Stacked Veggie Enchiladas

I have been trying to come up with a really good recipe to break my blogging fast, but we haven't been cooking much recently.  I've been busy with work and we have been a little lazy of late - when we do cook, we tend to stick with easy riffs on dishes we have made in the past.  I just don't have the energy to make elaborate meals when I am this busy.  Alex has also been pretty busy with school so he hasn't had the time to cook either so the blog has just been kind of hanging out there all alone.  Sorry blog - I just don't have time for you like I used to.  And I can't see that changing anytime in the near future.  I salute anyone who works full time and still manages to post several times a week, but I don't think I can do it anymore.  Anyway, I kept trying to come up with something really amazing for the blog (rather than the random salads and such we have been making recently), but I finally decided that I needed to just post the next thing I made that was new.

I'm not sure why or how I started thinking about making enchiladas, but this dish has been a few weeks in the making.  It's the end of the summer and a lot of my favorite vegetables (like corn) are about to disappear from the farmers' market so I wanted to take advantage of them while I can for this dish.  I was originally going to make chicken and zucchini enchiladas with salsa verde, but I changed my mind once I saw fresh corn at the market.  I also abandoned the idea of salsa verde once I realized that I had everything I needed at the apartment to make a quasi-traditional red enchilada sauce.  I used a recipe from Homesick Texan for the sauce and then started playing around.  I threw onions, zucchini (also from the farmers' market) and corn in the enchilada filling.  I also added some cilantro stems, which is a recent thing that I secretly love doing.  It's my new little thing.  I didn't feel like going through the process of rolling my enchiladas so I stacked them instead (kind of like a Mexican lasagna with corn tortillas instead of noodles).  And then I threw it all in the oven and baked it.

All things considered, I think this was pretty successful.  We have only made enchiladas once or twice before (and never stacked enchiladas) and I'm always pretty happy with myself when we are winging it on something this new and it turns out.  I would probably play with the recipe a bit in the future to make it perfect, but it was pretty good.  The sauce had good flavor - nice and smoky, with some heat without being bitter or gritty.  The vegetables had good flavor too (although you could swap out the veggies we used for whatever was in season).  I had originally worried that the vegetable filling wouldn't be filling enough without some black beans or another zucchini, but I think we ended up with just the right amount (and it was plenty filling).  One thing we did mess up on - we forgot to cover the enchiladas with tin foil for the first 20 minutes, which would have helped the enchiladas stay moister/saucier.  Oops.  That was both Alex's and my chief complaint - that the enchiladas dried out a bit.  I would definitely cover them in the future. 

Recipe after the jump!

Corn Som Tam with Rock Shrimp

Last June I saw this recipe on Serious Eats for Corn Som Tam and got all excited.  Then life got in the way and before I knew it corn season was over at the farmers' market so I never had the chance to make it.  It was very sad.  But as soon as I saw the fresh corn at the farmers' market this morning I knew we had to make this.  So I spent a little time on my iPhone figuring out exactly what ingredients we needed (the rock shrimp was an impulse buy yesterday afternoon) and we picked up cherry tomatoes, some beautiful haricots verts and corn.  Then I hit the grocery store for more limes and shredded carrots.  It has been a really long time since I have had the time to sit in the kitchen and take my time making a meal from scratch so this was something of a fun zen experience for me.  Most meals of late have been hurriedly thrown together (mostly by Alex, with some fly by assistance from yours truly) in brief breaks between doing work, but I had the whole afternoon to myself today to play in the kitchen.  I made a hell of a mess (and Brady helped by leaving green bean bits all over the floor), but I got to make lunch all by myself!  This might not sound exciting to most of you, but I really miss cooking when work becomes all-consuming.  Don't get me wrong, it's great when Alex cooks dinner because he is a pretty darn good cook, but I miss being able to cook and menu plan at my leisure.  

As far as som tams go, I might prefer the version with green papaya for the interplay of texture and sweetness, but this was a nice summery alternative.  I love Thai flavors, fresh corn salads and great summer produce so this recipe combined a number of things that I enjoy.  I think this would make a really nice component of a larger meal but it's pretty light to be the only dish.  If I had been cooking lunch or dinner for 4 (or more) people, I would have made a larb or maybe this Crying Tiger Grilled Steak to go with the som tam.

