RB and Mindy
  • Home
  • Recipes
    • Appetizers and Snacks
    • Beans
    • Beef
    • Breads
    • Chicken
    • Desserts
      • Pies
      • Cookies
      • Cakes
    • Drinking
    • Fruit
    • Holiday
    • Lamb
    • Main Dishes
    • Pork
    • Salads
    • Sides
    • Sauces
    • Slow Cookers
    • Soups and Stews
    • Turkey
    • Vegetables
  • Salad Brain
    • Welcome to Salad Brain Creativity
    • Salad Brain Exercises
  • Smoke and Fire
    • Grilling
    • Barbecue
    • Indoor BBQ/Cheater BBQ
    • Liquid Smoke
  • Nashville
    • Southern Cooking
    • Self-Rising Flour and Cornmeal
    • Biscuits and Cornbread
  • New Mexico
    • Red and Green Chile
    • Southwestern Cooking
  • Rhode Island
    • Yankee Cooking
    • Pizza
    • Seafood
    • Italian and Portuguese
  • About
RB and Mindy
  • Home
  • Recipes
    • Appetizers and Snacks
    • Beans
    • Beef
    • Breads
    • Chicken
    • Desserts
      • Pies
      • Cookies
      • Cakes
    • Drinking
    • Fruit
    • Holiday
    • Lamb
    • Main Dishes
    • Pork
    • Salads
    • Sides
    • Sauces
    • Slow Cookers
    • Soups and Stews
    • Turkey
    • Vegetables
  • Salad Brain
    • Welcome to Salad Brain Creativity
    • Salad Brain Exercises
  • Smoke and Fire
    • Grilling
    • Barbecue
    • Indoor BBQ/Cheater BBQ
    • Liquid Smoke
  • Nashville
    • Southern Cooking
    • Self-Rising Flour and Cornmeal
    • Biscuits and Cornbread
  • New Mexico
    • Red and Green Chile
    • Southwestern Cooking
  • Rhode Island
    • Yankee Cooking
    • Pizza
    • Seafood
    • Italian and Portuguese
  • About

About kitchenpit.com

by R.B. Quinn and Min Merrell November 11, 2012
About kitchenpit.com

mindy-merrell-chopped-winner

Mindy was on that show CHOPPED a few years back, winning the “Offal Surprise” episode of the Food Network series that premiered October 21, 2014. Episode #251. You can probably find it on YouTube, if you are curious. Min’s secret to success? “When in doubt, roll it in flour and fry it!”

What’s going on here at kitchenpit.com?

Well, we see ourselves as noticers and communicators of interesting and cool ideas. As Phil Lesh said to us one time, “what else is there?” Home cooking happens to be our thing so this site records our discoveries and explorations in the kitchen and the back yard. We believe that home cooking is key to a good, balanced life. Having the skills to cook up a hearty supper for yourself and your family ensures good nutrition and helps develop personal growth, confidence, and self-reliance. It also enhances the care and nurturing of others and creates a foundation for strong families and communities. Plus, it’s just a lot of fun to cook, eat, laugh, and talk around the table.

Why the tabs at the top?

Home cooking is about your place, where you’re from, where you learned about food and cooking. Our places are Nashville, TN, parts of New Mexico, and South County Rhode Island, so much of our work is inspired by these places. We’re not natives but longtime residents of Nashville where Mindy worked for many years with Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey and Martha White Flour and Cornmeal, two of Tennessee’s iconic brands. You’ll find lots of recipes here that slip in a little Tennessee whiskey and everything you might want to know about “Hot Rize” biscuits and cornbread.

RB is a Rhode Island native and we spend as much time as we can in South County where we keep working on our clam stuffies, the family baked flounder and clam chowder, pizza, and every manner of pasta. Mindy’s Carlsbad, NM, family inspires all the content on Hatch, NM, roasted green chile and flat enchiladas. The tequila stuff is just something we figured out together along the way. See, home cooking is fun.

Barbecue, Indoors and Out. 

