Succotash Salad

It's so hot here we finally got Emily a summer haircut. She loves it.

And because of the heat we've been eating lots of salads. Last night I tried this salad recipe based on one by Bobby Flay. It was a big success with ribs.

Succotash Salad

2 cups cooked lima beans

2 cups fresh corn, cooked and cut from cob

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
1/2 red or yellow bell pepper, diced

3 green onions, sliced

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Pinch of sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine vegetables in a bowl. Mix olive oil, vinegar, and seasonings to make a dressing; toss with vegetables. Serve cold.

Sweet Corn Quesadillas

I knew gardenlessness would be hard, but I didn't know it would be this hard.

Lawson decided to skip the garden this year. We've had terrible pest problems these last few years -- stinkbugs and their cousins the leaf-footed bugs, primarily, plus some bacterial leafspot. And rats, always rats. Then last year we had mole problems AND nematodes. So Lawson decided to just let the land rest for a year.

So now it's June and I absolutely ache for a yellow garden squash. It's killing me. No new herbs -- just the year-round ones like rosemary, thyme, and oregano. No chiles.

The grocery stores have lots of raspberries and blueberries and strawberries, so I've been buying them to make me feel like it's summer. But the vegetables in the store look the same as ever...with one exception. SWEET CORN.

I never cared much about corn when I was younger. Didn't like corn on the cob. Thought it tasted weird. But, as with so many things that changed when I moved to the South, the sweet corn here really is amazing, and I've been converted. I still can't eat multiple ears in one sitting like Lawson can, but I do love it.

So now we're coming to the point of this whole post: that blurry cell phone picture up there conceals the fact that those quesadillas are the best quesadillas ever made. I saved a cooked ear of sweet corn from dinner the night before, cut the kernels off, and made sweet corn quesadillas.

Each quesadilla contained:

• Medium cheddar
• Half an ear's worth of sweet corn
• A handful of chopped cilantro
• Whole wheat tortillas

All these ingredients were essential. And I don't think just any old corn would work: it had to be fresh sweet corn.

I sauteed the quesadillas in a big pan in some olive oil and served them with plain old Herdez green salsa.

We just couldn't handle having no garden anymore, so over the weekend Lawson bought some basil and chile plants and a cherry tomato which he will plant in containers.

On Succotash and Microwaving Sweet Corn

So, as I mentioned in a comment below, we recently heard from Lawson's dad that microwaving fresh corn is way better than boiling it. I looked up several recipes, did some experiments, and found that he is absolutely correct. I'm a convert.

All the prep I did was to cut off the messy tip of the husks with scissors. I didn't pull the silk out -- I just cut off the whole silk-and-husk part that was hanging off the end. I pulled off a few banged-up outer leaves from some ears, but not all. Mostly this was so the corn would fit in our microwave.

Then I microwaved the corn for 4 to 5 minutes, rotating the ears once halfway through. If I put more than two or three ears in at a time, I would increase the cooking time by a few minutes.

Use gloves to rotate and remove the ears -- that corn gets hot, and little pockets of steam in the husks can burn the heck out of your hand.

Let the corn sit for 10-15 minutes so it can steam and cool off, then pull off the husks and silk. The best part: shucking cooked ears is way easier than shucking them raw. And the corn flavor is intense.

I didn't even put butter or salt on this corn, it was so good. It was from somewhere in the Upstate; Lawson's dad brought back 8 ears for us, and I've been wishing for more ever since.

Mostly we ate it plain, but one night I made succotash with all fresh ingredients. It was among the freshest, purest, most summery foods I've ever cooked.


I didn't like any of the recipes I read, many of which called for bacon, which I thought would be wrong here. Fresh lima beans or butter beans might have been good, but I liked the sweetness of the dish without them. So here's my recipe:

Succotash

1-2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, diced
2 cups fresh tender okra, sliced crosswise into 1" pieces
2 or more cups fresh tomatoes, seeded and roughly chopped
2 ears fresh sweet corn, microwaved and set aside to cool
salt

Saute the onion in butter over medium until soft, not brown. Saute okra lightly. Add tomatoes and let cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until thickened slightly -- you want to keep the tomatoes tasting fresh, not sauce-like. At the last moment, shuck the cooked corn, cut the kernels off, and stir them in. Add salt to taste.

No herbs, no pepper, no nothing -- this is all about the light, sweet flavors of the garden vegetables. It blew me away.

We ate it with buttermilk biscuits (made with Adluh self-rising flour and local buttermilk) and barbecued chicken (marinated in soy sauce with star anise and five-spice powder, then lovingly grilled over a hickory fire by Lawson.

Southern Cornbread

I was never much of a fan of cornbread until I moved to South Carolina and learned about Southern cornbread. It's not cake-y at all -- no wheat flour, only cornmeal -- and has no sugar. It's crusty and crunchy and basic, as well as super-easy to make.

My recipe is modified slightly from traditional recipes in that it contains yogurt instead of buttermilk. I don't keep buttermilk around, but I always have some yogurt, so it's worked out this way.

I like coarse yellow cornmeal. Anson Mills is my favorite, but it's expensive, so lately I've been using Adluh and liking it fine. Sometimes I blend grits and cornmeal.

I should add that much of the cornbread I've eaten down here is not like this. I've had some very, very sweet homemade cornbreads, and plenty of people don't seem to like gritty, all-corn cornbread. But to me it's the only way.

Put 1 to 2 tablespoons of lard, bacon grease, or butter in a large cast iron skillet. Place in oven and preheat to 425 degrees.

Whisk together in one bowl:
- 1 and 1/2 cups cornmeal
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 scant teaspoon salt

Whisk together in another bowl:
- 1/2 cup yogurt
- 1 egg
- 1 cup milk

Combine without overmixing. When grease in skillet is sizzling hot, pour batter in and return to oven. Bake about 20 minutes and eat immediately.

Tonight I also added kernels from two ears of sweet corn we parboiled and froze last fall. It tasted a little freezer-burnt to me, but Lawson didn't think so, so I guess it was okay. Fresh sweet corn would be better.

Succotash Pizza and a New Knife

It had to be done, right? Right?

I love okra. I love pizza. We have many fresh tomatoes. Tomatoes, okra, and corn go together brilliantly. It was natural that I would want to put all these things together. But I couldn't shake the memory of the pizzas served from carts on the street in London: soggy and unbrowned, cluttered with greasy cheese and all the wrong vegetables. One of those pizzas had corn on it. It seemed to have been dumped right out of the can onto the pizza.

To avoid the yucky canned corn effect, I roasted loose kernels of frozen corn ahead of time. After 10 minutes at 425 degrees, they were nutty and gently browned, and much more appealing. I roasted the okra a bit, too, but I needn't have. Fresh tomatoes, a little mozzarella, one sliced poblano chile, and grated Asiago and Parmesan pulled all the flavors together quite well.

I also made a classic pizza Margherita to balance things out.

Our friend Mark is visiting from Kyoto and gave us this amazing knife, shown here with the poblano:

It's made by a company called Aritsugu, which I'd never heard of but have enjoyed reading about. Lawson's and my names are carved in the blade (on the other side -- this side says Aritsugu). It's beautiful.

Caprese Corn Salad and More

Katherine made us a version of Caprese salad with the addition of grilled corn cut off the cob.

She served it with this fabulous platter of pork tenderloin wrapped with bacon and grilled by Greg; a bed of fried noodles; and chimichurri sauce.