Recipe after the jump!

Charred Corn and Zucchini Tacos

Hurray tacos!  I love tacos.  And I love fresh corn.  So I knew this recipe was going to be good.  There are actually a ton of corn taco recipes out there so before fresh corn season ends I hope I have the chance to try out a few more.  This recipe was one of the easier ones out there and didn't require an additional trip to the grocery store.  It also included a number of ingredients that I love (corn, zucchini and cotija cheese) and that are at the peak of their season right now.  I thought these tacos were nice (and very summery), but I'm positive that the perfect corn taco is out there.  I just know it.  I tried the tacos with two different salsas and I thought the salsas added another level of flavor that I really appreciated.  I might try the corn-zucchini filling for quesadillas, enchiladas or tostadas.  And I wonder if some blackbeans would make a good addition?  So many thoughts, so little time left before fresh corn goes out of season...

Recipe after the jump!

Roast Corn with Spicy Miso Butter

I was pretty shocked to see fresh ears of corn still at the farmers' market this past weekend, but I bought a few on the off chance that they were still good.  Given that I wasn't sure how fresh and sweet the corn would be I thought it would be good to both cook it and slather it in some source of sauce.  I settled on this spicy miso butter because I thought it looked significantly different from anything we had made with corn in the past.  I also thought it would be fun to pair a savory and spicy butter with the roasted sweet corn.  Turns out that despite my skepticism, the corn was pretty sweet.  I actually asked Alex if there was any sugar in the miso butter.  While this recipe works really nicely with fresh sweet corn from the farmers' market, the miso butter packs enough of a punch that you could totally use it on out of season corn.  For a quasi-Asian barbeque I think this would make an excellent side.  The one thing I will note is that the miso butter was nowhere near as spicy as I had thought it would be given the amount of Sriracha and cayenne in it.  It was actually very mellow.  But delicious.

Recipe after the jump!

Corn and Pepper Jack Quesadillas with Radish and Cabbage Slaw and Mexican Tomato Salad

I'm not quite sure how this happened (because it was not intentional), but this week we did Meatless Monday and then ended up with a Meatless Tuesday.  I hadn't actually thought about the fact that we were serving vegetarian meals two nights in a row.  Granted, it would not have made much of a difference because I wanted to use up our corn and tomatoes from the farmers' market.  It just kind of happened...  And when you buy as much produce from the farmers' market as I did this past Sunday, a few vegetarian meals are inevitable.  I have another vegetarian meal on tap for later in the week.  Don't worry though - tonight for dinner we will be making pork schnitzel.

I have to admit that this dinner came together kind of randomly.  We picked up tortillas and a shredded pepper jack blend this weekend at Trader Joes, so quesadillas sounded like a natural use for both of those ingredients.  And I had one ear of corn left over from Monday's Corn on the Cob with Lime Salt, so I figured I would throw some corn in the filling to the quesadillas.  And I got the idea to add mayonnaise to the filling from a recipe I found on Epicurious.  I was a little skeptical but I went with it and it really worked.  I had tomatoes to use, so I was going to make a salsa, but I decided to make a pico de gallo-esque tomato salad instead.  We also had radishes left over from the farmer's market so I wanted to make some sort of cabbage and radish salad/slaw of sorts.  So we ransacked the fridge (and I picked up some new cabbage from the grocery store since ours had seen better days) and we threw in a little bit of this and a little bit of that and made dinner.  I thought that considering how random my meal planning was this time, dinner turned out surprisingly delicious.  The brightness of the slaw and the acidity and faint heat of the tomato salad paired beautifully with the richness of the quesadillas.

Recipes after the jump!

