Leigh Ann Nix
One of Leigh Ann Nix’s favorite things to make is muscadine cake. She got the recipe at the Tupelo Flea Market at a booth that was selling “Post Familie” muscadine juice.
She likes their juice because it doesn’t have the bitter taste often found in muscadine juice. It is available at a lot of produce stands, according to Leigh Ann, but they get theirs in Oxford from the lady who had the flea market booth. The cake is a favorite of her son, Aubrey, and her husband, Jay, and she says it “doesn’t last a day” at their house.
The favorite cookbooks of her collection are Paula Deen, The Pioneer Woman, and Trisha Yearwood’s, “Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen.” She says Trisha is easier to cook by, and that when she looks at a recipe, she automatically knows if she will change it or not. Butterbeans and cornbread were the first things she learned to cook, but only by watching her grandmother, Hazel Cumberland of Calhoun City, because she wouldn’t let anybody else cook in her kitchen. Leigh Ann said it took awhile on the cornbread and it “can’t touch my grandmother’s!”
She didn’t do a lot of actual cooking until she was a young adult and then it was by using her cookbooks. She recently found a box of recipes dating back to the 1940s-50s of her grandmother’s that she is very proud to have.
She loves Jay’s steaks, and he grills a lot. They will sometimes have bacon-wrapped baked potatoes, baked onions, and salad as their sides. Two of their family favorites are the Mexican cornbread, and Meg’s Pasta Salad.
Leigh Ann named the salad after her daughter, who loves it so much, but also calls it “table scraps” because they often add different things to it each time. They like the Sausage Skillet Dinner, and she describes it as an easy dish, saying they are meat and potatoes people.
Muscadine Cake
1 box yellow cake mix
1 box instant vanilla pudding
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups Post Family muscadine juice
Preheat oven to 350°. Mix all ingredients and beat four minutes. Pour batter into well-greased bundt pan. Bake 40-50 minutes. Check with toothpick. Cool slightly. Turn out while still warm and glaze using four tablespoons of muscadine juice and 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar. Stick holes in cake to let glaze go in.
Mexican Cornbread
1 lb. hamburger meat
1 medium onion
3/4 cup corn meal
1 can whole kernel corn (drained)
6-8 oz. cheddar cheese
Fry hamburger and onion. Drain and set aside. Mix well the corn meal, cheese, egg, and corn. Pour half of mixture into greased skillet. Add meat and onion mixture, then cheese, and top with leftover corn meal mixture.
Bake at 375° for 30-45 minutes. May add chopped jalapeno peppers.
Sausage Skillet Dinner
1 pkg. Hillshire Farm smoked sausage, sliced
1-20 oz. bag frozen O’Brien potatoes
1-16 oz. bag frozen mixed vegetables
2 Tbsp. oil
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese.
Start by cooking potatoes and mixed vegetables; cover and cook 6-8 minutes. Add smoked sausage and cook for 8-10 minutes. Turn off stove and add cheese. Cover with lid until cheese melts.
Meg’s Pasta Salad
1 pkg. small bowtie pasta
2 chopped tomatoes
1 pkg. diced ham, drained
1 small onion, diced
Bottle of Wishbone Italian dressing
Cook pasta as directed. Drain and rinse in cold water. Mix all ingredients and pour dressing over mixture. Refrigerate at least an hour.
Baked Onion
6 large sweet white or yellow onions (Vidalias are better)
12 strips of bacon
Butter
Worcestershire sauce (Lea and Perrins preferred)
Preheat oven to 350°. Peel and wash onions. With point of small sharp knife, cut a 1″ core from the top of each onion. Wrap two slices of bacon around each onion, securing with toothpicks and put one teaspoon butter in each core. Place each onion on a square of aluminum foil and bring edges loosely together at top. Add Worcestershire sauce (about 1/4-1/2 cup); seal. Put the foil-wrapped onions in a large pan and bake for 1 1/2 hours or until they are tender.
