Cooking made easy

I hear the corn is rather late this year, and that there is something of a shortage due to it being late to mature, on account of how cool this summer has been. Fortunately, our local fruit markets seem to have plenty of their own, ripe and ready.  I note the price seems to have gone up. After having tried to grow it myself (and failing) for the last few years, Im actually okay with that - its still a bargain, compared to how much work it is and how much space it takes up for a relatively small return in edible produce. Not to mention the raccoons. I asked Robert of 100 Mile Produce what he did about raccoons, and he replied, "They eat an acre." And  he only has nine acres of corn. Yikes!

Anyway, if you want to make it go a bit further than just chowing down on corn on the cob, this is a good way to do it. I served it cold, but given the weather lately it might have been better hot.

8 to 12 servings
1 hour prep time


12 cobs of corn
3 medium shallots
3 or 4 bay leaves
4 tbsps butter
6 tbsps flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon rubbed savory or basil

2 cups milk or light cream
2 cups corn cooking water
2 teaspoons sweet sherry and/or white wine vinegar

Put a large pot of water on to boil for cooking the corn. Husk the corn. Peel and chop the shallots. When the water boils, cook the corn for 5 to 6 minutes, with the bay leaves added to the cooking water. You will likely need to do it in 2 batches, even with a large pot. Cool the cobs of corn under cold water, and save the cooking water. Cut the corn from the cobs, scraping them to remove all the pulp, and set aside the corn from 2 cobs by itself to be used as a garnish.

Next, in a large heavy-bottomed pot, melt the butter and flour together. Add the shallots, and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the shallots are softened and perhaps slightly browned, and the flour and butter well amalgamated. Add the salt, sugar, and rubbed savory or basil, and slowly stir in the milk or cream, bit by bit, stirring well between each addition to form a smooth sauce. When the milk is all in, add the 2 cups of the corn cooking water, again stirring well to blend. Transfer the bay leaves from the cooking water to the soup. Add about half of the larger portion of corn, and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until the soup is thickened. Be sure not to let it boil, or the milk may curdle. Remove the bay leaves.

Purée the soup in a blender - it will certainly take 2 or 3 batches - until very smooth. Return it to the soup pot, and add the remaining half of the larger portion of corn and the sherry or vinegar. Either chill or heat the soup, depending on whether you intend to serve it cold or hot. When you serve it up, sprinkle each bowl with some of the small portion of corn set aside for garnishing.





Last year at this time I made Sautéd Beets & Greens.

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So my mom gave the "Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics" cookbook for Christmas and it is great! This is the first (and only) thing Ive tried so far, but Ive got my eye on several others. Anyway, this pork is so tasty. Ive decided pretty much anything marinated/cooked in garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and herbs is delicious, so its hard to go wrong there. This was super easy and very tasty.


Herb-marinated loin of pork

Grated zest of 1 lemon
3/4 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice (4-6 lemons)
1/2 c. good olive oil, plus extra for brushing the grill
2 T. minced garlic (6 cloves)
1 1/2 T. minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 T. chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
Kosher salt
3 pork tenderloins (about 1 pound each)
Freshly ground black pepper

Combine the lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, rosemary, thyme, mustard and 2 tsp. salt in a sturdy 1-gallon resealable plastic bag. Add the pork tenderloins and turn to coat with the marinade. Squeeze out the air and seal the bag. Marinate the pork in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours but preferable overnight.

When youre ready to cook, build a charcoal fire or heat a gas grill. Brush the cooking grate with oil to prevent the pork from sticking. Remove the tenderloins from the marinade and discard the marinade but leave the herbs that cling to the meat. Sprinkle the tenderloins generously with salt and pepper. Grill the tenderloins, turning a few times to brown on all sides, for 15 to 25 minutes (depending on the heat of the coals) until the meat registers 137 degrees at the thickest part. Transfer the tenderloins to a platter and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Allow to rest for 10 minutes. Carve in 1/2-inch-thick diagonal slices. The thickest part of the tenderloin will be quite pink (its just fine!) and the thinnest part will be well done. Season with salt and pepper and serve warm, or at room temperature with the juices that collect in the platter.

