Saturday, June 28, 2008

One Local Summer- Week 3?




I lost track of some time over the past few weeks but I'm going to go with the estimate that this is week 3 (maybe 4) of OLS. My meal was once again inspired by my trip to the farmers market where I found some chorizo. I also wanted to take advantage of the last remnants of lettuce and radishes.

Corn Custard with Chorizo and Mushrooms (Adapted from Epicurious)

This is one of the more labor intensive dishes that I've made and I'm not certain its an early summer dish. I'm going to try it again in september when there is still great corn but the long over time and hearty dish might be better appreciated. As it is, its thunderstormy and humid. Part of why this worked so well is that it took advantage of what I had in the pantry.

Butter to grease baking dish
EVOO for sauteing
1/2lb Chorizo (Flying Pig Ranch found at FM)
3/4 lb mushrooms (I had shitaki on hand)
jalapeno (Not local but my hot pepper plants are doing well so these will come from my window boxes soon)
4 cups of corn kernels (frozen but not local)
4 oz Creme Cheese (I used local goat cheese that I had on hand)
1/3 cup cornmeal
2 tbs sugar
6 large eggs (PA Organic bought at Fairway)
1 cup whole mile (substituted skim bought at Union Market but also sold at Farmers Market)
Salt
Scallions (bought at FM 2 weeks ago)
1/2 lb Monterey Jack Cheese (not local)

This has three distinct operations.
1) Brown the chorizo. Take it out of its casing and brown it. Remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon. Saute the mushrooms and the jalapeno in the grease of the sausage. Reserve on paper towels to drain. I think you could probably do this with bacon instead of the chorizo.

2) Blend the cornmeal, sugar, goat cheese, and 2 cups corn kernals in a food processor.

3) Whisk together the eggs, milk and salt. Add the Blended stuff from step 2, cheese, chorizo, scallions and mushroom mix.

You can then pour it into a 2 qt ovensafe pan and bake at 375F for 50 minutes to an hour.


Roasted Green Bean Salad

I was also very excited to see green beans. I have 5 green bean plants on my fire escape and can't wait until they start producing. Its a shame to use fresh, soft green beans for roasting but I thought it might be good. I added them to a salad of local greens, radishes, and a apple cider vinaigrette with herbs from the garden.

I had a nice 2007 Rose from Wolffer on Long Island

No comments: