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Homemade Corn Dogs with Buttermilk-Roasted Pepper Dipping Sauce

July 16, 2010 by farmhousetableblog

I love junk food.  Handmade junk food, that is.  On Saturday nights, my mom used to make us popcorn balls with Steen’s syrup or homemade potato chips, fried crisp and puffy in a big iron pot.  Junk food didn’t start out bad–it’s festival food, fun, crunchy, salty, sweet, creamy.  Such treats defined our culture of fun from our beginnings, simple, uncomplicated, communal.  But somewhere along the way, they went horribly wrong.  They became something we ate every day, filled with chemicals, preservatives, false things that belied an external face of sunshiny, innocent fun. Well, I’d like to reclaim junk food.  Not every day, of course, and never the false versions.  I want my children to grow up enjoying corndogs and caramel apples, hamburgers and pigs in a blanket, kettle corn and doughnuts.  Junk food even has the Michael Pollan seal of approval:

Food Rule #39 Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking soda every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we’re eating them every day. The french fry did not become America’s most popular vegetable until industry took over the jobs of washing, peeling, cutting, and frying the potatoes — and cleaning up the mess. If you made all the french fries you ate, you would eat them much less often, if only because they’re so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies, and ice cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you’re willing to prepare them — chances are good it won’t be every day.

But it won’t be never either.  I hereby reclaim good junk food with patriotic pride–American fun wasn’t made in a factory.

Homemade Corndogs

4 Salt & Time Hotdogs (or highest quality dog of your choice)

1 egg, beaten

1 c. whole milk

1/2 tsp. baking powder

3/4 c. yellow cornmeal

1/2 c. flour

2 tsp. sugar

salt & cayenne

wooden skewers

peanut or grapeseed oil for shallow frying

Buttermilk-Roasted Pepper Dipping Sauce

3-4 peppers (a mix of sweet & hot is good), roasted, peeled and chopped

1/4 c. mayonnaise

1/4 c. buttermilk

2 Tbs. cilantro, chopped

salt & pepper

In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg and milk together. Whisk in the baking powder, corn meal, salt & pepper, flour and sugar.  Skewer the hotdogs. then dip each one in the batter, coating well.  Heat oil in a frying pan with 2-3 inch sides until a drop of batter dances and bubbles when dropped in.  Quickly transfer the corndogs to the hot oil, turning to fry both sides.  When crispy, drain on paper towels or a brown grocery bag.  Serve immediately, with yellow mustard and Buttermilk-Pepper Dipping Sauce.

For Dipping Sauce:

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments »

Toffeed Fig Tart

July 9, 2010 by farmhousetableblog

Childhood is as much a place as it is a time.  When I remember my childhood, it is often not events that I call forth, but rather pathways, shortcuts, hedges, fences, nooks, forts and treehouses.  The map of my grandmother’s backyard is still firmly etched in my mind–it was the landscape of time itself–dreamy afternoons that stretched on forever, days caught in a glittery web of make-believe.  I can’t remember anything from eye-level then, only from the bird’s eye vantage of the ironwood tree or, most magical, from the froggy perspective of underneath hedge or elephant ear, drops of caught rainwater spilling off the sides.  The most magical space of all was under the fig tree.  Space and time shifted entirely inside the embrace of its far-reaching branches, heavy with fruit and leaves as big as my face.  It was dark under the tree, cool and hushed as a church, and the branches bled white when we broke off figs to eat.  Grownups voices couldn’t penetrate there, and if you were still, no one would ever see you, and time would stop, and you could live in your fig tree kingdom forever.

Toffeed Fig Tart

adapted from Artichoke to Za’atar by Lucy & Greg Malouf

10 sheets filo pastry

1 3/4 sticks butter, melted

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c water

12 figs, halved

2 Tbs. sugar

1 extra Tbs. butter

3/4 c. hazelnuts, toasted and roughly crushed

1/2 c. mascarpone or creme fraiche

Make a sugar syrup by combining sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to boil, making sure the sugar is completely dissolved.  Lower heat and simmer for five minutes.

