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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

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    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.

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    hey.its.min

    Mindy Merrell
    We’ll see how this goes over today. I’m diggin We’ll see how this goes over today. I’m digging it.  Beets citrus arugula olives roasted cranberries pomegranate seeds parsley red onion pistachios.  Winter fridge clean out for sure! #platteralthinking #saladbrain #plattersalad. 🎄🎄🎄🎄
    My pal @bernard_philip brought this to the table f My pal @bernard_philip brought this to the table for his thanksgiving. Black cherry Jello, grilled pineapple, orange slices, celery, toasted walnuts, pomegranate seeds with yogurt honey creme sauce and roasted cranberries. Good contrast to all that brown mushy food.  Nice!  #platteralthinking #saladbrain #plattersalad
    Laundry room carving station. You do what you got Laundry room carving station.  You do what you gotta do! Happy Thanksgiving! #thanksgiving
    Finally made it to #crystalbridgesmuseum. What wou Finally made it to #crystalbridgesmuseum. What would architect #moshesafdie think of the  living room furniture scattered around the galleries. 😳
    Somewhere west of Tulsa. I sure don’t see this Somewhere west of Tulsa.  I sure don’t see this very often.  Wanted to get a look at that other Mindy but a dude was driving.
    My #eaglescout checking out the badges. @rbquinns My #eaglescout checking out the badges.  @rbquinnstagram #nationalboyscoutmuseum
    Father of the atomic bomb has a beer named after h Father of the atomic bomb has a beer named after him.  Science humor! #oppenheimer
    @rbquinnstagram had this for lunch. Chicken fried @rbquinnstagram had this for lunch.  Chicken fried steak and cream gravy. A Merrell family favorite. There were some vegetables and mashed potatoes under there. But why show them?  New Mex combo plate for me.
    New Mexico rest stops. Adobe all the way. #newme New Mexico rest stops.  Adobe all the way.  #newmexico #route66
    #cadillacranch #cadillacranch
    I love a great rest stop. Texas panhandle deliver I love a great rest stop.  Texas panhandle delivers. The bathroom tile looks like the landscape.  #amarillo #route66
    Love these picnic shelters at the rest stop. #tra Love these picnic shelters at the rest stop.  #trailoftears #route66
    You can tell a lot about an architect by the bathr You can tell a lot about an architect by the bathroom design.  Proof that #franklloydwright was not interested in comfort.
    Now that’s upping your bowl game. Truffle oil a Now that’s upping your bowl game.  Truffle oil and football is a combo that has never occurred to me!  #snacks #football
    A gift left for us on the patio this morning. Must A gift left for us on the patio this morning. Must be a sign for us to do some shedding too. #snakeskin
    Tennessee tomatoes of all colors and shapes and my Tennessee tomatoes of all colors and shapes and my favorite corn slabs. Look closely and you’ll see the fun parsley flower sprays that look like little fireworks. No basil.  Went with oregano. Olive oil vinegar and coarse sea salt. A blue platter is always a plus. #tomatoes #salad #saladsofinstagram #platteralthinking #saladbrain
    Littleneck clams are the easiest. Hot fire, five o Littleneck clams are the easiest. Hot fire, five or so minutes, lid closed. Shake shake shake. This time with garlic and tomato. Makes its own sauce. Grilled @southcountybread a big plus. 
#rhody 
#rhodyeats 
#littleneckclams
    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
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