Category Archives: recipes

corn bread….with fresh corn 🌽

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Corn Bread made with fresh corn.

Yum.

It’s an easy solution to not wasting corn on the cob that you may have cooked but not buttered and eaten. It also makes your cornbread not as dry as normal cornbread can be and adds a layer of flavor/texture.

It could not be simpler to make:

1 cup of white all purpose flour

1 cup cornmeal (Mine came from Anselma Mill)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

Dash of powdered ginger or cinnamon (but not together)

1 cup whole milk

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup melted butter with 2 tablespoons bacon grease

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup fresh sweet corn cooked and drained

** The wildcard if you want to spice it up is to mince one fresh jalapeño pepper and add it to the batter

Preheat oven to 400° F and really grease a 9″ x 9″ baking pan (I use butter.)

If your fresh cooked corn is still on the cob use a knife and take it off the cob. Let it sit in a strainer over a bowl so any additional liquid drains out.

Mix together all dry ingredients.

Stir in all wet ingredients.

Stir in fresh corn, and if you are using the wildcard minced jalapeño this is where you add that as well.

Do not over mix or your corn bread batter will be tough.

Before you add your batter to your pan put the greased pan in the oven for 2 or 3 minutes.

Pour batter into the pan, and bake at 400° F for 25 to 28 minutes.

It might be baked sooner — so you might want to check it with a toothpick or a skewer and see if it comes out clean from the center of the pan. I have gotten pretty good at eyeballing it over the years, so if the edge of the cornbread has kind of separated from the pan and it’s a nice goldeny color— it’s done.

Cool enough to serve warm, or eat at room temperature. Make sure you wrap leftovers tightly or it will dry out.

Enjoy!

savoring summer

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Summer always means fresh pesto sauce. And fresh pesto is totally easy to make.

All it is is olive oil, huge bunches of fresh basil, salt to taste, fresh garlic cloves, a pinch of thyme, a sweet onion, a dash or two of balsamic vinegar,and a red bell pepper if you have one laying around.

Today I probably used about a cup and a half of olive oil. I easily used four cups of fresh basil because my plants need it to be pruned.

You blend it all together in a food processor or blender and you let it sit in the refrigerator to chill so the flavors meld. When you go to heat it up with pasta you can add pine nuts and grated fresh Parmesan cheese. I also like to sauté chicken tenders and add that to a pesto and pasta dish.

People also use pesto sauce in vegetable soups like tomato in particular. Some people also like to add anchovies and sun-dried tomatoes, but I don't really care for that taste combination with pesto sauces .

Often homemade pesto will not be as thick and gummy as store-bought pesto sauces but those sauces have thickeners and / or preservatives in them. I love homemade pesto sauce, store-bought not so much.

I will also note that I saw the "West Chester Food Co-Op" is advertising a Gazpacho Adaluz (I put them in air quotes because they aren't a real bricks and mortar store they are just a booth I don't understand at the West Chester Growers Market. ) So I thought I would remind my dear readers that I shared such a recipe with you five years ago. It is called Kendall's Gazpacho as it is named after my late mother in law who bought the recipe back from Spain many decades ago.

Click here for the recipe to Kendall's Gazpacho. and the photo you see below is a batch of the gazpacho I made recently. The color of the soup is determined by the color of your vegetables. So when I use green bell pepper it stays green. When I use an orange or red bell pepper, the soup takes a red or orange hue. This is different from other gazpachos and doesn't actually have as many tomatoes as you would put in one of those.

Anyway I hope you make yourselves a batch of pesto and/or gazpacho before the end of the summer. The flavors of fresh vegetables this time of year can't be beat!

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen.

summer recipe back to basics: purple coleslaw

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I have been remiss. I haven’t blogged any recipes lately. This evening for dinner we were grilling marinated chicken thighs and my neighbor had given me a beautiful head of purple cabbage so I decided to make coleslaw.

Here is the recipe:

Purple Cabbage Coleslaw

Ingredients

4 cups grated purple cabbage 

1 cup grated carrots

1/2 grated large vidalia onion 

6 heaping tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoon prepared Dijon mustard

5 tablespoons organic cane sugar (Turbinado)

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar 

2 tablespoons fresh minced dill

Freshly ground salt pepper, to taste

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Directions

I read somewhere once that purple cabbage is really good for you. A super food full of antibiotics, vitamins, fiber, and other good stuff. I think it also makes a tastier coleslaw. I also add vidalia onion to my coleslaw and fresh dill to the dressing, which I think keeps it fresh and different.

First finely grate cabbage, carrots, and onion. My “Pro Tip” here is I put these vegetables into a fine mesh strainer after grating and set them over a bowl and press gently for some of the extra liquid to drain out.

Mix the cider vinegar, sugar, cumin together. Unless you want a grainy dressing, make sure the sugar is fully dissolved before proceeding and adding the mayonnaise, dijon mustard, olive oil, and fresh dill. Whisk the dressing together briskly and refrigerate for a few minutes.

