Fried tomatoes

Friend, first I want to give us a nice pat on the back for an excellent September of posting. Two Kitchens, One Recipe! Kind of rad! Wait until you see what I pick for October!

I'm off to New England this weekend for a wedding and am pretty excited about being somewhere where it did not hit 100º this week. I don't know if I'll have a lot of time to do wonderful fall things like eat cider donuts and bask in crispness, but it'll be nice anyway. The only thing I'm sad about is that I won't be eating these:

Do you ever discover that you can make something deliciously and then go through a phase where you don't want to eat anything else? Generally, I do this with music: if I get an album that I like I will listen to it incessantly, so non-stoppingly that it annoys even myself, but I just can't help it—if it were a haystack, I would roll around in it; if it were a perfume, I'd spray it all over until people crinkle their noses when I walk by; if it were a person, I'd want to take it behind the middle school and get it, or myself, pregnant (metaphorically). Do you see what I'm saying? When I find something new that I love, I want to envelop myself in it.

When my buddy Tim and I were eating our way through my last weekend in LA this summer, we found the S&W Country Diner in Culver City. And, because we're eating geniuses, we ordered the fried tomatoes as a side—and it was a revelation. Fantastic crispiness on the outside but not so much cooking that the tomatoes get mealy.

And this week I figured out how to do it myself. Now this is what I want to eat for every meal but, since I'm going to Vermont, I can't, so I'll post it, and now you can be my proxy.

Fried tomatoes

*Use good tomatoes. I made some this evening with mediocre ones and they came out mediocre—don't pity me, because something that's mediocre and fried is still pretty ok.

tomatoes, sliced

1/2 c. cornmeal

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp herbs—your choice, I used some Italian blend

canola oil (olive oil will probably burn because of the high heat)

Take your sliced tomatoes and get rid of their insides: the seeds and mucousy parts. Too wet!

Combine the cornmeal, salt, and herbs in a dish. Bread the tomatoes in this.

Get out your frying pan and put it on medium-high/high heat. Let the oil get hot enough and then fry your tomatoes. Put on papertowels when you're done to do a little soaking of oil.

The fried tomatoes on Night Number One of fried tomatoes, on top of a pretty great mixture of Israeli cous cous, zucchini, eggplant, wilted arugula, feta, and capers.

Two Kitchens, One Recipe : The Mava Cake Throwdown

Mariana and I are starting a new (hopefully regular) posting project called "Two Kitchens, One Recipe." The name pretty much says it all -- we prepare one recipe and then compare notes on the process, the different ways in which we've adapted the recipe (if we adapt the recipe -- that's not mandatory), and the end product. My mom came up with the idea -- thanks Mom. And despite what the title of this post might imply, it's not a competition. Unless Mariana starts trash talking, then....watch out.

I'd never heard of Indian Mava Cakes, let alone tried one, until I read about them on Tartlette. Wow, did they look good and I love cardamom (a featured ingredient in these cakes). It's especially nice in the autumn which is sadly fast approaching (at least in Portland -- I realize it is still summertime at the Tucson branch of Two Kitchens). From my Internet research, I've learned Mava (also called Mawa and Khoya) is a dairy-based pudding or paste-like substance that is often the base of Indian Desserts. If anyone out there is a mava expert, I'd be interesting in learning more about it.

The recipe we used had two main parts, making the mava and then making the cake. While the cake part was simple, the mava was not. First, as I'm sure Mariana will mention (we conferred via text messages on this) the mava took forever -- about an hour and 20 minutes! The recipe said it would resemble thick butterscotch pudding, but I was still unsure when my mava was finished. Mariana -- is this what your mava looked like?


As a side note, while it may look like pudding, I don't recommend tasting it -- pretty gross before it gets mixed into the cake batter.

The cake part was straightforward and easy -- I baked mine in a large muffin tin. I changed the original recipe by adding a teaspoon of vanilla and topped the cakes with thin slices of pear brushed with brown butter and sugar (I also left some naked as I was curious about the more traditional version).

I thought the finished product was super enjoyable -- a sweet dense cake with pear. This was especially tasty as an afternoon snack with some fruit and a cup of tea, but it might also be eaten for breakfast tomorrow.

Questions!

