Savory Corn Griddle Cakes

One of my favorite resources for recipes to use with the abundance of summer veggies is Jack Bishop, author of my two most used cookbooks.  The first, Vegetables Every Day, was a college graduation gift from my brother and sister-in-law.  It is set up alphabetically and contains several main dishes and side dishes that can be made with each vegetable.  I happened upon my other favorite, A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen, sitting in someone's garbage at the curb while walking with my mom on a visit to Raleigh.  I love this book because it is divided into the four seasons, with recipes utilizing the specific vegetables available at different times of year.  For anyone looking for great vegetable recipes, I would recommend either or both of these cookbooks.

Though I am not vegetarian, I would say we only cook dishes with meat a couple of times a week during the summer due to the availability of fresh veggies from the farmers market and our garden.  I love Jack Bishop's recipes because if you want to add a little meat or change things up a bit, it's pretty easy to do.  This is just what I did last night by adding swiss chard, tomatoes, and sausage crumbles to the Savory Corn Griddle Cakes I made from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen.

Savory Corn Griddle Cakes
4 medium ears of corn, husks and silk removed
1 ounce of cheddar or monterrey jack, shredded (about 1/4 cup)
1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro leaves
3/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter, plus more for cooking
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup salsa or sour cream, or Spiced Honey Syrup (recipe is in the book)


Place a platter on middle oven rack and heat to 200 degrees.  Grate the corn on large holes of a grater set inside a bowl until the cobs are clean.  Discard cobs.  Stir cheese, cilantro, milk, eggs, and melted butter into the grated corn.  Fold in the flour, baking powder, and salt until no streaks of flower remain.


Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat and lightly grease with butter.  Fill a 1/4 cup measure with batter and pour into the hot pan to make a round cake.  Repeat until the pan is filled with griddle cakes.  Cook, flipping cakes once until lightly browned on both sides, about five minutes total.  


Use a spatula to transfer the griddle cakes to the warm platter in the oven.  Repeat with remaining batter.  Serve with salsa, sour cream, or Spiced Honey Syrup.


I adapted this recipe a bit by eliminating the cilantro, using queso quesadilla, and changing the toppings.  Here are some photos of the process and the end result.

I decided to top my cakes with some sauteed swiss chard from the garden and A Way of Life Farm sausage crumbles.  I finished off one with diced garden tomatoes and the other with a light drizzle of maple syrup.  They turned out awesome!

Trouble in Paradise

This week I noticed my cucumber plants started developing strange little yellow spots on the leaves.  Of course, I immediately started researching this online and discovered my plants were being affected by downy mildew.  You can see the yellow spots starting to show up in the photo below.

I was advised by someone working at American Beauty Garden Center (a great local garden store) to try Serenade Disease Control spray, which is a bacterial fungicide safe for organic gardening.  So, I did.  The bottle of Serenade specifically says not to expose plants to water for at least four hours after application.  This also just happened to be one of the rainiest weeks we've had all summer.  Of course, every time I applied it, it would start raining within a couple of hours, sometimes continuing into the night.

This just exacerbated the mildew problem and I ended up having to cut off a lot of the leaves from my cucumber vines because it was starting to spread to the peppers, okra, chard, and lima beans.  Mildew spores hang onto the underside of leaves and are carried by wind, so it only took a couple of days for it to start affecting everything.  I also noticed that my tomatoes had started developing septoria leaf spot (photo below).

So, tonight I spent two hours in the garden clipping leaves off of nearly everything where I noticed the mildew had spread.  Information online is conflicting as to whether removal of leaves containing mildew spores is necessary, but it seems to make sense that it would be if the mildew infection spreads from one leaf to another via the spores.  Some information suggests removal of diseased plants in their entirety while other sources say that the mildew only affects the leaves.

I decided to take a risk and remove the leaves for a couple reasons.  First, my cucumber vines are way too intertwined to decide which are diseased or not, and even if I could tell, removal of just those affected would be nearly impossible.  Also, I have read in a couple different places that this specific mildew only affects the leaves, so I figured there would still be a chance the plants would survive if the problem areas were removed.  Throwing out the entire vine seemed a bit premature if there would be any chance it would sprout new leaves and survive.  For now, I just plan to apply fungicide every seven days as suggested and hope for the best.

