My friend Norma (for whom I’ve been making puddings and custards for a few months) thought maybe she was improved enough that she could tackle some peach cobbler. As long as the topping wasn’t too bready, too dry. Swallowing is still an issue for her. No problem for me to find something to fill that request. I don’t like cobblers with lots of topping either.

My America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook has a full-page chart for making fruit cobblers. It suggests 9 different fruit variations, with how much fruit to start with, always using a 9-inch deep dish pie plate, how much sugar to add, how much cornstarch and what flavorings to use. Very helpful. I’ll be referring to this chart again. One of the things I like the best about this cookbook (and Cook’s Illustrated, and America’s Test Kitchen recipes in general) is that they explain why they do some things in recipes. Things that might be contrary to established practice.

In this case it was about baking the peaches for half an hour before adding the biscuits. They found that if you put the biscuits on top of the peaches from the beginning, the bottom part of each biscuit didn’t get baked sufficiently (not enough heat from underneath). So, they completely heated the peaches first by baking them for 20-30 minutes, THEN placed the scoops of biscuit dough on top. Ideally, I suppose, you would eat this all at the first sitting. I don’t know what the biscuits will be like refrigerated for a day or two. Maybe a bit soggy. The recipe also said they’d tried adding oatmeal to the biscuit mixture, and definitely eliminated that option. The oatmeal was too distinctive (overpowering flavor).

This recipe recommended 4-5 peaches. I wanted more peach to cobbler ratio, so I upped it to about 7. I used a tad more cornstarch too, the lower amount of sugar (it mentioned 1/4 to 1/3 cup). Then it suggested ground cloves, vanilla and brandy. I knew my friend Norma wouldn’t want the brandy, so I made hers without. Since I doubled this recipe, I was able to add the brandy to the one I made for us. As it turned out, the one I made for Norma just happened to have a lot more fluid in it – hopefully just what Norma will like. You may need to flex the cornstarch ratio – if the peaches are really ripe and juicy, the cobbler likely needs a bit more cornstarch.

The cookbook recipe also suggested a variation with ground and crystallized ginger added to the biscuits. I threw caution to the wind and added the ginger AND the vanilla (and there were ground cloves in the peaches too). Why not, I thought? We liked this a LOT. The sweetness was at a moderate level (I don’t happen to like overly sweet desserts anyway). The buttermilk biscuits? Yum. I liked them a lot. Tender and tasty with the ginger inside. I like that variation a lot, actually. And the little sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon on top? Liked that part too. There wasn’t anything I didn’t like about this cobbler. It may become my new go-to recipe.
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A year ago: Barbecued Beans
Two years ago: Crisp Apple Pudding (my mother’s recipe, one of my very favorite recipes ever)

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On our recent driving trip through California, Oregon and Washington, we saw a multitude of roadside stands hawking cherries. Bings. A few Rainiers. The season is short, as we probably all know. It wasn’t always that way, apparently. Back in the day (probably the 1800’s) a plentiful variety ripened at different times. But somebody, in their infinite wisdom (?) decided it would be better to choose one variety and have them all harvest at the same time (more efficient . . . they decided). Hence the Bing. Our favorite national cherry.

Well, except in Michigan, where they grow about 240 MILLION pounds of sour cherries. But would you believe that 239 million of them end up in cans? Yup. Only about a million of them end up being eaten fresh, and only in Michigan.

Most cherries are grown on the West Coast (Washington, Oregon and California), and they make up about 65% of the marketable cherries in the U.S. I like how Russ Parsons (all this data comes from his book, How to Pick a Peach) describes the flavor:

• [A Bing] “is about as good as any cherry variety that has ever been grown – crisp on the outside, with a melting center that saves it from being crunchy; dark and sweet, with a nice tart backbone.”

