Straight from the Farm

For those of you who have been reading along all summer, you know by now that I have a thing for squash blossoms and there are one, two, three, and four recipes already on the blog that feature them.  Well, I’m about to add numero cinco.  But this time I’m using PUMPKIN blossoms!  That’s right - you can use the blossoms of pumpkin vines in much the same way as those of squash and zucchini.  In fact, you can even use the blossoms off ornamental gourd vines too but I find those don’t hold up to as much manhandling when stuffing them. 

Since I’ve used a lot of squash blossom photos for the previous entries and I’m already varying the theme a bit with pumpkin blossoms, I thought I’d also try my hand at illustrating for a change.  Hopefully you’ll find these pastels charming instead of corny, but either way, it’s good to have a little fun once in awhile. 

I also opted to try a tempura batter this time, instead of the bread-ier coating of eggs and flour.  I’m honestly torn as to which I prefer.  The tempura batter didn’t offer as much crunch but it did make for a prettier final dish since the colors of the blossoms peaked through the batter here and there.  The tempura was faster though since it only required one quick “dip” instead of a dunk in egg and then a roll in flour.  With future stuffed blossoms, I suppose I’ll just pick according to my  mood.

As for my preference of blossoms, I ended up liking the pumpkin ones best for their crunch, smell and taste.  Did you know pumpkin blossoms have the sweetest floral, almost honey-like, scent?  It’s quite engaging.  Squash blossoms do not have that same smell.  I have to be honest here though…I was initially intimidated by the pumpkin blossoms due to the size of their stamen.  These bad boys are very well endowed!  I felt downright naughty handling them, and once they were fried, I wasn’t so sure I was going to enjoy the sensation of…ya know, I just can’t delve into this anymore.  Suffice to say, don’t be put off by the stamen.  In the end, these all-around large blossoms hold up really well to stuffing and are quite tasty. 

Final comment…this is a great opportunity to use the oven-dried tomatoes if you made them already! 

Tempura-Style Stuffed Pumpkin Blossoms
Adapted from Epicurious.com

6 pumpkin blossoms
1 small block of aged hard cheese (i.e., sharp cheddar)
3 oven/sun dried tomatoes
stem of fresh oregano
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. chilled sparkling water
generous pinch of salt
2 c. peanut or canola oil
toasted spicy pumpkin seeds for garnish (optional)
Place the oven dried tomatoes in a small bowl filled with very hot tap water.  Set aside.
Pinch stems off blossoms and inspect for any dirt or bugs (remove these with a slightly damp towel rubbed very gently along the petals). 

Cut cheese into 1 inch long by 1/2 inch wide chunks. Remove whole oregano leaves from stem and set aside.  Mix flour with salt in a medium bowl and set aside.  Take tomatoes out of hot water and dab off with a paper towel.  Cut in half lengthwise.

Begin stuffing the blossoms by placing one chunk of cheese, one whole oregano leaf, and one piece of tomato inside each blossom.  Gently twist petals to “seal” stuffing inside.  Set aside and repeat with each blossom.  Once all blossoms are stuffed, place oil in a deep frying pan over high heat. Wait a minute or two for oil to heat up before combining the sparkling water with the flour.  Working quickly to take advantage of the bubbles in the batter, dip each blossom into the batter, gently shake off excess and place in hot oil.  Repeat quickly with each blossom.  Turn them over in the hot oil (be careful as they might stick a bit to the bottom) until brown and crisp all over.  Remove from oil and place on a paper towel to drain. 

Sprinkle with a bit of salt if you’d like.  When plating, scatter around a few pumpkin seeds (you’ll notice I forgot to do that for the picture below - d’oh!). 

(serves 2)

In celebration of the return of autumnal weather in Philly (finally!), I thought I’d share this picture of some of the farm’s funky gourds that are decorating my doorstep.  Have you picked out your pumpkins or gourds at a local farm or orchard?  If so and you have a cool picture, email it to me [straightfromthefarm (at) gmail (dot) com] along with your name and city, and I’ll add it to this post. 

It’s funny the things that spur you to make a recipe sometimes… This time it was a leftover gift card from last Christmas that led me to buy a couple pretty plates at Anthropology that then in turn made me think of how nice a piece of cake would look atop those plates that then reminded me that I had sweet fresh carrots at home that would make an excellent carrot cake. 

I think the above photo justifies the purchase of the pretty plates even before I got around to making the cake.  I tip my hat to this plate - without it I likely would’t have made cake with the farm’s sweet little Purple Haze and Kinko carrots, making my best carrot cake to date thanks to the intense natural flavors of the farm fresh carrots grated right before I tossed them in the batter. 