Barbecue is one of our big things because RB is the Balding Eagle Scout, a smoke whisperer, KCBS certified judge, and his initials rhyme with BBQ. Expanding the definition of barbecue, and helping others cook their own barbecue in any situation, is a life mission of ours. We’re the authors of Cheater BBQ, Barbecue Anytime, Anywhere, in Any Weather (Clarkson Potter, 2008), a guide for making indoor barbecue with an oven or slow cooker, and some liquid smoke. We believe in barbecue diversity and reject any notion of “secret ingredients.”

Salad Brain Creativity Workshop

Salad Brain is our medium for unpacking and developing creativity through salad making. You have found the site of the Salad Brain Creativity Workshop designed to help you think for yourself, unlock your creativity, and serve it up on a platter. We’ve created an artsy, self-help program to stretch your mind, fire up your creative juices, and feed you well. As we like to say, the salad bowl is the black hole of design. Check out our fun salad brain creativity exercises served up on a platter. They just might change the way you think about salad.

Contact us for workshops! We offer demos and hands-on programs for all kinds of curious groups. Follow Mindy on Instagram @hey.its.min and check out  #plattersalad and #saladbrain and join the Salad Brain Creativity Movement!

Biscuits and Cornbread Lab

You want to learn how to make biscuits and cornbread?  You’ve found the right place for exploring the rich history and practical beauty of self-rising flour and self-rising cornmeal, gleaned through Mindy’s years working with Nashville’s hometown flour and cornmeal Martha White with Hot Rize, the longest-running sponsor of the Grand Ole Opry.  Our labs are full-emersion, hands-on, flour everywhere experiences. Our lab partners crank out hundreds of biscuits and learn how to confidently get the results they want. See and experience for yourself the simplicity and beauty of the South’s favorite hot breads.

how to make scratch biscuits how to make scratch biscuitshow to make scratch biscuits\ extra thin and crisp cornbread

About Us

We are Nashville-based food writers, authors, and teachers.  Mindy is a proud graduate of Virginia Tech and one of the last generations of land grant university home ec majors. For more than 25 years Mindy has been elbow-deep in test kitchens, food marketing, recipe development, communications, and journalism. She has co-authored two cookbooks with the great-grandniece of Jack Daniel, Lynne Tolley, for Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey. She worked with the test kitchen staff of Tennessee’s iconic baking company, Martha White Flour, and can tell you pretty much anything you’ll ever want to know about southern biscuits and cornbread. Mindy wrote the former weekly Drive-Thru Review column in the Tennessean, dissecting fast-food menu trends for many years.

RB was a driven, impatient child and became an Eagle Scout in 1974 at the age of 13. He’s been cooking outdoors over some kind of fire ever since. His smoked chicken is a religious experience, and don’t get him started about Texas brisket and beef ribs. For years R.B. chronicled his cooking adventures on the patio in his weekly column The Fire Zone in the Tennessean. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and Vanderbilt University School of Law and has been an attorney, a non-profit legal director, and a university professor.

R.B.’s indoor cooking skills, including the ability to whip up side dishes to serve with his grilled and barbecued platters, continue to improve. His food roots and influences span from his native South County, Rhode Island, to Rochester, NY, to coastal Florida, to Nashville, TN, and over to the deserts of Arizona. He’s happiest when slurping down New England oysters that Mindy shucks for him because he’s the guitar player for Nashville’s blues-rock-funk band, Shagbark, and he can’t risk a shucking malfunction.

about-rb-quinn-mindy-merrellhow to make great shortcake how to make great shortcake

Contact Us


    No photographs or text may be reproduced without written permission. All images and content are subject to copyright protection and are the sole property of Cheater Chef, LLC, and Mindy Merrell and Richard B. Quinn. Backlinks to our website are welcome.

