Honeyed Goat Cheese and Corn Salad

As we slide into fall, and the corn starts disappearing from the grocery shelves, I wanted to share a recipe to savor those last bits of summery sweetness. This salad is a perfect summer side. The fresh corn with tangy goat cheese and bright cilantro evoke delightful thoughts of sombreros and margaritas. My favorite kind of thoughts, really. Someday soon, I really need to visit Mexico, as it's clear I'm pretty obsessed with their cuisine. This side is great with my pork and blue cheese empanada recipe, so try the two together!


Honeyed Goat Cheese and Corn Salad

Ingredients:

4 Ears of Corn, Husks Intact
2 Tablespoons of Cilantro, Minced
2 Tablespoons of Chevre
1 Tablespoon of Honey
1/2 Teaspoon of Salt

Cooking:

Place the ears of corn, husks and all, on a cookie sheet and into the oven at 450 degrees. There's no need to pre-heat. Check on the corn periodically and turn with tongs so that all sides of the husk get browned. Once the husks are a medium brown color in most areas, remove the corn from the oven. Let the ears cool, then remove the husks and silk, then slice the corn from the cob with a sharp knife. Mix the corn with the other ingredients and serve!

Spicy Cilantro Sesame Slaw

Southern coleslaw can sometimes be an unappealing concoction of soggy cabbage swimming in miracle whip. This recipe is a lighter, fresher version that I have been making this summer. I love the nutty sesame flavors combined with the bite of the jalapeno and creamy, tangy-ness of the yogurt.

Spicy Cilantro Sesame Slaw

Ingredients:


1 Small Head of Cabbage, Very Thinly Sliced
4 Carrots, Very Thinly Sliced
1/4 Cup of Cilantro, Finely Chopped
2 Jalapenos, Minced
2 Tablespoons of Greek Yogurt
Juice of 1/2 Lime
1 Tablespoon of Sesame Oil
1 Tablespoon of Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon of Toasted Sesame Seeds
1 Teaspoon of Salt

Preparation:

In a large bowl, toss the cabbage with the carrots, cilantro, and jalapeno. Sprinkle with the salt and sesame seeds, then dress the mixture with yogurt, lime juice, sesame oil and soy sauce. Toss thoroughly and serve!

Red Wine & Bacon Braised Kale and Endive

I'm not sure what happened here. I was on a real roll this year, posting every single week and so proud of myself! Somehow, life got a little busy and in the way of things I enjoy doing for myself, like this blog. And cooking, for that matter. I feel like there has been way more Trader Joe's frozen Indian food in my life than I would truly like to admit.
This recipe is something my husband and I enjoyed a few weeks ago for brunch, and while, (hold your breath for a very-un-southernly admission,) I don't normally enjoy greens, I love the light bitter taste of the kale with the tangy vinegar and salty bacon. With a fried egg on top, it's pretty great! 

Red Wine & Bacon Braised Kale and Endive

Ingredients:

1/4 Pound of Bacon

2 Cloves of Garlic, Minced
1/2 Onion, Minced
3 Cups of Kale and Endive, Roughly Chopped
1 Cup Chicken Stock

1/2 Cup of Red Wine
1 Tablespoon of Chili Flakes
Salt to Taste
Splash of Red Wine Vinegar


Cooking:

In a large frying pan, cook your bacon on medium heat. Remove the bacon once it's crispy and cooked to your preferred crunch. Pour out all but 3 tablespoons of bacon grease, and reserve for another recipe if you desire, like some fried sage baconnaise. Add in the onion and garlic. Cook until the onion is translucent. Add the kale, endive, stock, wine and chili flakes to the pan. Continue cooking for 35 minutes on low heat until the kale is wilted and soft and the sauce is reduced. Chop 2-3 pieces of bacon into bits and stir into the wilted greens. Add your salt to taste and a splash of vinegar. I think this is perfectly served with a fried egg over the top, and your remaining bacon on the side!

