Mexican Grilled Corn

We recently went to a local Mexican restaurant for lunch with my dad where all the adults ordered a side of "Mexican Grilled Corn."  My margarita was tasty and my taco was easy to eat, but the corn was what has me still dreaming of that lunch.  There was the salty, crumbly cortija cheese, the creamy melted mayonnaise and butter coating all the kernels and then the unexpected contrast of the ancho chile powder.  When we had all finished out meals the waitress came to clear our plates and ask about dessert.  Lewis said, "For dessert I will take another ear of that corn please."  Then he didn't share!

So I I begged the waitress for the details of how the corn is prepared so I could make it every time I find corn on the cob.  Since then we have made it whenever I have the good sense to buy corn.  The first time I had to use Grana Padano in place of the Cortija cheese because my favorite store, City Market, does not carry it.  Since then I have found the cheese at at Healthy Living.  Comparing both versions I don't think there is enough of a difference to warrant buying cortija again.  However I have not done a side by side comparison yet.

Mexican Grilled Corn

4 ears of corn
4 Tbsp room temperature unsalted butter
4 Tbsp mayonaise
2 ounces grated cortija, Grana Padano, or parmigiano reggiano (I used a rotary cheese grater to prep the cheese)
1 tsp ground dried chile's (I used Ancho chiles, which I ground myself, because that was the variety the restaurant used.  But any favorite chile will work)
lime wedges for serving


Grill the corn without the husks, turning frequently, until charred in spots on all sides.  (You can also just bring a pot of water to the boil and add the husked corn.  When the water comes back up to the boil add the corn and turn off the heat.  Corn will be ready in a few minutes but it can be kept in the water to stay warm).  While the corn is cooking mix the mayonnaise and butter well and grate the cheese.

When the corn is cooked take it off the heat and spread the mayo/butter mix allover.  Sprinkle the corn with the cheese and dried chile powder to taste.  Serve with lime wedges on the side.

Pea Shell Cooler and Eastside Fizz

I have another sour cherry jam recipe to share with all of you.  It is sour cherry and petit petit wine and the combination is rich and deep.  Spooned over ice cream it reminds me of the deep, intense flavor of hot fudge.  The wine brings out the flavor of the cherries, making them more complex.  However as much as I love eating this new jam drizzled over a bowl of ice cream, even talking about making jam seems like too much for this hot humid dead air day.  So instead let me share some cocktails with you.  These cocktails are easy to make and do not rely on store bought mixes, but rather on fresh produce (and a modest amount of sugar).

Several years ago we were stopped at a rest stop in New Hampshire shopping for alcohol for our week on the Cape.  There is no tax on alcohol in New Hampshire so several of their rest stops have liquor stores with giant shopping carts, mega sized bottles of spirits, and "Don't Drink and Drive" signs on the way out of the parking lot.  Lewis looked dubiously at the large bottle of gin in our cart and told me I was on my own when it came time to drinking the gin.  More gin and tonics for me did not seem like a problem.

I have loved gin and tonics since I was six and my family went on vacation to Barbados.  There was a lime tree in the back yard of the house we were staying at and my parents felt it was important to use as much of the fruit as they could.  They would let my brother and I to take a sip of their drink, and I quickly began turning my back to them when I was taking my sip.  I hoped that they might not notice how much I was drinking if my back was turned.  So even if Lewis did not want any I would happily drink as many sips as I wanted on my own.

When I made myself a Gin and Tonic on vacation Lewis took a taste, and then turned his back so I would not see how much he was drinking.  After that he was a devoted lover of Gin and Tonics, the first one to speak up when we needed to restock any of the ingredients.  The only problem with them is the tonic, with an ingredient list that makes me shudder with its high fructose corn syrup.  I have found a homemade tonic recipe online but have not tracked down all the ingredients.  Enter the East Side Fizz and the Pea Shoot cooler, both made with fresh ingredients and a wonderful way to use some of the mint threatening to take over your yard.

The Eastside Fizz was in July's issue of Bon Appetit's.  The original recipe calls for seltzer water but I did not have any in the house, plus my frugal nature balked at paying money for bubbles.  I love it made with just plain water but you should spring for the seltzer if you would prefer.  One of my favorite parts of this cocktail is eating the gin and lime infused cucumbers at the end.  The pea shell cooler came about as we were all enjoying a bowl full of shelling peas.  I looked at the pile of empty shells and wondered what I could do to utilize their sweet flavor without having it masked by their tough stringiness.  So I tried them in place of the cucumbers in the Eastside Fizz, adding the prosescco to lighten it and play up the citrus.