It’s the “tart backbone” that I like. But anyway, so the legend goes, the Bing variety was found in 1875 on the farm of eastern Washington agricultural pioneer Seth Lewelling – by a Chinese workman named Ah Bing. Isn’t that just too cute? Now, there are 4 cherry categories (Bigarreaux (or Black, of which Bing is one), Dukes, Hearts and Sours. Hearts and Dukes are very soft cherries (can’t be shipped) and exist mostly in home gardens. Blacks (Bing, Royal Ann and Rainier) dominate the fresh cherry market. Royal Ann & Rainiers are the ones used to make maraschino cherries.

Interestingly, the Japanese are huge consumers of American cherries. And the “gold rush” of cherry farming is getting the first fruit of the season to the Asian market – jet-freighted to Japan and Hong Kong, where they charge 10x as much as they do here. And marketers, doing what they do, have begun growing Bings further south where the weather patterns aren’t always cherry partners. You see, cherries need at least 700 hours of winter temps at or below 45 degrees. Now THAT is a little factlet you can pop out at your next dinner party, right? But because of the more temperate climate in California, sometimes that doesn’t happen. Without the winter nap, Parsons calls it, the cherry trees simply don’t have enough energy to produce fruit. The other factlet is that cherries don’t like rain (they crack and split). And because winters in California can be rainy, more risk is involved each winter when California farmers attempt to get an early ripening.

In 1988, though, the University of California developed a new cherry – the Brooks (a cross between a Rainier and a Burlat, an heirloom variety). It is more resistant to warm weather flaws and can be picked about 10 days earlier than Bings. As a result of many California farmers shifting to the Brooks, California now grows more than a third of fresh cherries in the U.S.

One of Russ Parsons recommendations is that if you have a batch of cherries that are just barely past their prime, add a nip of balsamic vinegar to them when cooking. That will balance out the flavor. Don’t overdo it, though.

Choosing Cherries: sort through them if you can and choose the darkest – mahogany red – if possible. Make sure they’re shiny. A matte color means they’re over the hill. No shriveling or wilting, of course. Doubles and spurs mean they’ve had too much heat on the tree.

Storing: Plastic bag, coldest part of the refrigerator. Don’t wash until ready to eat. They’ll last 2-3 weeks.

In Parsons’ book he includes 3 recipes: Cold Spiced Cherry Soup, a Red Wine-Poached Cherry Dessert, and Cherry-Almond Cobbler.

A year ago: Supposedly a rendition of KFC’s Cole Slaw (not one of my better recipes)
Two years ago: Sicilian Tuna Salad (a real favorite of mine)

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Our grandkids’ entourage left yesterday (4 of them). After breakfast. We did a bunch of cleanup all around. Dave did about 4 loads of wash (including 17 towels, he made a point of telling me) and he was ambitious enough to polish all the granite in our kitchen (bless him!). Me? I did almost nothing. Checked email. Did some re-arranging around the house. Sat in front of the TV catching up on some of my favorite Tivo’d shows that I haven’t watched for a month. Took a nap watching older “CBS Sunday Morning” shows.

So when dinnertime came, what to fix? We had leftovers – ribs from our favorite rib joint (Scottie’s, a local place). Had more fresh tomatoes from friends’ gardens. Had fresh mozzarella and fresh basil. And we had just enough left of my favorite green beans – the Garlic Green Beans. They’re briefly cooked, then briefly sautéed in olive oil and garlic. Even the grandchildren ate more than one serving of them when I served the beans the night before last.

Before dinner last night I made myself a drink – a cocktail type drink with Aperol, some apricot brandy and Squirt. Dave had a glass of wine. We sat out on our patio enjoying the sunset, relaxing. Enjoying the summer flowers rimming our patio. And the view. And the pink/red sky. Being thankful for the life we have, and saying it was wonderful having the No. California family with us, but it was nice when they went home, too. Maybe there will be some more inventive cooking going on in Carolyn’s kitchen in coming days.

A year ago: Cucumbers (everything you ever wanted to know about them)

Two years ago: Buttermilk Scones (my all-time favorite buttery scones)

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Our granddaughter, Taylor (at right in the picture), asked: “What’s for dinner, Grandma?”
I said: “A ground beef casserole with biscuits on top.”