    Share
    FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinTumblrRedditStumbleuponWhatsappTelegramEmail

    Keep in touch

    Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest Youtube Email

    cheater-chef-logo

    OUR BOOKS!

    amazon-cheater-chef-book amazon-jack-daniels-book

    Latest Posts

    • Slow Cooker Pulled Pork — Kitchen|Pit Barbecue

      November 13, 2020
    • Salad Brain Exercise–Fig Salad for Brunch

      October 27, 2021
    • Salad Brain Exercise–Salad Greens on the Side

      September 12, 2021
    • Salad Brain Exercise–Green Bean

      August 27, 2021
    • Salad Brain Exercise–Strawberries and Marshmallow Fluff

      May 10, 2021
    • Linzer Cookies

      February 8, 2021

    Categories

    Latest Videos

    Popular Posts

    • 1

      Slow Cooker Pulled Pork — Kitchen|Pit Barbecue

      November 13, 2020
    • 2

      Banana Bread with Self-Rising Flour

      March 23, 2020
    • 3

      Cornbread Lab Manual

      March 9, 2020
    • 4

      Smoked Grilled Chicken on a Weber Kettle — Kitchen|Pit Barbecue

      November 18, 2020

    Instagram

    hey.its.min

    Mindy Merrell
    Well I don’t have enough sun for my favorite peo Well I don’t have enough sun for my favorite peonies. Playing around with greens instead. These are my garden workhorses: Solomon’s seal, hosta, hellebore, itea. That itea is such a graceful shrub. Looks great against all these sturdy leaves.
    I was in the Walmart in Columbia TN and was surpri I was in the Walmart in Columbia TN and was surprised and happy to find 10 lb bags of Martha White self-rising flour.  You’ve got to get out in the country where folks still bake biscuits regularly to find these big bags.  Even better this kuchen recipe we developed probably 30 years ago is still on the sack. It was inspired by my grandma Jutta Almy’s plum kuchen she baked in the fall with those little Italian prune plums. In the test kitchen we were alway cooking up new ways to use self-rising flour beyond biscuits. I think this one was first called Kuchen For All Seasons because the easy cake can be topped with anything seasonal and baked all year long. Still makes me chuckle. If you’ve ever wondered about the recipes on a package, they actually come from real people. The next is a great old pic of my Martha White pal Linda Carman hanging with Tennessee Ernie Ford, the spokesperson for the brand after Flatt and Scruggs. Goodness Gracious ! It’s pea pickin’ good! 
#marthawhite #tennesseeernieford #selfrisingflour #biscuitflour #oldnashville
    When you go see the fabulous Alma Thomas show at t When you go see the fabulous Alma Thomas show at the Frist, be sure to notice the companion exhibit as you enter called Nashville Art Teachers: Beyond the Classroom. Alma Thomas was more than an artist. She was a career art teacher dedicated to broadening the minds of her middle school students in Washington DC.  I so appreciate that @streuliprofitt did just that for my kids at Hillsboro High School and now at Nasvhille School of the Arts. So glad to see her work in this very cool show.  What a great idea. I’m sure Alma would have loved it. #frist #fristmuseum #hillsborohighschool
    Happy New Year from Mr. Perfect. Wasn’t sure he Happy New Year from Mr. Perfect.  Wasn’t sure he’d make it to 2022. We got him in 2004. He was 2 or 3. Now he’s 20ish!  We’ve all clocked a lot of good miles with him. What a good boy. #dachshund
    Exactly what we needed for ramping up for a health Exactly what we needed for ramping up for a healthy 2022.  6 grain rice. Makes an excellent chewy rice salad.  I make it in my cheap little rice cooker.  Perfect every time. Threw in some bell peppers green onion parsley. Dressed with olive oil and fresh Meyer lemon juice from my sweet neighbor’s lemon tree. Added cherry tomato wheels just before serving. Hit the spot.  Ending 2021 in a salad bowl? Sure why not. Maybe the rice is the blank canvas here.  Not the platter.  So many directions to go in.  #platteralthinking #saladbrain #plattersalad #salad2021 #salad #saladsofinstagram 

