Just for kicks…

Takes you back, huh?

That movie is 30 years old. THIRTY years.

Anyway, today my guest post on steakhouse toasties goes up on Wisconsin Cheese Talk. It’s my first guest post ever, so it’d make me feel all kinds of special if you’d go over and check it out. I’m disabling comments here for this post so if you’d like to leave a comment please head on over to the post on WCT itself to do so.

So much going on this week.

First of all, it’s Wednesday, which means it’s Summer Fest time again. This week’s Summer Fest topic is herbs, greens, and/or beans. So we’re going to make some compound butter with fresh parsley, basil, rosemary, and garlic.

Compound butters really are super simple to make and do a great job of fancying up even the simplest of dishes. Much like making your own mayonnaise, it gives you the ability to add flavor where usually there is none, and also has the added bonus of tending to make non-cooking-types impressed.

So.

All you’re doing to make this is setting out a stick of butter to get to room temperature, mixing in the flavors, and then cooling again to re-solidify. That’s all there is to it.

Chop up your herbs as fine as you like and mince or grate the garlic. You can add as much or as little as you like – generally I add about 2-3 tbsp worth of herbs and one large clove of garlic.

WARNING: Don’t microwave or heat your butter in any way to speed up the tempering process. You are likely to wind up breaking the emulsion of the butter and then you’ll just have a big goopy mess and won’t be able to get it to re-solidify properly.

Once your herbs and butter are adequately folded together, spoon out onto a piece of parchment paper wide enough to roll it up in. Then simply roll it up, twist the ends, and it’s ready to go in the fridge. I recommend dating and labeling it – a habit which tends to help keep your fridge clean.

This will last in the fridge about as long as any regular butter would. Did you know you can freeze butter for long term storage? You should put it in a plastic bag or otherwise air-tight container before doing so, but butter can be kept frozen for months. I like to keep a couple varied compounds on hand that I’ve made ahead of time, so that I can break them out whenever necessary.

Compound butters don’t need to be made only with herbs, either. They can be made with all kinds of flavors – anything from honey and cinnamon, to shallots and red wine, and everything in between.

Later on this week, we’ll be using this compound butter on my steakhouse toasties which I’m guest posting over at Wisconsin Cheese Talk. These fancypants grilled cheese sandwiches are really some of my favorite sandwiches ever, so I hope you’ll head over there and take a look on Friday.

So what else is going on this week in the name of fresh summer time herbs? Have a little look-see. Go ahead. Do it.

• White on Rice Couple Todd and Diane use fresh mint to make homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream.
• Nicole at Pinch My Salt features Green Beans with Balsamic Browned Butter.
• Margaret at A Way to Garden stores a year of herbs—and makes one-pot Farinata, a polenta dish with greens.
• Food Network UK is on the edge with herbs and greens.
• Caroline at the Wright Recipes is cooking up Wax and Butter Bean Herbed Salad.
• Alison at Food 2: Leftover Herb Solution (Pesto!)
• Toby at HealthyEats has the Top 6 Herbs.
• Cooking Channel offers up the Best Bean Salads and a French Take on Greens, Beans and Herbs.
• Food Network Dish has the “other” summer greens.
• Jennifer and Mark at Gilded Fork have a virtual garden of recipes
  for basil, cilantro, fennel, lavender, lemongrass, rosemary, sage and tarragon.
• Shauna and Danny at Gluten Free Girl and the Chef will serve up something special midday Wednesday.
• Tigress in a Jam has a preserving–book giveaway, and ways to put up greens, beans, herbs.
• Caron at SanDiegoFoodstuff talks about Kale and Feta Empanadas and roasted Romano Beans.
• Alana at Eating From the Ground Up has shirred eggs with fresh herbs: the affinity between eggs and herbs.
• Cate at Sweetnicks has Fresh Green Bean Salad with Herb Vinaigrette.

Today we’re gonna talk about braising.

Braising is a cooking technique that uses two different kinds of heat – moist heat and dry heat.

Braising is typically a pretty long process and is often used for what are generally considered the ‘lesser’ cuts of meat (on account of higher collagen and connective tissue which is very tough if not thoroughly cooked) – such as shoulder or top blade, brisket, shanks, ribs, etc.