Would you make this recipe again?
Yes, especially because the mava recipe made three times the amount needed for the cake, so I have extra mava waiting for the next cake. But, I'd do the mava again, too. It's just a lot of stirring I wasn't totally prepared for.


What else would you serve in the meal?
When I started this recipe, I thought it would be fun to pair it with Indian food, but the next time I would probably serve it with a roast chicken and green salad -- nice and simple and autumn -like.

How would you change this if you were going to make it again?
More pears! I would probably use a spring form pan and make 9-inch round cake, instead of using a cupcake pan. I'd shape the pears in a starburst pattern.


What was your favorite part of making this recipe?
Tasting the cake batter. And using my mandoline to slice the pears -- I love it!


Least favorite?The mava. In addition to taking forever, I used too small of a saucepan and it boiled over multiple times.


Did you mess up any parts of this recipe?
Not that I can remember -- besides the mava boiling over.


If you were going to serve this to one of your friends, who would you choose?
Hmmm, besides you? Probably my mom. I think she would find the cardamom interesting and love the pears.

2K1R: The Mava Response

Katie: I feel like you're daring me to talk trash because you really want to but you don't want to be the one who starts it. I'm not saying that this plan of yours won't end up working eventually, I'm just saying that I see through your plan and won't be tricked by it right this moment.

So, how about this freaking mava? I was prepared for it to take a long time, but MY GOODNESS. I was so bored that I made a list of the things I did to occupy my mava time:

• I listened to the new Avett Brothers album on nprmusic.org—it's great. You can listen for free until the 29th.
• I went through old food magazines and cut out recipes, but this was a little too distracting because a skin kept forming on the mava and then I'd have to stir it and feel like I was ignoring it too much.
• I got restless and texted you, but you didn't really respond quickly, so that wasn't a good plan.
• I realized that in order to know when a liquid becomes thick it's really helpful to know how thin it started out.
• I listened to Science Friday on the radio and realized that, in my head, with certain things, I am a scientist. (!) For instance, I read a cookbook and was happy to learn that creaming butter and sugar together to make a cake is not a step to take lightly because that is where all the air bubbles are going to get into the batter. The baking powder in a cake recipe (like this one) doesn't make bubbles, but only makes existing bubbles bigger. So now I don't skimp on beating until light and fluffy.
• I despaired and turned the heat up to medium and promised myself to not stop stirring.
  
• Science Friday ended and I listened to a sad story: "When We Were Nearly Young."
  

And then, finally, I was done. I went until mine was really thick, like pudding. The next day, I baked those cakes and they're pretty good. They remind me of Salvadoran quesadilla, which isn't like a Mexican quesadilla at all because it's a CAKE with some cheese in it. Salvadoran quesadilla and mava cakes are good in the same way in that they're just barely into sweet territory and they are, like you say, dense and moist.

The biggest surprise about mava cakes: they are excellent drunk food. The density gives a good soaking-up feeling and the not-sweetness is handy after a few margaritas. So, an excellent offering at my 3rd Annual Mexican Cage Thumb Wrestling Tournament. (I placed 2nd in the all-around, but am both the female and left-handed champion.)

And now, your questions, my answers:

Would you make this recipe again?

You make a good point about having a bunch of leftover mava. And, knowing now that mava cakes are excellent drunk food, I might.

But would I make mava again? Unlikely. It is the most disappointing dulce de leche in the world—and that's not really mava's fault, because it's not dulce de leche, but it's just so close to be being dulce de leche that it seems a shame that it's not. In my head I have this scenario where I'm the mother and dulce and mava are my kids, and I'm totally unreasonable to mava and ridiculously supportive of dulce de leche—I'm totally picking favorites because, you know what? Mava and dulce de leche aren't kids, they're condiments. And dulce de leche is better.

What else would you serve in the meal?

I'm going to slightly change the question I'm going to answer to: what kind of meal would you serve this at? Answer: a boozy one that's a little light on food. Like, a mimosa brunch that starts around 11 a.m. and ends around dusk. Or a wine/cocktail and cheese/appetizer sort of thing that starts at happy hour and ends the next day. You get the picture: marathons of the eating and drinking variety.

How would you change this if you were going to make it again?