Wondering about those six grains? Black rice, purple barley, rye berries, hulless barley, red rice, short grain brown rice.
    Bittersweet is bittersweet. The vine is a big inva Bittersweet is bittersweet. The vine is a big invasive pain, but doesn’t it add swing to an arrangement of winter greenery. I just cut a vine. Jammed it in there and let the curls do their thing. #holidaydecor #christmasdecor #christmasgreenery #flowerarrangement
    Well sometimes the platter itself is a very loud c Well sometimes the platter itself is a very loud conversation. I use this one in December obviously.  I look at it all year long and wonder if I could create something that would soften the holiday vibe. Can’t figure it out. I really don’t want to store too much stuff that’s limiting but I guess I do. The actual salad? It’s fresh orange slices dotted with roasted cranberries.  A sprinkling of coconut and some beautiful roasted  Louisiana pecan halves that my sister sends me every year.  I also threw on some coarse sea salt. Kind of ambrosia, it swings both ways.  Serve as a fruit salad or with dessert.  Simple salad, loud platter can be a good way to go. 🥗💪🏻 
#platteralthinking #saladbrain #plattersalad #salad #cranberries #holiday
    Your salad practice is all about parameters. Consi Your salad practice is all about parameters. Consider this. Whether you consciously know it or not, every time you make a salad you ask yourself questions about the parameters of the situation. These parameters set you in motion and help you make decisions. So Julia says to me I’m making a cool easy cassoulet and I’ve got lettuce, an apple and vinaigrette made for a salad for dinner after mahjong. Bring some #plattersalad stuff. Okay. I know what she’s got going. I know the season and occasion. What have I got?  What can I do without going to the store? Her apple sent me in the sweet savory direction. Post Thanksgiving fridge purge. Roasted sweet potato slices and cut them in quarters. Blanched Brussels sprouts. Pomegranate seeds and toasted walnuts. Slivers of red onion. Julia tosses me a bag of candied ginger! Boom! Last minute pure inspiration. Sprinkled on little slivers. I forgot to bring my roasted cranberries! Oh who cares. That too is a parameter. Tossed the Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes in her dressing which was all it needed. Can we call the sweet potatoes the croutons? Nice fall vibe. Earthy in taste texture and color. #saladbrain #platteralthinking #salads 🥗💪🏻
    I love to make latkes. Perfect recipe for me becau I love to make latkes. Perfect recipe for me because I’ve never been one afraid to make a mess. Years ago I wrote a story for the #tennessean about latkes and featured Mitchell Davis’ mom’s recipe that won the James Beard Foundation Latke Cook-Off. I’ve been using it ever since. The winning ratio is 1 onion for every 2 potatoes.  I’ve always appreciated Mitchell’s thoughtful good sense around the home kitchen. He is @kitchensense and has a substack newsletter called Kitchen Sense. It’s fun to read. Start with the latke issue!
#latkes #substack
    This was a hit with my peeps on #thanksgiving. Bee This was a hit with my peeps on #thanksgiving. Beets brined in vinegar sugar and pinch of salt. Roasted cranberries. Just throw them in the oven with sugar and cook about 30 minutes until kind of candied.  Oranges. Onions jalapeños and radish sprouts. Always looking to add color crunch and tang to all that brown mushy food!! The beets and cranberries are terrific together and exactly the same color.  I like how this hits all the corners of taste. Sweet salty sour bitter hot and lots of earthy umami.  No oil or dressing necessary. I’ll play around with beets and cranberries some more.  Lots of directions to go. 🥗💪🏻
#saladbrain #platteralthinking #plattersalad #salads #saladsofinstagram
    I hope everyone is planning to bake real #cornbrea I hope everyone is planning to bake real #cornbread for their cornbread dressing. This pic show that you can get pretty good results even if you don’t have a cast iron skillet. Just be sure to heat up the pan good and hot.  Not as crusty but not bad.  So bake it a little more. Get some self-rising cornmeal or self-rising cornmeal mix. Both have perfectly blended leavening and salt. The only difference with the mix is that it also has a small amount of wheat flour blended in there.  Both make great cornbread. I prefer a big skillet for a better ratio of crust to soft insides. You can make any size recipe you like just remember 2 tablespoons of fat per cup of cornmeal.  Add an egg (or not) and as much buttermilk or milk to make a creamy pourable batter.  Remember dry clumpy batter makes dry cornbread.  Happy Thanksgiving. 🦃