Next put your veggies in a clean bowl and pour the dressing on top of it. Mix well and then use a little spoon to taste and adjust for salt and pepper as needed. I like fresh ground pepper in coleslaw.

Refrigerate at least an hour before serving.

Enjoy!

kitchen witchery 

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I now understand everyone’s obsession with the Instant Pot. It’s definitely not your grandmother’s pressure cooker.

I am not Inspector Gadget in the kitchen, more of a traditionalist. Some things I have begrudgingly come to own because they make life easier- like my Breville blender. Or my crockpot.

But as much as I love fooling with my crockpot if you don’t have time for low and slow, well it boils stuff to death.

Anyway, people I know kept buying the Instant Pot so I started watching it and the prices have stabilized recently, so I splurged.

It sat in the box and stared at me for a week. And then I got sick, so I was not cooking much of anything. 

I was craving plain chicken and chicken soup as I started to feel better but knew I wasn’t up to much in the kitchen- so out of the box came the Instant Pot.

Yes, I literally cooked a nice plain chicken simply prepared with just salt and pepper and Herbes de Provence in about half an hour!

 I then turned around and took the chicken off the carcass and made bone broth in 35 minutes using the soup setting – real gelatinous bone broth.

I also made a pot of chili for the rest of my house yesterday using canned beans and ground beef in 10 minutes on the Instant Pot chili setting after browning the ground beef and onions using their sauté setting. Next time I would reduce the liquid as the chili came out thinner and darker like Texas chili. (I like a thicker chili)

It took a while to read the manual and then I will admit I watched a few YouTube videos on using the pot and cooking with it, but when you are sitting in bed getting better, there is the time to do that.

For years I had avoided pressure cookers. The old stovetop ones would create one hot mess when they exploded. I remember a food on the ceiling incident at my great aunts’ when I was a kid- the pot lid flew off. But this is so different with so many safety bells and whistles- it practically speaks to you.

Anyway, I don’t gadget very often so I thought I would share!

Happy Sunday 😊

lost and found

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I was rearranging my cookbooks and going through some older ones that were my mother’s at one point, and when I open one cookbook it was like opening Pandora’s box. Old photos and recipes. One recipe was hand typed by someone for my mother, and I remember her making this cake. I think this was a childhood friend’s  mother’s carrot cake recipe.

The other recipes were torn out of magazines and print publications. 

These are all from the late 1960s and early 1970s. I thought it would be fun to share.


preparing for thanksgiving 

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I purchased some absolutely beautiful cranberries from Pine Barrens Native Fruits this year and today I made the Cranberry Sauce.

Cranberry  sauce is so easy to make. All it is for me is 2 dry quarts of cranberries, 2 1/2 cups of orange juice, cinnamon sticks, crystallized ginger minced, 2 cups sugar , other assorted spices including cardamom,ginger , nutmeg , and powdered cinnamon. True that I add a pinch of salt, and to quartered navel oranges skin on. I also add a couple tablespoons of fruit pectin to help at jell  even more.

I cook it down by close to half and then I remove the orange peel (The fruit by this time has basically cooked off each quarter of  orange ) and cinnamon sticks and then I jar it.

I don’t do the canning bath for this. When the jars are cool I tighten the lids and refrigerate it.  I basically only make enough to get through Thanksgiving and Christmas and then I make a fresh batch the following year.

blueberry fig preserves 

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I was given the gift of figs off of a friend’s fig tree yesterday, so even though I wasn’t sure I was going to be putting anything up this fall, this morning I made blueberry fig preserves.

2 teaspoons baking soda 

8 cups fresh figs stems removed or 2 pounds of fresh figs 

2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

1 1/2 cups fresh apple cider

1/2 cup water

1 cup turbinado sugar

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

5 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract – pure only

1 lemon thinly sliced into rounds seeds removed

Juice of one lemon

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

Half teaspoon ground cloves

Half teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

Healthy pinch of salt

Three cinnamon sticks

First dissolve the baking soda in about 2 quarts of cool water and immerse the figs in the treated water either in one half of your kitchen sink if you have a double sink or in a really large bowl. Gently stir to wash the figs using your hand in the water.

Drain the figs and remove all stems and cut in half and place in a bowl.

In a big stewpot or jam pot (depending on what you have) slowly dissolve the sugar, maple syrup, butter, vanilla extract, water, apple cider, spices and a pinch of salt.

Now that you have created a sort of syrup add your fruit – figs, blueberries, lemon slices.

Toss in the cinnamon sticks. Add the lemon juice. 

Bring up to a boil over medium heat and stir a lot because the stuff will stick to the pan. Reduce heat to a simmer and stir gently occasionally and cook down until the figs are golden brown and the blueberries are so deep they almost appear a purple black.

As the figs are reaching the right color, I use an immersion blender to break everything up while continuing to cook down. I have friends who don’t do this at all and the reason I do it is because I like to serve fig preserves with cheese when company comes over and when there are big chunks of fig it makes it clumsy.

Truthfully this all cooked a couple of hours. 


While your jam is cooking sterilize your jars and lids in your canning pot. I actually broke down last year and bought a real big canning pot – black granite ware.