Lemony Kale Salad

Greens are so good for you, but I have such a hard time eating them. It's that bitter dirt taste that turns me off. After tasting my friend, Paul's, kale salad recipe, I realized kale is very different from its collard cousin. The bitterness is less intense and can be cut with lemon juice and salty Parmesan. Now, when I make a giant bowl of this, it doesn't last longer than the one meal. One step closer to Pop-Eye!

Lemony Kale Salad

Ingredients:

20 Stems of Kale
Juice of 1 Lemon
1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
1/8 Cup Shaved Parmesan
1 Clove of Garlic, Minced
1/8 Teaspoon of Salt
1/8 Teaspoon of Chili Flakes

Cooking:

Cut the stems away from the leaf of the kale and discard. Roughly chop the leaves and place into a steamer. Steam the leaves for 6-8 minutes until just softened. Meanwhile prepare an ice bath in a large bowl. Once cooked, drop the kale into the ice bath. Once the kale is cooled, strain and pat dry excess water or spin in a salad spinner. Place the kale in a large mixing bowl and stir in the other ingredients with tongs until thoroughly combined. I like to put this salad into the fridge and let it marinate overnight, since the flavors seem to age well together, but it's great straight away, too!

Quinoa Stuffed Tomatoes

 

With the last rays of summer drifting away, I am slowly, slowly adapting to fall. Actually, I think I'm getting into fall, and then, with a new week, another cold front moves in and I want summer back all over again! So, clinging to the last warmth of the year, but acknowledging that summer is gone and we need something hearty,  I'm sharing my Quinoa Stuffed Tomato recipe. 

Quinoa, if you haven't already heard of it, is an amazing Peruvian grain. I use it like couscous, and it's so much better for you. It's a fantastic source of protein, and it takes flavor wonderfully!

Quinoa Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients:

4 Large Beefsteak Tomatoes

1/2 Onion, Diced

2 Cloves of Garlic, Minced

1 Tablespoons of Olive Oil

1 Cup of Quinoa (Black or White or Mixed, as Shown Above)

2 Cups of Chicken or Vegetable Stock

1 Tablespoon of Butter

1 Teaspoon of Cumin

1 Teaspoon of Red Pepper Flakes

4 Tablespoons of Crumbled Feta Cheese

Salt to Taste

Cooking:

Slice the tops off the tomatoes, just at the apex of the curve so that you have a nice bowl shape. Take the tops and dice the edible bits to reserve. Scoop out the innards of the tomatoes carefully with a spoon and place those with the diced tops. You may need a knife to cut away the spines from the outer walls of the tomato. 

In a small dutch oven, pour in your olive oil and saute your onion and garlic until the onion is translucent. Add in the the reserved tomato guts, cumin and red pepper flakes. Stir for another minute. Add in the quinoa, butter and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover and cook until the stock is absorbed, stirring occasionally. Add salt to your taste. Removed the quinoa from the stove. 

On a baking sheet, place your 4 tomato bowls. Fill them with the quinoa mixture and top with a tablespoon of feta. Place into an oven at 375 degrees. Cook for 15 minutes, or until the feta is browned just slightly at the top.

Cheddar-Rosemary Buttermilk Biscuits

For the past year or so, I have been perfecting my biscuit making. I was trained in proper Southern drop biscuit tradition, where you make a well in the flour, and dump in your fat and milk, swishing it all together with your fingers. While fun, the problem with this technique is that the ratio can lack precision and sometimes end in dry, crumbly biscuits; perfectly fine if you are making dressing, but not so delicious with Sunday supper. So, having found a buttermilk biscuit recipe that was delicious every time (that I didn't burn it,) I felt I needed to make it just a little more delicious with some cheddar and rosemary. I served these at a Low-Country Boil we had a couple of weeks ago, and the extra deliciousness seemed appreciated! 