Eastside Fizz

Adapted from Bon Appetit

10 large fresh mint leaves

5 thin slices of peeled cucumber

1 1/2 Tbsp simple syrup (recipe is at the bottom of the post)

2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

1/4 cup gin

ice

seltzer or water

Muddle mint, cucumber slices and simple syrup in a tall glass.  (Muddling means you squish the ingredients up with a muddling stick in the bottom of the glass.  This bruises the ingredients and releases the oils so the flavors infuse the simple syrup).  Add the lime juice, gin, ice and water or seltzer to fill the glass.  Stir well, allowing the ice a chance to cool down the drink.  When you are done drinking don't forget to eat the cucumber slices.

Pea Shoot Cooler
My own invention dreamed up as a use for the pea shells I hated feeding to my chickens

15 pea shells from fresh peas torn up
10 large fresh mint leaves
1 1/2 Tbsp Simple Syrup (recipe follows)
2 Tbsp fresh lime juice
1/4 cup gin
1/4 - 1/2 cup prosecco
ice
seltzer or water

Muddle the pea shells, mint leaves and simple syrup in a glass.  (Muddling means you squish the ingredients up with a muddling stick in the bottom of the glass.  This bruises the ingredients and releases the oils so the flavors infuse the simple syrup).  Strain the liquid into another tall glass and add lime juice, gin, prosecco, ice and water or seltzer water to fill the glass.  Stir well and allow to chill for a moment before serving or drinking.

Simple Syrup

1 part water
1 part sugar

If you have a cup off water you would use a cup of sugar.  Add the sugar to the water in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves.  Turn off the heat.  Now you have simple syrup!

Watermelon Creamsicle

On the morning of September first I climbed into bed with each of my children and hugged them.  "Good morning first day of third grade boy." I whispered to Sebastian.  Next I curled up with Julian and again, whispering, said, "Good morning first day of kindergarten boy." Julian happily answered back, "Good morning first day of work mama."  On the first day of school I became the "Healthy Food Coordinator" for the VNA Family Room, which means in one fell swoop everything is different.

Before I tell you about this job, let me say, I am not one of those people who believes everything happens for a reason.  In part this is because my brother liked to walk around New York City, in the eighties, talking to homeless people.  Hearing the stories of why people became homeless sort of kills the possibility that the world will work out for everyone.  There is also that small thing of my mother dying when I was 12 and becoming a type 1 diabetic when I was 13.  So with my lack of Pollyanna feelings about the world established, let me tell you about my new job and the organization I am working for.

The Family Room has been in our lives since Julian was an infant.  At that time I was struggling to figure out how to care for a newborn and keep an overactive, curious, outgoing preschooler occupied and happy.  I quickly learned that our days went better if I could just get us organized enough to get out of the house and to the Family Room, at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays when they have family play.  Family play is a drop in play program with staff and food.  However that does not really explain the role the VNA has had in the lives of my family for the last 5 years, or the feelings of grief I was having as I tried to figure out how I was going to graduate with my children from there.

However this last fall I had come to the realize I did not need to work just because Julian would be in school all day.  Taking care of my family and what we eat is still important work and finding some meaningless, low paying job was not going to make me happier (although it might have made us more financially stable).  If I was not going to work, I would have the time to volunteer at the Family Room, teaching cooking workshops to the participants and helping with food.  So comfortable with my choices I started to look forward to the free time I would have to cook more, blog etc.

Then in  May or June I heard that the Family Room's Americorps Vista position was going to be available and the position was, "Healthy Food Coordinator."  I am going to skip over the brief period when I thought the position was already filled and just say, "Wow!"  This position is even more, "meant to be," if you believe in that kind of thing, as now I am working 3 blocks from the boys current school.  This is only amazing when you realize we decided in April to move the children to a school that is 2 miles from our house, instead of the one Sebastian attended for the last 3 years, that is a mile away.

I have now been doing my job for one week and I feel very confident in saying, I can tell you at the end of the year exactly what I am doing.  One thing I have not had to do is spend time getting to know my coworkers or the programs they offer.  I know I will be teaching cooking workshops, helping to source more local foods for all the programs with a focus on the preschool and developing menus for the preschool ready for them (probably me to start with) making their own meals.  I will be using the skills and relationships I have been developing in the kitchen and with food here in Burlington.  Some of my children's pickiness will help inform what I do, but really much of Sebastian and Julian's opinions about food are uniquely their own.  Take last week and the watermelon popsicles I made when Sebastian declared he was tired of eating the melon from our CSA.

