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Archive for July, 2011

Butterbean Gravy

26 Jul
Butterbean Gravy Butterbean gravy

M: As a kid, if asked what food I hated, lima beans was my go to answer.  Broccoli?  Love it.  Spinach?  Bring it on.  Liver?  OK, so I was a grown man before I ever tried liver.  And here’s why.  Liver was my mother’s “go to” food she hated, so she never served it.  A fair policy, says me, and one I generally stick to in my own kitchen.  And it’s why I went 20 years between lima beans.  Sometime in the last decade, I was convinced to give it another try.  Lo, and behold…  Yeah, I still didn’t love them.  But they weren’t terrible.  Still probably not a top ten legume, but these days it is back on the menu.  That is my baseline going into this one.  What do you think?  Am I still undervaluing the butterbean?

Here’s where this recipe works for me.  The pitfall of butterbeans cooked to mushy (K: Or, you know…CREAMY) actually pays off.  Pureed and cooked down in a little stock and mushy becomes a selling point.  I think even the eight year old me could get on board.  Probably not, though.  That boy was stubborn.

K: WAS stubborn? Ha! Dude, if you can eat a mush made of sausage and oatmeal (Goetta, for those not from the Cincinnati area), there’s no way you can tell me butterbeans are too mushy for you. (M: Goetta rulz!)

The whole time I was making this, tasting as I went, I kept thinking what an awesome soup it would make.  The first night, I served this over some lovely flounder filets, and it was really quite good. We all loved the mild, yet flavorful addition to the delicate fish.  The next night, though, I followed my instincts and added vegetable stock and half n half to get a cream-soup consistency while re-heating, and WOW, yes.  It was a fantastic soup, which was a perfect light meal with crusty bread and a salad.  Two completely different meals from one recipe. I am ALL OVER that kind of efficiency.

Pot Full of Butterbeans Pureed Butterbeans Cooking Down Butterbean Gravy

Recipe: Butterbean Gravy

Summary: This flavorful, mild gravy of pureed butterbeans is a great companion to fish or poultry.  Perhaps the perfect way to introduce this fantastic vegetable to the butterbean-skeptics in your life.  Try reheating the next day with more stock and a little cream for a quick re-make of your leftovers….assuming you have any. From The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook

Ingredients

  • 2 T Butter
  • 1 T Garlic
  • 1 Green Onion stalk, chopped
  • 3 c Cooked Butterbeans*
  • 3 c Chicken Stock
  • 3 Fresh Basil Leaves, chopped
  • Salt and Pepper

Instructions

  1. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.
  2. Add garlic and green onions and cook until garlic begins to brown.
  3. Stir in butterbeans.
  4. Transfer to food processor and puree.
  5. Return to pot and add chicken stock.
  6. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer until thickened.
  7. Stir in basil.
  8. Salt and pepper to taste.

 

* M: As always, fresh if you can get it.  I simmered mine for about half an hour with a little leftover smoked pork tossed in.  K: And I used a leftover ham bone. Mmmm…salty pork.

Butterbeans

 

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Posted in Sauces and Dips, Vegetables

 

Okra and Butterbean Succotash

19 Jul

M: Hands in the air, Northerners. Who knows what butterbeans are? If you do, you were one up on me until I relocated. I had heard of them, but always assumed they were some magic beans found only somewhere South of Kentucky. Yes, Tennessee, I hear you chuckling. So here it is. Butterbeans? They’re lima beans. There are the little green ones you generally see in your freezer section (sometimes called baby lima beans) and the larger white beans called Fordhook or large lima beans. Some folks will argue the Fordhook is the true butterbean, but generally speaking, lima beans and butterbeans? Same thing. Can you beat that? I traded my cow for *these*? OK, so now that we know what we’re cooking, we can get to it.

