LaBelle cuisine Recipes to sing about

Patti LaBelle

Book - 2021

For Patti LaBelle, cooking isn't simply about food--it's about love. Raised in a family of fantastic Southern cooks, she has kept the lessons she learned in her beloved parents' and aunts' kitchens close to her heart but now, she is ready to share these delicious family heirlooms.

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Subjects
Genres
Cookbooks
Recipes
Published
New York : Gallery Books/13A 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Patti LaBelle (author)
Other Authors
Laura Randolph Lancaster (contributor)
Edition
20th anniversary edition ; 13a/Gallery Books hardcover edition
Physical Description
xxii, 218 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes index.
ISBN
9781982179083
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Sensational Salads, Soups, and Sandwiches
  • Sunday Salad with Versatile Vinaigrette
  • Naomi's Creamy Coleslaw
  • Patti's Potato Salad S
  • Company's-Coming Chicken Salad
  • Classic Crabmeat Salad in Tomato Cups
  • Geechee Geechee Ya Ya Gumbo
  • Budd's Back-to-Life Soup
  • Smoky Corn and Turkey Chowder
  • Jackie's Fried Egg Sandwich
  • The Great Grilled Cheese Sandwich
  • Simple, Simply Delicious Smoked Turkey Sandwich
  • Magnificent Meat Dishes
  • Child, That's Good Cheap Pot Roast!
  • Pass-It-On Pot Roast
  • Luscious Liver and Onions
  • Salsa Meat Loaf
  • Righteous Roast Pork
  • Polynesian Roast Pork with Fruit Sauce
  • Hellacious Ham with Brown-Sugar Glaze
  • Smothered Pork Chops with Mushrooms
  • Burnin' Babyback Ribs
  • Aunt Verdelle's Savory Red Rice with Sausage
  • Delectable Italian Sausage and Peppers
  • Roast Leg of Lamb with Rosemary-Lemon Rub
  • Perfect Poultry
  • Best-Ever Barbecue Chicken with Bodacious Barbecue Sauce
  • Sumptuous and Simple Southern Fried Chicken
  • Succulent Roast Chicken
  • Say-My-Name Smothered Chicken and Gravy
  • Old-Fashioned Chicken and Dumplings
  • Chicken Brunswick Stew
  • Zuri's Favorite Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese Dip
  • Baked Turkey Wings with Onion Sauce
  • Too-Good-to-Be-Turkey Chili
  • Cornish Hens with Shallot Cream Gravy
  • The-Spirit's-in-It Spaghetti with Meaty Tomato Sauce
  • Lasagna LaBelle
  • Omelet Patti Cake
  • Scrumptious Seafood
  • Perfect Pan-Fried Fish Fillets
  • Grilled Caribbean Fish Steaks
  • Quick Linguine with Clam Sauce
  • Make-You-Wanna-Holler Maryland Crab Cakes
  • Have-to-Have-'Em Hard-Shell Crabs
  • Butterflied Lobster Tails with Herbs and Garlic Butter
  • So-o-o Good Salmon Casserole
  • Salmon Croquettes Deluxe
  • Savory Salmon Steaks
  • Sardines Sublime
  • Butterflied Shrimp with Double Dips
  • Clear-Out-Your-Sinuses Super-Spicy Steamed Shrimp
  • Shrimp Étouffée
  • Slammin' Shrimp Creole
  • Jammin' Jambalaya
  • Serious Shrimp Fried Rice
  • Roasted Red Snapper with Oyster and Mushroom Stuffing
  • Simply Spectacular Seafood Pasta
  • Fabulous Fixin's
  • Awesome Asparagus
  • Sautéed Broccoli Raab
  • Cabbage, Carrot, and Potato Skillet
  • Fierce Fried Corn
  • Corn Casserole
  • Screamin' Mean Greens
  • Unforgettable Fried Eggplant
  • Mouthwatering Mushrooms
  • Okra, Corn, and Tomato Stew
  • Home-Fried Potatoes
  • Better-Than-Mom's Mashed Potatoes
  • Perfectly Steamed Rice
  • Armstead's Curried Rice and Beans
  • Spectacular Spinach
  • String Beans a La Bella
  • Sumptuous String Beans
  • Sautéed Summer Squash with Basil
  • Chubby's Candied Sweet Potatoes
  • Mashed Sweet Potatoes
  • Quick 'n' Easy Baked Beans
  • Black-Eyed Peas with Smoked Turkey Wings
  • Red Beans and Rice
  • Don't-Block-the-Blessing Dressing
  • Over-the-Rainbow Macaroni and Cheese
  • To-Die-For Desserts and Breads
  • Aunt Mary's Philadelphia Buttercake
  • Heavenly Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
  • Chocolate Cake with Mocha Madness Frosting
  • Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
  • Anna's Irresistible Pound Cake
  • Scandalously Rich Rum Cake
  • Cinnamon and Pecan Coffee Cake
  • Aunt Hattie's Scrumptious Sweet Tater Bread
  • Pecan Butterscotch Blondie Bars
  • Peanut Butter Cookies
  • Bask Piecrust
  • Decadent and Delicious Pecan Pie
  • Amazing Apple-Butterscotch Pie
  • Banana and Toasted Almond Cream Pie
  • Citrus Meringue Pie
  • Wicked Peach Cobbler
  • Norma's Black-Bottom Sweet Potato Pie
  • Aunt Joshua Mae's Blackberry Doobie
  • Baby Henry's Bread Pudding
  • Really Good Rice Pudding
  • Grandmother Tempie's Flying Biscuits
  • Sweet Potato 'n' Spice Waffles
  • Beyond-Good Bacon and Buttermilk Corn Bread
  • Sunday Supper Rolls
  • Down-Home Hush Puppies
  • New Recipes
  • Good Life Chicken
  • Patti's Quarantine Lobster-Shrimp Cakes
  • Bangin' Fish Deluxe
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