More cardamom. 1/4 teaspoon isn't doing enough. I'd also put in some vanilla, maybe some pistachios...and maybe a frosting that's just slightly sweetened whipped cream with rosewater because even though I'm not a big fan of roses or rose flavor, the whipped cream with rosewater is fantastic—it somehow makes the whipped cream taste rounder and light and fresh and planty without being weird.

What was your favorite part of making this recipe?

Writing about it to you.

Least favorite?

The mava. See despairing list above.

Did you mess up any parts of this recipe?

Yes. I almost forgot to add the eggs. So I put in the flour mixture and milk before the eggs. I think it was ok.

If you were going to serve this to one of your friends, who would you choose?

I already served it to drunk friends, high from the joys of Mexican cage thumb wrestling. It was a pretty appreciative crowd, but not the sort of appreciation where praise comes without you asking for it. What I mean to say is that I had to ask people if they liked it and then they said they liked it a lot, but I prefer to make things where people tell me they like it without me asking, you know?

For sober people, I would serve it to people who think they don't like sweet things. Because this is so dense and borderline savory that I think they could be tricked.

Bacon Jam

I feel kind of silly posting about something as trendy as bacon, it's like I'm jumping on the bacon bandwagon. I love cured meat as much as the next person, but the omnipresence of bacon is kind of overwhelming. But, of course, I succumbed because bacon is so so delicious and after watching Kevin from Top Chef make some bacon jam a couple of weeks ago (and hearing the judges go crazy over it) I really couldn't help myself. I was intrigued. As a side note, after last year's somewhat lackluster season, I'm happy that Top Chef has some super talented contestants. I'm a big fan of the chubby hipster chef contingent (Eli and Kevin. And mostly just Kevin, but I think their friendship is cute).

This is definitely one of those recipes that is awesome in theory (i.e. before the reality of the nutritional value and the intricacies of preparation set in). So midway through the cooking process, when the massive quantity of fat was rendering from the bacon, I definitely had a "what have I done?!" moment. Also, I got the recipe from the Top Chef website and it was very confusing, particularly because there was conflicting info from a video prepared by Kevin on the same website. So, I definitely did some improvising and my version was just not doing what the recipe said it should be doing.

But oh my god. This is good.


I made a bacon jam sandwich with fontina, apple, and roasted red pepper on sourdough. Again, this was very good (and I got to use a cute sandwich maker my brother gave me).



Here it is out of the sandwich maker:



Yum! And now I'm off to the gym.

Bacon Jam
adapted from Top Chef here and here

Due to all the hot bacon fat this recipe is a bit dangerous. Not only to your arteries, but also as a burn risk, so be very, very careful. Also, due to the fact that I fiddled a bit with the cooking process on this recipe (not so much the ingredients) that the cooking times might be a bit imprecise.

Ingredients

• 1 lb bacon, cut into 2” X 1” X 1/2” pieces
• half of a yellow onion, sliced lengthwise
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 tsp hot sauce (or to taste)
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon butter, unsalted

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Place the uncooked bacon on a large (oven safe) saucepan. Over low to medium heat, cook the bacon on the stove top. Adjust the heat as necessary so that the fat begins to render but the bacon does not get crispy. After it looks like most of the fat has been rendered (it took me about 1o minutes) add in the sliced onions. Saute the onions with the bacon and bacon fat until they are a light golden color. Stir in the brown sugar, then add 1 cup of chicken stock.

Place the saucepan in the preheated oven and let it hang out there until the chicken stock reduces out. This step took me 35 minutes, though the original recipe says 5-15 minutes, so keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn.

Remove the saucepan from the oven and stir. Add the remaining cup of chicken broth and return to oven to reduce (again this step took me about 35 minutes -- but keep checking on it). When you remove the pan this time, the mixture should be a deep amber/almost brown color.

Season with salt, pepper and hot sauce. Let the mixture cool slightly before putting it in the blender or food processor. To blend, scoop out the bacon bits trying to minimize the amount of fat that goes into the blender. Start to blend the bacon and add fat to get the consistency you would like. Discard the remaining fat (or better yet, save it for another cooking project).

Return the mixture of the pan (removing any excess bacon fat), add the honey and cook over the stove top to darken the mixture ever so slightly. Remove from heat and add the butter (or skip this step). Again, you'll need to let this cool before you can enjoy it without risk of burning your tongue. It was great in a sandwich and would perhaps be even better on chocolate chip pancakes.

