, I would not have been introduced to all of these delicious cuisines!

I was surprised at how hearty both samples were, but maybe it is also since we also had lunch prior to the tour. It had said on the website to eat before the tour because the samples would not equal a full meal. However, I would strongly suggest not to eat too much before venturing on any culinary tour. It makes you not enjoy the foods completely because you feel like you will burst.

Below is the Dixie Stone-Ground Grits recipe that was included in our tour guide and it is not difficult. I haven’t given it a try yet but it is on my “To Cook” list. I’m currently working on my grits addiction and letting my body suffer through withdrawal for a little bit before I introduce them back into my diet.

Dixie Stone-Ground Grits

INGREDIENTS

• 8 oz. Stone-ground Grits (not quick grits or instant grits)
• 16 oz. Heavy cream
• 16 oz. Water
• 4 oz. Butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring water, cream and butter to a boil and swirl in grits.
2. Reduce to a simmer and stir intermittently to keep grits from sticking. Cook for 30 minutes.
3. Add more butter and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Serve warm.

3. Charleston Cooks!

After Dixie Supply Bakery & Cafe, we walked a couple blocks to Charlotte Cooks!, a “maverick kitchen store”. The store, which also holds cooking demonstrations, is owned by Maverick Southern Kitchens, a company that also owns some of the restaurants next to the kitchen supply store, such as High Cotton and Slightly North of Broad (SNOB). While we were in the store, in the classroom, there was a cooking presentation going on which all the patrons can view. There are cameras that project what the chef is doing on flat screen TVs to the class and there was a good amount of students for a Friday afternoon.

Inside the store, there are all sorts of wondrous products, from cookbooks about Charleston cuisine to cake pans (not Wilton, yikes!) and picnic baskets and aprons. There were even several doggie cookbooks and cookie cutters in the shape of little dog bones. A woman on our culinary tour purchased said so book and cutters and was planning on making dog treats to sell at her stand at a flea market.

The last snapshot is of a benne wafer. This Charleston favorite is a thin cookie, made with tasty toasted sesame and is sold at Charlotte Cooks! In a little guide we received in our tour goody bag, it was noted that benne seeds is just another name for sesame seeds and nowhere else but in the South Carolina low country are they referred as such.

On Sunday, Tricia and I went back to purchase a 1-lb bag of stone-ground grits. We’re lucky we stopped ourselves at just that and didn’t go crazy like we did with our e-bay cake pan obsession otherwise I would be blogging in debtor’s prison now!

4. Lucas Belgian Chocolates

Surprisingly, I could not find a website for this cute chocolate shop. Since I was a little distracted with taking pictures of the pretty little desserts, I failed to listen to the history of the store. I know that originally, it supplied only Belgian chocolates. But, alas, the Americans complained and wanted bigger and fancier creations. Therefore, there are two cases of sweets, treats from Belgian and then other confections that are made in Charleston. Obviously, the bigger sized chocolates were the ones made locally, while the Belgian chocolates looked like they were the runts of the family. We went through a taste test, sampling chocolate chips with different cocoa percentage. The odd thing everyone on the tour realized was that even though some chocolates had a higher cocoa concentration, it did not make it more bitter. To me, the chip we sampled with a 73% cocoa was more bitter than the chocolate that was 74%. We also learned that the different hints of flavor (from coffee to fruity) was all due to the ground that the chocolate was planted at since nothing artificial was added to them. I want to now be a sommelier, but for chocolate!

5. The Spice and Tea Exchange

The Spice and Tea Exchange is a store that we probably would not have stopped in if we were wandering the city by ourselves. However, it was very interesting to see. The store is filled with an endless supply of spices and teas. The front wall (the one where we are posing next to) has custom blends of spices. These spices would work well as rubs or in dips. They had some free samples where the spices were just mixed with sour cream or olive oil and vinigar to create some super simple and delicious dips.

In the middle picture, there was a tower of various sugars – from fruit varieties (blueberry sugar)  to the exotic (green chile sugar). I have to say that I never knew there were that many different types of sugars or salts. I found that the most interesting item was the salt blocks. I just looked up some information and found out that these salt blocks (also called salt plates and bricks) are from the salt deposits buried beneath the Himalayas. They are perfect for serving and cooking. Our tour guide said that this is one of her recent cooking endeavors and that you can heat the block in the oven and then cook your meats and vegetable right on the salt block. Our first concern was that the cooking would taste, well, rather salty. But we were told that it adds just a hint of seasoning but not overbearing. This is definitely a cooking technique that I would like to investigate further. Unfortunately, the only sites that I could find information on was online retailers selling their wares (Dean & Deluca and The Meadow). I’m not ready to invest the $25-50 for a block yet but would like to see a demonstration or taste some foods cooked on it.