The southern chicken is a little less fried. The potatoes, lightly smothered. And the meatloaf, more poultry stuffed. Why all the incredible lightness of these more than 100 celebrity recipes? Because singer Patti LaBelle, author of the best-selling Don't Block the Blessings, is a diabetic, yet she lets nothing deter either her storytelling or her zest for food, offering traditional and eccentric dishes with a little less fat and calories--such as the turkey kielbasa frittata named Omelet Patti Cake and the salsa meatloaf. It'll be a toss-up, too, which one readers will prefer: tripping the light fantastic with names like Elton John, Mick Jagger, and Oprah, or sweating up a great-tasting storm over kitchen appliances. Expect a serious waiting list. (Reviewed March 15, 1999)0767903145Barbara Jacobs

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

"From the time I was a little girl," says LaBelle, "I knew there were two things in this world I was born to do: sing and cook." Admirers of LaBelle's Grammy-winning vocal style are sure to find her Southern dishes just as dynamic. Starting with such chapters as Sensational Salads, Soups, and Sandwiches, she cooks and talks her way through Meat, Poultry and Seafood entr‚es, Fabulous Fixin's and To-Die-For Desserts and Breads. Her famous jalape¤o-spiked Potato Salad, Pass-It-On Pot Roast, Screamin' Mean Greens and Wicked Peach Cobbler make colorful appearances, along with practical cooking tips and plenty of exuberant attitude. This is high-style down-home cooking, sophisticated, flavorful, mostly calorie-laden and generally irresistible; the fact that Patti has fixed her Luscious Liver and Onions and Over the Rainbow Macaroni and Cheese for the likes of Mick Jagger, Oprah and Elton John just adds to the fun. LaBelle (author of the bestselling autobiography Don't Block the Blessings) believes in cooking for pleasure and therapy: as she says, "Usually when people are stressed out they want a pill, but honey, give me a pot!" Readers will want one, too, by the end of this book, for LaBelle's enthusiasm is infectious. 15-city author tour. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Here are two celebrity cookbooks by celebrities, not celebrity chefs. Singer Labelle loves food and cooking; she even takes her pots and pans with her when she's on tour so that she can whip up a meal in her hotel room after a show. Here are recipes for what she likes best, many of them family favorites handed down from her grandmother, mother, and others: Pass-It-On Pot Roast, Aunt Verdelle's Savory Red Rice, Fierce Fried Corn, Baby Henry's Bread Pudding. Childhood memories, anecdotes about life on the road, and touching recollections about her family are interspersed throughout the book. LaBelle's memoir, Don't Block the Blessings (Riverhead, 1996), was a huge best seller, and her cookbook is sure to be popular. Lakshmi is a supermodel who was born in India, grew up in the United States, and travels frequently to exoticÄand less-exoticÄlocales for her job. Here she sets down about five dozen recipes for the food she likes to cook and eat, organized by country (or continent) of origin: Spain, France, Italy, India, Asia, and Morocco. Most are standards, and the text, while well written, would seem to be of little interest to anyone other than supermodel groupies. Not a necessary purchase. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Introduction From the time I was a little girl, I knew there were two things in this world I was born to do: sing and cook. I've spent my life developing my voice and my recipes and, to tell you the truth, I'm hard pressed to say where I'm happiest--in concert or in the kitchen; making music or making meals. Whether cooking or singing, I feel at ease, at peace, at one with the world. While reminiscing for this book, I realized why cooking has always been such a labor of love for me. Because it's as much about friendship and fellowship as it is about food. Because, behind the whole process--the shopping, the planning, the preparing, the serving--cooking is really about love. Cooking is a way to show it, share it, serve it. Cooking is as much about nourishment for the soul as it is the stomach. Especially the kind of cooking I grew up on. We're talking Southern, country cooking. Authentic, down-home, Southern country cooking is a generation-to-generation pass-it-down gift, and I have so many people in my family to thank for mine: my grandmothers, my mother, my father, my aunts Hattie Mae and Joshia Mae. I don't mean to brag, but the people in my family have always been some cooking folks. And that's no idle boast. I know people think I'm kidding when I tell them I take my pans out on tour with me, but I am as serious as a heart attack. Not only do I take them with me, they're the first thing I pack. If you open my suitcase, you'll find three or four pans right beside my designer gowns. They're like my American Express card--I don't leave home without them. If I have a really strong craving for something, or if I don't have the ingredients I want, I'll go grocery shopping after a show. Sometimes, if the show runs long and I don't want to go back to the hotel and change my clothes, I will go grocery shopping in my gown. It drives my bodyguard crazy. "Relax," I always tell him. "Nobody is going to bother me in the vegetable aisle." People have the funniest reactions when they see me in the grocery store. Some stare, some scream, some run up and down the aisles. A lot of people just don't believe it's me. "Patti, that's not really you, is it?" I've been asked more times than I can count. Once, I gave a mini concert in the seasoning aisle. Some of my die-hard fans, fans from way back in the sixties, spotted me searching for some sea salt. The next thing I knew, they were telling me about all the shows they'd come to over the years. We're talking dozens. They remembered concerts I had forgotten. "You all have been to almost as many shows as I have," I told them. Of course, that they would come to see me all those times just touched my heart. So, when they asked me if I would please sing a little something, what could I do? My bodyguard didn't speak to me the whole way home. I have so many more stories--and recipes--to share and they're all in this book. Some stories--like the flying biscuits--are hard to believe. Some stories--like the kindness of Laura Nyro--are hard to forget. But the recipes that go with them are all precious to me. And now they're my gift to you. Say-My-Name Smothered Chicken and Gravy There is only one person I know who can pluck a chicken as clean and as fast as my Grandmother Ellen. Chubby Checker. Before he became a famous recording star, Chubby worked at Henry Colt's, the poultry market near our house where my mother did her Saturday-morning grocery shopping. Of course, he wasn't Chubby Checker back then. Dick Clark's wife had yet to change his name because she thought he was a cute version of Fats Domino. ("Fats" became "Chubby" and "Domino" turned into "Checker.") When I met Chubby Checker, he was Ernest Evans, the cutest, pudgiest, fastest chicken-plucker in Philly. He was also a big part of the reason I loved grocery shopping with my mother, who was also called Chubby. Before Ernest went in the back of the store to clean and pluck your chicken, he would entertain you with jokes and songs and impersonations. "I don't have time for that today," Chubby would tell Ernest when he would go on a little too long. "I'm making smothered chicken for dinner tonight, and I have to get home and get it started." "No problem Mrs. Holte," Ernest would say and disappear in the back with our dinner. We could barely get over to the produce section before Ernest was back with the cleanest chicken I've ever seen. Next to Grandmother Ellen's, of course. To this day, making smothered chicken takes me back to those Saturday-morning shopping sprees with Chubby and Chubby. Hungry yet? Makes 4 servings One 3 1/2-pound chicken, rinsed and cut into 8 pieces 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup vegetable oil 2 medium onions, chopped 2 medium celery ribs, chopped 1 garlic clove, minced 3 cups chicken broth Season the chicken with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Place the flour in a large bowl. Roll the chicken in the flour to coat, shaking off excess flour. Transfer 3 tablespoons of the flour to a medium bowl and set aside. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook, turning halfway during cooking, until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside. Pour off all but 3 tablespoons of the oil from the skillet. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the onions, celery, and garlic and cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with the reserved flour and stir well. Gradually stir in the broth and bring to a simmer. Return the chicken to the skillet. Reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through and shows no sign of pink when pierced at the bone, about 35 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a deep platter and cover with foil to keep warm. Bring the sauce to a boil over high heat and cook, stirring often, until thickened, about 5 minutes. Season the gravy with salt and pepper and pour over the chicken. Serve hot. Aunt Hattie's Scrumptious Sweet Tater Bread Like so many of my special recipes, my Aunt Hattie Mae gave me this one. It has only been in recent years that I've gotten into baking and, so much of what I know about it I learned from Aunt Hattie and Aunt Josh. Aunt Hattie and Aunt Josh are some cooking Sisters themselves. In Georgia, the ancestral home of my father's family, their culinary skill is legendary. For years, Aunt Hattie and Aunt Josh cooked in private homes for wealthy White families. More than a few folks stopped speaking to each other after one family visited another for dinner and an awestruck diner tried to hire Auntie Hattie or Aunt Josh away. Aunt Josh even cooked President Eisenhower his first soul food meal. He'd spent the night with the family she was working for and, the next morning, Aunt Josh rose with the sun and cooked him a soul food banquet: hogshead bacon, sausage scrapple, grits and redeye gravy, sweet potato waffles, and, of course, Grandmother Tempie's flying biscuits. Aunt Josh says President Eisenhower mopped his plate clean. Can't you just see the look on the face of the White House chef when Ike got back to Washington and asked him to whip up some grits and gravy!!? Aunt Josh and Aunt Hattie are both fabulous cooks, and as much as I relish their food, the stories they have told me over the years about our family are what I love most. When you put Aunt Hattie's Scrumptious Sweet Tater Bread in the oven, invite a very old or very young relative to join you in the kitchen. While it's baking, listen to or pass on your own family's very special legends and lore. You'll be glad you did. Makes 8 servings 2 medium orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds) 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature 1 cup sugar 2 large eggs, at room temperature 1/2 cup evaporated milk 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract Grated zest of 1/2 lemon or 1/8 teaspoon lemon extract 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan, tapping out the excess flour. Bring a large saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the sweet potatoes and cook until tender, about 25 minutes. Drain, and rinse under cold water until easy to handle. Peel the sweet potatoes, place in a medium bowl, and mash well. Measure 1 cup mashed sweet potatoes, saving the remaining sweet potatoes for another purpose. In a large bowl, using a handheld electric mixer on high speed, beat the butter and sugar until combined, about 1 minute. One at a time, beat in the eggs. Beat in the sweet potatoes, evaporated milk, vanilla, and lemon zest. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, gradually beat the flour mixture into the sweet potato mixture, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Spread evenly in the prepared pan. Bake until the top springs back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour, 15 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Invert onto the wire rack, turn right side up, and cool completely. Best-Ever Banana Bread : Substitute 1 cup mashed ripe bananas for the mashed sweet potatoes. Reduce baking time to 1 hour. Excerpted from LaBelle Cuisine: Recipes to Sing About by Patti LaBelle All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.