Brush each sheet of filo dough with melted better, stacking one on top of the next.  Cut out four 4-5″ circles from the stack of pastry.  Place pastry circles on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes.  Remove from oven and immediately drizzle a little sugar syrup over each pastry circle.

Sprinkle 2 Tbs. sugar in a small skillet and cook over medium high heat until sugar caramelizes.  Swirl in the butter and stir until smooth.  Place each fig cut side down in the caramel, then remove from the pan and set aside.

To assemble, lay a circle of pastry on each plate and stack the figs, then top with mascarpone or creme fraiche, sprinkle with hazelnuts and drizzle with additional sugar syrup.

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments »

The Perfect Burger

June 18, 2010 by farmhousetableblog

A woman’s lipstick should always be perfect, her presence should perfume the air ever so slightly with Bal a Versailles, she should turn out healthy, delectable meals in high-heeled shoes, speak at least two languages and have a career that is as rewarding for her as it is enriching to the community.   My dad has high standards.  Luckily, he’s a lot of fun and pretty cute.  One of the greatest things about being his daughter was growing up with the firm belief that nothing is impossible.

My dad is not a great cook.  This is perhaps an understatement–some of his most famous (notorious?) dishes have included charred and blackened hamburgers, cantaloupe with barbeque sauce, omelets with grape jelly rolled up inside, baked beans with curry powder and cardamom, and a special dish, prepared (perpetrated?) at least once a week and designed to use up any leftovers that happened to be lying around, called “Irish Spaghetti.”  We ate out a lot when I was growing up, and when we didn’t, I pulled a stool up to the counter and cooked dinner.  I was allowed to walk to the corner store and “sign” for any ingredients I wished.  He never quashed my creativity, he never told me something wouldn’t work, and he devoured everything I produced with relish and great appreciation.  So, I learned to cook.

My father is a Renaissance man.  He believed an important part of my liberal education should include travel to cosmopolitan cities and exotic locations.  One of my favorite pictures is of the two of us at Delmonico’s in Mexico City.  I am eleven.  On the wall behind us hang fishing nets and other atmospheric, nautical objets d’arte.  My gauzy, ruffled dress is rivaled only by his sideburns and lapels.  The photo was taken just before the waiter arrived at our table to set something on fire.  From there, we traveled to “21,” The Oak Room, and The Four Seasons in New York, to Brennan’s and Galatoire’s in New Orleans, to Trader Vic’s in The Shamrock Hotel in Houston, and the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio, where I ate lime sherbet while spinning in a slow, dizzy circle, to small pubs in Ireland where I was made to drink pints of Guinness to avoid looking like a tourist, and to countless thatched roof cafes in the jungles of Mexico and Guatamala.  My father believes in speaking the native language of the country you’re in, and he always orders in Spanish at Mexican restaurants, in Japanese at the sushi bar, in Vietnamese at the pho restaurant.  He believes in holding a lady’s chair out, and standing when she comes back to the table after powdering her nose.  He believes in brunch.

Brunch was the one meal he always reliably turned out well.  Blessedly, he never felt the need to tweak the Brennan’s recipes for  Eggs Benedict and Brandy Milk Punch, and his flawlessly executed, silky hollandaise was always followed by Bananas Foster, which of course, he flames tableside and serves with BlueBell vanilla ice cream.  He believes in tradition, in quality, in entertaining in a princely sort of way.  Besides the hollandaise, I probably didn’t really learn how to cook from him.  But I sure did learn how to live.