6. Market Street Sweets 

 Market Street Sweets…I am still dreaming about their peanut butter chocolate fudge…yummy. Market Street Sweets is a sister confectioners shop to River Street Sweets in Savannah. Mostly everything in the store is made fresh, thus the heaps of sugar located at the back of the store! We were able to sample bear claws, caramel and peanut butter chocolate fudge as well as take home a full serving of their World Famous Praline. Tricia doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth and I am not entirely found of sticky foods but you can definitely taste that caramel was melt-in-your-mouth fresh. They offer to ship items with no shipping & handling fee so I went back Monday to order my family a tin of the assorted favorites for $29.95. The collection included the World Famous Pralines, Assorted Chocolate Bear Claws, Glazed Pecans and Chocolate Pecans. I know how much my mother adores nuts so I figured it would be a perfect memento for my family in Chicago of my Southern adventure.

 7. Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q

The last stop on the culinary tour was Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q where we experienced collard greens, low country barbecue and a cheddar biscuit. It was funny to look over at my traveling companions and see that they scarfed the collard greens down before I even finished my second bite of the barbecue.  Not surprising at this point, the first time I had collard greens was when Tricia prepared it for a holiday celebration. These had a little more tang than I was used to for a green vegetable so I was not a huge fan. I’m not a barbecue expert so I was not able to distinguish the difference between this and the barbecue that they serve at a local chain in the Charlotte region, Macs. They tasted very similar to me.

Although Tabasco sauce is not thrilling or exciting by any means, Dawn was fascinated that it was such a big bottle. So, I naturally had to take a picture of it, standing next to a more normal size bottle (however, Dawn thinks that even that bottle is larger than normal).

Sadly, our tour guide’s name escapes my memory but I got us to take a picture with her because she was a great tour guide. She was very knowledgeable and sweet, with plenty of good samples to hand out, and even sometimes sneaking extras into our bags to take home for later. She talked about the “babe” in the poster behind us a lot during our stop at Jim ‘N Nick’s and made sure that she was in background of our picture. Apparently, the model had been fully nude when she posed for this poster in the 1920s. However, due to the conservative nature back then, they had penciled a bikini on her body to hide her nether-regions. History buffs know that the swimsuit was included to the picture afterwards because bikinis were not yet invented in the ’20s.

The first stop on our Charleston trip was to go to Poogan’s Porch for lunch. We decided to try out this quaint restaurant since it has been frequented by celebrities and has been mentioned in other rave reviews.

Poogan’s Porch is actually a house that was originally built in 1888. One of the previous owners has been spotted to haunt the location, leading the restaurant to be voted “Third Haunted Place in America” in 2003 by the Travel Channel.

 The restaurant is named for a neighborhood dog, Poogan, who according to the site, became a guardian when it opened in 1976.

I have a confession to make. Until my visit to Charleston, I have never had a fried green tomato. My only exposure to the food item was that the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes, was named after the dish. Living in the Midwest, it always seemed like fake food to me…similar to Dr. Seuss’ creation of green eggs and ham. I mean, people don’t really eat green eggs!

On top of that, raw tomatoes are one food staple that I despise. I love them cooked…I adore creamy tomato soup, pastas, pizza sauce…I can even eat bruschetta or thinly sliced tomatoes in sandwiches. Maybe it all stems from the fact that my mother was addicted to cherry tomatoes when she was pregnant with me and while I was in the womb, I never developed the appreciation.

When Tricia heard that I had never had a fried green tomato, she insisted we get them as an appetizer so I can try it. And now, I’m an addict! My first fried green tomato was at Poogan’s and that is where I developed my love. I believe I had a fried green tomato everyday on my short-lived vacation in Charleston!

Another Southern staple that I never had heard about, until I moved to Charlotte a couple of years ago, was pimento cheese. Not until recently, did I realize that it basically was mayonnaise and cheddar cheese. Thinking about that is slightly gross…one would never think that mayonnaise would be good with cheese…and no one wants to think about how many unnecessary calories that can add up to. Some recipes and ingredients were not meant to be shared! But, since I was embracing all things Southern, I decided to try my first grilled pimento cheese sandwich.