Calabacitas

I'm a little embarrassed to admit how late in life I came to know calabacitas—you know, because I'm from Tucson and am well-versed in northern Mexican food and am myself a self-respecting half-Mexican—but I don't remember ever eating them until after I had already started going to college.

There are a couple of things I could blame this tragedy on, but I'm just going to go ahead and blame one: my mom. She never made them! And then, all of a sudden, circa 2000, she started, and my eyes were opened to all the calabacitas in the world. Like the ones on my parents' dinner table. Or the calabacitas burrito at Micha's, enchildada style—if you go eat it on a Friday night when there's a deafening mariachi band you'll wonder why you ever left this fine city.

Since I doubt my mom wants to take all the blame for this—assuming she cares that I'm blaming her, which is unlikely—I'll also admit that I went through a period of my youth where I was under the impression that zucchini were bad. I was wrong.

You may notice that I can't cook anything without tequila these days. This is part of my campaign to accept my adulthood by identifying behavior that can be classified as "grown up." Example: I go to class even if I don't always like it because I'm a grown up. I wear a bicycle helmet even though it messes up my hair because I'm a grown up. Here: I cook with booze instead of drinking it because I'm a grown up. I learned this trick from my friends Natasha and Steve (the tequila, not the growing up), and it does add a subtle deliciousness to the vegetables.

Calabacitas

1 onion, chopped
4-6 medium zucchini, sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 ears corn, with kernels taken off the cob
2 anaheim or poblano chiles, roasted and sliced into strips
cumin, coriander, salt to taste
2 tbsp tequila (optional...but you know what the right choice is)
as much shredded cheese as you want

This recipe takes a little while because onions and zucchini aren't the quickest-cooking vegetables and, if you take the time to make them nice and brown, the end result will be fantastically gooey—in a good way.

First, in a large skillet over medium-high heat with a little bit of oil, cook the onion. Stir occasionally and cook until it's on the way to getting brown, about 10 minutes.

Then add zucchini and garlic. Covering the pan at this point is optional, but it'll go a lot faster. Use aluminum foil if you don't have a cover big enough. Stir occasionally, so nothing gets burnt to the bottom.

When the zucchini and onions are nice and brown, add corn and chiles. Also add the cumin, coriander, and salt. I use about 1 tsp coriander, 3/4 tsp cumin, and 1 tsp salt—but I prefer coriander to cumin and maybe you're not like me. (?)

Add the tequila and take the cover off for a bit, to let it cook off. Sprinkle cheese on top, re-cover, don't stir!, turn off heat, and let sit a few minutes until the cheese melts. ¡Buen provecho!

Plum tequila ice cream

So, you remember in my last post I said I had big plans for the combination of plums and tequila? Check me out on my follow-through! Plum tequila ice cream.

I just tasted some to remind me what I wanted to write and what I want to write is that it tastes good, the tequila is subtle, there's cinnamon and vanilla and that's not a bad thing, the texture is nice. But it's not the sort of ice cream where you can taste it blindfolded and name the ingredients. And, when I thought about it, I realized that I kind of like ice cream that you can taste blindfolded and know what's in it. This ice cream isn't bad, but I'm not going to pine for it.

Anyway, a foray into ice cream is never a waste because if you start off with the basic custard recipe, you won't go wrong. The basic custard recipe is like a golden ticket to a very agreeable land.

So, here's how it went.

Plum tequila ice cream (with basic custard instructions mixed in)

For the basic custard:

3 cups dairy (I used whole milk, you make your own choices)
1 cup sugar
8 egg yolks
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean


Here are some things to keep in mind:

• On the milk, because I know a lot of us don't keep whole milk on hand, I've heard that you can freeze the milk and, after thawing, it's still suitable for ice cream making. So buy the half gallon or whatever, use what you need, freeze the rest.
• The egg yolks—what to do with the egg whites if you don't have time to make meringues or macarons or angel food cake? The internet tells me that these also freeze well. I'll tell you if that's true or not when I use the ones that are sitting in my freezer.
• You may say, hey, Mariana, you're sneaky but I can't be tricked! Your recipe says 8 egg yolks, but that picture very clearly has NINE. And to you I say, good eye, but sometimes you have a crazy lucky day and get two egg yolks in just one egg.
  