Carrot cake’s nothing new or exciting for me, but I’ve always “cheated” in the past by using the bagged shredded carrots from the supermarket since I’m a little lazy and usually pressed for time.  I’ll not make that mistake again.  If you haven’t tried getting local carrots to put in your cake, you’d be well advised to do so.   The other key, of course, is the freshness of your spices.  People - if you’re aren’t grating your own nutmeg by now, get yourself a microplane and see what you’re missing! 

Let’s talk about the dried fruit and nut component of the traditional carrot cake recipe, shall we?  The nuts, in my opinion, are easy.  Skip them.  Alright, some of you might not agree so I’ll try to be more helpful than that.  I believe that nuts in baked goods are best when a) they are toasted first and b) they are finely chopped or ground so they don’t interfer with the natural “crumb” of the cake/cookie/bread/etc.   Please feel free to beg to differ, but that’s my two cents for what it’s worth.  As for the dried fruit, most carrot cake recipes call for raisins.  I’ve found that mixing it up a litte bit makes a richer mix of flavors - sweet raisins, tangy cranberries, tart cherries, and floral blueberries.  Always give the dried fruit a quick soak in hot water while you mix up the rest of the ingredients before draining and adding to the batter.  This plumps them up a bit and resorts some of their juicy flavors.

I shoud warn you though that this cake is prone to cause household fighting by times.  D and I both wanted the last piece…he got it in the end.  Lucky for me, carrots are a root vegetable that’ll be around on the farm for several more weeks (and keep for awhile too) so I’ll have plenty of time to make more cake.

CARROT CAKE
Adapted from The Metropolitan Bakery Cookbook

Cake

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
2 t. ground cinnamon
1/4 t. ground allspice
1 t. freshly grated nutmeg
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil
3/4 c. pear sauce (or apple sauce)
1 1/2 c. sugar
4 eggs
3 c. grated carrots
3/4 c. mixed dried fruit (mine were raisins, cranberries,and blueberries)
1 c. toasted pecans, coarsely chopped (optional)
2 T. hot water

Cream Cheese Icing

6 oz. cream cheese
3 T. butter
1 t. vanilla extract
1 c. confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 F and prepare a bundt pan with a good coat of nonstick baking spray. Set out the ingredients for the icing so they come to room temperature.
 
Sift together the flour, spices and baking powder and soda and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together oil, pear sauce and sugar until everything is well combined.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Slowly stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Do not over mix!  Add the carrots, dried fruit and pecans (if using). Finally add the hot water. 

Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake on the center oven rack for 45 minutes.  Test with a skewer inserted into the center to see if it comes out clean. When the skewer is clean, remove cake from oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. 

While the cake is cooling, make the icing by beating together the cream cheese and butter.  Add the vanilla and beat again.  Add half the confectioners’ sugar and stir slowly to start and then beat well to get rid of lumps.  Taste the icing to determine if it’s sweet enough for you.  If not, add more sugar until you’ve reached your desired sweetness. 

When cake is completely cooled, remove from bundt pan and put on a nice plate.  Spread icing over top and sides.  Garnish with a very light dusting of cinnamon and a few chopped nuts if desired. 

(serves 12 - or two if you’re at my house)

This is a post I probably should have put up last week - both because I made the dish then and, more importantly, because watermelon season may well have quietly slipped away for another year sometime between this week and last week.  (I didn’t see any at the Headhouse Market on Sunday.)  There’s just been such an influx of great produce and recipe ideas in my kitchen lately that I can’t get everything posted fast enough.  But perhaps you can still find a watermelon in your own garden or at your farmers market.  Or you might even have a few stashed away like I do (watermelons will keep for several weeks if placed on a cool basement floor).  

I’ve had this unusual recipe dog-eared in The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Four Ingredient Cooking for quite some time and finally gave it a try last week to take to dinner at Farmer Dave’s house.  The reason I hadn’t given it a go sooner is because, well, I don’t like olives.   So I needed an occasion to get some unbiased taste testers to both tell me if it was good and to then actually eat it.  It was the perfect quick dish to take to a weeknight dinner party, and it seemed to be well-received despite the disappointing lack of saltiness (to contrast with the sweet melon) in both the olives and the feta, which really is the point of the whole salad. 

While the reference cookbook is dedicated to using only four ingredients, you’ll notice my version now has six.  I found the lemon juice and salt gave it a little extra kick when my olives failed to hold up their end of the bargain.  If you get flavorful ones, you could certainly omit either or both the salt and lemon juice.  

