Friday Night

 

Due to various forces, circumstances, and lifestyle choices, my Friday nights have become a somewhat sacred time when I’m pretty much by myself, often with nobody to answer to at all. Many years ago I began a ritual of starting to read a new book on Fridays. Because of some inherent distractibility in my brain, I’m always in the midst of more than one book. I love to start new books, but I felt I needed to limit cracking yet another cover to one day a week, and chose Friday.

This week, I’m starting To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams, the third book in the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Trilogy published in the early 1990s. I’ve read this book before, but that was in 1994, and it’s going to be fun to revisit. (I’ve somewhat recently re-read The Dragonbone Chair and The Stone of Farewell, the first two books in the series.) My copy of this book is a first edition hardcover that I’m pretty sure could stop a bullet (the paperback edition was published in two volumes), so I’ll be reading this one for a while.

I also often end up contemplating the week that just happened and planning the weekend and following week on any given Friday night, often because I’m too tired to do much more than think.

This Friday I’m contemplating…

**The delicious omelet I made back on Monday: I stirred a good dose of Basic Basil Pesto into the eggs I scrambled for an omelet that I stuffed with home-grown cherry tomatoes and provolone cheese. This was one of the most satisfying improvisations I’ve ever performed!

**Sourdough bread baking using methods (approximately) outlined in Whole Grain Baking from King Arthur Flour. I’ve got my starter going, and have been making little loaves from the starter discard, the byproduct of the process required to make a properly ripe starter with the correct pH.

**This archive recipe, which was fabulous with zucchini and jalapeno bacon.

And planning…

**Recipes with vegetables from my garden and the farmer’s market inspired by cookbooks such as Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison

**Meringues using this technique and any egg whites I can save after using the yolks to make Scalloped Corn with Sour Cream and Chile

**Using berries and stone fruits as much as possible, especially to make desserts.

Coming soon…

**Mocha Sorbet and Double Espresso Cookies

I hope you have a night or day that’s all your own, that serves to refresh and revitalize you, that helps you celebrate what you really love. Or that just lets you settle in with a good book and something delicious.

Scalloped Corn

I was so pleasantly surprised by the somewhat early arrival of sweet corn at the local farmer’s market last week, I almost didn’t know what to do. Am I ready for this? Is it even real? Can it be any good yet?

But of course I bought the obligatory dozen ears and grinned all the way home. We ate it all before the next farmer’s market, some grilled as whole ears and eaten right off the cob, some in a quesadilla with chile and bacon (!), and most of it in this scalloped corn recipe that I adapted from Heart of the Artichoke by David Tanis (the same book from which I got this jam recipe.)

I made this recipe once last year, but I had some extreme chile peppers that turned out to be wonderfully spicy, but too much so for this recipe, at least in the quantity I used them. I sensed this was a great recipe, however, and have been looking forward to fresh, sweet ears to try it again.  I tamed things a bit for this year’s trial, and the rich, creamy and, well, corny nature of the dish was allowed to show through much better. 

 

It’s wonderfully delicious, quite rich with plenty of butter and half and half. I cut out some of that half and half and replaced it with sour cream, and loved the combination. It’s really all about the corn, though, and every buttery, creamy bite proves that point.

I think you could make this dish as rich or as light as you want by playing with the fat content of your added dairy. You could also add some herbs, maybe bacon, perhaps tomatoes. I liked celebrating the first ears of 2018 sweet corn (plus a bit of chile pepper from my garden), so I kept this rather simple. The corn was better than I expected for being young and a bit small, so the time cutting it and mixing it with some ingredients that compliment it rather than dominate it, was very well spent. And my months and months of anticipation were well rewarded!

Scalloped Corn with Sour Cream and Chile

Adapted from Heart of the Artichoke and Other Kitchen Journeys by David Tanis

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

½ cup diced onion

½ teaspoon coarse salt, divided

1 medium size garlic clove, minced

1 small chile pepper, diced

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup half and half

½ cup sour cream

3 cups corn kernels, preferably fresh, frozen will work

2 egg yolks, beaten

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Place the butter in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet. Heat over medium heat until the butter is melted. Brush some of the melted butter up the sides of the skillet as it melts.

2. Add the onion and ¼ teaspoon salt. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until softened. Stir in the garlic and chile and cook for about 1 minute more.

3. Sprinkle the flour over the onion mixture and cook, stirring, for about 1 minute. Add the half and half and cook at a very gentle boil until the mixture thickens. Stir in the corn and remaining salt and cook about 2 minutes more, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and stir in the egg yolks and sour cream.

4. Place the skillet in the preheated oven and bake at 375 F for about 30 minutes, or until the mixture is set and the top is beginning to brown.

Makes 4-6 side-dish servings.


Other recipes like this one: Corn and Green Onion Tart with Bacon, Corn and Tomato Pie

Spiral Shredded Salad with Miso Dressing

 

I was going to make a chopped salad with a miso-ginger vinaigrette. I had a recipe to start from, but was planning to just use the idea, the approximate ratios, and the dressing, adding whatever vegetables I had available.

And then a friend went nuts with her spiralizer, seemingly experiencing such kitchen bliss that I felt shame that my spiralizer had spent the last two years sitting in its box, unused. Because there was the potential for something good to eat, shame became inspiration, and I took my spiralizer to whatever vegetables would tolerate it to make this salad. What I had on hand that worked was daikon radish and cucumber.

 

You wouldn’t need to use a spiralizer to make this dish. It just makes it more fun! You could simply shred your vegetables as I did the Napa cabbage or diagonal or matchstick slice them as I did the sugar snap peas. In the end, let’s be honest: you could chop your vegetables, too.

This dressing is zesty but mellowed by mild miso. I used white miso, but whatever you like will be fine. The ginger is sharp, but something needs to stand up to the radish I threw in the mix. I’m also convinced you could make the dressing with citrus juices instead of the rice vinegar, or add some garlic and chiles.

 

I’m glad I pay attention to my friends, because the end of my spiral procrastination was way too much fun to have missed. If you’re in the market for a spiralizer, you can get them almost anywhere and I, along with some wiser folks on the foodie internet, like my hand-cranked adjustable spiralizer. I know this all may be going out of fashion (at least I hope pretending spiralized zucchini is spaghetti is going out), but I’ve never been fashionable. Just hungry.

Spiral Shredded Salad with Miso Ginger Dressing

Based on a recipe in Cooking Light magazine (from long ago)

1 cup shredded Napa cabbage

1 cup thinly sliced sugar snap peas

1 cup spiralized or shredded daikon radish

1 cup spiralized or shredded cucumber

¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons white or yellow miso

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

½ teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1. In a large bowl, combine the cabbage, snap peas, radish, cucumber, and cilantro.

2. In a small bowl, combine the rice vinegar, miso, ginger, sugar, and sesame oil. Whisk together until smooth. Stir in the sesame seeds.

3. Pour the dressing over the cabbage mixture and toss gently to coat.

Makes 4-6 servings. The salad is still delicious after a day or two in the refrigerator, but it will get significantly watery.

Other recipes like this one: Cabbage and Chard Slaw with Orange-Tahini Dressing, Cabbage Slaw with Spicy Peanut Dressing, Napa Cabbage Slaw with Asian Dressing, Radish and Carrot Slaw with Zesty Citrus Dressing