Grandma Poor's Monkey Bread

Let's revisit my food heritage.  I grew up in the deep South: big fluffy biscuits served up with real butter and blackberry jam or honey or sorghum were not just for breakfast.  The meat was fried (well, just about everything was fried if we are going to be honest.  I mean, doesn't everyone grow up with a set of cast-iron skillets and a Fry-Daddy in their kitchen?).  We ate grits at breakfast, and our beans (pinto or green) were slow-simmered with fatback or a ham-bone.  The cornbread was never made from a box and wasn't sweet - my family made it with white corn meal, buttermilk and in an iron skillet.  We had Church fish-frys with fish our daddies caught and hushpuppies our mommas made, and Fifth Sunday "Dinner-on-the-Grounds" potlucks with Gospel singing and enough food to feed a whole passel of hungry Baptists.

And so, even though I am grown, and have learned a thing or two about nutrition and healthy living, I can't deny my roots.  I still enjoy good down-home style cooking, though I do so in moderation now.  This New Year's proved to be an opportunity for a bit of such indulgence.  Aaron and I traveled to Murray, Kentucky for the holiday and stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Poor.  Although she and Grandpa have lived all over the country, she is a Southerner at heart, and Grandma is an amazing cook!  For New Year's brunch, she made biscuits served with butter and jam or honey, gravy, fried country ham and scrambled eggs.  Then, she made Aaron a birthday treat for us to bring back to Tennessee: Monkey Bread.  The smell of the cinnamon and sugar and butter and biscuits baking together for this ooey-gooey treat made my mouth water, even after the hearty meal we had just finished!

So here's to a Happy New Year - with love and laughter in abundance, good food and fellowship in plenty, and indulgence in moderation!

Grandma Poor's Monkey Bread
4 cans of biscuits - halved if you get the 10 in a can packaging or quartered if it's the 8 in a can packaging
2/3 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)
1 cup chopped nuts
Angel food or bundt cake pan

Sprinkle 1/4 cup chopped nuts in bottom of greased pan.
Toss halved or quartered biscuits in cinnamon sugar mixture and put into pan, then nuts, repeat, more nuts, repeat.

1 stick of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
Cook together until it boils.
Pour hot syrup over biscuits and bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Cool 5 minutes and turn out on plate.