Muskogee Woman's 'Soul Food In A Jar' Cooks Up Positive Reviews

There are a lot of really great home cooks, and many of them get encouraged by friends and family to do something bigger with their best recipes.

Well, something special is happening with one of those cooks in Muskogee, and it's called Momma C's Soul Food in a Jar.

Wednesday at Muskogee's Homeland store, Cassandra Gaines offered tastings of her five specialties under the Momma C's Soul Food in a Jar label.

Several people who stopped by called her a Muskogee institution.

She created the Muskogee Soul Food Cook-off 15 years ago, she said, then she published a book about soul food cooking.

"Then the Lord said, ‘All right, it's time for you to do something in a jar,' and that how I got started," said Gaines.

For the last year and a half she's been working on five products which are packaged for her by Griffin Foods in Muskogee, so it's a real hometown operation, and Homeland Store manager, Jason Fritz said it's going over well.

"It's doin' good. People come in all the time asking where it's at," he said.

So far Momma C's is in all the Muskogee Homelands as well as Haskell and in Pryor. It's a great start, but I ask her what's next and she said maybe a variation on one of her products.

"I'm fixin' to bump up the Chow Chow. I've been getting' a lot of requests for hot Chow Chow," Gaines said.

Cassandra will appear on Kathy Ireland's "Modern Living" show on the "E!" Entertainment Network next month.