July 15, 2009
July 12, 2009
Summer in a bowl
You know it's summer when you've done both of the following things. The first is picking a tomato off the vine and biting into it while the juice runs down your arm and drips off your elbow. The second is having to go get the floss after dinner because you've got bits of corn from corn on the cob stuck between your teeth. Only then are you in the full flow of summer!
Sweet corn is an ephemeral thing. Of course you can get it only in summer, but good sweet corn is still somewhat difficult to find. If you grow it yourself, you can quickly find out how fast raccoons and groundhogs can find it. If you buy it from a farmer, it often isn't the best it can be. Good old fashioned sweet corn is best cooked this way. One - start a pot of water boiling. Two - pick the corn and eat. When you're dealing with sweet corn brought to market, you can't do that so you need to go by taste. A lot of times the corn will either be super sweet but rather insipid without a lot of good corn taste. This is the result of newer varieties of corn that have been developed to appeal to our country's infatuation with sugar. I like my corn sweet but I also want it to taste like corn. Or if the farmer's grown a really old fashioned variety, it sometimes isn't sweet enough. Whenever I hit the farmer's market, I buy an ear and walk around the corner from the farmer, open that husk up and try it out. If it's got a good corn taste and it's sweet, I go back and buy a couple of dozen of ears. As soon as I get home, I start a pot of water boiling or fire up the grill. Cooked corn will hold beautifully in the fridge for several days and you can actually freeze cooked corn on the cob and you'd be surprised at how fresh it tastes a few months later.
Tonight, I wanted to make a corn chowder that focused on the corn but also had a little smokiness and body to it. I love Sungold cherry tomatoes in this soup because they are so sweet and tropical tasting. This is an easy soup to mess around with. I think it would be great with basil added and grilled corn would be fantastic in it, especially if you served it with toast topped with smoked mozzarella.
Summer in a Bowl Sweet Corn Chowder:
6 ears steamed corn on the cob
3 strips bacon (cook another strip or two if you're like me and sneak bits out while cooking)
1 large onion, diced into 1/4 inch pieces
2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch cubes
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
10-12 SunGold or SunSugar cherry tomatoes, quartered (you can use other tomatoes, stick with the sweeter, golden kinds)
1 cup whole milk
Cut each corncob in half cross-ways and stand each half on the flat end and using a knife, cut the corn away from the cob. I usually run the blunt end of the knife down the cob to get as much of the juices and corn out as possible. Save all of this in a bowl and put the corncobs in a 1.5 quart pot and fill with cold water. Bring to a boil and let boil for 2-3 minutes. Reduce the heat and simmer while you prepare the rest of the soup.
Cut the bacon into small pieces and cook over medium heat in a non-stick skillet. After the bacon begins to brown a bit and some of the fat is rendered, add the potato and onion. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook for about seven minutes, until the onion begins to soften a bit.
Strain the water the corncobs have been cooking in into a larger saucepan. Add the onions, bacon and potatoes to this liquid. Bring to a boil and the reduce the heat so the soup is simmering. Cook for about 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
Add tomatoes to soup and cook for two minutes. Add milk and corn to soup and heat through. Taste and add salt to your liking. Serve.
This was my official One Local Summer meal for this week. Everything except for the salt and pepper was local. We've had a lot of local meals this week. The blackberries and the peaches are in full swing around here and the first, really good heirloom tomatoes are getting ripe. We've been grilling out a lot and whenever we do that, we grill extra summer squash for meals later in the week. We made another pizza with homemade sourdough and topped it with leftover grilled zucchini, homemade mozzarella and basil from the garden. We made an americanized version of Okonomiyaki which quickly used up a head of local cabbage and local leeks that were getting a little old. And we've made several local meals of homemade bread, tomatoes and basil from the backyard and homemade mozzarella made from local milk. Local eating is anything but a hardship this time of year.
July 08, 2009
Ridiculously easy way to slay the zucchini monsters
There are many inexplicable mysteries in gardening. Why is that one year your potatoes do so poorly even though you've done everything "right" and the next year when you plant them too late, they flourish? Why is that the birds ignore the delightful array of seeds and various birdbaths you put out for them yet pick at every tomato you have before it's ripe? Why is that you can spend what seems like an inordinate amount of time picking every single zucchini on your plant, yet go out the next day and find a boat of a zucchini waiting for you?