Braising meats with high collagen is a wonderful solution to what are sometimes otherwise considered ‘junk’ meats, because the long extended heat of a braise breaks the collagen down into gelatin, which then mixes with the liquids that you’re braising your meat in and gives it a nice body so you can use it to create the perfect sauce for your meal.

Pressure cooking and slow cooking are also forms of braising, but for this particular dish we’re going to use a 13×9 oven-proof pan.

This recipe is from Alice Water’s 2007 cookbook – The Art of Simple Food. It’s a great book and I use it for all kinds of things – I highly recommend checking it out.

The recipe as written calls for dried ancho and chipotle chiles. Since I didn’t have any on hand, I substituted fresh jalapeños and some hot black peppers from my garden and it still turned out great. If I had used the ancho and chipotle it probably would have given the shoulder a more smoky flavor overall – an ancho chile is nothing more than a dried and smoked poblano, and a chipotle a dried and smoked jalapeño. To get them a little closer to the appropriate flavor, I roasted my peppers for a little while first.

Prep time: at least 1 hour, plus time for the meat to temper
Cook time: 2 hours 15 minutes

(This is not your 30 minute week night meal).

Ingredients…

- one ~4 pound pork shoulder

Dry rub:

- 1 tbsp fresh oregano or marjoram
- 1 tsp ground ancho chile (or 1 minced roasted black hot pepper)
- salt, pepper

Braise:

- 2 onions
- 1 carrot
- 3 dried ancho chiles (or 3 roasted jalapeños)
- 1 dried chipotle chile (or 2 roasted black hot peppers)
- 1 head of garlic
- a few black peppercorns
- a few fresh marjoram or oregano sprigs
- 2 cups chicken stock or water

I don’t suspect that many people will have the exact same black hot peppers as I do – you can really sub in any kind of pepper you want, just bear in mind how much desired heat vs. desired sweetness you want in the final product.

First step is to let your meat temper – tempering meat is such a crucial step in cooking and yet it tends to be one of the most overlooked steps. Tempering just means letting your meat get to room temperature before cooking, so that it will all cook evenly once you put it to heat. Tempering and resting are probably the two most easily fixed common mistakes when it comes to any kind of home cooking.

If your pork shoulder is frozen, you can temper it the day before and add the dry rub then, and then refrigerate overnight. This was my process. It’s also great if you can add the dry rub the day before. But, if you’re pressed for time, you can add the dry rub the day of and leave it on the counter for a few hours. Then again, if you’re pressed for time, this is maybe not the best recipe for you.

Once tempered and rubbed, go ahead and nest it in your pan surrounded by the aromats. You should peel and chop all your vegetables, but you don’t need to do much more than a coarse chop for anything – including the garlic – because you will be sending it through a food processor after the braising.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and pour the chicken stock into the pan. Do your best to use homemade stock any time you can, but if you have to get the store bought stuff then make sure it’s low sodium so you can control the salting yourself.

The liquid should come about 1/4 of the way up the meat – add more if needed.

Cook in the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes, then turn the roast over and cook for another 30 minutes. Finally, turn one last time and cook for another 30 minutes.

Check the liquid throughout the process, if it gets too low you can always add more stock.

Remove the pan from the oven.

Remove the meat from the pan and let rest for 10-15 minutes. Don’t worry about your meat getting cold, as it will continue cooking for some time after being removed from heat thanks to carryover cooking.

Skim the fat off the liquid in the pan, and then take everything from the pan – garlic, onions, carrot, sauce, everything – and pass it through a food processor. Careful with the warm liquid in the processor. Strain thoroughly – I recommend straining at least 2 or 3 times for the best texture. You can check consistency by dipping a spoon and watching the liquid roll off the back of it – it should be a little slow to do so. If you want to thicken it up a bit more than it is, you can add a roux, or perhaps just some heavy cream. If you want to thin it out, just add water or more chicken stock.

Carve the pork shoulder and arrange on a warm platter or dinner plate, with sauce served over top or in a separate sauceboat.

If you can get some nice local pork shoulder to make this dish with, the end result will be absolutely heavenly.

This past weekend the wife and I went to the 8th annual Slow Food Farm Dinner at Clyde’s Willow Creek Farm, in Ashburn, VA.