Corn on the Cob with Lime Salt

The only sad thing about the transition to fall is the near immediate loss of corn at the famers' markets.  The loss of tomatoes makes me sad, but it's a little more gradual.  Corn just disappears one day and that is that.  So I have decided to take advantage of whatever corn remains and make as many corn recipes as I can using fresh corn from the farmers' market for as long as I can.  I am determined to make Ad Hoc's Creamed Summer Corn this weekend because it would be an absolute travesty not to, but I want to try some new recipes too (tonight the plan is to make quesadillas with fresh corn in the filling).  So I picked this one, which is also a Thomas Keller recipe, but is a much simpler alternative to his creamed corn.  Actually, it might actually be the simplest recipe in Ad Hoc at Home.  The best thing about this corn is how the emulsified butter really coats the corn with just the right amount of buttery goodness.  I don't know about you but I hate trying to butter corn on the cob - the spray butter is easy but doesn't taste as good and trying to evenly coat it with a pat of butter is impossible.  So I am going to use this method for buttering corn a lot in the future.  The lime salt was pretty tasty too.  I would like to try it with some mango and see how that goes...  Yum.  As for the chives, they were pretty but I'm not sure they added a ton of flavor.  We actually tried sprinkling a variety of different dried chili flakes that John gave us on the corn - I went for banana pepper and cayenne, Alex tried out just about all of them.  They gave the corn some kick in the best of ways.  So if you like spicy (and have some nice chili flakes on hand, or just some ground cayenne from the supermarket if that is all you have), you should definitely consider sprinkling a little pepper on your corn for some added flavor!

Recipe after the jump!

Chilaquiles with Pepitas, Charred Corn and Black Beans

There are a few things in just the title of this recipe that caught my eye - charred corn and chilaquiles.  I love chilaquiles and you just don't see them enough here in NYC.  I guess it's not sexy enough for all of the upscale Mexican restaurants in the city and there really aren't many decent hole in the wall Mexican places either.  And of the Mexican restaurants that I know of, none of them except for Cascabel serve chilaquiles (although I am sure that there are others out there that do).  Earlier this year The Village Voice had a blog post about how chilaquiles are finally making their way to NYC.  I am going to have to try out some of their recommendations.  Actually, looking at Toloache's brunch menu I totally have to go there.  They have all sorts of yummy things on there - including chilaquiles.  I think these chilaquiles would have benefited from the addition of a little crema for additional creaminess and a nice tangy flavor.  The toppings were all a little on the dry side (think corn, beans, onions and pepitas) so it would be been nice to have a little something else to lend some moisture.  Otherwise, I thought it was a good dish.  I know I am being a little picky here, but the dish required a decent amount of time and effort so I had hoped for it to have slightly more wow factor, but I think that the crema would totally have made the difference.  Oh well. I have another chilaquiles recipe from Rick Bayless to try out and next time I will make sure to have crema on hand so we don't run into that problem again.

Recipe after the jump!

Esquites (Mexican Street Corn Salad)

 

As far as I am concerned, elote (Mexican corn slathered in mayo and topped with cheese, lime juice and chili powder) is one of the best things to happen to corn since...  Well, since ever.   I discovered elote a few years ago at a Mexican restaurant in NYC and haven't looked bad since.  It is just so delicious.  I have never heard of esquites, but according to Wikipedia, esquites is what happens when you cut the kernels off the ears of corn and make a salad out of the elote, rather than serving the whole corn on the cob.  Although I have been tempted several times to just bite the bullet, we never made elote at home because I have an aversion to adding mayo to dishes.  Somehow I can eat dishes at restaurants that I know include mayonnaise (provided that the level of mayo isn't crazily apparent), but making anything at home that includes more than a tbsp of mayonnaise just isn't my thing.  But this dish might change my mind.  Somehow it seems more palatable to me to add a little mayonnaise to a corn salad, rather than slathering it all over corn on the cob.  I know it makes no sense, but sometimes I just don't make sense.  I am ok with that (and I like to think that Alex is too).  This dish had everything that I love about elote (the combination of sweet corn, salty cotija cheese, cilantro and the warmth of the chili powder is delicious) in a form that I think works better for apartment living.  If we had a grill it would be a lot easier to grill whole ears of corn, but in an apartment it works better to just cut the kernels of corn off the ears and sear them in a cast iron skillet.  And it is just yummy.  I don't know if traditional recipes for elote include scallion greens and jalapenos, but I thought both were really nice additions to the dish, which made it feel a little more salad-like and gave it some additional freshness and flavor.  I would make this dish as a side for any Mexican meal - some esquites, fresh guacamole and tacos sounds like a perfect summer meal to me!