The Perfect Burger

For each burger:

1/3 pound grass-fed ground beef

salt and pepper

2 slices raw cheddar

caramelized onion

1 brioche bun, buttered and toasted

Make patties with the ground beef, using a light touch.  Make a slightly indented center–this keeps the burgers from rounding up in the center when cooking.  Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.  Build a fire on one side of the grill and let the coals burn down to medium.  Start the burgers over direct heat, then move them over to the cooler side of the grill to continue cooking to medium.  When they are close to finished,  cover with slices of cheese and cover the grill to melt the cheese.  Build burgers on buttered brioche buns with caramelized onions.

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments »

Panzanella

June 11, 2010 by farmhousetableblog

I was going to make panzanella, and I wanted plump, voluptuous, vine-ripe tomatoes, warm from the sun, with winey juices and the sweet-tart flavors that only good soil, careful tending and hours of sunlight can create.  Unfortunately, in the summer of 2002, local produce wasn’t easy to find in Southeast Texas.  I wanted my restaurant to be Beaumont’s answer to Chez Panisse.  It sounds funny, but I really wanted it.  I was convinced that we had terroir in Southeast Texas too.  Everyone I knew had grown up eating catfish and gulf shrimp from our local waters, tomatoes, cucuzza squash, and figs from backyard gardens, dewberries and blackberries from early summer picking expeditions, pears and citrus from neighborhood trees.  You have to stop things from growing in Southeast Texas.  Now, I wanted homegrown tomatoes for my restaurant, but the only two options for produce suppliers sold trucked-in goods from far away.  Driving 90 miles each way to Houston was not a viable option.  The larger-scale local farmers I could find only grew rice, rice, and more rice.  Those tomatoes were out there, I knew it.  I started driving past houses on the edge of town slowly, looking for rows of tomatoes–I had the idea that I could find a home gardener with enough bounty to sell.  I became desperate, almost willing to sneak over fences in the dead of night to steal tomatoes like a possum, when I hit paydirt.

Behind the Cracker Barrel on I10 was a modest ranch house with junky cars and yapping weenie dogs in the driveway, and . . . row after row after row of tomatoes.  I squealed into the driveway, kicking up gravel and dust in my haste to beat out any other buyers (which of course, there were none).  An old fella came out to meet me, legs of his jumpsuit hastily stuffed into rubber boots, dogs roiling around his ankles.  ”Shut up, Princess, shut up, Tiny,” he snapped.  He came towards me with an outstretched arm, tomato in hand, and shoved it under my nose.  His eyes gleamed with the zeal of a crusader.  ”Try it!  Take a bite right out of it, like an apple!”  I’m not even sure I was completely out of my car, but I did as I was told.  Tomato juice ran down my chin and my eyes closed in rapture.  I opened them to see him staring at me intently.  ”See?”  he said, as though we had been in the midst of an argument and there was no refuting him.  ”Yes,” I said.  ”You’re right.”

Every time I came, the routine was the same.  Before I was even out of the car, he stomped my way, and shoved something in my face, slicing okra with a rusty old pocketknife, “Bet you haven’t had this heirloom okra–good enough to eat raw, crunchy!  Here, eat it!”  Before long, I started sneaking away from the restaurant between lunch and dinner to visit the little farm.  He’d sold the portion of his land that bordered the freeway, and now he was rich, but you’d never know it.  I’m not even sure he knew it, or remembered who I was between visits.  He was consumed with love for his vegetables, though, and referred to his plants and their produce as “she.”  Parting the leaves of a squash vine, he’d say, “She got a little too much water early on, see how these leaves are yella?  But she’s coming around and see these little bitty squash here?  They’re gonna be real, real purty.”  We stood between the rows, shoes caked with mud, heat and humidity bearing down on us, and I realized here was a kindred spirit, someone maybe even crazier than I was about food and flavor, and where it comes from, and I couldn’t get enough.  Now, years later, the rows at Rain Lily are heavy with tomatoes, and Stephanie is just as consumed with love for everything growing, and I still can’t get enough.

