I was lucky enough to get my grandmother’s journal with the handwritten recipes from her mother, sisters and friends. They bring back such great memories of my childhood. From their wonderful cakes and pies to the foods they “put by” in the summer such as corn relish, chow chow and onion hack, each one brings back memories of lazy summer days, holidays and birthdays. Many of the recipes just have ingredients, but no instructions. So I’m going through and filling in the blanks as I make these wonderful treats from my past, so that I can share them with friends and pass them on to my family.
Since corn is finally abundant and really sweet, I decided to make my grandmother’s sweet and spicy corn relish. I love it on hot dogs, sausage sandwiches and on top of pulled pork sandwiches in place of the usual cole slaw. It’s also a great side with chicken and pork.
8 cups of yellow corn kernals (scraped from 10 – 12 ears)
3 cups apple cider vinegar
1 ½ cups sugar
2 sweet red peppers, chopped
1 large red onion, chopped
1 bunch green onions, chopped (white and green parts)
2 jalepeno peppers, chopped fine
6 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 Tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon chopped cilantro
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley
In a large pot, bring about 2 quarts of water to a boil. Don’t add salt to the water as it will make the corn tough. Blanche the corn for about 2 minutes, drain.
Mix corn with all except for cilantro and parsley. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 25 minutes.
Ladle into sterilized jars and process in a hot water bath for 15 minutes.
You can eat it right away, but it’s better if allowed to sit in a cool dark place for a couple of weeks. It will last about a year.
Fruit and Vegie Delivery
I've begun to write recipes for the Takehome fruit and veggie boxes delivered weekly from The Fruitguys. I enjoy the challenge of creating recipes from a list of ingredients using inspirations from old family recipes and my favorite flavors. You can see the recipes I did for the week of September 2nd on their website, http://www.thefruitguys.com/. I've also done a couple of new recipes inspired by this week's picks.
Since the box included multi-colored carrots and Warren loves carrot cake, I pulled out my grandmother’s recipe for carrot bread that I haven't had in years. It’s a quick easy bread that’s amazing warm with butter or orange marmalade on it. He said that he liked it even better than carrot cake! (He's not much of a frosting man)
Gram’s Carrot Bread
1 cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup grated carrot
½ cup raisins or chopped nuts
Preheat oven to 350.
Beat sugar and oil together until well blended. Add egg and vanilla and beat for about 1 minute.
Whisk together dry ingredients. With mixer on low, add to oil egg mixture. Add carrots and raisins or nuts and mix until just blended.
Spread into an 8” loaf pan. Bake for about 50 – 55 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.
The box also included plums and lavender and since I had already gotten plums from the farmers' market I decided to make Lavender Plum Sorbet. It’s refreshing and the lavender adds a sweet note in the background.
Lavender Plum Sorbet
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
1 sprig lavender
4 cups of chopped plums
1 Tablespoon plum liqueur (optional)
Lavender Simple Syrup: In a small saucepan mix the sugar and water. Bring to a boil and continue boiling until sugar is melted. Remove from the heat and add the lavender. Set aside to cool.
Put the plums through fine mesh food mill to remove the skin. Strain the simple syrup into the plums, add the liqueur and freeze according to your ice cream maker directions.
Can't wait to see what the farmers' markets and The Fruitguys have in store for me this week.