• Make the custard well ahead of when you want to make ice cream. You make the custard and then cool it down in the refrigerator and then make the ice cream, it's not a hugely work-intensive process but it does require a bit of planning.
  

To the basic ingredients above I also added:

4 ripe red plums, cut in pieces
1 vanilla bean, split
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup silver tequila

First, whether you're doing basic or fruit-added, you bring the dairy to a boil. If you're using fruit, put the fruit in the pot while bringing the milk to a boil—you want to infuse the milk with the flavor. I also added the salt, vanilla bean, cinnamon stick, and tequila at this point. If you're using vanilla extract, don't add it now. Add it at the very end, so all that flavor doesn't cook away.

But, look! The plums made my dairy all mealy and watery:


To fix this, I strained the dairy after it came to a boil. Then I found that I was down to only two cups of a dairy so I added another cup of milk, brought that to a boil again and, once all that business was done, continued on my way.

First thing on my way: let the dairy cool down to room temperature. Why? Because the next step is adding the yolks and if the milk is hot, the yolks will curdle and curdling does not make a smooth custard.

Once the dairy is at room temperature, beat the yolks and sugar together until they're a smooth paste. Add that to the dairy, put your pot on medium heat, and stir until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. I hope you're listening to something interesting on the radio, or maybe talking to a friend on the phone. Maybe you're calling me, even though I haven't been good about returning your phone calls!

If you're using vanilla extract, add it now, once the custard has been taken off the burner. Strain all this through something to get rid of all those incidental curdles which might happen even if you are very adamant about your constant stirring, and let it sit in the fridge for a while.


Once it's cool, make it into ice cream! In your ice cream maker! I thought the flavor of mine was nice, but not too exciting, so I crumbled up some amaretto cookies and added that once the ice cream was fairly solid.

Ice cream ghost!

Chickens, Eggs, and More Corn

Last weekend, I got to visit my friend Elizabeth's family in The Gig (aka Gig Harbor, Washington). Elizabeth's mom, Leslie, is kind of amazing. Among other things, such as being a prolific canner and impressive gardener, she raises beautiful chickens for their eggs. Below is a slightly motion sickness-inducing video that I took of these chickens (besides the amateur quality of this video, it requires an additional caveat. I accidentally hit a chicken in the head with a piece of bread. This was not on purpose! Sorry cute little chicken -- I was just trying to get the food as close to you as possible!)

Leslie sent me home with some gorgeous eggs:

Obviously, I had to make something special with these eggs. In addition to setting aside the pale green/blue ones for pickled eggs (yum!), I decided to make something called Corn Pudding Souffle from Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone by Deborah Madison.

Fresh eggs, some of the tastiest farmer's market corn I've had all year, and goat cheese, baked into a souffle-like pudding with a nice crispy top. Basically this recipe couldn't be bad. It does, however, strike me as the kind of recipe that will improve each time you make it -- getting the right oven temp (mine is a little off), adding herbs, and changing the cheese around to suit your own taste will only improve this already delicious late summer recipe.

Corn Pudding Souffle

adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

Ingredients

• 2 cups corn kernels (I used two large ears of corn to get this amount of corn)
• 1 cup milk (I used skim which was fine, though the texture of this dish was slightly off and it might have been improved by higher fat content milk. For now, however, I'm blaming it on my unpredictable oven temperature)
• 1 finely diced shallot
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup goat cheese (Madison also says you could use feta or cheddar. I think gouda might be tasty as well)
• salt and pepper (I used regular pepper, but if you have white pepper hanging out in your cabinet, you can use that too)
• 3 eggs, separated

Putting this recipe together goes fairly quickly, so it is helpful to have all the prep done. In addition to preparing the above ingredients, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and butter a 6-cup souffle dish.

Puree 1 1/2 cups of corn with the milk -- I used an immersion blender for this, but a food processor or blender would be fine. Puree/process/blend for a full three minutes and then pour it into a bowl through a fine strainer (possibly lined with cheese cloth if you don't have a super fine strainer) to remove all corn so that all remains in the bowl is a corn-infused milk. Press the liquid out of the corn left in the strainer and discard.