Recipe after the jump!

Quasi-Moroccan Corn Succotash

This dish came about as an effort to use up some of the copious amounts of fresh produce I picked up at the farmers' market before we were out of town for the weekend.  I have a bad habit of picking up tons of food and realizing that, crap, we only have 3 nights to cook that week and then we either have dinner plans the next few nights in a row or we have travel plans.  So we came up with this recipe as a way to use the parsley, zucchini, tomato, and fresh corn I picked up.  We were making some Moroccan scallops (which I promise to post about later because they were delicious), so I wanted something summery with a vaguely Moroccan feel.  As a brief side note, I just realized that I seem to use the word "quasi" when describing Moroccan dishes.  I guess it's because I'm not altogether that familiar with Moroccan cuisine and spices, so I just don't really know if what I am making is Moroccan or not, but I feel like it is Moroccan-ish enough to be labeled as "Quasi Moroccan."  Moving on.  I decided I wanted to use the corn and we came up with this dish!  Alex stumbled across a few raw corn salad recipes but I wanted something more along the lines of a succotash because I'm not sure that the fresh corn is quite at the peak of its sweetness yet and we had other ingredients (like the zucchini and the sweet onion) that I think often fare better when cooked.  And in the end, I am glad we went this route because I thought the corn salad was very tasty and was the perfect side for our scallops.  The dish was bright and summery, but the flavors were harmonious and light enough that they nicely complimented the scallops and would easily compliment a variety of other entrees - Moroccan or not.

Recipe after the jump!

Southern BBQ Rotisserie Chicken Salad

This salad came about as an easy and lazy way to make a midweek dinner.  I have friends who pick up a rotisserie chicken and a big bag of mixed greens every week and use them to make salads for lunch every day.  Now I don't have the motivation to make lunch every day, although I really should because it is the financially responsible thing to do.  But I can't eat the same thing for lunch every day - I just get bored with it and then end up going out to pick something up anyway.  But I decided that a salad with rotisserie chicken and a selection of farmers' market produce would be a brilliant idea for a quick and easy dinner.  Then I got it in my head that we should make this a Southern salad once we saw that Zabars had BBQ rotisserie chickens.  So Alex whipped up a batch of this Crispy Corn Bread, which I had set aside for future corn bread crouton use.  I love corn bread croutons.  And then we stuck with the Southern theme and the Lee Bros and made their Buttermilk-Lime Dressing too.

The best thing about this salad was that it was easy to throw together and involved a number of wonderful ingredients.  Oh and the corn bread croutons.  I loved the corn bread croutons.  They were the star of the show for me.  I thought the combination of the sweetness of the roasted corn, the creaminess of the avocado, and the acidity of the tomatoes were really wonderful together.  I really liked the dressing, but I am not certain that it was the ideal dressing for this salad.  I wish the dressing had a little more punch and substance to it.  The dressing is tart, fresh and acidic, but it needed a little more body.  So I might try the salad again, but try a new dressing....  This dressing is marvelous with fried green tomatoes where its freshness and acidity cuts through the richness of the fried green tomatoes.  But this salad really needed something a little richer.

Recipe after the jump!

Carne Adobada (Grilled Adobo-Marinated Skirt Steak) and Corn Pudding

We made these dishes last weekend when we had friends over for dinner, but I didn't get around to posting about them until now.  I guess that's because I didn't find either dish to be super exciting.  They were both good.  I was happy to eat them.  But neither blew me away.  Alex was in the same boat.  With respect to the steak, think that the flavor was pretty good, but we were both hoping for a little more kick or pizazz from the adobo.  We tried eating the steak as tacos (with corn tortillas, jalapenos and cilantro) and then alone; I think I preferred it solo.  I thought that the flavor of the steak was muted enough that the corn tortilla masked it a little too much.  I wish we had made a salsa or something to go with it, but we ran out of time.  And I'm not really sure what kind of salsa I would had served.  The recipe was intended to be served as part of a taco party menu and there were two salsa recipes and one guacamole recipe on the menu.  I wish we had made one of them because I think that would have made a real difference and then the tacos would have been much more successful.  

