Corn Chowder and Plum Crisp

We roasted corn recently and had a couple of ears left over. They have been sitting in the fridge asking me to make them into chowder. I love corn chowder, maybe it's the bacon we always crumbled on top when I was a kid. What's not to like when you crumble bacon on top of it?I started out using this recipe from Simply Recipes; however, I can't picture carrot or red pepper in my corn chowder, so I left them out. It seems to me that the corn takes care of the sweetness and other sweet items like carrots and red peppers aren't necessary.

And I have to have mushrooms in my chowder, they offer the nice earthy contrast to the sweetness for my taste buds.

I started out by frying 3 strips of bacon in a small fry pan.

When they were finished, or more than finished because I forgot about them, I set the bacon aside and poured the grease into a pot large enough for the chowder.

In the hot grease, I sauteed 1 diced small onion and 1 diced jalapeno for about 5 minutes. I added 6 sliced crimini mushrooms. I cooked this another 3 minutes or so. If I had had celery I would have added it too.

I shaved the kernels off the two left over cobs. I broke the cobs in halve and added them to the pot. The cobs are supposed to give off more corn flavor and help thicken the broth, I believe; however, I don't know if using the roasted corn reduces this effect.

With the cobs in the pot, I added 3 1/2C milk (I used the 2% I had left, about 3C, and whole milk). I also added a bay leaf and brought all of this to a gentle boil. I reduced the heat to warm to maintain a very light simmer and covered the pot. The recipe suggests cooking it for 30 minutes at this point. I was stalling at this point so I let it simmer very gently for nearly an hour.

Then I removed the cobs and the bay leaf and added 1 diced large red potato, 1t kosher salt, and fresh ground pepper. I increased the heat and let this simmer for about 15 minutes.

(Then I had to turn off the heat and go rescue a friend whose truck broke down.) I added the corn (corn shaved off 2 cobs + 1C frozen corn) and 1/2t fresh thyme. I cooked this just long enough to warm the corn through. We ate the chowder with crumbled bacon on top!

For dessert we had this plum crumble, which was delicious. In fact, it sounds like breakfast this morning!

Snickerdoodles

I have always loved snickerdoodles. I mean they are cookies after all, what's not to like?! There was a recipe for them in my Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cookbook. I don't have that cookbook anymore so I had to do a little searching for a recipe. I used this one at smitten kitchen, which does have cream of tartar in it. I have come to learn that cream of tartar is from grapes and made from a sediment produced in the wine making process. And it essentially makes baking soda into a single action baking powder, rather than the double acting that has a second rising phase once exposed to heat. Although I haven't tried it yet, I did find a snickerdoodle recipe without cream of tartar at Simply Recipes.

Macaroni and Cheese

Mac and Cheese! So many options: Kraft with powdery cheese, Velveeta with squeeze cheese, Annie's, and homemade, to name a few! This recipe comes from one of my college roommates and was part of our usual dinner rotation. There are three things to be done simultaneously: cook the pasta, make the sauce, and grate the cheese.

1. Cook 1 lb. of pasta. And it is best if it is al dente, as it will cook a bit more as it bakes.

2. Make a bechamel sauce (see below).

3. Grate about 3/4 lb. of asiago cheese and mix in 4 oz. of parmesan cheese.

Pre-heat the oven to 350. In a buttered casserole dish, layer 1/3 of the pasta, 1/3 of the cheese, and 1/3 of the sauce. Add a few grinds of pepper. Repeat. Top with buttered bread crumbs. The recipe calls for 1C of buttered bread crumbs but depending on the surface area in your casserole this can be quite a thick layer of crumbs. I would start with about 1/2C and see if it looks appealing. The more butter you melt and mix with the crumbs the more browning will result, which is the delicious part.

Bake uncovered for 20 minutes at 350. If you want to make this in advance and refrigerate it, you can bake it for 20 minutes covered and then 20 minutes uncovered.

To make the sauce: Melt 4T butter over medium heat. Cook about 1/2 an onion, diced, until soft. Add 4T flour. Stir this frequently and cook 3-5 minutes. Add 3C hot milk, slowly, whisking constantly to avoid lumps. Add 1 bay leaf, 1/4t thyme, 1/8t nutmeg, and black pepper. Over medium-high heat bring the sauce to a gentle boil, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens. You can strain out the onions, but I never bother, I just remove the bay leaf.

Pasta Puttanesca

This is a nice quick pasta dish for any time of year as the only fresh ingredients are garlic and parsley. As long as the prep work is complete, the sauce can be cooked in the time it takes to cook the pasta (as long as you aren't using super fresh quick cooking pasta!). And you can try and time the steamed broccoli and the garlic to be finished at the same time too, which I accomplished tonight! I made a green salad ahead of time with a beautiful watermelon radish from our farm share. Check out the picture!

This recipe is based on a Cooks Illustrated recipe from 2002.