Both items were delicious. However, I was only able to finish 3/4 of my sandwich…there was a bit too much cheese on the sandwich for me. I have to say, my favorite part was when the bill came and Tricia and I realized that the mimosas were only $2.50…I should have ordered a second!

Luckily, all of that is about to change! My Domestic Diva pals (Tricia & Dawn) and I planned a weekend getaway trip to Charleston, SC over a month ago for this past weekend (July 31st). Since Tricia has lived in Charlotte, she visits Charleston annually. And although Dawn has gone to Charleston briefly, she didn’t remember it as well and is fairly close to a newbie like me. We wanted the trip to be a relaxing, yet fun weekend, filled with good eats and shopping.

Since we had planned the trip so early, we had the time to research inns and hotels and different restaurants and tours that we wanted to see. We settled on the Ansonborough Inn for our accommodations. We wanted to be situated within walking distance of the historic district of downtown Charleston and it also was very reasonably priced. The free wine and cheese hour between 5-6PM didn’t hurt either.

According to the legend on the site, it became named the Ansonborough due to it’s former owner, Lord Anson of England, who won the property in a poker game. A couple years ago, it was completely remodeled but in a manner that was becoming to the heritage of Lord Anson.

After arriving Thursday night, we spent all Friday and Saturday at the beach and pool. The resort we were staying at, the Beach Cove Resort, was right on the beach so it was very convenient. Being on the coast, the weather can be unpredictable so we hung out by the pool for a bit when the sand was flying all over the place, due to strong winds.

Friday night we had a nice dinner at Greg Norman’s Australian Grille. For those of you that don’t know, Greg Norman is a professional golfer.  I ordered the fillet a la carte with mushrooms and a twice baked potatoes as sides. It was a LOT of food and I ended up bringing my leftovers home for lunch the next day. The food was delicious but I have to say that the filet I ordered for Restaurant Week at Ruth’s Chris earlier that week has been so far one of the best steaks I have eaten. All of the entrees are served on sharkfin plates, symbolizes Greg’s nickname, The Shark.

 Saturday morning, Brook and I woke up early in attempts to see the sunrise. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and instead of the sunrise over the ocean, it was on the other side, over looking buildings. I was very disappointed, especially since I saw the sunrise off of the Outerbanks of NC last summer and it was spectacular. Still, I’m a huge fan of the beauty of sunrises and I captured it both in black and white and in color.

You have to admit…Brook and I look pretty good considering it’s 5AM!

Saturday night we just hung out at the hotel and beach. We had a lot of glamour shots while watching the sunset…most of them involved us jumping into the air and trying to capture that perfect “action” shot. As everyone knows, I’m not athletic and I couldn’t even jump as high as my friends were so none of my pictures turned out cool at all. Then at night, we attempted to make shadow figures, Charlie’s Angels style…just without the action poses. (I wish I knew how to easily edit these pictures and make a collage but all of my attempts to combine them onto the same line or a 4-block has failed…)

Front of cake…

Side of cake…

Back of cake… 

I used a regular 9×13 pan for the base, the “ground” and the Wilton soccer ball pan for the soccer ball. Since there were only going to be a couple people at the pre-celebration, I did not make the soccer ball completely round. In my typical fashion, I didn’t read the directions fully and pre-frosted the soccer ball, therefore losing all of the imprinted lines from the pan.  However, I tried to be creative and traced the hexagon design onto wax paper and outlined the cake with toothpick. Then I just used the tip 16 (star design) all over the soccer ball in black and white in buttercream frosting. After some time of hard work, the result turned out great!

I have been bragging about my cake for the last couple of days because I am just so proud (and frankly, astounded) that I could make a somewhat fancy-dancy cake! Who would have thought?!

Since I had been somewhat lazy for my Wilton Cake Decorating Class and used box cake mix for all of my previous cakes, I decided that for the last cake for Course 1 should be homemade (aka from scratch).  I asked around for suggestions and coconut cake was thrown out there by one of my coworkers. I have never made a coconut cake so I thought it would be something new to try.

I found a recipe for the Ultimate Coconut Cake on marthstewart.com.  The recipe is courtesy of Robert Carter from the Peninsula Grill in Charleston, South Carolina and he demonstrates making the cake on a segment of the Martha Stewart Show. Apparently the cake can be purchased and mailed to you from the Peninsula Grill for only a mere $100!