As for the corn pudding, it was sweet and I thought the flavor of the roasted poblano pepper was really nice in it.  Even though the poblanos were just on top, the flavor really permeated the entire pudding.  And the texture was really nice - tender and creamy, but not as fluffy and airy as a souffle, or as dense as cornbread.  It was also nicely moist without being wet.  But it was fairly labor intensive to make (almost like a souffle since you had to separate the eggs and whip up egg whites).  To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that the flavor of either dish was worth the time and effort.

Recipe after the jump!

Chipotle Turkey Cutlets with Charred Corn Salsa

While Alex and I have hundreds of chicken recipes, we have very few turkey recipes.  Just looking at the blog, we have 50+ chicken recipes and only 9 turkey recipes.  And I would say that is a fair representation of our overall repertoire.  And out of the 9 turkey recipes, only 1 other recipe uses anything but ground turkey or turkey sausage.  All of our other recipes are for turkey meatballs, turkey burgers, turkey meatloaf and various other applications using ground turkey.  But I guess that isn't very surprising considering that the only time you can reliably find turkey breasts or cutlets in your average grocery store is around Thanksgiving.  Otherwise you might find turkey breasts or you might not.  The same goes for whole turkeys.  But our farmers' market has a great turkey farm called DiPaolo Turkeys that I love.  I typically buy their spicy turkey sausage (which I know I have referenced several times on the blog before), but I have been thinking about buying turkey breasts from them for a long time now.  I was initially looking for bone-in, skin-on turkey breasts for a recipe called Turkey with Mint and Hot Chilis from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, but ended up with boneless turkey breasts instead.  Boneless turkey breasts happened to be all they had that day.  But it was surprisingly easy to come up with other recipes that I was interested in making with the turkey breasts I picked up.  This was one of them.  I was initially interested in the recipe because it looked easy and sounded tasty.  It's also a different flavor profile and set of ingredients than we typically use.

I thought the dish was delicious and very successful when you ate all of the components of this dish together with a healthy squeeze of fresh lime juice.  It was bright from the lime juice, slightly spicy and smokey from the chipotle chili powder, and sweet from the corn.  The recipe said that the turkey and salsa should be served with tortillas and steamed, buttered summer squash.  We served it with brown rice instead (and omitted the summer squash), which I thought was very successful.  I liked the dish more than Alex did.  He said it was good.  I thought it was really good - something that I will definitely add to our limited repertoire of turkey recipes.  And since this recipe turned out so well, I am heading back to DiPaolo for more turkey breasts and to the internet for some inspiration for more recipes.

Recipe after the jump!

Spicy "Korean" Corn Salad

I have no idea if Koreans eat corn.  Corn turns up in various Southeast Asian cuisines and I know that I ate plenty of grilled corn in China, but I have never seen or heard of a Korean corn dish.  But since we are still working on using up our accidental corn bounty, I thought we could cook up some kernels and toss in Korean red chili flakes, scallions, sesame oil and soy and come up with a nice easy side dish for our Korean Spicy Chicken Barbecue.  I wasn't going to bother blogging about it, but Alex told me that it was good enough that I should go ahead and document it on the blog.  So I am going to apologize in advance for not having exact measurements for the ingredients.  I kind of threw it all together to taste.  But sometimes that is the best way to come up with a new recipe - a pinch of this, a little of that and just see what happens.  With a few pinches of Korean chili flakes, a dash of soy, a handful of scallions and a splash of sesame oil you end up with a very flavorful side dish.

Recipe after the jump!