While cooking 1 lb. spaghetti, heat 2T olive oil, 4 cloves of garlic minced, 1t hot pepper flakes, and 1 tin of anchovies minced over medium heat until fragrant but not browning. Drain 1 28-oz. can of diced tomatoes, but keep the liquid.

Add the tomatoes and simmer until thickened, about 8 minutes.

Drain the pasta and add about 1/2C of the tomato liquid and toss to fully coat the pasta.

Add 1/3C minced fresh parsley, 3/4C black olives (like Kalamata or oil cured) pitted and chopped, and 3T capers to the sauce. Pour this over the pasta and add more tomato liquid as necessary.

Serve with parmesan cheese.

Sides dishes for steak!

I love steak but I don't think I had ever bought myself a steak at the grocery store to cook at home. It just seems decadent, I guess. But yesterday was the day. Steaks on the grill for dinner and they were yummy. Plus, our dinner guest made a darn good imitation of A-1 sauce by combining ketchup, worcestershire sauce, and Heinz 57 chili sauce. However, I thought it would be more interesting to post about our sides. I opted for potatoes and spinach, which seemed like the classics.

I was tempted to make creamed spinach but it seemed way too rich.

We often saute spinach with feta cheese and pine nuts, but with no feta I used goat cheese instead.

First, I toasted about 1/4C of pine nuts in a dry pan over med-high heat. I am really good at forgetting about toasting nuts and letting them go too far. It is very easy because they go quickly from perfect to burnt.

This time I stayed close to the stove, shook the pan often, and turned off the heat when they started to smell toasty and delicious. The smell even rivaled the grill just outside on the deck.

Next I cooked 2 cloves of minced garlic in about 1T olive oil.

Once fragrant but not browned, I added the spinach. I covered it for a few minutes and then stirred it to combine the oil, garlic, and spinach.

Once it was all wilted, I added the pine nuts and about 2 ounces of goat cheese. I drained a little of the water out of the pan because I was worried that the cheese would mix with the water and lose its richness. It did melt all over the spinach but did not lose the creaminess.

For our potato side dish, we grilled tiny red potatoes in foil. I wrapped up the spuds in three layers of foil with 1T olive oil, salt, pepper, and several sprigs of fresh rosemary.

We wrapped up the package and let it cook on the edge of the grill. It is good to rotate the foil package around from side to side and to flip it over from top to bottom. The potatoes were on the grill for about 30-35 minutes total. Yum!

Carrot Cake

Yummy carrot cake! (I promise we didn't already polish off the zucchini bread on our own. We froze half of each loaf and now we are in desperate need of cake!) The recipe I love for carrot cake is from the March/April 2003 issue of Cook's Illustrated. They recommend adding nuts (walnuts or pecans) and raisins. I only had walnuts, so I added about 1C of chopped nuts when I added the carrots.

Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare a 13 by 9 inch pan.

Butter or spray the pan and then put parchment paper on the bottom of the pan and spray the paper.

In a bowl mix together 2 1/2C flour, 1 1/4t baking powder, 1t baking soda, 1 1/4t cinnamon, 1/2t ground nutmeg, 1/8t ground cloves, and 1/2t salt.

Meanwhile, grate 1 lb. carrots (about 6-7 large carrots). (Go

ahead and use a food processor because you are going to keep using it for the batter and the frosting.)

In a food processor, mix 1 1/2C sugar, 1/2C brown sugar, and 4 eggs. Process this for about 20 seconds until frothy and completely combined. With the machine running, add 1 1/2C oil (safflower, canola, or vegetable) in a steady stream. Process until the mixture is light and the oil is fully emulsified. Pour this batter into a large bowl. Mix in carrots and nuts and raisins (if you want).

Mix in dry ingredients about 1/3 at a time and stir until fully combined. Pour this into the prepared cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes (longer if you add nuts and/or raisins). Rotate the cake half-way through.

Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the pan on a rack for 2 hours. Remove cake from pan and frost when fully cooled.

For the frosting, allow 8 0z. of cream cheese and 5T of butter to soften but not fully warm to room temperature. Process the cheese and butter with 1T sour cream and 1/2t vanilla for about 5 seconds. Add 1 1/4C powdered sugar (I only used 1C) to the frosting mix and process for an additional 10 seconds. Spread this evenly across the cake! I like to the chill the cake before eating.

Zucchini Bread

The overwhelming number of summer squash has led me to my first batch of zucchini bread. I used the recipe from Simply Recipes. The suggested add-ins in this recipe are raisins and walnuts. I had neither. I made one loaf with dried cherries and chocolate chips. TASTY!! And into the other loaf I added pumpkin seeds and dried figs. Also delicious but a little bit on the health nut side. (You may notice in the pictures that the add-ins are not evenly distributed. I decided I didn't want to dirty an extra bowl so in order to mix different things into the two loafs, I did it in the loaf pans. I put half the dough in one pan and half in another and then mixed in the fruit, chocolate and/or nuts. This is not a good plan. Just dirty another bowl if you want to add different things into each loaf!)