Standing at six layers high, this is definitely a very complicated cake. I only made half of the recipe and also faltered at a lot of the other steps but in the end, the cake still turned out to be delicious and I received some rave compliments.

Some of the problems that I had:

• Using a mediocre blender instead of a food processor to finely chop the coconut
• Not having cornstarch and using flour as a substitute (I found online that if you double the cornstarch amount, you can use flour)
• Due to circumstances beyond my control (at least, I’m not willing to admit fault!), my cake was crumbling and falling apart when I tried to torte it. Therefore, the cake was not very smooth and I did not put a lot of filling in between due to the fear of the cake’s stability. So, not only was there not as much of a decadent filling, the cake was shapeless
• Due to impatience and my lack of ability to read instructions beforehand, I did not set the filling in the fridge overnight
• After realizing that I spent half the day making this cake and the results weren’t turning out perfectly, I forgot to put on the simple syrup mixture in between the layers

Since I was taking this cake to decorating class, I made Wilton’s Classic Buttercream Frosting instead of what was suggested. Below are the directions for the cake I created but the original recipe is linked below.

Ultimate Coconut Cake
recipe courtsey of marthastewart.com

COCONUT CAKE

Ingredients

• Nonstick cooking spray with flour
• 1 pound unsalted butter, preferably European-style
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 1/2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon coconut extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray two 10-inch round cake pans with cooking spray; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 5 to 6 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until creamy, occasionally scraping down sides of the bowl using a spatula.
3. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl, mix together cream, vanilla, and coconut extract. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture, alternating with cream mixture, beginning and ending with flour; beat until just combined.
4. Pour batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack before removing cakes from pans.

COCONUT FILLING

Ingredients

• 5 cups heavy cream
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 9 cups shredded sweetened coconut

Directions

1. Place cream, sugar, and butter in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved
2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together cornstarch, vanilla, and 1 tablespoon water. Add to cream mixture, bring to a boil, and simmer until thickened, about 1 minute.
3. Place coconut in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until coconut is finely chopped. Remove cream mixture from heat and stir in coconut until well combined. Transfer to a large baking dish; let cool.
4. Cover filling with plastic wrap and chill overnight. Just before using, place mixture in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat until smooth and creamy, 4 to 5 minutes

COCONUT BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

Ingredients

• 1 cup solid white vegetable shortening
• 1 teaspoon Imitation Coconut Flavor
• 4 tablespoons water
• 1 lb. pure cane confectioner’s sugar
• 1 tablespoon Meringue Powder

Directions

1. Cream shortening, flavoring and water
2. Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together. Blend a minute or so, until creamy

ASSEMBLY

1.  Using a serrated knife or cake leveler, trim tops of cake to make level; discard trimmings. Cut each cake into 3 even layers.
2. Place one layer on a cake plate. Spread over 2 cups of filling. Place a second layer on top. Repeat process with next four layers and top with last remaining layer
3. Spread top and sides of cake with frosting. Chill cake at least 5 hours and up to 5 days. Slice immediately; bring to room temperature before serving.

This past Saturday, since it’s peach sesason, my friends and I decided to give peach picking a try. We drove down to The Peach Tree in York, South Carolina, which is only a 30-40 minute car ride. Since I have never gone peach picking, I was pretty excited and told everyone in the office of my plans. I was told by veteran peach pickers that there are two types of peaches: Freestone and Clingstone. Freestones do not cling to the pit where as Clingstones…clings to the pits!

When we arrived at the stand where the Peach Tree was, there was a lot of confusion. Unlike strawberry picking, there were tons of already picked peaches for people to purchase.  Most of the customers at the stand were perusing around, looking at the homemade jams, ice cream, soups and of courses, peaches. We had no clue if there were no more peaches to pick or what was going on. Finally, one of the older gentlmen that was familiar with the orchards directed us to a table where there was samplings of peaches. They were different varieties of peaches, from Gala to Loring and he told us to taste them to figure out which type was our favorite. And I thought that there were just two types!

Not all of the peaches were abundant to be picked…but luckily the one that was our favorite, the Loring, was available that day. Dawn, Tricia and I all loved the Loring peach because it was sweet and juicy…absolutely delicious!

For a whole box of peaches (roughly 2 baskets), it was only $10 so it was worth being out in the sweltering heat to personally handpick my peaches.