Cheddar-Rosemary Buttermilk Biscuits

Ingredients: 

2 Cups of All-Purpose Flour

1/2 Tablespoon of Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon of Baking Soda

2 Pinches of Sugar

2 Pinches of Salt

1/2 Cup of Grated Cheddar

1 Teaspoon of Rosemary, Finely Chopped

1 Stick of Butter, Chopped into Small Cubes

1 3/8 Cups of Buttermilk

Cooking:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Sift your dry ingredients together, then stir in your cheddar and rosemary until the flour evenly coats the ingredients. With a pastry cutter, fork or your fingers (I sometimes use all of the above,) mash your butter into your dry ingredients until the butter is crumbled into the flour in very small bits. It should look like fine gravel. Then add in your buttermilk. Fold with a rubber spatula until it just comes together, then turn it out on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough out to about 1 inch thickness and cut with a biscuit cutter or a knife into desired shapes. Place the biscuits on a Silpat or a greased cookie sheet and bake until the tops are golden brown or about 20 minutes. You can broil them at the end for a minute or 2 for extra color on the top, but this is where I always get into trouble and forget them. I have burned a batch almost every time I've made them! The broiler is my nemesis! So, don't make my mistakes and be sure to put a timer on!

Home-made Pesto Butter

I saw a post recently, on designsponge.com, about homemade butter, and it set me thinking. I haven't made butter since I was a child at camp, in those small jars which they told you to shake until your arm wants to fall off. After reading the post, it made me long for the amazingly fresh tasting butter, so I thought I would give it an adult try, but with a twist. I would normally make the pesto to go into the butter, but my basil is not quite big enough to harvest yet, so jarred pesto did the trick this time. This butter is great on baked potatoes, steak, toast, and all kinds of other things you want to make extra delicious!

Home-made Pesto Butter

Ingredients:

1-1/2 Cups of Organic Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Tablespoon of Pesto
1/2 Teaspoon of Chili Flakes

Preparation:

Let the heavy cream come to room temperature. The butter will not clump properly unless the cream comes to a temperature around 72 degrees. Pour the cream into an electric mixer and mix on medium until the butter separates from the liquid. This will take somewhere around 7 minutes. Pour the mixture into a fine mesh strainer and allow the liquid to drain away from the solids. You can use the milk as you would buttermilk! Place the solids onto a cooking board and massage out the excess liquid by folding the butter in on itself several times with a rubber spatula. Move the butter to a mixing bowl and add your pesto and chili flakes. Mix until combined. Next you can place the butter into a dish, or you can put onto a sheet of parchment paper and roll into a log. Refrigerate or freeze until you are ready to serve. It will keep for a week or two in the fridge, but for a long while in the freezer!

Black-Eyed Pea Hummus

Recently, I was able to make it over to Empire State South. It was a fantastic experience; truly one of the best meals I've had in a long time. While there, I tried some of their boiled peanut hummus. It was great! Like Mediterranean peanut butter. After thinking about the boiled peanut hummus, I realized that maybe Black-Eyed Peas would be another yummy, southern-take on hummus. I spread some on a toasted slice of bread with some watermelon radishes and carrots from our co-op for a delicious and healthy southern lunch!

Black-Eyed Pea Hummus

Ingredients:

1 Cup of Hydrated Black-Eyed Peas
1 Cup of Hydrated Chickpeas
5 Cloves of Garlic
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
2 Tablespoons of Tahini Paste
2 Teaspoons of Ground Cumin
1 Teaspoon of Hot Sauce
Salt and Pepper to Taste

Cooking:

If you'd like to use dried peas, place them in a bowl, submerge until there is an inch of water on top of the peas, add 1 tablespoon of baking soda, and soak overnight. To begin cooking, place the strained peas in a pot with water covering them by an inch or two. Add the cloves of garlic, no need to peel. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 40 minutes. Strain out the liquid, but reserve 3 tablespoons. Place the peas into your food processor, add the other ingredients, including the reserved cooking liquid, and puree to your desired texture. Salt and pepper to your liking and enjoy!