A few things: First, I bought my pork in a pack of 2 loins, each a little over 1 pound, so I just did two. Second, I have fresh rosemary in my backyard, but I didnt buy thyme, so I used dried thyme and halved the amount. And third, we dont have a grill (yet) and even if we did its freezing here, so I cooked my loins (haha) in the oven at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes and then I turned on the broiler to brown it on all sides. It turned out really tasty, so I guess it worked. Of course a grill would be better, but this worked out. Oh, and her picture in the book looks way more appetizing than mine. Oh well.

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We also stumbled across a random farmers market which I OBVIOUSLY photo-documented wildly.
I dont care what luxury bread is; all I know is, I need it, and I need it yesterday!
The Irish may not be known for macarons or pain au chocolat, but they probably should be.

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We had an incredible start to Dish of the Month in January, a big thank you from me and Sue at A little bit of heaven on a plate to all who took part.  The full round up of the recipes from January can be seen HERE.

 Dish of the Month is a blog event to celebrate the recipes of the generous and charming, Nigel Slater. Im cooking my way month by month through The kitchen diaries II, however you can make any dish from any of Nigels books or use the online recipes. The full rules are shown below.


For my February Dish of the Month I have chosen Nigels Little apricot and oat cakes which he describes as "a cake with backbone, not to mention an interesting texture which comes from rolled oats and dried apricots".  The recipe is in the February chapter of The Kitchen Diaries II and I can highly recommend these little cakes, they are proper little buns and the finely chopped apricots and peel that they contain give them a nice tangy flavour.  They keep very well in a plastic container too.



If you would like to take part, then please:

• Make a Dish of the Month from ANY recipe by Nigel Slater
• Link to Farmersgirl Kitchen or A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate
•  Use the Dish of the Month logo in your post
• If you use twitter, tweet your post with @serialcrafter or @Heavenona_plate and #DishoftheMonth and we will re-tweet it to our followers. 

Rules:

• If you own The kitchen diaries II please do not publish the recipes on your blog without permission, they are copyright.
• If you are using recipes from the BBC Food website, please link to the recipe on BBC Food rather than publishing the recipe.  Likewise recipes on the Guardian Lifestyle website.
• One entry per blog.
• Recipes must be added to the linky by the 28th of each month.

 Add your Dish of the Month to the linky below: );

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As usual, we hoped to be planting the last main crops in the garden during the first week of June. As usual, we are probably at least a week behind. Im not feeling too badly about it, though. Weve not felt too pressured and have been working at an easy pace compared to last year. Most of our being behind can be attributed to the amount of rain we have had, and holding back on planting some things because the nights have been too cool to make hot-weather crops like melons, tomatoes, etcetera happy. On the other hand much of our not feeling pressured for time can also be attributed to not having to water constantly, as we did last year.

Peas are starting to flower, so we are looking forward to peas within a week or two. That will be nice; this is still the time of year when we have the least from the garden. Last years onions, leeks, parsnips, carrots, etcetera are gone, as is the overwintered spinach. Asparagus has already come and gone for us. The rhubarb is still holding out. *winces a little.*



Lettuce is the main thing available right now, along with arugula and some Chinese greens (Baby Bok Choy and mustard). We put some lime (calcium) on the leaf rotation beds last fall, and the lettuce does seem to be doing a better this spring than weve ever seen it before. Of course, the cool rainy weather helps too.


These are some new experimental crops for us.

The leafier ones are chick peas. I probably put them in too late. I keep thinking of them as beans, which need to go in late (i.e. around right now) but they are much more like actual peas, which need to go in as soon as you can find some soil  under the snow. Alright, its a good idea if the soil is actually thawed out too. Still, they are looking not too bad. We shall see.

