Monthly Archives: August 2015

Curried Corn Fritters

Posted on by

Curry Corn Fritter
Last week I posted a recipe for Curried Cream Corn and today I want to share with you what to do with the leftovers! In our house, we still have leftovers on a regular basis. With just two adults and one three year old who eats like a bird, we don’t usually use up side dishes in one meal. I transform a side dish into probably four different things by the time the week is over. I might start off with simple roasted corn at the beginning of the week and by the time it’s gone, it’s become part of a chicken wrap, a hash, an omelette, a souffle or perhaps just made into baby food.

With this curried cream corn, however, the flavors stack up perfectly to become a tasty little fritter. This is another recipe where I just eyeballed the amounts, but I think it’s pretty fool proof and I do have amount approximations for you to follow. Serve these fritters with a bit of sour cream and a side salad for a light(ish) Meatless Monday!

Curry Corn Fritters

Curried Corn Fritters

  • Servings: about 12 fritters
  • Print

2 cup of leftover curried cream corn
1 cup flour
1 egg
chopped chives
1/2 tsp kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
ooo, jalapenoes would be good!

In a large bowl, combine your creamed corn, flour, salt and pepper, egg and chives (and whatever else you think sounds good!) and whisk to combine. You may need more flour depending on how much liquid your curried cream corn still had remaining. You may have cooked off more than I did, so depending on how liquidy it is, add a bit more flour so that your mixture resembles thick cake batter. If it is dry, thin it out with a little milk.

Heat olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium high heat until it shimmers and drop the fritter batter by tablespoons and let them fry about 2 minutes per side, or until dark brown on both sides. Remove and let them drain on a paper-towel lined baking sheet and keep them warm in a 200 degree oven until you’re ready to serve.

Advertisement

Curried Cream Corn

Posted on by

Curry Cream Corn
Every summer we come up with a corn dish to bring to cookouts and to utilize the crazy cheap ears of corn available from about May through August. As this summer is coming to a close, I wanted to share a recipe that is summery and yet has the warmth in flavor of the fall season just around the corner. As the weather cools, I start thinking of slow simmering stews and soups and braised meats and one really great way to shake the flavors of your kitchen up a bit is to introduce Asian and Indian flavors into your meals. We often use coconut milk when making rice to accompany a Thai dish and sometimes we throw curry powder into a soup to give it that depth of flavor we love in Indian cuisine. For this creamed corn, we combined all three: a curry, coconut milk, Southern creamed corn dish that delivers in flavor and comfort.

This recipe won’t necessarily be “printer friendly” as it’s a “little of this and a little of that” type of recipe. I honestly don’t recall the ratios, but we adjusted and tasted along the way and that’s part of the fun in cooking, in my opinion. Use your own preferences to guide you! We have some lemongrass growing in the backyard (I was so surprised it did well, but it’s BEAUTIFUL – highly recommend you plant some!) and so that’s thrown in there, too. This is not one cuisine or another, it’s just a bunch of flavors we all love! I hope you will love it, too!

Curried Cream Corn

Curried Cream Corn

3 or 4 ears of corn
1 large, sweet yellow onion, chopped (about a cup)
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 can full fat coconut milk
1 tablespoon sweet curry powder
1 stalk of lemongrass, split in two and bruised with the butt of your knife to release the flavors and oils
2 kafir lime leaves
fresh cilantro and basil, about a cup total, chopped
squeeze of lime

Slice the corn kernels from the cobs (use a serrated knife to make this easier and be careful!)
In a large skillet, heat the coconut oil until shimmering. Toss in the onion and cook until soft and starting to brown.
Add enough coconut milk to cover the corn – this may be the entire can (shake the can really well before opening!) or it may just be half. It kind of depends on how big your corn cobs were. We don’t want the corn to be positively swimming, but just enough liquid to cover the kernels.
Let the corn and coconut milk come to a boil and then add in the curry powder, lemongrass and lime leaves. You can find kafir lime leaves at most Asian supermarkets in the refrigerator section. They like to keep them cold. If you can’t find it, it’s not going to ruin anything, but it adds such a bright, interesting flavor!
Reduce the heat and let the corn and coconut milk and spices simmer for a while, adjusting the seasoning with salt and pepper as you like. When the liquid has reduced just a bit, stir in the chopped cilantro and basil and adjust the seasoning again to your taste with a squeeze of lime and salt.