Willow Creek Farms is a property owned by the Clyde’s restaurant group, and it is an absolutely beautiful venue. The main building is a large restaurant with many different rooms, all very beautifully decorated with an antique style. The structures themselves are not historic, however, they were built using antique timber and historic pieces that Clyde’s had purchased from various sources in the area back in the 1980’s.

Tickets for this event went on sale way back in April, and apparently sold out within 72 hours. Naturally, we had been looking forward to the dinner for some time at this point. I have to say a word of thanks and congratulations to Slow Food DC for making this both such a wonderful and affordable event.

There was a beautiful outdoor patio which had been reserved for the Slow Food event, and with the fantastic weather that we had last Saturday walking out onto the area made a great impression on us. I had Amanda pose for a quick shot.

First order of business: locate the bar and secure some seats. They were pouring a pinot grigio and a sauvignon blanc, both from Barboursville Vineyards in Charlottesville, VA. We had a glass of the sauvignon blanc and ambled about a bit.

One of the cool things about this spot is that a lot of the food that is served here is actually grown right on the premises, so you’re getting produce from mere yards away. Doesn’t get much more local than that. The farm was open for tour during our event, so with glasses in hand we took a short stroll down the path and through the woods.

There was a beekeeper set up with a beekeeping station explaining his process for producing honey, and the head gardener was there to show people around his vegetable garden and explain what he had going on.

It was actually still kind of hot and sunny at this point (we had arrived to the event at 5pm), so we walked around the garden a bit but quickly moved back to our table on the main patio. When we got there, a few others had joined our table and it had been set with a very cute centerpiece. And a tasty and refreshing peach sangria was being poured. Perfect.

It’s amazing how a mason jar can make just about anything adorable.

We shared our table with four others and really enjoyed their company. As it turned out, the beekeeper was amongst them, so that made for some interesting conversation.

In addition, there was a mic and PA set up and as each course was served the purveyor/farmer/grower/provider who was responsible for it stood up and spoke to the group about their product and what they had done to bring it to our plates. It was, in a word, pretty fascinating.

Really, it was just all about the food. So let’s get into it.

When we returned from the garden, a buffet table had been set up with some classic garde manger options: rabbit terrine from Tower Oaks Lodge, pork terrine with pistachio from Willow Creek Farm, and pickled vegetables (chard, tomatoes, beets, cucumbers) – also from Willow Creek.

Shortly thereafter, the first course was served. Now, I’m not really big on taking pictures at a meal – particularly at a table with other people – BUT, in this case, the topic had already come up in conversation and been joked about thoroughly, and other people at the table had cameras too, so we all decided as a group that none of us would consider it rude and gave ourselves carte blanche with the photos for the evening. Regardless, lighting conditions in such a situation are never ideal, and wine pairings were served with every course, so of course these are not the best pictures I’ve ever taken. I’m sure you understand.

First course was chilled corn soup with Chesapeake Bay blue crab and mini herb salad from Arnold Farms (Chestertown, MD) and Willow Creek. I have to say, this first course was very possibly the best thing served the whole night. The soup had a deliciously silky texture, the crab nearly melted in your mouth, and the flavors all performed in total perfect unison. This one was really amazing.

This course was paired with a vintage rosé from Barboursville Vineyards, 2009.

Next course was cherry wood smoked Pennsylvania duck breast with cherries and escarole. The cherries made this dish for me – they were delicious and a flavor I’d never experienced paired with a savory duck breast. The cherries were from Toigo Orchards, Shippensburg, PA, and the escarole grown at Willow Creek.

The duck was paired with a Barbera Reserve from Barboursville, 2007. I love a good barbera.

Following up after that was an amazing dish of local Chesapeake Rockfish. The rockfish was whole roasted on giant bbq slabs that they paraded around the tables (sadly I couldn’t snap a good pic), and was wonderfully tender. The fish was served with garden herbs, cherry tomatoes, olive oil, and new rose-gold potatoes. This dish was provided by Lois’s Produce (Leedstown, VA), Potomac Vegetable Farms, VA, Tuscarora Organic Growers (South Central, PA) and Willow Creek Farm.

The rockfish was paired with a wonderful Viognier Reserve, again from Barboursville (2008). Seeing a pattern yet?