Edamame Succotash

I had a dream (or a menu planning day dream because I have those too) about making seared scallops and succotash the other day.  And then it occurred to me that with my corn bounty, succotash was a great idea.  The scallops on the other hand are going to have to wait until next time.  I have too much produce and other things on hand to go out and buy more ingredients, particularly after I hit the farmers' market again today to pick up some more fresh produce.  Can you tell how obsessed I am with the farmers' market right now?  After eating dinner at my desk and not cooking for almost a month I am on produce overdrive.  I just can't help myself because every time I go anywhere near fresh produce I have to buy it.  I just can't resist.  Today I bought a couple heads of very fresh lettuce, fresh basil, sun gold tomatoes, striped zucchini...  I have a problem.  I just can't help myself!  And let's be honest - produce is one of the most benign problems I could possibly have.  My shoe addiction on the other hand...  Just kidding.  Well, not really.  I have made a few glorious shoe purchases recently.

Anyway, I don't know where succotash originated and I don't care.  It's delicious.  Or at least this version is delicious.  But you really need to use fresh sweet corn when it is in season and not frozen (we all know that I have a ton of corn left over from my unintentional 16 ear CSA haul).  And cherry tomatoes straight from the farmers' market.  Both the corn and the cherry tomatoes were from our CSA and the fresh basil came from my run to the farmers' market today.  In a dish like this it really does make all the difference if you are using fresh, seasonal, local produce.  The only exception to that rule is that you can go ahead and use frozen edamame.  I have never seen fresh.  Or if you have access to fresh of frozen lima beans (which I hear is more traditional in succotash) use those.  We always have edamame in the freezer so I went ahead and used it for the bean component of our succotash.  But the fresh corn was super sweet, the onions are sweet and the tomatoes were a little acidic but still a little sweet too.  Yet it's not at all a sugary sweetness.  Instead the dish has all of the freshness and sweetness of really great summer produce, tempered by the crunch of the edamame, the taste of the basil and the acidity of the tomatoes.  It has really great balance and depth of flavor.  What a fun summertime side dish.  This recipe makes more than enough for a family of four to use as a side.  We served the succotash with BLT sandwiches (another of my favorite summer dishes) and will have plenty leftover for a snack tomorrow.  I can't wait to see how it tastes chilled!

Recipe after the jump!

Roast Corn with Cilantro-Lime Butter

I went to pick up my CSA order today and realized that I had accidentally ordered 4 orders of sweet corn, each of which consisted of 4 ears of corn.  So I ended up with 16 ears of corn.  Oops.  I thought that I was just ordering 4 ears of corn.  I guess that will teach me to pay attention to the quantity that I am actually ordering, rather than making random assumptions.  I swear that the last time I ordered 4 orders of corn, it was just 4 ears of corn, rather than 16 ears.  But let's be honest, I didn't exactly pay much attention.  Besides there are worse things that could happen then being surprised with 16 ears of fresh sweet corn, rather than 4 ears.  And if we're being honest, I'm going to continue to not pay attention and blindly order when the impulse strikes.  It's just so much more fun that way.  For dinner tonight we went ahead and roasted 4 of the ears of corn in the oven and slathered them in a cilantro-lime compound butter.  The only thing that would make this dish better is if we could have grilled the corn instead of roasting it.  And, while the flavors of the lime and cilantro in the compound butter were pretty awesome, maybe adding a pinch of cayenne to the compound butter would make it even better.  Roasting corn concentrates the sweetness of the corn, but not to the same degree that grilling it does.  I think that hint of char from the grill really helps to caramelize the sugars and make the corn super sweet.  So in an apartment, I always resort to roasting, although I agree that steaming it is pretty good too if the corn is very fresh and sweet, but if I had my way (and a grill) I would grill corn every time.  Maybe with another 4 ears I will try roasting the corn and then shucking it and charring it up over the stove top.  That's like grilling it, right?  And then with the other ears I was thinking about making a corn soup or a corn pudding and maybe making some vegetarian tacos.

Recipe after the jump!

