thank you, orange peel

Every first Thursday of every month, the shops down the street from us stay open late for Fondren After Five. Galleries and stores serve wine and snacks, bands play, and the police block off traffic for a few hours.

Kaytie had a great idea. To promote the blog and get more readers, we should serve food at one of these stores. I talked to Kristin at The Orange Peel, and she was enthustiastic. We picked The Orange Peel because it's a great consignment shop -- great deals on vintage clothing and such. Kaytie loves it.


We had a great time. The food was a hit, and we met lots of interesting people. One lady even asked for our autographs! Does that make us famous?

People loved the food, but they were befuddled as to why exactly we were there. "So, y'all are opening a restaurant?" No.

"You cater?" No. (Well, occasionally. For friends.)

"So, you're not doing this for money?" No.

"Why are you serving food at The Orange Peel?" Because we want you to read our blog. And we want to eventually publish a cookbook.

Okay, time for the food. Follow the links for the recipes...

We made tiny biscuits (of course) with ham and pepper honey, which were a big hit. I had to make carrot cookies because they're awesome. We also made black-eyed pea fritters topped with roasted red pepper coulis, cilantro sour cream, and black olives. I've used this black-eyed pea fritter recipe for my black-eyed benedict, but we changed it slightly for this evening.

Black-Eyed Pea Fritters

2 slices of bacon
1/3 of a red onion, diced small
1/2 cup of green onion, sliced thin
1/2 cup of red bell pepper, diced small
1 jalapeno, seeded and diced fine
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp Tony Chachere's creole seasoning
3 cups cooked and drained black-eyed peas
3/4 cup of bread crumbs
2 eggs

Cook the bacon, and set it aside. Use the bacon grease to saute the onion, peppers, and garlic for 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat. Puree (until smooth) 2 cups of black-eyed peas with the eggs in a food processor.

Combine 1 cup whole peas, pureed peas, vegetables, seasonings, crumbled bacon, and bread crumbs in a mixing bowl. Shape into balls that are about the size of a ping pong ball, and flatten them into patties.

Preheat the oven to 300.

I deep-fried my fritters (about 4 minutes at 375 degrees), but you could pan fry them. Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan. Brown the ckaes on each side for a couple minutes and put them back on the lightly greased baking sheet.

Bake the fritters for 10 minutes.

Top them with cilantro sour cream (1 bunch cilantro, chopped fine, mixed with 2 cups sour cream), red pepper coulis, and a couple of sliced olives. We served them at room temperature, and they were great!