After the rockfish we had a cheese course provided by Cowgirl Creamery. Cowgirl Creamery is actually located in California, but they have recently opened an outpost in DC. They don’t yet actually produce any of their cheeses here on the east coast, but are planning to soon in the future. The cheeses offered were Mt. Tam, a firm buttery cheese with a mellow mushroom flavor, St. Pat, a mellow soft cheese wrapped in nettle leaves to impart a smoky flavor (the nettle has been frozen to remove any sting), Old Kentucky Tomme, a deliciously tangy goat cheese from Capriole Dairy, Sally Jackson Sheep, a smooth and silky sheep’s cheese, and Bohemian Blue from Hidden Springs Dairy. It was all quite tasty, though try as I might, I can never really go for the taste of blue cheese.

The cheese course was served with a Cabernet Franc Reserve, from Barboursville, 2007.

After the cheese course, we were served a Pennsylvania Peach Foster with brown butter pound cake, homemade vanilla ice cream and a small glass of philéo (a dessert wine). By this point it was really too dark to get any good photographs, so I leave this one up to the imagination. Whatever you’re imagining – yes, it was that good.

We finished the night off with a final glass of the Barboursville Cab Franc, and a stroll around the grounds under the moonlight. It was one of those magical nights.

The Slow Food Annual Farm Dinner was amazing. This is absolutely something I see ourselves coming back to year after year. Clyde’s Willow Creek Farm restaurant is such a beautiful setting, and I’m sure it’s quite wonderful on any given summer night – not just for a Slow Food event.

Curious about getting tickets for the 9th annual dinner? Well, the best way to be sure you’ll hear about it would be to join Slow Food DC. But, I’ll make a promise here that I will be sure to relay the information through my facebook page and through twitter when the tickets are going on sale (sometime around next April or so).

After I’ve bought mine, of course.

Okay, so it’s about time. I have been mentioning this creamed corn dish on here so many times over that I’m sure you’re just dying to see it and get the recipe (and if not then can you at least just play along and indulge me in this little fantasy? Thanks). I figured it was finally time to post it, and what better opportunity than coinciding with the Summer Fest 2010 week for corn.

Summer Fest is a cross-blog event celebrating peak harvest season and the crops it brings to us. This is the third year of Summer Fest and my first year participating. Each Wednesday for the rest of the summer, or perhaps a bit longer, a group of bloggers will post on a theme ingredient, rounding out the theme by posting their tips, recipes, or stories about the ingredient in question. Each blogger who has then participated will be listed in the posts along with a link to their own posts so if a reader is looking for more on that particular week’s theme, they can find it easily at their fingertips.

This is the second week of Summer Fest (I missed the first, in typical me fashion). The first week was cukes and zukes and you can see the roundup by following my link.

This week, of course, is corn.

So with that, we’re going to do Keller’s creamed corn from the ad hoc at home recipe book that I do love so dearly.

Let’s start with choosing fresh corn. How can you pick a good ear from a not-so-good? The key, as is often the case, is the smell. Take a fresh ear of corn and peel back just a little bit of the shuck from the top, and take a good whiff. It should smell fresh, but not vegetal. It should smell, very literally, like corn – not like leaves, or plant-matter, or growth. It seems a subtle distinction as I type the words here on a page, but when you have two of the varying ears of corn in front of you the difference is actually quite stark.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 20-25 minutes

Ingredients…

- 5-6 ears of fresh corn
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- 3 oz unsalted butter
- 2 fresh limes
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tbsp fresh chives

First step is to shuck the corn and remove it from the cob.

My method for this is to break the ears in half once they have been shucked – this way, when you cut the corn off the cob it won’t have as fall to far and will tend not to bounce all over the counter and the floor quite as much.

Zest the limes and set zest aside. Roll them on the countertop and squeeze the juice out into a small bowl.

Melt the butter in large saucepan over medium heat, and add the corn, cayenne pepper, and lime juice (you should have at least 1 tbsp of lime juice).

A trick from the Keller book – before cooking your corn, put it into a large bowl and put a small bowl of water next to it. Dip your fingertips in the bowl of water, then swish it around in the large bowl of corn and it will attract all the stray pieces of silk out of the corn. Repeat as necessary. Using this method, you should be able to remove about 99% of all the silk from your chopped corn.

Cook for 15-20 minutes over medium heat until liquid has reduced and the corn has started to sizzle just a little bit. You want to make sure your pan is big enough for every kernel to be evenly cooked, it will give the creamed corn a much more uniform flavor in the end.