I’ve got a great use for leftover creamed corn coming up later this week, so stay tuned!

 

 

Dark Chocolate Cherry Pie Biscuits

Posted on by

Black Cherry Chocolate Biscuits
Dark chocolate and cherry – a pretty perfect desert combination. I regularly make dark chocolate oatmeal for Olive and myself and I will stir in dried cherries almost every time. There’s just something special about the tart zinginess of the cherries combined with the rich, deep earthy heft of dark chocolate. I’m just full of adjectives tonight. This baking project was a fun one – Olive and I were watching Tangled on a Sunday afternoon and I decided to bake something fun. A while back, Joy the Baker had this really fun baking competition and one of the challenges were these amazing apple pie biscuits. I remembered the recipe seeming like it wouldn’t work because it was too sloppy and wet, but they turned out incredible. (And there’s wonderful step-by-step instructions for how to do her biscuits, which you can apply to this recipe as well.) Fast forward to my version of this recipe and I felt the same way all over again – that there would be too much juice from the cherries for this recipe to work the same. And honestly, there was a bit more juice than with the apple version, but nothing a little draining didn’t fix. These were fun, decadent and great for breakfast during the week!

They also look so white because I had recently bought expensive, pasture-raised eggs made by chickens with PhDs and I didn’t want to waste one on making an egg wash for a few biscuits. So I brushed them with heavy cream.  Not as pretty, but it saved an egg from not getting to fulfill its destiny of becoming a fried egg on my toast the next morning.

Dark Chocolate Cherry Almond Biscuits Cherry Chocolate Biscuits

Dark Chocolate Cherry Pie Biscuits*

For the cherry filling:
2 cups fresh, pitted cherries, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
squeeze of lemon

For the dough:
2 cups self-rising flour
1/4 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2/3 to 3/4 cup cold buttermilk

Preheat your oven to 425F. Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside.

In a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter and brown sugar until they are all incorporated and bubbling and then stir in the cherries. Mash them around (I use a drink muddler) and let the mixture cook for about 5 minutes. Stir in the extract and a squeeze of half a lemon and add a pinch of salt. Stir around and let it cook for one more minute. Drain off all but about 2-3 tablespoons of liquid (cherries give off more liquid than the original recipe’s apples, but you don’t want NO juice) and set the mixture aside to cool while you make the dough.

To make the dough, mix the flour and butter together with your hands or a pastry blender until the butter is broken up into small pea-sized bits. Stir in the sugar and then make a well in the center of your dough. Add the buttermilk and with a fork, stir together until combined. The dough should be soft and moist, so use a bit more buttermilk if needed.

Use all-purpose flour to dust your work surface. I ignored this step in the original recipe and the bottoms of my biscuits tasted sour because they were in dusted with self-rising and there’s baking powder in self-rising flour so DON’T BE LAZY LIKE ME and just get out the all purpose to dust. It isn’t that difficult.

Spoon the dough onto your floured surface and gently pat it into a small rectangle. Dust the top with a little extra flour and roll out into a rectangle about 7 x 10 inches. Arrange the cherries over half the long side of the dough and carefully fold the other half of the dough over the filling, crimping along the edges to seal in most of the filling. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it will be messy. If you have cracks, just gently pinch them closed and carry on. You want to have about a 6 x 8 inch rectangle when it’s all said and done, so just pat it into submission. Cut into 12 squares and place on prepared cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Brush the biscuits with a beaten egg that was not raised by monks and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon if desired (I just used sugar since cinnamon didn’t fit in with the flavor profile I was going for.)

Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until golden brown and serve right away. The sugar topping will melt if you store these in a plastic bag on your counter throughout the week, so it’s best to eat these the same day or store in an air-tight container.

*adapted from Joy the Baker

Roasted Corn and Summer Peach Salad

Posted on by

Grilled Peach and Corn Salad
PEACHES! They are in season and quickly going out of season. They are at their ultimate awesome peak right now. Even peaches at the grocery store have amazing flavor. And they are about a dollar a pound, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t go out and buy a few pounds and make some jam (recipe to come!) or peach pie filling, or start throwing them in everything you can from grilled chicken tacos (we did that) or this amazing peach and roasted corn salad.