Panzanella

1 loaf ciabatta, cut into cubes

olive oil

salt

tomatoes, a mixture of sizes, shapes and colors

1 small red onion, slivered

1 bunch basil

1 clove garlic, minced

4 Tbs. red wine vinegar

1/3-1/2 c. olive oil

Preheat oven to 400.  Place ciabatta cubes in a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  Toss until bread cubes are evenly coated.  Place in a single layer on a large baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden but still partially soft and chewy.  While bread is baking, Cut tomatoes into various shapes and place in bowl used for tossing bread.  Add slivered red onion.  In a small bowl, whisk vinegar, garlic and olive oil until emulsified.  Season with salt and pepper if desired.  Pour over tomatoes and onions.  When bread cubes are ready, remove from oven and while still hot, pour on top of tomatoes.  Let sit for 15 minutes without stirring so tomatoes release their juices.  Add torn basil leaves, drizzle with vinaigrette and toss everything together.

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 18 Comments »

Summer Fruit Pavlova

June 3, 2010 by farmhousetableblog

I have a lot of cookbooks.  Some people might consider that an understatement, especially my husband, who has hauled them from house to house a ridiculous number of times, but I feel like I can never have enough.  I sleep with cookbooks piled by my bed, dreaming of aioli and brioche, gelato and soffrito. I have spent many hours in deep conversation stove-side with M.F.K. Fisher, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Judy Rodgers, Suzanne Goin, and more.  Cookbook authors and chefs have been my mentors, teachers, and colleagues.  I have traveled with Naomi Dugid and Jeffrey Alford to Asia, learned how to bake bread from Nancy Silverton; Mario Batali has whispered his polenta secrets in my ear.  Cookbooks took the place of cooking school, and they have fueled my passion for food through countless family meals and nightly specials.  Take any one of my books off the shelf and the pages fall open, sticky with sugar and egg on my favorite recipe for banana bread or splattered with tomato sauce on the best bolognese recipe ever.  For the past month or so, we have been living in a (pretty fabulous) “temporary” place, and all my cookbooks are packed away, out of reach.  I’m not a big recipe follower, so I had no idea how much I would miss them for ideas and inspiration, enlightenment and expertise.  In fact, I feel a little adrift.  I’ve always thought of food as narrative–what we eat tells the story of who we are, where we come from, the life we want to live.  For me it isn’t just dinner, but another chapter in the story of my life, a story I share with the people I love, with my community.  All these books that I’ve read cover to cover connect me to that narrative, define who I am.  The spiral bound Many Hands Cooking began the story.  A Christmas gift the year I turned seven, its illustrations of children from all over the world made me feel cosmopolitan and worldly and connected to the larger world through food.  Later on, I read Roy Andries De Groot’s The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth and saw that a cookbook could capture a very specific time and place.  To this day, when anybody mentions Chartreuse, I have to stop myself from saying, I’ve been there. Edna Lewis’s A Taste of Country Cooking followed, then Sam & Sam Clark’s Moro East and The River Cottage Books.  I fell in love with books about homesteading, growing food, canning, preserving, curing.  I loved the idea that I could create a life of quality, with every tiny detail becoming more connected to this land that feeds us.  Food always tells a story–there’s human narrative in every GMO factory-produced corn chip, every heirloom tomato planted and harvested by a hand that you know.  Every bite represents epic, Shakespearean greed or love or determination, human cruelty or the rebirth of hope.  My cookbooks are really guidebooks about living.  Thomas called yesterday to tell me that it would be another month before we could get into our new house.  My silence must have been expressive, but anyway, he knows me better than anyone.  ”I’ll bring you eight boxes from storage,” he said, and I could feel my life falling back into place.