Add 3/4 cup heavy cream (you can increase or decrease this as you prefer based on consistency) and cook for another 6-8 minutes until it has reduced to your liking.

Add fresh chives and 1 tbsp of lime zest.

Remove from heat and serve.

This is easily the best creamed corn I have ever had in my life. I make it for us far too often, it is getting dangerous. It is so ridiculously delicious though, you’ll soon understand why.

Easy riffing options: swap the heavy cream for coconut milk, and the chives for coconut flakes. And/or swap the cayenne pepper for a minced jalapeño. It’s not better, per se, just different. Don’t ever let Keller know you changed his recipe.

Summer Fest 2010 Participants:

• Nicole at Pinch My Salt: Creamed Corn with Bacon and Rosemary
• Margaret at A Way to Garden: Vintage corn Americana slideshow, and no-frills creamed corn
• The FN Dish: Creamed Corn-Off: Battle of the Southern Cooks
• Alison at Food2: Freezing Corn
• Toby at Healthy Eats: Candied Corn and 4 other recipes
• Michelle at Cooking Channel: Browsing Corn Porn
• Judy/Tuscan Diva: Fried Polenta Crostini with Porcini Ragu
• Jennifer of Gilded Fork: Corn: Sweet Versatility (history, uses & recipes from cocktails to cornbread
• Chef Mark: Gettin’ Corny! (Musings from childhood, tips & fresh-corn recipes)
• Caron of SanDiegoFoodstuff: Chino Corn Risotto with Chanterelles and Burrata
• Caroline at The Wright Recipes: Pickled Corn with Summer Onion and Basil
• White on Rice Couple: BBQ Chicken and Corn Pizza
• Shauna at Gluten Free Girl: a sweet corn risotto (and how to make corn stock with husks and mirepoix)
• Tigress in a Jam: Cream Corn Scones (the perfect way to use up left over roasted or boiled corn):
• Alana at Eating from the Ground Up: Corn on the Kabob (invented by her artist husband):
• Cate O’Malley at Sweetnicks: Corn and Spinach Stuffed Portobello Mushroom Caps
• Kelly at Just a Taste: Caramel Corn (plus pics of corn in its various popping stages)
• Paige Orloff of The Sister Project: Life-Changing Corn Pancakes
• Tara at Tea and Cookies: Farro Corn Salad with Tomatoes and Herbs
• Food Network UK blog: Talking Corn

If you’d like to participate in Summer Fest, it’s easy and you are welcome to. Margaret at A Way to Garden is happy to explain.

Apologies in advance for the rambling nature of this post, but I’m going to do my best to tie it all together. I have a lot of random things to talk about today.

So you remember how I recently tried to give a book away – Bittman’s Food Matters?

Well, the winner never claimed their prize nor left an email address for contact. SO. I’m going to give it away AGAIN, hopefully more successfully this time.

But here’s the (arguably) cool part. Instead of just randomly picking someone who comments on this post, I am going to give the book away to the first person who a) comments on the post, b) likes my page on facebook, and c) follows me on twitter. Be the first to do all three of those things, and the book is yours.

I can hear you saying now – “Wait, you have a page on facebook? How could I have possibly ever missed such an awesome thing?”

Well, that’s because I didn’t until just now. I fancied up a little corner for myself (and ourselves) in that massive 800 pound gorilla of a website so you can all come hang out when you want to. It’s my hope that through the facebook page we will be able to facilitate more interaction and discussion than we might be able to do here. So to that end I invite everyone to feel free to come and post all your homeless food thoughts there (as in, your food thoughts that don’t have a home – not your thoughts about homeless food… actually no, those are just as welcome, too) – from what you just ate to restaurant reviews to articles about food to whatever you want.

I also prettied up my twitter homepage a little bit over the weekend, and updated my username to @MSCK_Liam. I won’t get into why twitter is awesome, but it is.

So there’s my marketing efforts for the week(/month?/year??). I did have some amazing food over the weekend, including the Slow Food DC Annual Dinner at Willow Creek Farm, but you will have to be patient to hear about it – I promise details are coming.

Last but absolutely not least, this week is National Farmer’s Market Week! Go support your local farmers. You shouldn’t really need a week of recognition to go out and buy the best possible food available to you, but hey whatever it takes.