Logan, our grandson (center in the picture) said, after a long pause: “Grandma . . . what’s a casserole?”

We all chuckled that Logan didn’t recognize the word. It’s not that he hasn’t had one – Taylor even reminded him of the last casserole I made a couple of months ago when they visited – he just didn’t know it by that name. Even Mikayla (Taylor’s friend, also in the picture at left, who came along for this visit) knew about casseroles.

To say that this casserole was a roaring success is visible in the very few sticky remains in the deep casserole. The kids were all over it. Wanted seconds and thirds if they could have had them. Most of the adults at the dinner had seconds also. My DH was limited only by the fact that his first serving was large enough. Good thing since the kids wanted more and more of it.

This recipes goes w-a-a-a-y back in my repertoire. I’ve tweaked it over the years, and this time I tweaked it some more. Now, this isn’t anything gourmet. And you really can’t make it ahead of time because of the biscuits. But you can make the meat mixture ahead, then just reheat it before you compose the casserole.

The meat is ground beef (and you could just as easily use ground turkey), with onion, garlic, green chiles (canned), a bit of corn (I used canned because I had an open can), tomato sauce, and chili powder. Then you add some light sour cream and a goodly amount of shredded Jack cheese. The trick to this casserole is the biscuits. Now my guess is this recipe may have come about when Pillsbury first came out with the canned (tube) biscuits. The original recipe is in lots of places on the internet. And that’s the way I used to make this (and you can too if you choose). I might have this time except I didn’t want to make another trip to the regular grocery store for the biscuits, so I made them from scratch. Took very little time since I had the buttermilk on hand. I simply went to my own blog and found my favorite recipe for Drop Biscuits and made them – but I rolled them out instead.

The casserole has a bunch of horizontal biscuit halves on the bottom of the casserole. Then you spoon in all the meat mixture, top that with the other half of the biscuits, sprinkle with some Jack cheese and you’re ready to bake. All I did was divide the biscuit batter in half and rolled out each half to make about 12 thin biscuits – half goes on the bottom, the other half of the batter makes more to go on the top. It was really very easy. But if you want to make it super easy, then use the tube biscuits (with this recipe you’ll likely need 2 tubes) – the kind with visible layers, so you CAN separate them into thin halves.

What’s different about my recipe? I add fresh garlic. I also add corn. Sometimes I add shredded Cheddar if I don’t have Jack cheese. I also eliminated an egg in the meat mixture that was in the original recipe. Didn’t seem to be needed as far as I was concerned. So, if you haven’t ever made this, it’s a crowd pleaser. Especially children. For me, it’s the biscuits.

What’s GOOD: this dish is just comfort food at its finest. When you crave something ooey, gooey, cheesy, and you don’t mind the casserole concept, well, this is the one! All of our grandkids just love-love this dish. Me too.

What’s NOT: not one single thing. It’s certainly not low calorie, though. But it’s not wicked, if you understand what I mean. Definitely worth making for a big crowd.
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MasterCook 5+ file and MasterCook 14 file

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Muggy: oppressively humid; damp and close.

Flowers love it. Humans? Not so much. And little or no cooking going on in my kitchen these days, even with A/C. Temps in the high 80’s and low 90’s.

Picture? From our garden, awhile back.

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You know why bloggers rarely write l-o-v-e, like it should be written? Because not-nice people out there do searches all over the internet for such words hoping they’ll find unsavory websites. And then they leave unsavory messages. Maybe I should go find my thesaurus and find some alternative words I could use here on my blog to describe a passion for something. Hmmm.

What’s more American summer than strawberry shortcake, I ask you? Our daughter-in-law Karen brought this fab dessert the other night to a family birthday celebration. It was SO good. You might think “what’s another shortcake recipe.” Well, I’m tellin’ ya, this tastes different. It’s all in the brown sugar. There’s brown sugar in the shortcakes, brown sugar in the berries, and best of all, there’s brown sugar (and a bit of sour cream) in the whipped cream. Makes for an altogether different taste sensation.

