Sep. 9--Karen Kurr made the switch from children's clothes to casseroles, scarcely missing a beat.

The Oxford, Miss., woman, her sister and her best friend had run up their credit cards buying children's clothes, and they weren't exactly selling like hot cakes.

Kay Olliver, Kurr's sister, took the clothes to the Belhaven Market in Jackson, Miss.

"She called me after the first day and said, 'I can't sell these clothes, but I believe I could sell my pecan pies and fudge,'" Kurr said. "She went back the next day with her pies and fudge and sold out. She called me and said, 'This is how we're going to get our money back.'"

The three started "cooking like crazy," and soon they were a hot commodity at the market. That was the beginning of No Time 2 Cook.

"We started a business and shipped the clothes off to Nicaragua on a mission trip," Kurr said.

No Time 2 Cook is run from a commercial kitchen attached to Kurr's home. Every weekday, Southern favorites such as old-fashioned meat loaf, macaroni and cheese, grits and grillades, and home-style chicken pie are cooked up and delivered frozen to small retail outlets in northern Mississippi. On weekends, she's out at the markets selling from her custom-

made freezer rig. She'll be at Agricenter Farmers Market on Friday and at the Memphis Farmers Market Sept. 19; a permanent spot in Memphis is in the works.

Kurr is the sole owner of the business today, the founding trio having dissolved early on.

"We just felt like it made more sense for her to stay in North Mississippi and I would handle Belhaven," Olliver said. But then she became the director of the market and stopped selling.

"She's one of the favorites down here," Olliver added. "Every week people ask me when she's going to be here so they can stock up."

From the time she went solo until she hired her first employee about 18 months1/2 ago, Kurr was both the chief executive officer and chief bottle washer.

"I cooked, I delivered, I marketed, I did it all," she said. "Well, my husband carried the coolers."

Her first retail outlet was at the Mustard Seed Antique Emporium in Oxford. She started with a small freezer in the back of the store. Now the double-wide, glass-front freezer with the No Time 2 Cook logo is the first thing customers see.

"She approached me about three years ago and I just rented her the space," store owner Vonda Blackbourne said. "It's been popular.

"A lot of people will come in and they'll pick up casseroles for people who are sick or who have just come home from the hospital and they take it straight to the counter to pay, so you know that's what they're here for."

Blackbourne is also a consumer, finding the meals particularly handy after a long day at work.

"My husband and I had the grits and grillades recently and they were fabulous," she said. "I'd never heard of grits and grillades, but she suggested we get a fresh salsa to go with them. My husband made a pico de gallo and it was just great."

Grits and grillades is a traditional New Orleans dish containing a spicy braised meat (usually beef) and vegetable mix served with grits. It's frequently served for breakfast or brunch, but is perfectly fine for lunch or dinner.

Many of Kurr's dishes -- most of her recipes are from her family, original or heavily adapted -- have a Louisiana influence.

"When I was a child, we lived in several places in southwest Louisiana, which is where my mother learned to cook," Kurr said.

Her soup menu includes seafood gumbo, shrimp and crab bisque, shrimp Creole, and New Orleans-style red beans. At home, you heat the dishes and prepare your own rice.

Kurr no longer offers samples at most markets (she said the rules are so strict in Tennessee that she can't even cut a piece of cake for a prospective customer to sample), but she did in the early days.

"We'd have crock pots going and people would stop by and say, 'Wow, that smells like home,' and it would turn out that they were relocated from Katrina," she said.

Not all items have a Cajun or Creole influence. One of her best-sellers is her chicken spaghetti -- and there's no Velveeta in it. The menu rotates by season and by demand.

"If it's been 40 days since we've made a recipe, then it's time to take a look at it, to take it off the menu or to remove it for the season," she said.

Her cakes are popular, particularly the caramel cake (though the Italian cream cake is fast gaining on it). They're $11 or $12 and serve six. The entrees on the current menu range from $11 to $15 and serve four. The most expensive item is the 30-ounce crawfish etoufee, which is $18.

Everything is made from scratch, and the only item that contains MSG is the red beans and rice.

"This is homemade food," Kurr said. "The highest compliment anyone can give me is when they taste something and tell me it tastes almost as good as their grandmother's. I know it'll never taste quite as good.

"I never compete with grandmothers. Never. Ever."

Jennifer Biggs: 529-5223

Burgundy Beef Stew

2 lbs. beef stew meat

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 to 2 tsp. vegetable oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 large bell pepper, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced

1 tsp. minced garlic

3/4 cup burgundy wine

28 oz. petite diced tomatoes

2 tsp. black pepper

1 cup beef broth

Beef bouillon crystals

Extra beef broth

Dust stew meat with flour. in a heavy skillet, brown meat in hot oil.

Add vegetables and garlic to browned meat and saute 5 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients and simmer for several hours. Taste, and if necessary, tweak with extra beef broth and beef bouillon crystals. Serves 6.

Shrimp & Crab Quiche

1 regular pie shell

1 lb. grated Swiss cheese

1/3 cup white crab meat

1/3 cup raw peeled shrimp

2 tsp. green onion, chopped

2 eggs

3/4 cup half-and-half

1 tsp. all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. lemon juice

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1/8 tsp. red pepper

1/8 tsp. onion powder

1/8 tsp. garlic powder

1/8 tsp. Hungarian paprika

1 tsp. white wine

Arrange cheese, crab meat, shrimp and green onion in bottom of pie shell.

Mix the remaining ingredients with a hand mixer or blender and pour over pie crust ingredients. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. Serves 6.

Garlic Cheese Grits

2 cups water

2 cups milk

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 cup Quaker Quick Grits

1/2 lb. Velveeta

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/8 tsp. red pepper

1/8 tsp. Hungarian paprika

1/8 tsp. onion powder

1/8 tsp. garlic powder

1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

Heat water, milk and garlic in a 2-quart boiler to simmer.

Whisk grits into simmering liquid. Bring back to simmer, cover pot, turn down, and cook for 5 minutes.

Stir remaining ingredients into grits until cheese is melted, and serve immediately. Serves 6.

Pimiento Pecan Cheese Roll

2 oz. pecans, chopped

4 oz. jar pimiento, drained and chopped

3/4 tsp. minced garlic

3/4 tsp. garlic powder

3/4 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. red pepper

3/4 tsp. Hungarian paprika

1/2 tsp. Tabasco

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 1/4 lbs. cheddar cheese, shredded (at room temperature)

6 oz. cream cheese (at room temperature)

Hungarian paprika or chopped pecans

Mix all ingredients and form into four rolls or balls. Roll in Hungarian paprika or chopped pecans. Makes 4 cheese balls.

Source, all recipes: Karen Kurr, No Time 2 Cook

More about No Time 2 Cook

Find out more about Karen Kurr's No Time 2 Cook, her retail locations and view the full menu at notime2cook.com or call (662) 236-9456.

You can find her at the Agricenter Farmers Market on the second and fourth Fridays of the month from 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., and at the Memphis Farmers Market on the third Saturday of the month from 7 a.m.-1 p.m.

She doesn't have a retail location in Memphis at present, but plans to have one soon. The closest spots are Cates Meat Market, 6399 Goodman Road in Olive Branch, (662) 893-2333, and The Higher Ground, 2430 Mt. Pleasant in Hernando, (662) 449-5755.

Jennifer Biggs: 529-5223

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