Saute the shallot in the butter for one minute. Add the flour and stir to remove lumps. Add the corn-milk and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. This mixture should become thick, almost like a paste. Remove from heat and add the remaining corn kernels, cheese, 1/2 tsp salt, and pepper to taste. Scoop a 1/2 cup of this and add it to the egg yolks (to warm up the yolks so they don't cook when they are added into the hot mixture). Then, add the yolk mixture to the pan, whisking constantly.

Beat the egg whites till they hold firm peaks and then fold them into the other mixture. Pour this into the prepared souffle dish. Set this dish in a baking pan with boiling water so that the souffle dish is halfway submerged in water. Bake for an about an hour -- the top should be nice and golden brown and the pudding should be firm. Madison suggests serving it with pesto, salsa verde, or cilantro salsa -- this next time I make a roast chicken, this is going to be the side dish!

Plum galette

Last week I went to the grocery store, saw the plums and nectarines, and decided to make a sort of rustic pie with them, the kind where you just fold the crust over the fruit and call it a day. (Rather like the blood orange tart, except without the disappointment of the blood oranges.)


Then I got creative, and learned a lesson about why it's good to have at least half a plan when you start making something.

First, I wanted to make the crust like the crust for the blood orange tart, but wanted to have some cornmeal in it. So, I just took out some of the flour from the recipe and substituted cornmeal. And then, since I once had a good experience with earl grey shortbread cookies, I decided to take a couple teaspoons of earl grey tea and put that in the crust too.

Crust done and resting in the refrigerator, I turned to the fruit, thinking I should do a little research because, since the pie won't be in a pie pan, I didn't want the fruit to be ridiculously juicy and ruin the crust. For Thanksgiving I had a recipe from Cooks' Illustrated that put tapioca powder in with the fruit to do a bit of soaking-up of juice—but there are only tapioca pearls in my house and, after consulting with my coffee grinder, decided that I didn't want coffee-flavored tapioca or tapioca-thickened coffee. Tapioca was not the solution to my particular problem.

Then I turned to a book that my mom gave me for my birthday, Bake Wise, a book that tells you why things work in baking and why other things don't. For instance, you wrap a crust in plastic and let it sit in the fridge before rolling it out not to make it cold—although that's very handy—but so that the moisture gets evenly distributed throughout the dough! Who knew? Don't skip that step!


Anyway, the book didn't help me with fruit. But! The September issue of Cooking Light has a recipe for plum galette with armagnac cream (which may have been the unconscious idea behind my whole thing), and this recipe told me to slice up my fruit, cook it until the fruit was soft, and then put that in the pie. This sounded good: fruit gets cooked which means my oven didn't have to be on for as long, liquid bubbles away, flavors get concentrated—perfect.

Here is where I got lucky: not having any cognac in my house, I consulted my liquor supply which currently consists of whiskey, gin, and tequila. Tequila won. So I'm cooking together, on medium heat:

• 3-4 c. stone fruit
• 1/4 c. tequila
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• 2-4 tbsp white sugar
• dash of salt

It's smelling pretty good, but not quite good enough and then luck struck again and I thought to add half a cinnamon stick to the mix, at which point it started smelling fantastic. I also started thinking what a shame that I had added that earl grey tea to the crust because this wouldn't be that great together—but that's the price you pay when you start off with a hazy plan.

After 10 minutes, the fruit was starting to lose some of its structural integrity but juice was still prevalent, so I poured all the liquid off from the fruit and and continued reducing that until it was thick and sticky. Then I added about a teaspoon of vanilla extract and reunited the fruit and liquid. I didn't add the vanilla while it was cooking because, since it's mostly alcohol, I thought most of the flavor would evaporate.

Then pie construction happened, along with about 35 minutes in a 375º oven, leaving me with a sloppy-looking pie that was a little embarrassing to me.


What a lot of work for a mediocre pie! But, Katie, the filling! Tequila straight is kind of a brute: the smell is pungent, the swallowing may bring tears to eyes. Tequila cooked, so that all the alcohol has burned off? My friend, it is elegant and sophisticated and you wouldn't know it's anything more than a distant relative of a shot of liquor. And with the plums, cinnamon, and vanilla—together they were smooth and, somehow, creamy. I have big plans for plums and tequila.