Be sure to visit your local market before the week is up.

If you want to win a free copy of Mark Bittman’s book Food Matters – like my page on facebook, follow me on twitter, and comment on this post. If you already follow me on twitter, great, you’ve got a head start.

It’s a curse.

Ever since the year 1995, I have not been able to eat – or even look at – fresh peaches without getting that damn song in my head. Even though, up until just now, I had probably not even listened to it for a good ten years. According to wiki (the knower of all things), the song was written about a crush who had a peach tree in her front yard. When finally the courage was summoned to talk to the crush, he stood under the peach tree and crushed peaches in his fist until finally deciding not to talk to her.

Learning that is kind of a downer.

Anyway, if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably already started to gorge yourself on the amazing fresh local peaches that have started to appear. And if not, what are you waiting for?

I strongly recommend going to your farmer’s market tomorrow, loading up on peaches (find the best stand by following your nose), and making up a big batch of fresh salsa – or maybe some boozy peaches set on fire then doused in cream – or, just leave them around the house waiting for indulgence. Best option: all of the above.

Ingredients…

- 4 fresh, ripe peaches
- 2 limes
- 1 small sweet onion
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes
- 1 small red pepper
- 1 jalapeño pepper (or habanero if you roll like that)
- 1 tbsp fresh cilantro
- 1 small clove garlic
- 1 tbsp honey

How to tell if your peaches are ripe? Peaches have a kind of two tones to them, the part that ripened facing the sun will have a darker blush on it. If you check the lighter part of the peach, that was not facing the sun, and it is entirely yellow – no green present – then it’s ripe. You should also be able to tell by the scent – a fresh ripe peach has an almost intoxicating smell to it.

Blanch and peel the skin from the peaches using the method we learned when we were stuffing tomatoes. It will work the same with peaches and the skin should peel right off.

Zest one of the limes, and reserve for serving.

Dice the peaches, onion, red pepper, jalapeño pepper, tomatoes, and cilantro, and put in a bowl.

Mince the garlic, and add it to the bowl.

Add honey to the bowl.

Roll the limes on the counter to get the most juice out of them, then slice, and add the juice into the bowl.

And your salsa is ready to go. When you serve it, sprinkle some of that zest over top, but not too much. This salsa is great with chicken, pork, fish, even red meat. Also makes a great snack with chips or toast.

We had ours with a beautifully juicy and delicious ham steak from a local purveyor in Manassas.

Recipe easily doubles and you can store the extra in the fridge for about a week or so. It’ll actually get better after a day or two in the fridge, as the flavors get soaked up.

I just may get the hang of this baking thing yet, cause this one turned out pretty damn good. Baking has never really been my strong suit, as I tend to cook in a more fly-by-night, who-needs-a-recipe style that permits for a little more riffing than is usually appropriate for baking.

But I’m learning.

I have Saint Tigerlily and Gourmet.com to thank for this one – so, thank you for bringing this awesome Summer dish into my life.

Yet another way to deal with an abundance of tomatoes, this pie is seriously delicious. It also gives a great opportunity to use some of the wonderful Silver Queen corn being harvested now in our area, and on top of that you even get a chance to flex your new mayonnaise knowledge.

This is a pretty multi-purpose pie. You can serve it for brunch, lunch, dinner, whatever. It can serve as a vegetarian meal in and of itself, or as a side or appetizer. Makes a great snack, can be served warm or cold, and it re-heats pretty well too.

The crust is one of the best parts about this dish, it’s not a typical pie crust but rather a biscuit crust – so, you definitely want to make the crust from scratch along with the recipe rather than using any store bought stuff. It’s pretty easy though, so let’s get to it.

Prep time: 30 minutes
Bake time: 35 minutes
Cooling time: 5-10 minutes

Ingredients…

- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 3/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 stick unsalted butter, cold
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 1 3/4 lb tomatoes (large, preferably)
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise (1 egg yolk, 3/4 cup olive oil, 1 tsp dijon mustard, 1 tsp lemon juice)
- 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 3 ears worth of corn, cut from the cob
- 2 tbsp fresh chopped basil
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped chives
- 1/4 tsp black pepper, fresh
- 1 1/2 cup cheddar cheese

You will need a 9-inch pie dish, a stock pot, a large mixing bowl, and some wax or parchment paper.