Butterbean Succotash

K: I know, right? Butterbeans AND okra in the same dish? What child VOLUNTARILY eats this? Me, apparently. I love succotash and as far as I know, always have. What’s not to love? Cooked fresh, the butterbeans are creamy and tender, the corn crisply sweet, and the okra unctuously soft. This insanely simple dish feels like it was a near-daily staple of my childhood summers at my grandparents’ house. It’s no wonder, being the simplest, quickest stewing of three things that played well together, and produced well over much of the season. Unlike our strawberry patch, we rarely had a dozen bushels of corn, okra, or butter beans all ripening at once, demanding instant, unwavering attention. Instead it would be a basket of butter beans here, maybe a dozen ears of corn that day, or an apron full of okra on the way back from getting the mail in the morning. Enough to need to get them ‘put up’ but not so much as to make you kind of hate them after three days of being neck-deep in them. These were just the things that were always in the fridge, every day, and this is one of the ways we ate them. A lot. I had no real conscious memory of this until I started prepping the dish, and doing so stirred such unexpected, long-buried memories and nostalgia that laying this lunch out on the table for my boys quite literally choked me up. I don’t know when, or why, I stopped cooking this for myself, but you can be sure that’s not likely to happen again. Which is not to say that I won’t still fry my okra up in a cornmeal batter and slather them with remoulade or anything. I mean, come ON. Fried okra rulz.

M: On its own, I’ve never really understood the allure of okra. I mean, I don’t *dislike* it, it’s just never been anything to get excited about. When somebody tells me how much they love okra, I always ask how they prepare it. More often than not, the answer is either deep fried, pickled, heavily spiced, or buried in something else (chili, for example). Sure, someone occasionally waxes rhapsodic about how much they love steamed okra, but for the most part, okra has struck me as support staff for any number other flavors. I guess that may be where the appeal lies. It is master of the buddy system.
And I think that is the case here as well. Although this is not fried, pickled, heavily spiced or buried, there is plenty happening here that does not demand too much from this unassuming vegetable. To no surprise, this blend of summer vegetables falls together very nicely. And it tastes like the vegetables that comprise it (even the okra I just finished disrespecting). Not a lot of fooling around here, just vegetables getting along well.
Also, not for nothing, this looked absolutely gorgeous along side a half slab of ribs and some cornbread.
Okra and Butterbean Succotash

Recipe: Okra and Butterbean Succotash

Summary: A colorful clearinghouse for your summer vegetable bounty. Using enough liquid to cover the vegetables is key. Too little liquid for the okra’s mucilaginous compounds to dilute into might leave the dish feeling a bit slimy. Appropriate amounts of water makes that go away.

Ingredients

  • 1 T Bacon Grease or Vegetable Oil
  • 2 Large Onions, chopped
  • 2 c Corn Kernels
  • 3 c Tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 c Fresh Butterbeans
  • 4 c Okra, cut into rounds
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Pinch of Sugar

Instructions

  1. In a heavy saucepan, saute onions in oil until soft.
  2. Stir in corn, tomatoes, butterbeans, and okra.
  3. Season with salt, pepper and sugar and add water ( K: I used half chicken stock & half water. ) to cover.
  4. Bring to boil, then reduce to a LOW simmer until tender (about 25 minutes).
  5. Serve hot.
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Posted in Sides, Vegetables

 

Tomato and Watermelon Salad

12 Jul
5929960893_96a9b77e60_o Tomato Watermelon Salad

M: Two of my favorite summer treats, tomatoes and watermelon.  Put them together?  Well, I wasn’t so sure.  This is a combo I had never heard of, but a little asking around and I found this one wasn’t quite as esoteric  as it first seemed.  In fact, this recipe is local for me, coming from Bill Smith, chef at the acclaimed Crook’s Corner Cafe up in Chapel Hill.  With that pedigree behind it, I proceeded in what I knew to be good hands.  I followed this recipe to the letter, popped it into the fridge mid-morning and served it with dinner.  And was disappointed.  These flavors I love so much just didn’t play well together.  The sweetness of the watermelon was interrupted by the tomatoes, the tomatoes were doing well with the vinegar, but finding no integration with the melon.  I put the leftovers back in the fridge and that was that.  Except something happened.  Trapped together overnight in a cold refrigerator these two had learned to get along.  The tangy and the sweet ran through and through.  Like so many relationships, this one just took a little more time to blossom than I expected.  I do think I’d probably seek out a less ripe watermelon next time, but now I get it.

 K: Yeah, I had the less ripe watermelon, for sure, which I am pretty certain made a big difference.   I can definitely understand why some folks would like this.  On a purely…intellectual level, I could absolutely process the separate flavors, and how they melded surprisingly well.  I used white balsamic vinegar instead of the red wine vinegar the recipe called for, primarily because I had it on hand, and I absolutely believe it did a better job of bridging the sweet-tart-salty flavors.  If I were to ever make this again, I would stick with the white balsamic, or I’d try something along the lines of a champagne vinegar.