So I had this moment of inspiration to make watermelon cream popsicles, which would be a riff on a drink I used to get on vacation.  The drink was called a watermelon cream and is made by blending fresh watermelon juice with vanilla ice cream.  However rather then make vanilla ice cream I decided just to use milk, cream, sugar and vanilla extract and then freeze the mixture in popsicle molds.  Both Sebastian and Julian were so excited when I told them the idea and hounded me until I got popsicle sticks to make them.  Lewis, Julian and I all love them.  Sebastian, the child who was tired of watermelon, declared that they are not what he was expecting and he doesn't like them.  Apparently, he said, he was expecting them to taste like a wonderfully ripe slice of watermelon and they don't.  Perhaps because his mother intentionally made them a little different from the flavor of watermelon because he was tired of it!

Watermelon Cream Popsicles

2 1/2 cups watermelon puree (make watermelon puree by whizzing watermelon chunks in a blender, food processor or with an immersion blender. You can remove the seeds if you want but it is not essential)
3/4 cup heavy cream (you can substitute half and half, whole milk or any milk substitute such as soy milk)
1/2 cup milk (I used 1%, use whatever you keep in the house, even soy, rice, almond etc)
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Combine all the ingredients and combine well using whatever machine you used to puree the watermelon chunks.  Pour into popsicle molds (or paper cups with a stick handle) and freeze until hard.

Wild Rice Tabouli Salad (Gluten Free)

This dish came about because of my children, not because it is one of those dishes I knew they would love.  Quite the opposite, I made this dish fully aware that it will be several years before either of my boys decides to eat this.  However thanks to them and their pickiness I had 2 cups of leftover rice in the fridge.  I committed the cardinal parenting sin of preparing a new type of rice, which both boys immediately refused to eat.  I wasn't worried about it, they made do with the other options for dinner as Lewis and I happily ate the volcano rice, enjoying the different grains each with its own taste and texture.  For the record, the second time I made the rice they liked it, which was faster then I was expecting.


The idea to use the leftovers in Tabouli salad came when I was picking herbs at my CSA on one of the many oppressively humid, hot days this summer that has been making everyone cranky and squinty.  The herb field has zero shade and the curly parsley was the first parsley I came to.  Standing in the parsley patch I quickly decided to make tabouli for dinner, as a sudden tasty sounding way to excuse picking curly when I usually prefer flat leaf.  Now it wasn't laziness, it was a meal plan.


Once I decided not to use the traditional bulgur wheat base (or the boxed mix my mother relied on) I decided to play a little by adding toasted hazelnuts. The resulting salad was light, flavorful and delicious, enough so that I made it again 3 days later, even though I no longer had any tomatoes.  The second time around I gave the leftovers to one of my neighbors, who requested the recipe when he returned my dish.  Then told me to start typing when I told him I planned to post it here.

Wild Rice Tabouli Salad (or should that be Tabbouleh?)


Most of the vegetables are listed as optional because I don't want you to put off making it because you are missing some of the vegetables listed.  Just chop and add in whatever vegetables you have so there is more texture and flavors in the salad


2 cups cooked rice, preferably a wild rice blend or other whole grain rice (I used volcano rice)
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (if you put  your lemons in the microwave on high for 50 seconds first you will get more juice)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt or kosher salt (if your rice is not already salted increase salt to 1 tsp)
1/2 cup finely chopped curly parsley (it is really important to finely chop the parsley)
2 - 3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh mint leaves
1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes (optional)
1 cucumber peeled, cut lengthwise into 4 pieces and then seeds removed, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup hazelnuts briefly toasted in a dry skillet until fragrant and then coarsely chopped
1 red, yellow or orange pepper seeded and chopped (optional)
1/2 cup chopped scallions or baby onions chopped fine
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (optional)




Mix all the ingredients and stir well.  Top with feta if using. Either serve immediately or allow the flavors to mellow and blend in the fridge for half an hour first.

Mesclun sauteed with Garlic and Optional Rhubarb

Lately Julian has been asking me when it is summer, my answers to him are complicated.  How do you explain to a five year old that summer "officially"  begins on the summer solstice but many folks mark the beginning of summer as Memorial day?  However for me the start of summer coincides with our first summer CSA pick-up at The Intervale Community Farm.  For all his incessant questioning on the meaning of summer I know that Julian feels this as well.  Both Sebastian and Julian where counting down the hours to our first pick-up and telling me about all the areas of the farm they planned to explore.   Our CSA is not the kind where you drive somewhere and are handed a bag or box and leave.  Instead there are tables set up with produce and signs that say how much to take.  Some items involve a choice, while others just require you to weigh out your share.  There are also pick your own crops such as this weeks strawberries and herbs.