First thing to do is assemble the dough.

Mix together the flour, baking soda, and 3/4 tsp salt in a large bowl. Add the butter, chopped into small 1-inch square cubes for better dispersion.

Having washed your hands thoroughly before we even started, go ahead and plunge them right into the dough mix and work your fingers through it until it resembles coarse meal.

Slowly add the milk while continuing to work the dough. You can do this in a pastry blender too, if you have one, but hands-on is more fun.

Split the dough in half and roll it up into two large balls. Then, roll one ball out in between two pieces of wax or parchment paper, until it is about an 11-12 inch circle.

I have seen tons of recipes suggesting to use plastic wrap for this step, including this one from Gourmet. I don’t get this. Plastic wrap is a serious struggle, and usually turns your dough into an awful mess and you lose a lot of it to the plastic itself. Saint Tigerlily and I both recommend wax paper instead.

Use the first 12-inch circle in the bottom of the pie dish.

Repeat the same process with the second ball of dough, and set aside.

Next, set the oven to pre-heat at 400 degrees F, and start boiling 4 cups of water in the stock pot. We’re going to peel the tomatoes using the same method we learned in the recent post about stuffing tomatoes with shrimp. Follow that process, peel the tomatoes, then slice length-wise at your desired thickness.

In a small bowl, whisk together 1 egg yolk, 3/4 cup olive oil, and 1 tsp lemon juice to make mayonnaise from scratch. This should only take about 5 minutes or so, but if you absolutely HAVE to, you can sub in store bought stuff. Once the mayonnaise is finished, whisk in another 2 tbsp of lemon juice.

Shuck corn and cut down the sides of the cob. The best method I have found for this is to break the ears in half, so that the corn doesn’t fall off while you’re cutting it and go all over the counter and floor. Then, put the corn in a bowl after it’s cut from the cob, and set a small bowl next to it filled with water. Dip your hand in the water, then run it through the corn lightly to break up the corn chunks and to catch the strands of corn… hair… string… I don’t know what you call that stuff. Anyway, it will stick to your hand, then you can put your hand in the water and repeat until you have removed it all from the corn.

Chop up your fresh basil and chives and you’re ready to start assembling the pie.

Start with a layer of tomatoes, overlapping, and sprinkle with half the corn, half the basil and chives, some salt and some pepper.

It’s so festive, no?

Repeat for a second layer and add half of the cheese on top.

Pour a layer of all the mayonnaise down, top with the rest of the cheese, and cover with the second dough circle (previously set aside). Make a couple vents in the top of the crust, brush the crust all over with melted butter, and it’s ready to go in the oven.

Bake at 400 degrees F for 30-35 minutes, or until crust is a golden brown. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Your pie is now ready to be devoured.

You can vegan-ize this dish easily by leaving the cheese out and using a mayonnaise substitute, and a butter substitute in the crust.

What’s your favorite type of pie? Bonus points for fruits or veggies.

Let’s talk about zest.

Bit of a confession here to make. As a home cook, I’ve largely ignored the power of a good citrus zest to top off a dish. It’s not because I didn’t realize it makes a difference, and it’s not because I didn’t want my food to be the best, but rather it’s because of that one ever-nagging nemesis of cooking and of pretty much all things creative – pure laziness.

I never really quite got the hang of how to even do it properly, so for me every time I tried to zest something it was somewhat of a struggle. And then there’s the fruit you just wasted. And the fact that you barely even got anything out of it to begin with, other than maybe a few small strips of hard-to-chew, oversized pithy pieces of zest. Every once in awhile I’d find some fancy new zester at a store and feel inspired to try it again for a little while, but inevitably if I saw a recipe calling for zest? It got skipped.

That’s all in the past now. I have conquered the citrus zest thanks to two tricks that I’ve learned in the past month or so. And, on the assumption that I’m not the only one out there who felt this way about zesting, I’m going to share those two simple things with you here.

First, use a microplane. Don’t even bother with “zesters” – for one thing, a zester is a single-user tool, which is a no-no for any kitchen – and for another, they just don’t really ever work all that well. A microplane, on the other hand, can be used for grating citrus zest, sea salt, chocolate, ginger, garlic, and all manner of things.