You can't win against the zucchini monsters and there's only so much zucchini bread one person can eat. And it's not like most zucchini breads are very healthy to begin with and who wants to bake when it's 90 degrees out? I also rarely have time to cook anything complicated when I've got 20 pounds of squash to put up for winter. This is where the following recipe will help you out. It seems so simple that it must be boring but it's one of my favorite summer meals. More importantly, it gets rid of monster zucchinis fast. You can even grate zucchini, throw it in a freezer bag and make this dish in the winter when the scary monster zucchinis are but a haunting summer memory.
Killer Zucchini Orzo
1 cup cooked orzo
2 cups grated zucchini(half of a monster zucchini)
1/2 medium onion
1/2 to 1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons Pecorino Romano
Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon combination of herbs to suit you - see note below.
Heat oil in nonstick pan over medium heat. Add zucchini and onion and saute until it begins to brown. Mix in herbs with a pinch of salt. Stir in cheese and add cooked orzo. Stir until heated through and serve. You can more grated cheese when serving if you like. You can serve this hot or at room temperature.
Note: My favorite combination of herbs is a blend from Penzeys called Italian Herb Mix or a mixture of thyme and oregano or marjoram.
This is a very flexible meal. I've added chopped tomatoes or quartered cherry tomatoes to it and that's a nice variation. Sometimes I add garlic with the onion and zucchini. I plan on experimenting with other vegetable this year. I think grated winter squash sauteed with butter and sage would be fantastic.
July 05, 2009
There is nothing...I repeat, nothing more awesome than Neil Diamond.
My love for Neil Diamond knows no bounds. In my younger, much cooler days, I used to be horrified by the musical selections of my father. He had a deep and abiding love for Irish folk music and James Taylor. And Dad - seriously, could you turn down the Carly Simon?!! Now that I fully embrace my dorkdom, I'm free to love whatever music entertains me. Which is why Neil Diamond's "America" will always have a place on my July 4th playlist, along with The Bruce's "Born in the USA" and 2 Live Crew's "Banned in the USA".
Unlike the merry band of corporate shills at The Center For "Consumer Freedom", I celebrated my freedom by eating my way through a day where as many foods as possible were produced by local food producers. We kicked off the day by heading to our local farmer's market where we stuffed ourselves with locally produced baked goods. I even convinced myself that the carrot cake I had for breakfast had to be healthy because it lacked cream cheese icing.
For lunch, we had leftovers from the day before - grilled local lamb and onions, flatbread made with my sourdough and tomato salad made from tomatoes and herbs in our back yard.
For a snack, we had grilled local corn. It was the first corn of the season. I think the splotches on the porch floor made by butter dripping off our elbows might wear off by summer's end.
We managed to make it to about 3pm before imbibing any booze and when I got a taste of the Basil Peach White Wine Sangria made with local peaches, I wish we had started drinking earlier. The basil we picked from our garden made this drink - it kept it from being too sweet and cloying.
For a late dinner, we made our traditional 4th meal - smoked turkey legs. For some medieval reason, I really love turkey legs. They really bring out the T-Rex in me. We served it with homemade baked beans made with local honey, local tomato sauce, frozen local shelley beans and local bacon. We served it with one of the best potato salads I've ever had(made with local potatoes and herbs from our garden of course!).
I don't hate potato salad but the majority of them are too heavy for me and I always feel like the potatoes in those salads are just the excuse for mainlining as much mayonnaise as possible. Smitten Kitchen's Horseradish Potato Salad is just what I've been looking for. The focus is on the potatoes but the sour cream dressing makes this dish sing. I've always been a fan of the sinus tingling properties of horseradish and when you combine it with the chives, dill and onion in this dish, well - I'm just glad no one but my husband saw me scraping the plate with my finger.
3 pounds small (2-inch) potatoes
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons fresh dill, finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Boil potatoes until they're fork tender. Cool them room temperature and quarter. Mix remaining ingredients and fold the potatoes into this mixture.
After we finished eating, we waddled upstairs onto our upper porch where we had one of the best views in Knoxville of the downtown fireworks. There are times where I wonder why we bought this ramshackle old house but every time we get to relax, away from crowds and get such a great view of the fireworks, my faith in our decision is restored.
I hope you all had a great 4th and you all got down with your bad old selves! Let Freedom (and 2 Live Crew) Reign!