The recipe came from America’s Test Kitchen in 2007. Nothing about the recipe is difficult. You’re missing something if you don’t try it. Karen and I agreed that the shortcakes could be made a bit smaller (this makes a very large portion if you use a generous amount of berries and whipped cream). So you might feed 7 or maybe even 8.
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Two years ago: Butternut Squash Soup with Jalapeno & Ginger

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1. Thick slices of heirloom tomatoes.

2. Thick slices of fresh mozzarella burratta on top of the tomatoes

3. Freshly picked basil right out of the garden

4. Drizzles of Spanish extra virgin olive oil

5. Little drizzles of strawberry balsamic vinegar

6. Oops, forgot the grind of salt and pepper. Didn’t miss it, did we?

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For years I’ve been trying to find a recipe something like the tomato vinaigrette served at the Soup Plantation. (The dressing isn’t on their website anymore, so perhaps they don’t serve it any longer.) It’s mostly canned tomatoes with a vinaigrette dressing around it. But it’s served as part of their salad dressing options. I’ve searched for recipes in my own copious files (nothing), looked in all my cookbooks for anything similar (nothing) and looked several times on the internet for something similar (nothing). In the deep pan at Soup Plantation it looks almost like plain canned tomatoes, except that the top is shiny with oil – the oil isn’t exactly visible, just shiny, so you know there’s oil there.

I’ve never tried starting out with a can of tomatoes and attempting to concoct a dressing. I know there must be oil and vinegar in it, and sugar. And the tomatoes. Not sun dried. Nor oven charred. Not even fresh, I think, but canned. The tomatoes must be added in at the end because they’re still in small chunks, like right out of the can. It doesn’t have balsamic vinegar in it, either. But that’s all I can determine. Every time I find a tomato based vinaigrette in a magazine or online, I save it.

For this dressing (which isn’t really like Soup Plantation’s, sorry to say) I started with an old recipe I found online, years and years ago. It was credited to a tavern in Annapolis, Maryland. After I got through making it I decided it needed something else, so added some blue cheese to it. Note if you look closely at the picture, you can see some saffron threads floating in it, as well as a few crumbles of the blue cheese.
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Two years ago: Asian (cole) Slaw (a family favorite with grilled meats)

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Since I was just talking about corn yesterday, this seems like a perfectly appropriate time to share a corn salad recipe. There must be as many variations for such as shells in the sea. This one is on the sweet side (sugar – or Splenda – in the dressing) and it’s marinated for a minimum of 8 hours.

When we visited our friends at Cardwell Hill (the winery in Oregon) a few days ago, Nancy served this salad for our late lunch. It was SO good, I asked her for the recipe. It popped into my email inbox yesterday.

The recipe calls for canned corn (shoe peg actually, but my DH did the shopping and he couldn’t find any shoe peg white corn) so this is just ordinary canned corn. You could easily use fresh corn too. Instead of pimientos, I used peppadew peppers. There’s a picture (left) of the jar, one whole pepper, and several of them minced up. I’ve talked about peppadew peppers before – they’re favorites of mine and are grown in South Africa. Some olive bars at upscale markets have them. They’re sweet and tart at the same time.

I didn’t have any green bell pepper (could have used some red, yellow or orange just as easily).

Because I try to reduce sugar anywhere I can, I used less than the original recipe called for – and I used Splenda – so if you think it tastes too vinegar-y, by all means add more sweetener. It’s really tasty – can be made up ahead – and likely will keep for several days. The dressing can also be used again, so don’t throw it out – just add different veggies to it for a 2nd rendition.

So thanks, Nancy, for this great recipe.
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A year ago: Flank Steak with Orange Marinade
Two years ago: The BEST Bean Salad (a family favorite, low calorie, but you’d never guess it)

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We’re home from our trip. I’m definitely not back into the cooking groove yet. Have been to two grocery stores to stock up on essentials, but what we’re both craving is more simple foods. I baked a chicken for dinner our first night home and had it along with a panful of button mushrooms sauteed in butter with some fresh thyme. And some tomatoes from our own bushes with some fresh mozzarella cheese. Last night’s dinner was more of the same. Except that I’d purchased some fresh white corn, so we had some of that too. It’s so good to be home.

