Tennessee and Kentucky

Tennessee bourbon (Jack Daniels).   Kentucky bourbon (Makers Mark, Jim Beam, Four Roses).   What a pair of states!   We figured we'd better do something with bourbon.   Coincidentally, a friend gave me a bunch of mint from her garden during the week so we made a batch of mint juleps.  Fortunately, we had a ton of company for Memorial Day weekend to help drink them :-).

We also got lucky on this one because my sister lives in Tennessee.   She was able to ship us some country ham, which isn't normally available here.   That plus the Tennessee state fruit, which is the tomato, made for an excellent sandwich comprised of buttermilk biscuit with country ham and tomato jam.   The recipe is at http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/buttermilk-biscuit-ham-sandwiches-with-homemade-tomato-jam-recipe/index.html.  As we frequently do, we only made a half recipe and it was plenty.

We also made Derby pie for Kentucky .   It is basically pecan pie with chocolate chips and bourbon.   We used all of our bourbon in the mint juleps though, so I subbed Southern Comfort.   I figured that was reasonable since it was also made in Kentucky.  The pie is very rich and excellent.  We were happy to have lots of company to help eat it!