A quick review of The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Four Ingredient Cooking:  It’s a very interesting book to have on hand for both curiosity sake and for easy-to-prepare recipes (with only four ingredients, none of the recipes can get very complicated).  I find the combinations they come up with in the book to be great starting points that often lead me to fun new dishes.   It also gets me thinking about what four ingredient recipes I can come up with on my own.  The last successful one was a cold salad of rice noodles, cucumber sticks, crushed peanuts and a little bottled thai peanut sauce (that was cheating a little bit, I know).  Got any great four ingredient recipes to share?  I’d love to hear about them! 

Back to this recipe - get yourself one of the last watermelons of the year, good quality olives, and some salty feta cheese to make this savory watermelon salad that moves watermelon from the dessert plate onto the dinner plate instead.  See, doesn’t the watermelon salad look great next to an early fall feast of grilled veggies, butternut squash, and a grilled veggie burger with farm fresh lettuce?  Give it a try before the season is gone for good.

Savory Watermelon Salad
Adapted from The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Four Ingredient Cooking

4 c. cubed and seeded watermelon
3/4 c. black olives, pitted and sliced
3/4 c. feta cheese, crumbled
3/4 c. toasted seeds - pumpkin, sunflower, pine nuts, etc.
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1 t. coarse sea salt

Place watermelon and olive slices in a medium serving bowl. Toss to combine.  Add the lemon juice and salt and toss again.  Finally, add the cheese and seeds and toss lightly just to combine.  Allow to sit for 20 minutes in the fridge before serving. 

(serves 6-

Continuing in my mission to preserve my family’s tradition of stashing away the garden/farm produce to continue summer’s bounty into winter, I decided to try drying sweet corn.  The last time I visited home, I was talking with my mom about wanting to preserve food but not having the storage or kitchen space to do full-fledged canning of the sorts she does.  It was then that she mentioned that in the “old days”, a lot of vegetables were dried instead of canned or frozen.  In fact, my grandmother (who is also an incredible cook, even at the age of 87) seems to have been of the generation to do just that.  When my mom pulled out a dusty tin of dried corn that my grandmother had put in our basement some 45 years ago, I was intrigued to find out more about this method.  While I wouldn’t have necessarily eaten the contents of that dusty tin, the corn was in some mighty fine shape considering its ripe old age. 

Later that day, we visited my grandma and soon were talking about all the old methods of preserving before the days of fridge, freezer and even the modern stove.  When I hear these kind of stories, I’m always amazed at how far humankind has come and yet, somehow, how we still managed to miss the target.  Modern life is meant to make living better and easier - how did we lose some of the simpliest and best culinary (and no doubt other) pleasures along the way?

For instance, along with dried corn and pickled pears(!), my grandma also told us about quince jam.  Her eyes twinkled as she explained in response to our puzzled looks that quince trees use to be abundant and produced small sweet fruits shaped like pears that melted into the sweetest nectar when made into jam.  I’d never heard of a quince before that day and now can’t wait to get a tree growing at the farm!  Just another example of how mass production and modern demands have filtered out the diversity in our food chain. 

So, here is the method for drying the corn. Ridiculously simple and requiring very little effort, I’d say it beats canning any day.   Come back in about two months (when the farm is no longer in full harvest mode) for some recipes on how to use the dried corn in savory puddings, soup and casseroles.  Here’s the first recipe for a creamy casserole using dried corn.  And if you care to, ask someone close to you of an older generation what some of their food stories are.  It’s fascinating what memories they’ll conjure up. 

DRIED CORN

Use fresh sweet corn, husked and silk removed with a brush.  Six ears will fill up one standard baking sheet and yield about 2 cups of dried corn. 

Cut corn off the cob using a sharp knife and a shallow bowl or cutting board.  Be sure to cut as close the cob as you can to remove all the kernels and juice possible.  Line a baking sheet with foil and give it just a very light coat of nonstick spray.  Spread corn kernels out on the baking sheet into an even layer. 

Turn oven onto 150 F and place tray on the middle rack.  The drying process will take several hours (up to 12, depending on the freshness and juiciness of your corn) so be sure to check on it every 2 hours or so, turning it and shaking the tray gently to loosen any kernels that are sticking together or to the tray.  You’ll begin to notice the kernels shrinking and eventually becoming much darker and hard.   When all the moisture appears to be out of the corn, remove the tray from the oven and allow to cool off completely. 

By the way, if you don’t really feel like monitoring the stove for 12 hours straight, you can turn off the oven, letting the tray sit inside, for several hours and come back to it later.  Or, if you have an older gas stove with a large oven pilot light, you might not even have to turn the oven on - just leave the corn sit in there for a day or so to dry on its own. 

When the dried corn is cool, place in a paper bag and hang in your kitchen to dry out any remaining moisture.  After about a week or so, transfer dried corn to a ziplock bag and store in your cupboards for use later this winter.