Our first pick-up last week was truncated and short as it was not yet school vacation and that evening I had to rush off to principal interviews at The Integrated Arts Academy.  Happily the principal interviews and search committee meetings are over.  I will not be running out to attend interviews where I can hear why a candidate believes "Art is a defendable value in education." or how they create "A positive school culture."  The search committee met on Monday and we selected 2 candidates that we all would feel comfortable having as our interim principal.  Now I am just waiting to find out which candidate the superintendent chooses.  I have a favorite, so being the patient person that I am (ha!) I have been checking the district website obsessively to see if there is an update.

The end of this process means maybe I can spend a little more time in my kitchen.  I feel like dinners around here lately have often consisted of finding food to fling at my children.  But with the beginning of the CSA and the weekly food assignments it creates, plus the end of additional outside commitments, it is time to get creative.  Creative because at this point we are not receiving the glut of produce that I know is coming.  For now we have been greeted by heads of lettuce, a greens choice, garlic scapes and mesclun mix.  All of these items I can use up quickly except the mesclun mix, (okay, I may or may not have problems with the lettuce as well).

The mesclun mix is a battle that in the past has gone on all summer.  I have a basic character flaw that prevents me from not taking my share.  After all there are signs on the mesclun bins that say, "Please weigh accurately."  Obviously this is a valuable item and I should treat it with respect.  However my children do not eat salads and I don't love salads enough to keep up with the mesclun all summer.  So I end up using most of my mesclun mix to slowly feed my compost all summer.

However this last week I went to prepare dinner one night and found we had no vegetables left in the house except the bag of mesclun.  As I stood grumpily staring at the assorted leaves I had a sudden inspiration to treat them like any of my favorite greens (spinach, chard, kale, lambs quarters...) and cook them with garlic and olive oil.  I decided to play with some rhubarb as well and added some at the end of cooking.  The result was good enough that Julian happily ate some, although he did complain about the rhubarb pieces as he did not like the tart lemon and artichoke flavor of them.  Tonight I served it again, this time without the rhubarb.  Julian took thirds.  With or without the rhubarb I am happy to know I will not need to compost my mesclun mix this summer.

As for Thursdays pick-up at the farm, it was just what the boys and I needed to celebrate the first day of summer vacation.  For the last several years my boys have been allowed to roam free at the farm once I walk them through the parking lot.  They have special hide outs as well as elaborate projects they coordinate with their friends.  While they are playing I pick up our produce and practice adult conversation skills.  This week they began, with a group of friends, discovered a wonderful mud puddle and began by transporting shovels of mud to the sand box.  Eventually Julian and his friend Casey decided to stay and play in the mud.  Slowly their group of friends began to migrate over, one by one, where they all dug, and splashed and explored.

Now summer has begun because we have started weekly visits to our farm.  Last year a fierce argument waged when Julian and Sebastian were talking about "our farm" to our neighbor Ada, whose daddy owns and runs another local farm.  She insisted it was not their farm, she has a farm, but they do not.  I stepped in because I know how fierce my children's attachment is to the farm.  I explained that now the ICF is a co-op and so we own one share of the farm.  I was not going to try to explain to her that it is theirs because they love it so much.

Sauteed Mesclun Mix with Garlic and Optional Rhubarb

This is one of those dishes that is more a technique then a prescription.  The basic idea is to saute some garlic (you can use green garlic, garlic scapes, regular garlic, or even omit the garlic and use onions or shallots) in olive oil or butter, then you add the greens and stir until the greens are completely wilted.  If you want to use the rhubarb just chop up a handful and add it for the last few minutes of cooking so it softens but stays firm enough that it retains its own character and 5 year olds can pick it out.  Please treat this as a guide only.

2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Butter or other favorite oil

1 minced clove of garlic (or 2 scapes, 1 small shallot, 1/2  a small onion, 2-3 scallions chopped)

1 lb mesclun mix (or whatever your CSA has gifted you with)

1 large or 2-3 small stalks rhubarb chopped into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces (1/8 to 1/4 cup) optional

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat a large saute pan over medium heat and add the oil or butter.  Add the garlic or onions and saute until fragrant, then add the washed and dried mesclun mix and kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, mixing and wilting as you add it, if it seems dry add more oil.  Once the mesclun mix is all wilted add the rhubarb and put the lid on briefly until the rhubarb is heated through and softened.  Check the seasonings and serve.