Probably some of you know far more about corn than I do. But fresh corn-on-the-cob is at all the farmstands these days – the delish white sweet corn. So I thought I’d post something from my go-to book on fruits and vegetables, Russ Parsons’ tome How to Pick a Peach. He also has another book under his belt (that I don’t own) called How to Read a French Fry. So, synopsized from the Peach book is all you’ve ever wanted to know about corn, from the consumer’s point of view.

It used to be that fresh corn on the cob, once it was pulled from the plant, started to go to starch right away. The sugar in the corn converted to starch very fast. But genetics being what they are these days, the researchers were very busy for several decades nnow developing strains of corn that overcame many of those early types. These newer and more improved varieties are almost all you can buy nowdays. Some people (Parsons included) aren’t altogether sure it’s been for the best as they believe there is a lot more to corn flavor than just the sweetness.

Corn is a grain, of course, which is why it’s a carb rather than a vegetable. We eat corn in an immature state – grown to maturity, corn is as hard a wheat kernels. Much of the corn grown is such (and used for many industrial applications like sweeteners, textiles and automotive fuels). The corn WE eat is picked within a month of pollination.

The oldest “improved” variety of corn is referred to by its shorthand – SU – for sugary. Actually mentioned in seed journals as early as the 1820s. Farmers merely selected seed from the plants that produced the sweetest eating corn. But it still had the problem of converting to starch, losing 2/3 of its sugar within 24 hours, even if refrigerated.

The next variety was SE – for sugar-enhanced. It actually starts converting sugar to starch right away, but because the corn variety was sweeter than most, it could take up to a week before the sweetness level fell down to the level of normal corn.

Then we get to what Parsons refers to as the King Kong of corn. Called SH2 because of the way the kernels shrivel and appear shrunken after drying. They contain 30-45% more sugar than traditional corn. Only trouble is these seeds are very expensive, so most farmers won’t buy it and consumers don’t want to pay the price.  Instead, farmers allowed the normal kind of evolution of breeding seeds from the tallest and sweetest producing seeds. A kind of natural mutation I guess you could say.

According to the article the flavor is basically the same from white, yellow or bicolor corn. (Could have fooled me, I’m a convert to white sweet corn which is the first corn available here in Southern California.) The farmers have done all kinds of genetics to the SH2 with adding good corn flavor from the SE and SU.  Now I’ve never seen “Silver Queen” corn. It must not be grown where I live. But per the chapter on corn, lots of people claim it’s the Cadillac of corn, but in blind taste tests consumers prefer the new SE and SH2 varieties, and that if farmers claim they’re selling Silver Queens, they’re likely not.

Where they’re grown: More than half the U.S. production comes from Florida, California and New York.

Choosing: Husks should be fresh and green, no drying. Silk golden and fresh. Check the corn tips – kernels should be well filled-out and evenly spaced. Pop a kernel with your thumbnail – it should spurt milky juice. (Just don’t let the produce dept. catch you doing that!)

Storing: refrigerate whole (husked, etc.) and eat as soon as possible.

Preparing: Shuck and cook corn just before serving. [I’ve found that using a paper towel helps a lot to get the silk off the cobs.] To Grill: soak whole, unhusked cobs in water for 20+ minutes, then pop on the grill. Grill over hot fire until they are a dark yellow and well marked by the grill, about 25-30 minutes. Don’t worry if the husks start to char; that just adds to the smoky flavor. The silk is much easier to remove after grilling.

Russ Parsons’ recipes in the book: Fresh Corn Blini with Crema Fresca; Grilled Corn and Arugula Salad; and Shrimp and Sweet Corn “Risotto.”

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Recipes here on my blog where corn plays a starring role:

North African Grilled Corn on the Cob
Gulliver’s Creamed Corn
Sweet Corn Cakes
Southwest Squash & Corn
Calabacitas (a southwest staple vegetable mixture)
Custard-Filled Cornbread

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