Here is the bag of affected leaves I ended up with at the end of the night.  It's important to remember that if you are faced with this issue, the leaves need to be completely removed from your garden.  This means no compost bin, because the spores can continue to thrive there.

Updates and Adventures in Pickling

The garden is getting really huge!  I'm harvesting cucumbers, okra, and three kinds of squash daily.  Peppers, speckled limas, and peas are showing up and all the tomato plants have yellow blossoms so they should be coming soon.  I have to keep reminding myself that I planted a little later this year because I keep thinking everything is taking forever.  I've been making pickles every night and trying to be patient.  Here are some photos of how things are going!

Cucumbers 

 Yellow Crookneck, Zucchini, and Pattypan Squashes

 Swiss Chard

 Tall Telephone Peas

 Speckled Calico Lima Beans

 Several Varieties of Tomatoes

 Clemson and Red Burgundy Okra

 Beets

 Thai Chilis (You can see one to the left of my pinky.)

 Green Bell Peppers

 Hot Banana Peppers

 Jalapenos

Basil

Various pickles: Garlic dill slices and spears, swiss chard and okra 

(The brine is pink due to the color of the chard and burgundy okra.)

Jammin' It

We haven't expanded our garden to include any fruit yet, but my husband's aunt and uncle have lots of property and tons of blueberry and blackberry bushes.  They invite any willing members of the family to come and pick berries any time since they can't possibly eat them all.  My husband and I took them up on their offer and I decided to make some jam with the gallons of blueberries and blackberries we'd picked.

Though this was my first attempt at making jam, it proved to be really easy.  I decided to go the old fashioned route, avoiding the need for added pectin.  This left me with just two ingredients: berries (9 cups) and sugar (6 cups).  The first step was to squish the berries, which I did with a potato masher.

Next, I dumped them into a big pot and mixed in the sugar.  You can see, at left, that I started using a large soup pot with the blueberries.  I later ended up dumping the blueberry mixture into one of my water bath canners because boiling fruit makes A LOT of foam and everything was about to spill over.  So, if you attempt this, be advised you need a BIG pot with several inches of space beyond the height of the fruit.

Because I was making pretty big batches, the berry and sugar mixtures took quite a while to boil and thicken up.  I think it took nearly an hour of constant boiling before the desired consistency was reached. During this time, it was really important to keep stirring periodically because the fruit can become stuck on the bottom of the pot and scald.

Once the mixtures started to thicken, I had to keep testing it to see if they had reached the jellying point.  I decided to go with the cold plate method because I didn't trust my assessment of whether the jam was properly sheeting off the spoon since this was my first time.

Once the jam had reached the jellying point, I immediately removed it from the heat and funneled it into half pint jars.  I processed them for ten minutes and all sealed successfully.

I gave some away and we still have 14 jars in our pantry, so I am sure we'll be enjoying blueberry and blackberry jam for a long time!

Pickles, Round Two

So the first batch of half sour pickles I posted about last week turned out waaaaaay too salty to be consumable.  The spice mixture was perfect, but the ratio of salt to water was just not right.  I consulted this website which contains excerpts from this book and my second attempt turned out perfectly.  

I ended up leaving them in the brine for a total of about 63 hours before sampling them and decided to take them out because the flavor was just as I like it: mild, garlicky, and still containing hints of cucumber.  I think the new pickling crock my husband bought me for my anniversary present may have also helped as it is better than using a plastic bucket.  Here is the final recipe I will now be using to make half sours:

Half Sour Pickles

Thoroughly wash cucumbers and slice 1/8 inch from the blossom end.  While preparing the rest of the ingredients, soak cucumbers in icy water for ~20 minutes to crisp up.

Combine salt and water in a saucepan in bring to a boil to make brine.  Use 2 Tablespoons salt to every 4 cups water, depending on how much brine is needed to completely cover the amount of cucumbers being used.

Grind the following spice mixture until fragrant in a mortar and pestle:

1/3 teaspoons whole coriander seeds

1/3 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
2 whole allspice
1/3 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
1/3 teaspoons black pepper corns
1/2 teaspoons dill seeds
2 or 3 pieces broken dried bay leaf

Add to the pickling crock/container being used:

4 – 6 cloves garlic

spice mixture above

cucumbers (This recipe is suitable for 6-8 pickling cucumbers.  Using more may require adding more spices or garlic.)