A robot wrote this recipe. Seriously. You know that computer named Watson that beat Ken Jennings in Jeopardy! a few years ago? Well, he is apparently pretty handy in the kitchen and “thought” up this salad recipe. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that because I think recipes should come from the soul and well, a computer is a bit lacking in that area. But for whatever it’s worth, this salad and the dressing in particular were pretty amazing. We only altered it a bit and I added a step of roasting the peaches. This salad would go so well as a side for lots of recipes like my coriander chicken or any BBQ dish and would be awesome to bring to a picnic or potluck.
roasted corn and peach salad

Roasted Corn and Summer Peach Salad*

4 ears of corn
1 tablespoon plus ¼ cup olive oil
Kosher salt
¾ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon coriander seeds
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
Freshly ground black pepper
2 peaches, sliced into ½”-thick wedges
1 TBS butter
1 small shallot, thinly sliced
1 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
4 ounces Cotija cheese, crumbled (about ½ cup)

Prepare grill or skillet for medium-high heat. Brush corn with a total of 1 Tbsp. oil; season with salt and sprinkle with chili powder. Grill or roast in skillet, turning occasionally, until tender and lightly charred in spots, 6–8 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and let cool, then cut kernels from cobs. Wipe the skillet clean and add a tablespoon of butter to the pan, keeping it at medium high (or if you’re using a grill, prepare this on a piece of tin foil.) Once the butter is melted and bubbling, add in the peach slices and let them sear for a couple of minutes, then remove from heat and set aside.
Meanwhile, toast coriander and cumin seeds in a dry small skillet over medium heat, tossing, until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Let cool, then chop with a knife or coarsely grind in a spice mill. Whisk with lemon juice, rosemary, and remaining ¼ cup oil in a medium bowl; season with salt and pepper. Add corn kernels, peaches, shallot, basil and cheese and toss to combine.


*adapted from Bon Appetit

Coconut Quinoa with Seared Sausage and Peaches

Posted on by

Peaches, Sausage and Coconut Oil Quinoa
This is a healthy, filling and tasty meal that is easy to throw together in thirty minutes. It’s nearing the end of peach season and it’s with sadness that we say goodbye to one of the best years I’ve witnessed for this magical fruit. There was something truly special about the peaches on our tiny tree in the backyard. Matt brought one in to me a couple weeks ago and when I tasted it, the first thing I said was, “This tastes like a Jolly Rancher!” The summer peach is like the summer tomato – neither fruit can be reproduced in full effect and glory throughout the rest of the year. So we ate our modest harvest directly from the tree while standing in the yard and I cooked up the rest in a couple different meals.

The quinoa is nearly the show-stealer for this meal, though. Our good friend posted a quick tip on her Facebook feed a few weeks ago, mentioning that she loved to stir coconut oil into her quinoa at the end of cooking and top it with avocado. We tried that exact recipe and swooned. I made it again as quickly as possible and created this meal. The coconut quinoa and the sweet spice of the sausage and peaches paired perfectly together and tasted like summer. There’s not much time left to make meals like this, so hop to it!

Sausage, Peaches and Quinoa

Coconut Quinoa with Grilled Sausage and Peaches

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

1 cup pearl quinoa
2 cups water
2 TBS extra virgin coconut oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 cooked sausage links (to serve 4)
1 TBS unsalted butter
1-2 ripe summer peaches, sliced

Rinse the quinoa for about a minute under cold running water. This may seem unnecessary to you, as it did to me the first time, but it’s the difference between good tasting quinoa and extremely bitter tasting quinoa. How ’bout I write “quinoa” one more time?

In a medium saucepan, bring the water to a boil and add in the quinoa and lower to a simmer and cover. Cook for about 20 minutes until water is absorbed. Or just follow the package instructions! When it’s done, stir in the coconut oil and salt and pepper and adjust seasoning to taste. If you want to go vegetarian, simply substitute avocado for the sausage and serve with seared peaches. For the sausage, add a tablespoon of butter into a clean skillet and sear the sausage until browned on both sides. Remove the sausage and add the peaches and saute until warmed through. Serve on top of quinoa along with the sausage.