When your jam is ready to jar ladle it into your jars, leaving about a quarter inch at the top of room. Put your lids and rings on completely seal super tight and put them in your boiling hot water bath for 10 to 15 minutes. I will note that I looked at several recipes when developing my own recipe and people were processing anywhere from six minutes to 15 minutes in the hot water bath. I would say I processed mine about 10 minutes maybe a little less.

Pull your jars out and place on a cloth covered or wooden surface several inches apart until they are cool. Once the jars are completely cool press in the center to make sure they are sealed. Store in a cool dark area and wait at least two days before opening. I personally like to let my preserves said a couple of weeks before I try them.

Another important note is this is a recipe without using pectin. So it will probably be more loose than a jam made with pectin. You can make it both ways. I have always made fig preserves or fig jam without pectin. This is also the first time I’ve actually ever written down or looked at recipes for the jam – I’ve just always winged it and it’s turned out fine

rainy day chili

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chili

One of the ladies in my cooking group asked for my rainy day chili recipe, so here it is:

 

Brown 1 lb ground pork and 1 lb ground beef with 6 cloves of garlic diced and 1 sweet onion and 1 red onion chopped.   Salt to taste.

 

To that add 4 grated carrots (medium carrots), and 1 1/2 cups grated raw potatoes (red bliss or Yukon gold).

 

Add one package frozen corn (no sauce kind – just the corn).

 

If I have green or red bell pepper I will chop up one of those too.

 

Add 3 Tablespoons Chili Powder (I use hot), 1 teaspoon Chipotle Chili Powder, 1 teaspoon Smoked Hot Paprika, 1 teaspoon bittersweet paprika. A few dashes of cumin.

 

Then add ¼ cup chopped fresh Cilantro and 1 Tablespoon dried oregano

 

Add one 40.5 ounce can of dark red kidney beans (or white cannellini beans which my grocery store has been out of)

 

Add one 28 ounce can of crush red tomatoes.

 

Add one 28 ounce can of tomato puree.

 

Add a few dashes of chipotle Tabasco sauce or a good Mexican hot sauce.

 

Bring to a slow boil over medium low heat and reduce to low/ simmer and cook the chili for a few hours until cooked down a bit (makes it thicker).

 

Simmer with a splatter screen on unless you want your kitchen to wear chili.

 

Adjust for seasoning here and there.  Chili cooked a day ahead and reheated is even better because spices have a chance to settle in.

 

simply delicious

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 Simple things are often the best dessert. Take juicy fresh strawberries and a dipping sauce based with crème fraîche.

Take one 8 ounce container of crème fraîche and mix with 5 or 6 ounces of plain Greek yogurt. To that add a few tablespoons of pure maple syrup (or honey)  to taste, a few dashes of cinnamon, two teaspoons of pure vanilla extract, and a tablespoon of orange juice (or a liqueur like Drambuie) whisk together and chill well. Serve with whole strawberries.

Enjoy!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

with #blizzardpacolypse coming why not bake something?

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I don’t know it must be something in our DNA that if you are a person termed a “nester” when you hear bad weather is coming you want to cook. And bake.

For some reason pumpkin bread popped into my head. I had one more can of pumpkin in the Lazy Susan and raisins and currants and candied ginger.  I did not have the nuts I like to use in pumpkin bread which are walnuts or pecans, but I did have roasted unsalted sunflower seeds.

So I took my basic pumpkin bread recipe and changed a little.

Enjoy the recipe.

 

Pumpkin Bread 2016
1 can of pumpkin 15 ounces and NOT pumpkin pie mix

3/4 cup of brown sugar 
1/2 cup white sugar

2/3 cup canola oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 scant teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground  green cardamom 

3 cups white flour

1/2 cup roasted unsalted sunflower seeds

1/2 cup unsweetened organic coconut flakes

1/2 cup currants

1/2 cup dark seedless raisins

3 tablespoons minced crystallized ginger

Zest of one small orange or tangerine.

Granulated sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease two loaf pans – the ones I use are vintage and about 8″ x 4″ approximately. I grease with either butter or canola oil.

In a big mixing bowl first blend together your pumpkin, sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla.

Next add the spices and salt and blend.

Next add the baking soda and baking powder and blend.

Incorporate the flour 1 cup at a time until blended.

Stir in the sunflower seeds, currants, raisins, ginger. Add the coconut- and it has to be unsweetened. Sweetened coconut would be too cloying in this recipe.

  
Dived the batter equally between the two pans. Dust the top of the batter with granulated sugar enough to cover top lightly.

Bake on the same shelf in the oven for about 55 minutes – I have had days where it took five minutes less and days were took 5 to 7 minutes more. So keep an eye on it.

When a toothpick comes out clean you’re done.

Cool loaves of pumpkin bread in their pans on a cooling rack for about 40 minutes. Then remove the loaves from the pans and allow to cool completely on the cooling rack for a couple of hours before slicing.

You can freeze these loaves as long as you wrap it well in saran wrap and a good freezer bag.

I have also substituted dried cranberries and white seedless raisins in this recipe.