The other one is a cow-pea relative from Italy, called Fagiolina del Trasimeno. Its a quite tiny bean, used in its dry form although apparently it can be eaten fresh as well. The advantage to being tiny - not a quality I would have sought out myself - is that it cooks in 45 minutes without soaking. I got these trading with a friend, and Im quite excited about trying them. I was also impressed that they were pretty much all up within 3 days.


Theres the asparagus, quickly turning to a forest of ferns. The asparagus beetles, both striped and spotted are busy gnawing away, and laying eggs. The rhubarb is next to then, then some new beds which will ultimately be other perennial fruit and vegetable beds, but which will hold melons and some items we would like to go to seed, for saving purposes.


The wet bed area is living up to the name this year. Its been very squelchy and hard to get in to do the work. Peas went in early here, but are not looking great. I think it is finally too wet for them, and also a rabbit has been eating them. Mr. Ferdzy put out the live trap, and we took it for a drive in the country. One way. No doubt another will be along shortly but so far so good.


Speaking of pests, I think we have finally solved the riddle of the deer. This is also thanks to the wet spring we have had - we followed the footprints around through the trail of destruction and found one by this gate. Closer inspection showed that the netting between the posts was hanging loose. It looked okay at first glance, which is why we had missed it. Mr. Ferdzy attached it back, and added a few cross posts for good measure. The deer has not been back since. Co-incidence? We sincerely hope not.


We are using a somewhat disturbing quantity of petroleum based products in the garden this year, but I cant say I care much. They are helping so much. Row covers are the latest addition, and I think they will be required to make squash, melon and cucumber growing possible. The squash bugs and cucumber beetles are BAAAAACCCKKK! Not nearly as bad as last year so far, we hope, but enough to concern us. Weve planted our cucumbers and zucchini, covered them with row covers, then set an extra plant still in a starter pot out next to them. These are easier for the bugs to get at, so most of them have gone for them, allowing us to check them several times a day and remove then into the famous Jar of Death (water with a drop of dish soap).


The other thing we are starting to do is cover all the paths between beds with landscape cloth, which we will then cover with fine gravel. The hope is that this will save me from spending almost half my time in the garden cutting the grass surrounding the beds.

These are the leaf beds, looking very sparse. We are mostly planting brassicas for the fall in them, and we got a late start on getting them going. Oh well. There is always something that gets lost in the shuffle.


Early planted potatoes are looking very good. The ones at the end were the ones we planted last fall and they do look like they are still at least 2 weeks ahead of the early spring planted potatoes.

Hoops are over the next bed which is going to contain sweet potatoes and peanuts as soon as it warms up enough to plant them. We expect to need to keep them under plastic a lot this year, if the weather keeps on as it has started.


This is where the last of the regular potatoes are planted. They just went in, as these are the Russet Burbanks that we will keep as our main winter storage potato. As such, the later we can take them out, the better. Slowly we are learning how to stagger our crops. A few straggling self-seeded lettuces have been left in place to be pulled as needed.


Tomatoes were planted almost 2 weeks ago, and we have had to keep them covered with the hoop-houses quite a bit, as night temperatures have gone down as low as 3°C. They are looking okay though. Eggplants and peppers on the other hand are seriously pathetic looking. Something went wrong with our potting soil this spring, and things did not grow well at all. Real dirt will cure them, but no doubt our harvest will also be pretty diminished.

Next door, the cucumbers and a few assorted other cucurbits (melons, squash) are hiding under row cover cloth from the bugs. If you look closely, you can see the decoy plant sitting on a piece of paving stone by the tomatoes. Last years irrigation experiment still needs to be cleaned up (pulled out).

And oh! Those weedy onions in the foreground. Yes, there are some in there. I think they are doing okay, but its hard to tell with all those weeds. I hope I can get to them in the next day or so.


The garlic is looking good. Soon we will have garlic scapes. Holy cow, already?! Oh man, we are so behind... better get back to work. Beds to weed, seeds and seedlings to plant and water, trellises to put up, grass to cut...

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