July and Corn for the West Coast

It’s July already!  For us that means wonderful corn, on the cob, corn in salads, corn side dishes and anything else you can think of.  It is here for such a short time that we tend to over eat corn.

Growing up corn didn’t arrive until September and there too for the short time it was available we ate it every chance we got.  My favorite dishes are what I’m blogging about today.  I start almost always with roasted corn.  My Dad used to soak the corn, silk, leave and all for an hour or better, always corn picked that day (why you ask?  Because it starts to turn to starch immediately).  Because we roast it we always cook more than what is needed; the rest gets stripped and frozen in batches of 2 ears per bag and then it hits the food saver (this is a strange process and needs more explanation if anyone is interested, but it works).  This way when I need corn in the off season I can just open the freezer.

Most obviously corn on the cob is my favorite; I can make a meal of these golden beauties with butter.  Next favorite is a corn and poblano pepper dish. This creamy spicy dish quickly became a family favorite and each time we make it we change it just a bit.  And of course we ALWAYS add corn to our chowders, posole, soups, and salads.

I saw this on a show and decided I had to try it.  With the veggies out of our garden the heat was amazingly high and not unusually for local fresh peppers.  So take this as a word of caution, cut back on the peppers if you can’t stand the heat in the food.

6 fresh poblano chiles (cut to 3 to lessen the heat)

3 tablespoons jalapeno or garlic olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, thinly diced/sliced

2 ears corn, kernels removed

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup Mexican crema, creme fraiche, or Greek yogurt

1/2 cup, shredded Monterrey jack cheese

Pinch of sea salt and fresh ground telecherry pepper

Peel back a few of the layers of leaves from the corn and soak in water for at least an hour.  Grill the peppers to char the skin and place in a glass bowl and cover with plastic wrap that fits the bowl tight.* Remove the extra silk from the outside and roast the corn at the same time.  When the corn is finished let cool.  These steps can be done the day before and let to cool so as not to burn your hands when handling please wear gloves when handling peppers, anytime.

Seed and slice the peppers into thin strips and dice into pieces that are no larger than bit sized, smaller to melt with the rest of the dish.

In a sauté pan add the oil and onions add the corn and cook for only a few and set aside, add the peppers to the mixture and cook for about 5 minutes over medium to low heat, add the creams and cook until bubbles appear.  Then add the cheese stirring constantly until smooth salt, pepper, or Hometown to taste.  Serve warm.

*Chef’s Note:  I have tried several different ways to skin peppers and for me this one has proven to be the best.  Couple of tricks include making sure the skin is charred if not it won’t come off, cover in glass and cover tight with a good clinging plastic wrap and let cool to handle and wear gloves handling spicy peppers.

Enjoy!!!

Taco Tuesdays at our house....

With Taco Tuesdays becoming such a popular event we decided to make it our own (imagine that!)  And we invited the kids to participate.  Caitlin did the shopping, I did the cooking, Shane and David helped with the tasting. 

Soft tacos yum!

There are many paths to travel down this road but we stayed to the traditional, but healthy side.  The meat was a 50/50 blend of 80/20 ground sirloin and turkey breast meats combined.  Onions and garlic are a perfect complement to this dish.  We took corn and flour tortillas and fried them ourselves, including chips to pick up the food that dropped out of the shells, lettuce and cheddar cheese to top them off and as a side I made Spanish Rice!

We had lots of meat so we froze the leftovers for the next round, but the rice made all gone in two nights - was to good and one we will make often!

Spanish Rice

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 cup aborio or carnaroli rice

1 onion

½ of a bell pepper preferably green

2 cups water or chicken stock

1 can diced Mexican tomatoes with chilies*

2 teaspoons chipotle chili powder

1 teaspoon sea salt

Heat oil in large pan over medium heat, sauté rice and onions until rice is toasted brown and onions are translucent, the rice will take longer.  Stir in the remaining ingredients, cover and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, checking the rice for doneness, you don’t want to overcook the rice to mush.

*Cooks Note: you can replace the tomatoes and chilies with regular tomatoes and a small jalapeno pepper.

...and to drink we made our usual margaritas on our new patio it was a great way to spend Tuesday night.  Can't wait till next Tuesday to do it all over again.

Conchinita pibil: it is amazing what you find when you clean out your freezer(s).

A few weeks back I was watching my favorite channel and one of my favorite chefs and she did a dish she called conchinita pibil, translated it means piglet and buried, basically what we have been doing with our caja china (roasting pig in a box), the same principal/and result; perfectly cooked, yummy pork.  But this method is for smaller portions in a slow cooker, tagine, or in or on the stove. 

Achiote - Annatto seeds, from the achiote tree.

During the cleaning process, I found a pork shoulder, unmarked and knew I had to cook it.  Since we gave David this wonderful 4-in-1 charcoal/gas/smoker/searing grill for father’s Day and his birthday, I was searching for a recipe that would utilize his new toy.  Unfortunately after a few minutes I realized that was not the way it was to be.  Being that I did not want to light up the whole box for just a shoulder, I opted to use the slow cooker (and the stove top method the shoulder was too large for the cooker alone).  And would you know it?  The recipe that showed its face was the conchinita pibil.  So I figured that was the way it was to be cooked.  Never having tried the recipe before, or tasting the result, had I been unsure what to expect.  One required ingredient was achiote paste, a moist ground version of annatto seed.  Unable to locate the paste at the one store I needed to get to that day, I decided to make my own achiote paste from scratch.  And of course readily available on the internet there it was a highly recommended homemade version of achiote paste.  Now I would not recommend this to any one afraid of staining; I think the Mayans used this for red/brown coloring – it stains anything it touches.

So of course the food was good, but the standard needs a little more to be more our taste and the achiote is a strong unusual taste, a bit strong and bitter, but a good compliment to the orange and lime marinade, needs more garlic for sure. 

This experiment of sorts had interesting results.  Both the stove and the slow cooker were on simmer/low.  Both were browned before cooking; end results were that the slow cooker was the more tender of the two.  Can I explain the difference? No, both were covered and untouched until the very end –approximately 4 hours later.  The only other explanation was that the change in stove could be the answer.

This begs another question and another experiment, is this something I can find when cooking other slow cooked items.  Hum, what should the next experiment be??

Happy eating!