Summer Fruit Pavlova

adapted from Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors

3/4 c. sugar

2 tsp. cornstarch

4 egg whites, room temperature

pinch sea salt

1 tsp. cider vinegar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. blackberries

3 small peaches

sugar for sprinkling fruit

1/2 c. cream

1/2 c. creme fraiche

2 Tbs. honey

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 300.  Mix 1 Tbs. of sugar with cornstarch and set aside.  Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar a little at a time until thick and glossy.  Add the sugar-cornstarch mixture, then fold in vinegar and vanilla.  Make six mounds of meringue on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Using a large spoon, create a nest or bowl shape in each meringue.  Bake for 1 hour, then turn off the oven and let them sit until cool.  Gently pry them off the paper and place on serving platter.  Gently wash berries and peaches.  Slice peaches and place in a bowl, then sprinkle with sugar.  Toss berries in carefully.  Whip cream and creme fraiche with honey and vanilla until it holds soft peaks.  Fill each meringue with whipped cream and top with fruit.  Serve right away.

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Deconstructed Stuffed Squash

May 27, 2010 by farmhousetableblog

Some of the world’s most delicious culinary inventions were born of necessity. Too much, too little, too fresh, too hard to transport?  Taste nirvana. Bacon, smoked salmon, duck confit, wine, whiskey, cheese, hominy, sauerkraut . . . all of these were an inventive solution to the problem of how to make the harvest last longer. Grain was nearly impossible to get across the mountains to population centers, but whiskey wasn’t; milk spoils in a few days, but cheese ages for months and months; bacon and salt pork could see people through from hog butchering time in November until the crops came up in the spring.

Modern refrigeration and global food transport mean we don’t really need such techniques any longer, but it doesn’t mean we have lost our collective taste for them. Life on a farm, even a small one, means we sometimes have much more of a delicate food than we can handle at once. We love for the chickens to eat well, but we can’t stand the thought of throwing anything out, much less growing food just for the chickens, so Mondays are often “pickling” days.  Stephanie, Theresa and Donna, picklers extraordinaire, and sometimes a few other folks, gather in the kitchen to put up endless jars of dilly beans, pepper jelly, bread and butters, pickled fennel, cucumber dills, blackberry compote, marmalade, sweet & spicy carrots . . . and all year long we eat well, thankful for the cool, sweet crunch of a carrot in the hottest days of summer, or the tongue-tingling heat of a pepper when we most need warming in winter and peppers are a distant memory.  Perhaps the loveliest part of the process is that it’s not a solitary enterprise.  All hands are busy and efficient, but not rushed, and conversations unfold in the warm, steamy vinegar and spice-perfumed air at a lazy, old-fashioned pace.  There’s plenty of time for everyone to talk, about everything and nothing in particular–recipes, like this one, or children, partners, politics, good books–our pantries, hearts, and minds filled to overflowing with abundance from the summer garden.

Deconstructed Stuffed Squash

adapted from Nigel Slater’s Tender vol. 1

2-3 zucchini or summer squash (a mix of varieties is fine), washed and cut into thick slices

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 bunch mint, chopped

1 bunch of dill, chopped

1 small handful parsley, chopped

pinch of red pepper flakes or 1 red jalapeno, sliced thin

1 pound ground pork

juice of 1 lemon

olive oil

Place squash with minced garlic and red pepper flakes or sliced jalapeno in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil.  Toss to coat squash with oil.  Heat a large skillet over med-high heat and saute squash quickly until just tender.  Remove from skillet and set aside.  Add more olive oil to skillet, then add pork.  Season with salt and pepper and let brown without stirring too much, so that meat gets caramelized.  When cooked, return squash to skillet, add herbs and combine all gently.  Season to taste with salt and pepper and drizzle with lemon juice.  Serve with steamed brown rice.