Will I make this again, though?  Honestly? Probably not very often.  I DO, however, have friends for whom this flavor profile would be quite enjoyable, and I’d be likely to take it elsewhere for an interesting addition to cookout spread.  For me though….not so much.  Call me a purist, but I like my tomatoes tomato-y and my watermelons sweet .  I am a tomato FIEND, and spent the majority of my childhood walking around eating them out of hand, the way most kids eat apples.  Mostly I just kept feeling like my tomatoes were messing up my watermelon and my watermelon was messing up my tomatoes.  Reese’s peanut butter cups, this ain’t.

 

Recipe: Tomato and Watermelon Salad

Summary: Two summer staples mix it up. From The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook

Ingredients

  • 5 c Watermelon, cut into half inch cubes
  • 1 1/2 Lb Tomatoes, diced
  • 3 tsp Sugar
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 1 Small Red Onion, quartered and sliced
  • 1/2 c Red Wine Vinegar ( K: I HIGHLY reccommend the white balsamic vinegar that I used instead.)
  • 1/2 Olive Oil

Instructions

  1. Toss watermelon and tomato with salt and sugar in a large bowl and let rest 15 minutes.
  2. Fold in onion, vinegar and oil.
  3. Cover and refrigerate several hours to overnight. ( K: I didn’t find that the flavor changed much after about 4 hours with my batch.  It tasted the same the next morning that it had with dinner. )
  4. Serve chilled.

 

 

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Posted in Fruit, Salads, Vegetables

 

Summer Squash Soufflé

05 Jul

Yellow Squash Souffle

M: Steamed, sauteed, grilled, pickled… Yellow squash sure shows up on a whole lot of Southern tables in the summertime.  There’s a good reason for that.  It is easy to grow and prolific, so it shows up in a lot of home gardens.  A lot of it.  Being neighborly (and perhaps already getting a little tired of it), they will share.  And share.  And share.   Seems like a day doesn’t go by when you don’t find half a dozen or so waiting on your front porch or piled up on the counter of the office kitchenette with a “TAKE ME” note attached.  Eventually, the thrill of receiving a gift sack of home grown squash wears off as you try to come up with one more way to serve it.  Fortunately, the season is young and I’m still in the honeymoon stage.  This is a nice turn on the ubiquitous squash casserole.  Main dish or side is up to you.  With a little luck you’ll have leftovers.  I liked this even better the next day.  In a few weeks, my “thank you” for yet another bag of squash may sound a little weary, but for now bring it on!

K: There really can not ever be too much yellow squash for me.  Even when I stayed with my grandparents for the summer and everyone’s gardens were overflowing to the point that Papa could not give his excess away, I don’t ever remember getting tired of it.  I still don’t.  Zucchini? Yeah, it’s good, but by mid-summer, I’m completely over it….and zucchini bread….and zucchini fritters….and zucchini cookies….and…and….and….but never yellow crooknecks (or tomatoes, but that’s a different post entirely).  I suspect that if I were to ever get tired of them, this souffle would fix that right up.  Light, fluffy, simple, cheesy, but not hiding the flavor of the squash at all.

Recipe: Summer Squash Soufflé

Summary: Served as a main dish or side, this savory soufflé is a great way to use those abundant summer squash.  Adapted from The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook

Ingredients

  • 3 lb Yellow Squash, trimmed and chopped
  • 1 Large Onion, chopped
  • 6 Saltine Crackers, crushed
  • 1/2 stick butter, melted
  • 2 Large Eggs, separated (M: I used three medium)
  • 1/2 c Cheddar Cheese, shredded
  • Salt and Pepper
  • 1 Tomato, sliced (optional)

Instructions

  1. Steam squash and onion until tender.
  2. In a large bowl, mash squash and onions with a potato masher to rough puree and season with salt and pepper.
  3. Stir in crackers, butter, egg yolks and cheese.
  4. Whip egg whites until peaks form. Don’t scrimp on this step, it’s the air you incorporate here that creates the fluffy souffle texture vs. that of a standard squash casserole.
  5. Fold the egg whites gently into puree.  Gently. The finished product should have lumps and streaks of egg white visible, like this.  Too much folding and you’ll knock out the air you worked so hard to get in the last step.
  6. Transfer into a buttered 2-3 qt casserole dish.
  7. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees until set and lightly browned.
  8. Garnish with tomato, if desired and serve hot.

Squash

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Posted in Main Dish, Sides, Vegetables