Tag Archives: Charleston

Road Trip to Charleston, South Carolina

Ok I am finally back to my routine after being away for four days on our little vacation to Charleston, SC. What a great time. Lots of fun and sightseeing and eating of course! Charleston is definitely one of the most friendly cities I have ever been too! Can’t wait to go back!

Our first night there we had dinner late since we arrived pretty late and were starving. We found a great little restaurant called TOAST. They have a full bar and serve breakfast all day long as well as having a regular menu. So of course I look over the menu and see one of the dishes I wanted to try while in Charleston. Shrimp and Grits! Yummm…It was a huge serving. Sautéed shrimp, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and sausage with garlic, deglazed with white wine and served with thyme cream sauce over grits. So good! I ate almost the entire bowl.

The next morning we went back to TOAST for breakfast. Had to try what they were famous for! They are the Home of the Bottomless Mimosa! Couldn’t pass that up! They weren’t kidding either. We must have had our glasses filled up at least 4 or 5 times!

For breakfast I had “Eggs Meeting Street”: A fried green tomato topped with a crab cake, poached egg, and Lowcountry rémoulade sauce, served with cheese grits. I also had a cup of She-crab soup, my other must have on this trip! Everything was incredible! The biscuit was huge!

The next day after walking around sightseeing we stopped in a local sports bar called TBonz. Just wanted to have a few drinks and a snack! Lets just say we never made it to dinner that night! We were so full from the snacks there was no way we could eat dinner. I think my body has also gone into a junk-food carb coma! At TBonz we sat at the bar and made friends with a local named Bruce. What a riot. He looked like a shorter older version of Sam Elliot, mustache and all! I’m just saying…For drinks my husband had a couple of Hurricanes and I had two Peach Ice Picks made with Firefly Sweat Tea Vodka and peach iced tea and I think some kind of whisky. Don’t remember really but I had two of them and they were very good!

Our snacks consisted on Bleu Cheese Potato Chips: Homemade potato chips topped with warm bleu cheese that they put under the broiler to melt the cheese! OMG! It was so decadent and delicious! I’m making them for our Super Bowl party next yer!

Our other snack was Lowcountry Crispy Calamari: Hand battered rings of succulent calamari golden fried, served with homemade marinara and Thai sauces! Again incredibly delicious! Look at the presentation!

Another night we found this awesome rooftop bar called the Library Rooftop Bar and Restaurant in the Vendue Inn. We had a couple margaritas while enjoying the view.

The view was incredible. After a couple of drinks we walked back to our car and called it a day. On our way home we stopped in Savannah, GA and had dinner at a restaurant that our friends recommended.  They know the owners and have been talking about it for a while so we figured it was a no-brainer. The restaurant is called Sapphire Grill. More on that tomorrow!

She-Crab Soup

Keeping with the Charleston recipes today’s is She-Crab Soup. I have had this soup here in Florida and it was delicious. So creamy and rich and just plain scrumptious! It is not a low-calorie soup but you can lighten it up a bit by substituting some ingredients with their lighter counterparts. But for now I’m leaving the recipe as is. I won’t put in the calories I found on this either. No need. We know it’s high and we’ll leave it at that. Now what is a “she-crab” and why is it in a soup?

The soup is a regional specialty from the South Carolina Lowcountry. It is considered to be the signature dish of Charleston, SC and is featured on the menus of many of the city’s restaurants.

The soup is named for the “She-Crab”, or female crab, originally a gravid crab, heavy with the flavorful orange crab roe that is typically a main ingredient in traditional she-crab soup. You can leave the roe out of this recipe if you wish, nobody will know! I definitely plan on having this while on our little visit and I will be making a lighter version of my own when I get home. I looked through many recipes and formed my own version for this recipe.

If you want to learn a little more on the history of  She-Crab Soup, just click on the link for more information and another version of the recipe. I will add my substitutions after some ingredients.

INGREDIENTS:

5 tablespoons butter (or butter substitute)

5 tablespoons all-purpose flour (or soy flour)

1 small sweet onion, grated

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 quarts half-and-half (or fat-free half-and-half)

1 pint heavy cream (or light cream)

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup chicken broth (fat-free)

1 pound lump crabmeat

3 tablespoons crab roe (optional)

1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (my husband would want more I am sure!)

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons fresh dill (2 tsp. dried)

2 tablespoons scallions, chopped

½ cup sherry wine

DIRECTIONS:

1. Melt the butter in a large stockpot/dutch oven over medium heat. Stir in the flour to make a smooth paste (a roux) and cook for about 3 minutes, making sure you stir constantly! Stir in the onion and garlic and season with the salt and pepper. Continue cooking and stirring for about 4 more minutes.

2. Gradually whisk in the half-and-half making sure no lumps form. Stir in the chicken broth and heavy cream. Bring this to a simmer and pour in half of the sherry. Add the dill, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the soup has reduced by a third. Add the crabmeat (and roe if you decide to use it), stir carefully. Simmer for another 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

3. Serve the soup and top each bowl off with a splash of the rest of the sherry and a sprinkle of the scallions!

Serves 8 (cut the recipe in half if this will be too much for your family)


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