Sweet Corn Pancakes

I'd been looking for a recipe for sweet corn pancakes for a while, but I had something specific in mind. I didn't want dense, heavily-fried, or cornbread-like pancakes, instead I was looking for light fluffy pancakes with little bursts of delicious sweet corn in them. This recipe was what I was looking for and, after six months of waiting for corn season, I tried it this morning. It was just what I had hoped for -- an otherwise typical pancake slightly sweetened by tender kernels of corn.

Since I followed the recipe closely, I just included a link here. The recipe calls for milk and I used nonfat which was perfect for a weekend breakfast, but I imagine that if you wanted something for a special occasion whole milk would be nice (but, really, not necessary). Also, the next time I make these pancakes, I'd like to serve them with a nice slice of ham and some homemade applesauce, but they were pretty tasty with just maple syrup.

A kind of vegetable pie

My friend, I am nothing if not brave. Check it out: I baked a PIE in TUCSON in AUGUST, in a house with only two measly window AC units! I was serious about making this pie! And it paid off, look:


That's a good looking pie, right? Handsome, almost. Even better, it's full of summery goodness, like tomatoes and corn and Hatch chiles. I got most of the idea from Smitten Kitchen but didn't want to copy it exactly. While generally I stay away from making things more Southwestern—terra cotta, kokopellis, you know what I mean—I did the exact opposite here, substituting queso fresco for cheddar, putting some chipotle in the mayo sauce that goes in the pie, adding the chiles. My only regret is not getting a melty-er cheese; I was really shooting for Oaxacan cheese, but couldn't find it at Safeway and didn't want to go to another grocery store and settled for the queso fresco. I kept the biscuit crust, which was a little strange, but kept the entire thing from falling into extreme Southwesternness, which it would have if I had substituted some sort of cornmeal crust.

Anyway, it's good both hot and cold and was worth heating my house to extreme temperatures.

Tomato and corn pie
This makes a 9" pie

For the crust:
2 c. flour (I used half white and half whole wheat pastry flour)
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 stick butter
3/4 c. milk (SK uses whole, I used 2%)

Whisk the dry ingredients together.

Cut the butter into small cubes. In a food processor, process the flour-baking powder-salt mixture with the butter until it looks mealy. Add the milk and process until a ball has formed.

Mine looked overly moist, so I added another 2 tablespoons of flour—that fixed it.

Divide the dough into half. Form each half into a disk, wrap in plastic, put in the refrigerator until you're ready for it.

For the filling:
Here's where you can do whatever you want. Peeling the tomatoes and chiles is a little fussy, but worth it.

4 beefsteak tomatoes
3 green chiles
3 ears corn
2 c. cheese—your choice, obviously
1/3 c. mayonnaise
2 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 tbsp of the liquid that surrounds the chipotles in a jar of chipotle chiles
2 tbsp butter, melted

First, peel the tomatoes—this is one of my favorite kitchen tasks, behind peeling beets. Score a big X into the tomato, boil some water and, once boiling, pour it over the tomatoes. Don't let the tomatoes sit long because then the outer part of the tomato flesh will cook, making it mealy—2 minutes is more than enough. Drain and now the tomato skin peels easily off, leaving you with naked tomatoes.

Roast the chiles until black, place in plastic bag until cool, then peel them.

Slice the tomatoes, removing the seeds and mucousy inside parts—this pie is juicy enough without it.

Cut the corn off the ears.

Slice the chiles and cheese, if not already shredded.

Mix together the mayonnaise, lemon juice, and chipotle sauce together.

Roll out one disk of your biscuit pie crust and place it in the pie pan.

Now, layer the ingredients. I went, from bottom to top: tomatoes, corn, chiles, cheese, repeat. Once all vegetables are inside, pour the mayo sauce on top. You may even want to put some of this sauce in the middle, before you start the 2nd layer of tomatoes, because I found that the sauce didn't really penetrate the entire pie. And the sauce is delicious.

Roll out 2nd disk of biscuit dough, place on top of pie, cut vents, and brush with melted butter.

Bake in 375º oven for 30-35 minutes. Place the pie on a baking sheet, maybe even lined with foil, because the pie will bubble over.