Steamed Shrimp

This is a dish that reminds me of summers in Maryland.  Any dish with plenty of Old Bay and shrimp is redolent of a summer in Maryland.  The only thing missing is a few blue crabs.  But when I was growing up we ate steamed shrimp far more than we ever ate crabs.  So when I picked up some nice shell on wild shrimp I decided that it was past time to make myself some steamed shrimp like my mom used to make.  I took a page from Louisiana-style shrimp boils and threw the potatoes and the corn in with the shrimp.  When we ate this growing up my mom would steam the corn and roast the potatoes separately, but if I can cut down on the number of pots and pans we use I am all about it.  Plus if you put in a base layer of potatoes and corn you don't even need to use a steamer basket because the shrimp is on top of the base and out of the liquid!  It's pure genius.  And it results in perfectly cooked corn and shrimp.  Yum.  The only thing that could make this dish better or more summery is eating it outside on a deck at sundown on a table covered in newspaper.  Somehow eating it inside a NYC apartment on a dining table just didn't have the same feel to it.

Recipe after the jump!

Roasted Corn with Manchego and Lime

I love summer.  Now if only the temperatures in NYC would drop back down to 80 degrees or below I would be a happy happy girl.  I'm totally over it with the 90-100 degrees plus humidity.  But I still love summer and fresh sweet corn is one of my favorite things about summertime.  That and watermelon.  And once upon a time, summer vacation.  But I love corn and I always have.  Growing up my dad grew corn in the backyard and we would eat it steamed with some butter and a sprinkling of salt.  Then I got to China where I would eat it fresh off the grill from Xinjiang food vendors with some sort of spicy seasoning blend.  When I moved to NYC I discovered Mexican elote, which is boiled or roasted corn on the cob topped with mayo, chili powder and cheese. This recipe vaguely reminds me of elote, only without the mayo.  But the combination of cheese, lime and a hint of heat with your corn is totally reminiscent of elote, even if this version is a little fancier (which you would expect it to be since the recipe comes from Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Dan Kluger of ABC Kitchen).  The flavor profile totally works together and you don't want to mess too much with a good thing, but there's nothing wrong with adding a few fun flourishes!  And these flourishes (particularly the jalapeno and the lime zest) totally worked for the dish.  We will definitely be adding this recipe to our list of those that we will make again. 

Recipe after the jump!

Pappardelle with Corn, Summer Squash and Basil

After a weekend of dining out at restaurants, it was nice to have something homemade and on the lighter side.  The corn and the squash came from a CSA I just joined called Holton Farms.  I picked up a huge bag full of produce from the CSA today, including zucchini, squash, corn, beets, radishes, and green tomatoes.  I have some serious plans for the green tomatoes (fried green tomatoes anyone?), but I decided that since we had a lot of pasta and zucchini goes with pasta, why not make some sort of pasta with zucchini mixed in.  My first candidate was this Fried-Zucchini Spaghetti, but we didn't have any spaghetti in the apartment.  My next thought was to make a No-Bake Summertime Lasagna from Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen.  But we didn't have lasagna noodles or fresh ricotta.  Then I started thinking about making some sort of pasta primavera with a variety of different fresh veggies from the CSA.  Seeing as I have never had a pasta primavera before I have no idea what veggies are usually in the dish, but for some reason I picture zucchini, bell peppers and carrots.  But I decided to use fresh corn and zucchini.  And out of the random pastas in our cupboard I decided to use pappardelle.

Alex liked the pasta because in his words it was "fresh and light."  I liked it because it let some very amazing produce take center stage. I wasn't in love with the recipe, but I thought it was pretty nice.  It was light and fresh.  And unlike a lot of heavier meat pasta sauces, it doesn't leave you feeling bloated and gross after you eat a serving.

Recipe after the jump!