Summer Can't Be Over!

The end of summer is always very tough for me to acknowledge. I LOVE fall, but with fall comes the threat of winter. So, before the leaves turn and before I turn my garden, I wanted to share an awesome dough recipe for a galette, or rustic tart, in which I used the last of my summer produce. I saw this recipe on Julia Childs but decided to modify it ever so slightly, I used buttermilk instead of water. You could put anything into this tart. I chose a little tomato sauce, ground beef, onions and peppers mixed with ricotta, then topped with fresh tomato slices and a thick slice of fresh mozzarella. Basically, it was an open topped calzone, but with a cornmeal crunchy crust.

Galette Dough

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons of Sour Cream
1/3 Cup of Buttermilk
1 Cup of All-Purpose Flour
3 Tablespoons of Cornmeal
1 Teaspoon of Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon of Salt
7 Tablespoons of Butter, Cut into Small Pieces

Cooking:

Mix the sour cream and buttermilk together in a bowl and set aside. Put the flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and whisk to blend. Add the butter small bits at a time, and crush into the dry mix with a fork, aiming for pieces of butter that range in size from bread crumbs to small peas. Slowly mix in the wet sour cream mixture into the dry, gently bringing it all together. The dough should be just moist enough to come together, if not, add a small amount of water at a time to reach that point, being careful not to over moisten. Gently knead the dough together into a ball, then divide in half and wrap in plastic, place in fridge and chill for at least 2 hours.

After this, you can roll out the dough to 1/4 thickness and add sugar and berries or pears or apples for a dessert galette. Or add any number of savory fillings, like leeks and mushrooms and goat cheese, or zucchini and parmesan. The possibilities are endless with this awesome, versatile recipe.

The Joys of Having Awesome Neighbors

The other night, our wonderful neighbors came over to join us for a one of our patented "what do you have in your fridge?" dinners. I LOVE these dinners! They're creative and usually very local, but best of all, they're casual and cheap. There's not a lot of pressure and it's lovely to enjoy home-cooked food with fun people. This last dinner, we were swimming in our local, organic butternut squash, and since we also had some leftover risotto (arborio) rice and bacon, I decided to make some Butternut Squash Risotto. It's a lot of stirring, but so worth it.

Butternut Squash Risotto

Ingredients: 1 Butternut Squash, Peeled and Cubed
3 Strips of Bacon, Chopped
6 Garlic Cloves, Minced 1 Onion, Diced
2 Tablespoons of Honey
2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
1 Teaspoon of Paprika
Salt and Pepper
2 Cups of Risotto or Arborio Rice
6 Cups of Stock (Your Choice, but I like Chicken)
1-1/2 Cups of Pecorino Romano Cheese, Finely Grated (You could substitute Parmesan)
Salt and Pepper to Taste

Cooking:
Throw your squash into a pot of salted boiling water. Cook until fork tender, meaning when a fork slides easily into the squash, approximately 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a big pot, toss in your bacon, garlic and onion and saute until the onion is translucent. After the squash is done, strain and place on a baking sheet. Drizzle the honey and olive oil over the squash, then sprinkle with the paprika and some salt and pepper. Toss to coat and throw it in the oven at 400 degrees until the squash starts to brown slightly on the edges. Into the pot, add your rice. Stir until the rice is glossy and almost translucent. Smash your squash into a mash, then add to the rice. Add 1/2 cup of stock. Stir until the liquid is absorbed. Repeat with stock and stirring until the rice is cooked through. This is usually about 30 minutes. You may need less or more stock, it's all about how al dente you like your rice. Finally, once the rice is cooked to your liking, add the grated cheese, of which you could reserve a little for topping. Add salt and pepper to taste, then serve and top with the remaining cheese.