July 04, 2009
July 03, 2009
June 30, 2009
Route 69 Cherry Limeade
My husband thinks I have a very annoying habit. When it's hot out, one of my favorite things to drink is a Route 44 Cherry Limeade from Sonic. It just screams summer to me. I've noticed though that they aren't nearly as good as they used to be. They also always forget to put cherries in it which to me, is half the fun of the whole thing. But liking Cherry Limeades is not the annoying habit that irritates my husband. Along with mispronouncing Crappie and calling a bobber a float, whenever he goes to order a Cherry Limeade for me, I make sure to tell him I want a Route 69 Cherry Limeade. I'm hoping that one day, just because I've put this idea in his head, he'll head to Sonic and instead of ordering a Route 44 Cherry Limeade, he'll pull up to the drive-in speaker box and ask for a Route 69 Cherry Limeade. And then die a little death of shame.
So far, he hasn't fallen for it. So I figured a little more indoctrination is necessary. Since Sonic seems to be slipping in the quality department, I wanted to create my own version of the drink. It will also help me use up the giant bag of un-pitted sour cherries I have in my freezer. And if you're going to call it a Route 69 Cherry Limeade, you might as well throw a little liquor in it. Here's the recipe:
Route 69 Cherry Limeade:
First take 2 cups of sour cherries and 1/2 cup of sugar. Mash them up a bit and simmer with a lid over medium low for about an hour. Strain out the bits and save the syrup. We froze the extra to use later.
Use a 16 oz glass. Take 2T cherry syrup. Add 2 T fresh lime juice. Add 1 shot vodka or to taste. Fill glass 3/4 full with soda water and add ice. Garnish with a slice of lime and as many cherries as you would like!
Enjoy! And don't blame me if you slip up at the drive-thru!
June 28, 2009
One Local Summer - Week Four
This week has been full of OLS meals! On Monday, I made a delicious frittata with local eggs, ham, zucchini, potatoes and onions. In fact, even the mozzarella we subbed in for the cheddar was local because we made it from Cruze Farm milk! Tuesday, we made tortillas using local lard and filled them with local chicken and onions. Only the cheese wasn't local. We served them with homemade salsa made from local ingredients. Wednesday was tomato toast made with homemade bread, local garlic and tomatoes from our back yard. On Thursday, we made one of my favorite grilled meals, Vietnamese Chicken, made with local chicken and grilled local zucchini and onions. We finished the night off with a cherry crisp made from frozen local cherries. We made a simple pasta sauce out of local zucchini, tomatoes and garlic on Friday and served that with a grated beet salad made from beets from our friends' yard. On Saturday, we started the day off with local raspberries, blueberries and blackberries and had that with a scone from VG's Bakery. We had a wonderful sandwich for dinner made with our homemade local milk mozzarella, leftover grilled zucchini and onions, homemade basil mayo and ciabatta rolls from VG's bakery.
However, today was our "official" OLS meal and everything we ate today was local, except for some feta cheese and flour. We started the morning out with local eggs scrambled with feta and local garlic scapes. For lunch we had local beet greens and swiss chard sauteed with local bacon and served that with steamed local new potatoes with local butter and dill. Tonight for dinner, we had a pizza with local potatoes and leeks and local goat cheese. I even made a sourdough crust so we didn't have to use yeast in our pizza crust! For dessert, we had homemade peach granita we made from local peaches. I had wanted to make sorbet but all the recipes I found contained lemon juice. Instead, we made peach granita from David Lebovitz's book, Perfect Scoop. I do have an ice cream maker but the beauty of this dish is that you don't need one to make this. I had never had granita and I had visions of it being an icy mess. I'm an idiot because this is good stuff. I love that it doesn't have a lot of sugar and it was perfect for the 93 degree day we had today.
Peach Granita:
6 ripe peaches, peeled
1 1/3 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
Slice peaches and cut into small chunks. Cook with 1 cup water in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook until cooked through which is about ten minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sugar and let cool. When cool, place in blender with remaining 1/3 cup water and blend until smooth.
Pour the mixture into a shallow non-reactive pan in the freezer. Check after 30 minutes. As the mixture begins to freeze, use a fork to scrape the frozen puree that froze around the edges into the center. Return to freezer.
Check every 30 minutes, scraping each time. David says it usually takes 2 hours but when we went to bed last night, it still wasn't frozen enough and it had been 3.5 hours. So we some for breakfast! If it gets too hard, just leave it out for a bit.
Locavore Pledge
- If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic. If not ORGANIC, then Family farm. If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business. If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.