#cornbreaddressing  #thanksgivingsides
    Just for fun. Here’s the progression of my favo Just for fun.  Here’s the progression of my favorite #gingko. I love the yellow carpet. #yellow
    I so appreciate that I get to drive by this #gingk I so appreciate that I get to drive by this #gingko tree all the time. I don’t even believe in perfection. This may be it. #yellow.
    @elsitadunn shared this pic she took last Thanksgi @elsitadunn shared this pic she took last Thanksgiving of my #plattersalad. I’d forgotten about this. My #saladbrain was really kicking in. Idea A+. Execution meh.  But it was delicious and I still love the idea so thought I’d share it to get your #platteralthinking engaged as you start ruminating about Thanksgiving. This is not about perfection.  It’s about trying ideas and learning. You know all that traditional brown mushy food is begging for color crunch and acidic tang. Traditional/modern blobs of cranberry gelee and fresh orange juice gelee topped with green apple and orange rounds and tangerines satisfy that parameter. Jello snobs stay with me. You can call it gelee. All you need to remember is that each plain gelatin packet gels 2 cups of liquid. Soften enough gelatin in a little of the cold liquid (juice) in your recipe before you heat part or all of it to dissolve the gelatin. Then mix it all up and chill to set. Molded shapes are nice but unnecessary and maybe a bit rigid. You know that doesn’t work for an ENFP. Or use your usual jello recipes and serve them in a new free form way. That’s cool too. Accent with more of an ingredient in the recipe. So many directions to go here. I wrote a book proposal about new gelatin cookery about 20 years ago called GET SET. Couldn’t sell it but it still makes me chuckle. 🥗😂🙋🏼
#thanksgiving #cranberries #gelatin #salads #myersbriggsrecipes #myersbriggs
    There are no unbreakable #saladbrain rules. Is th There are no unbreakable #saladbrain rules.  Is this concoction too busy?  Yeah so what.  I could have eliminated a few things. What should be booted off the platter? Arugula roasted cauliflower fennel and red pepper. Capers oil brined olives. Chick peas. Green raisins. Pistachios. Parsley fennel fronds. Pecorino cheese. Olive oil lemons. Can you have too much umami? #sicilian inspiration. 
#saladsofinstagram #salads #plattersalad
    Happy color accident. Blue morning glories all ov Happy color accident.  Blue morning glories all over this volunteer yellow and orange cosmos. #octobergarden #color
Thank you @sunnybax for those seeds so many years ago.  They just keep on giving!
    Fall #saladbrain kicked into action. Parameters: b Fall #saladbrain kicked into action. Parameters: brunch with cool friends. Didn’t want to let them down. Although they’d still like me anyway. Red fruits. The mint in the garden gets a second life in the fall cooler weather. Use some of that.  The result.  Plums fresh figs cut two ways. Red grapes. Greek yogurt as the dressing underneath half so you don’t have to have any.  Drizzle of date syrup. Fresh mint leaves.  A nice green counter color to the warm reds and oranges. Chia seeds because I couldn’t find any roasted and salted pistachios in the pantry. Dang. Next time. 🥗 There’s always a next salad. 
#saladsofinstagram #salad# #figs #brunch #plattersalad #platteralthinking
    Little bit of time for a walk before the #ldei21 Little bit of time for a walk  before the #ldei21 final dinner. Thanks San Antonio!  Even ran into a wedding on the #riverwalksanantonio. I’m coming back! #sanantonio #briscomuseumofwesternart #alamo
    San Antonio Les Dames are knocking it out of the p San Antonio Les Dames are knocking it out of the park with the decorations. Check out this #dayofthedead altar. Beautiful. #ldei21. Oh man I just attended a seminar on lighting for social media.  Uh oh.  Still learning 🤭😧
    Beautiful morning for #RhodeIsland #jonnycakes on Beautiful morning for #RhodeIsland #jonnycakes on the #pilotrock #johnnycakes #flintcorn
    Load More... Follow on Instagram
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Youtube
    • Email

    @2019 - Cheater Chef, LLC · All Rights Reserved · A division of Cheater Chef, LLC