Cayenne Cinnamon Baby Back Ribs with Maple Glaze, Spicy Coleslaw and Buttermilk Cornbread

 

A friend came over for dinner this weekend and we decided to make ribs.  We went back and forth for almost an hour trying to decide what to make for dinner - we started with Thai and Indian cuisine and somehow ended up with ribs.  We couldn't think of anything that would be relatively easy to make and wouldn't require too much attention or effort.  Then Alex remembered that I had sent him a recipe from Steamy Kitchen for some baby back ribs about a month ago.  It seemed like a good option because we could just throw it in the oven and go hang out.  Good call hon.  As sides for the ribs we threw together some spicy coleslaw and buttermilk cornbread.  Rather than using one of the recipes that we have made in the past for cornbread (and there have been a few), I decided to try something new.  I wanted a plain, but moist cornbread to go with the ribs and coleslaw.  While puttering around on the internet for some inspiration for the cornbread, I  found a buttermilk cornbread recipe on Allrecipes with some of the strangest directions I have ever seen.  So I decided to go ahead and make it because that's just the way I roll.  We also made dessert, but I will post about that later.

According to Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, there are two camps when it comes to ribs - those who want the meat to be fall off the bone tender, and those who want a little "bite" and "chew" to their ribs.  Alex is decidedly in the second camp.  These ribs are as well.  I tend to like my ribs a little on the more tender side - I don't need the meat to fall right off the bone, but I don't really want any resistance in the meat when I go to bite it off the bone.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, I liked the ribs, thought they were interesting (if a little sweet), but I would probably cook them low and slow next time for a much longer period of time so that they get a little more tender.  I would probably also cut down on the amount of brown sugar slightly since the maple glaze gives the ribs plenty of sweetness.  Considering this was our first attempt at making baby back ribs, I think it went really well.  As far as the spicy coleslaw went, it was vinegary and spicy.  I tend to not like coleslaws that are mayonnaise-based, so I decided to make an apple cider vinegar-based dressing and add just a tiny bit of mayo for creaminess.  If I had thought about it I might have cut back on the vinegar a little bit and maybe added some lime juice.  I also would have adjusted the seasonings.  I saw some recipes for sweet and spicy coleslaw that I might try out next time.  And as for the cornbread, I really enjoyed it.  It was on the sweet side, but I thought that it was really nice.  I might cut back on the amount of sugar just a little bit and throw in some frozen (or fresh) corn for texture and go with it.  The cornbread turned out nice and moist and is a nice basic recipe that you could add a variety of ingredients and flavors to.  I have been considering making a white cheddar, poblano pepper cornbread for awhile and this might be the perfect base recipe to use for that experiment.  I thought it was a really nice summery meal - sweet and spicy ribs, spicy coleslaw and sweet buttermilk cornbread.  It's like a backyard barbeque, in the safety of our NYC apartment.

Recipes after the jump!

Crispy Corn Bread

There are a few lasting results of my time at UNC - I love good North Carolina BBQ, I wish I could find good shrimp and grits in NYC, I periodically suffer from serious cravings for real buttermilk breakfast biscuits, and I can't resist good hush puppies and cornbread.  Since I can't find a lot of these things in NYC as easily I would like, I have taken to making them at home whenever the craving hits.  I started thinking about cornbread earlier this week and finally got around to making it today.  I actually based tonight's dinner around my craving for cornbread.  I had originally intended to make baked eggs or a frittata, but somehow cornbread didn't sound like it went with the eggs.  But our Spicy "Fried" Chicken Cutlets with Honey-Tabasco Sauce and cornbread sounded like a perfect pairing.  So that's what we made.

The cornbread had a very interesting texture to it, probably due to the coarse grind of the stone-ground cornmeal we used combined with the nice crust on the bottom from being baked in the cast iron skillet.  It was moist, but not particularly fluffy.  Actually, it was a little crumbly and dense.  It had just the right amount of sweetness for me when served with some honey butter.  I took 1 tbsp of softened room temperature butter, stirred it together with some honey and freshly ground black pepper and then served the cornbread smeared with the butter.  It was delicious.  I think that this corn bread recipe would make excellent corn bread croutons.  There is a recipe in The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook for the Best Family Farm Corn-Bread Salad using this cornbread recipe.  The salad sounds delicious.  Once summer arrives and brings with it some truly ripe tomatoes, I will definitely be making another batch of this cornbread in order to make the salad.  I think it would also make a great accompaniment to a big bowl of spicy chili, but I might have to wait until next winter to make some chili and try that combination out.

Recipe after the jump!