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

Roasted Beets with Coriander-Citrus Vinaigrette -and- Indian Potatoes & Spinach

May 19, 2010 by farmhousetableblog

I heard Stephanie’s laugh before I ever laid eyes on her.  Thomas and I had just moved to Austin; we’d read about Dai Due supper clubs, and, intrigued, decided to attend one at Rain Lily Farm.  Poking around this magical little oasis in the middle of the city, I heard a throaty laugh, infectious and inclusive, soft and a little raspy, but full of liveliness and mischief.  I turned toward it, and thus was my life here in Austin defined.  We laugh a lot at The Farmhouse.  Early on in the business planning stages, we decided we would only deal with nice people.  One of the real perks of business ownership, we’ve also used this guiding principal for the other people we bring into the Farmhouse family.  Everyone who works with us is someone we’d gladly choose for a friend.  Our “staff meetings” always involve lots of laughter as well as true listening and time for everyone to share ideas.  Tink Pinkard, our master butcher and warehouse manager, keeps all our wheels turning and continuously inspires us with his commitment to humane animal husbandry and innovative business models.  The ever-essential Jesse Kelly-Landes keeps us organized and straight and manages to run a very successful bakery business on the side–she really is that amazing.  Josh Jones, fleet of foot, is filled with music and eternally enthusiastic, getting deliveries made in record time.  Martha Pincoffs, who knows everyone in the world, and is a smashingly good cook, has been a constant support since I first met her, knife roll in hand, ready to do anything.  And Jody Horton, talented enough to allow us all to see the beauty in the smallest, simplest, everyday things–he makes me laugh a lot too.  That famous magnetic laugh of Stephanie’s draws others into our sphere as well. Amazing people drop by the farm all the time, sometimes bearing funny little gifts.  And our customers . . . I had no idea when we started that the Farmhouse family would grow to include such friendly, warm, talented, and vibrant folks.  At potlucks and picnics, farm tours and happy hours, through this blog, email, facebook, twitter and by phone, I have been amazed at the incredible people we share food with each week.  Sometimes when I’m cooking dinner, I feel like we’re all having one big dinner party–everyone cooking up a storm.

Roasted Beets with Coriander-Citrus Vinaigrette

1 bunch beets, roasted, peeled and sliced

1 bunch spring onions, sliced

1/4 c. pistachios, toasted and coarsely chopped

1/4 c. fresh-squeezed orange juice

2 Tbs. red wine or sherry vinegar

pinch of cinnamon

1 Tbs. freshly toasted coriander seeds

salt & pepper to taste

1/2 c. olive oil

In blender container, combine orange juice, vinegar, cinnamon, and salt and pepper.  With blender running, slowly add olive oil until emulsified.  Add coriander seeds and pulse until crushed but not pulverized.  Arange sliced beets on platter and top with onion slices and pistachios.  Drizzle vinaigrette over and serve.

Indian Potatoes & Spinach

1 pound potatoes, scrubbed and boiled til just tender

1 bunch spring onions, sliced

2 Tbs. grapeseed oil

2 Tbs. butter

2 cloves garlic

1″ piece of ginger, peeled and finely minced

1 tsp. black mustard seeds

1 tsp. coriander seeds

1 tsp. turmeric

3 large handfuls baby spinach or other tender greens

juice of 1/2 lemon

Cut potatoes into quarters or large chunks and set aside.  Heat butter and oil in large skillet.  When butter foams, add onions, garlic, ginger, and spices, and saute until fragrant.  Add potatoes and stir to thoroughly coat with oil and spices.  Meanwhile, place spinach in a large bowl.  Season potatoes with salt to taste.  When they begin to get slightly crisp in places, turn them out on top of spinach in bowl.  Let sit without stirring until spinach wilts, then toss all together, correct for salt, and serve.  Delicious hot or at room temperature.

Beautiful and talented stylist Elizabeth Pecore sets the table.

The table is graced by Mod Green Pod’s Atticus print, designed by the lovely Nancy Mims (whose laugh is also one of my favorites).

Gorgeous serving pieces loaned by aesthetic mastermind Currie Person, proprietress of my favorite store on the planet–Spartan, a jewelbox of a space filled with carefully selected finds for the home.

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

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