Next, instead of trying to grate the fruit over the microplane, instead hold the fruit in your hand and lightly drag the microplane over the fruit – top facing up. This will collect far more zest, and it’s much easier to keep from grating too deep into the peel, which will wind up giving you a chewy and bitter zest.

The zested fruit should still have a somewhat thick skin of pith around the whole of it, even after you’ve fully zested it. It will look something like this –

Zesting your fruit this way is absolutely so much easier. It was like a light bulb went off in my head and angels started singing.

Next up, tip number two.

To prevent waste, any time you zest a fruit – zest the whole thing. Even if your recipe only calls for a little pinch of zest (which is usually the case). Instead, zest the whole fruit, and put the extra zest into single portion sized clumps on a plate. Then put the plate into the freezer.

It helps if there is just a little bit of water on your fingers as you clump the zest. Once it’s in the freezer for about thirty minutes, you can take it out, and put all the portion sized frozen clumps into a zip loc back. Then it will keep in the freezer for three weeks to a month.

And all of a sudden, zest has become totally easy.

This dish was inspired:

My CSA has inundated me lately with absolutely gorgeous and delicious tomatoes. I’ve been trying to keep up with them all, and frankly, haven’t been too upset at including tomatoes in some shape or form in all my recent meals.

But this one monster tomato, well, I had to do something special with it. So.. I stuffed it.

Looking for a chance to try out some home made mayonnaise? Here it is.

Serves 2. Easily doubled. This is a pretty low calorie meal, but there’s a decent amount of fat in those calories from the bacon and the mayonnaise, so bear that in mind.

Prep time – 20 minutes
Cook time – 20 minutes

Ingredients…

- 1/2 lb. raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined
- 2 huge or 4 large fresh tomatoes
- 2 celery stalks
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 jalapeño (optional)
- 1/2 cup homemade mayonnaise
- 3-4 strips of bacon

You’ll need three burners – one for a stock pot full of water, one for a pan full of bacon, and one more for either a skillet or a pot.

First, get the things on the oven going. The dish will be served cold, or cool at least, so you want to go ahead and get your cooking started right off.

Poach or sauté the shrimp in your favorite seafood spices, make sure to include some lemon juice. Remember that shrimp really doesn’t need a lot of time to cook, and it will keep cooking for a few minutes after you’ve removed it from the heat.

Cook the bacon to your preferred doneness.

While these are going, blanch, skin, and core your tomatoes. I had never actually done this before, so if you’re like me you’ll need a bit of an explanation.

To skin and core tomatoes, you want to blanch them like you would any other vegetable. Prepare a bowl of ice water deep enough to fully submerge your tomato. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water up to gentle boil – make sure there’s enough water to cover the tomato.

Submerge the tomato in the boiling water for 30-45 seconds, and then immediately shock it in the ice bath to stop the cooking. Let it cool in the ice bath, and then remove.

It’s easier to core the tomato before removing the skin, as the skin will help you from destroying the thing in the process. Cut a sizable hole around the top of the tomato and slightly inward. Twist core and remove, and dig out as much seed from the inside as possible.

If you’ve done it well, this will leave you with a pretty beautiful little vegetable to build your dish on.

By now, the bacon and the shrimp are probably about done.

Remove the bacon from the skillet and place on a paper towel to drain grease. Remove the shrimp from the pot or skillet. Allow both to cool at room temperature.

Vegetable dicing time. Chop up the celery and pepper(s) into fine cuts while the rest of the food is cooking.

In a bowl, mix the mayonnaise with the diced vegetables. If you’re using a plain mayonnaise, chop up some fresh parsley or basil to include for some interest.

Add cooled shrimp to the mayonnaise mixture.

Carefully spoon the mix into the skinned and cored tomatoes. Leave some shrimp hangin’ out for a nice garnish.

Crumble the bacon into pieces in a fresh paper towel, and for your last touch – sprinkle it over the top of your stuffed tomatoes.

This is really a great way to use up a *lot* of tomato all at once. If you wanted to get really crazy, you could even dice some up and include that in the mayo mix, but it might be a bit overwhelming.

I paired mine with Thomas Keller’s creamed corn (recipe from Ad Hoc at Home) – which I can not seem to get enough of – and a biscuit.

What’s your favorite way of dealing with a tomato rush?