Pour brine over cucumbers and spice mixture and allow to settle.  Use a freshly washed dinner plate or food grade plastic lid and 1-2 sanitized jars filled with water placed on top of cucumbers to hold them under the brine.  Cover the crock/container with cheesecloth. Check the brine daily and remove any scum that has formed on the surface with a spoon. The time required for pickles to attain the desired flavor will vary and can be determined by sampling after 48 hours.

Once desired flavor has been reached, remove pickles from brine using tongs.  Pickles can be placed in a sanitized jar if you plan on canning them, or a container suitable for refrigerator storage if you plan on eating them in the near future.  

Heating and straining the brine through paper coffee filters is said to reduce cloudiness (though I didn't find this to be successful).  This step can be skipped if this is not a concern. Pour brine over the pickles and immediately place in refrigerator or process to seal.  

Pickles, Round One

This week my cucumber vines finally started producing.  Only five were ready (and I couldn't resist eating one), so I decided to try a little experiment with a tiny batch of counter top fermented half sour pickles to see how things go.  

Half sours have been one of my favorite types of pickle ever since I ate them in a deli in New York City several years ago.  Unfortunately, they are pretty scarce and expensive here in the south.  I am hoping if this batch goes well, I can produce these on a larger scale and have a supply year round.

To make these, I used the combination of spices and steps suggested by Tommy J's Kitchen.  Last summer I tried this same method with cucumber slices.  The pickles came out ok, but tasted a little bitter.  I am hoping that whole cucumbers will work better.  I remembered this spice mixture was just about spot on, so I decided to stick with it.

While I was grinding the spices and letting the salt dissolve in the water to make the brine, I let the cucumbers soak in icy water to crisp up.  Then I sliced a tiny bit off the blossom end of the cucumber because this is supposed to eliminate the enzymes that cause pickles to become mushy.

Once the brine was ready, I poured the it over the cucumbers in a food grade plastic bucket.

In order to keep the cucumbers under the brine at all times, they have to be weighted down. A lot of recipes suggest using a dinner plate, but I had to use a food grade plastic lid because a plate wouldn't fit in my bucket.  I placed a sanitized jar filled halfway with water on top of the lid to hold the cucumbers down.

I covered the whole contraption with cheesecloth and placed it in a cool, dry area of our kitchen counter. So far, I haven't had to remove any scum (naturally forming bacteria) from the surface, but continue to check the bucket a few times a day.  I will leave these for 72 hours before testing the results.  Hopefully they will turn out well!

Fresh Fruit Kuchen

If you're like me, you can't resist buying way too much fruit at this time of year.  Despite my best intentions to eat yogurt and berries three times each day, at some point the amount of fruit I purchase exceeds the amount I am able to consume and some of it woefully ends up in the compost bin.

Enter the solution: Fresh Fruit Kuchen.  This is a simple cake, adapted from Joy of Cooking, which welcomes fruit at its prime or even slightly past.  It's a great way to use up those slightly soggy blueberries you overzealously purchased two quarts of despite being the only one in your household that will eat them.

Joy of Cooking suggests putting the fruit on the bottom, but I put mine on the top.  Here is the recipe:

Fresh Fruit Kuchen
Position rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350.  Grease a 9 x 2 inch round cake pan.  Prepare streusel topping below and set aside.


Streusel Topping: 
1/3 cup sugar or brown sugar
2 Tablespoons melted unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons all purpose flour (if using brown sugar, increase flour to a total of 4 Tablespoons)


Whisk together in a bowl:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt


Beat in a large bowl until fluffy:
1/2 cup (1/2 stick) softened unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar


Add to the butter/sugar mixture 2 large eggs, beating in one at a time until blended.
Stir in the flour mixture until incorporated.


Scrape cake batter into the pan and top with fresh fruit, distributing it evenly over the batter. This could be peach slices, cherries, apricots, berries, or any combination.  Use a fork to break up the streusel topping and distribute it over the fruit.  Bake 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  Allow to cool to room temperature on a rack before serving.

This week I actually made three of these cakes, one with blueberries, one with peaches and blackberries, and one with just blackberries.  It goes well with vanilla ice cream for dessert or even with coffee for a light breakfast or as part of brunch.  The best thing about this cake is that it really highlights the flavor of the fruit without being overly sweet or sugary and it is really easy to make.  Enjoy!