Fun Playing With Garden Tomatoes in a Cobbler

This post is a few weeks late, but we still have some luscious garden tomatoes ripening in the house, and basil in the garden - hopefully some of you do also (or can still get from the farmers' markets) - because this recipe is so good, we made it four times in two weeks!

I stumbled upon Tomato Cobbler on Seriouseats.com, here. The recipe originated with cookbook author Lisa Fain, and can be found in her book The Homesick Texan Cookbook.  Ms. Fain rightly wondered if cobbler, traditionally a sweet ending filled with fruit, would work as a savory when made with garden tomatoes and cooked in a cast-iron skillet. After sharing the recipe with Bob, he turned it into even greater deliciousness with a few garden tweaks. 

He first followed the recipe exactly. The prescribed ingredients are as follows:

1 pound tomatoes, peeled, cored, and diced or 2 cups canned diced tomatoes, drained
1 jalapeño chile, seeds and stems removed, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup chopped cilantro
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon lime juice
Salt and black pepper, to taste
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick)
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup whole milk

which yielded this:

Here is is served up for dinner with some of our Breychak's Farm Sausage, from the grill:

We devoured it, but felt we could do better. We also skipped the cast iron skillet, concerned about the tomatoes reacting, and used a three quart All Clad Chef's Pan. So in some ways, this post is about the process of playing with food, and how by being unafraid to experiment, you can sometimes improve someone else's recipe.

For the second incarnation, Bob doubled the amount of tomatoes to 2 cups. He also added some garden corn kernels and reduced the liquid in half. This version was more delicious, but a little too wet:

By the time we made it a third time, for my parents in NY, we'd decided to cut the tomato back to 1.5 cups and to substitute garden basil for the impossible-to-grow-in-Northeast Ohio cilantro. Perfection!

We made a triple-size batch of the cobbler for our friends in Jamaica Plain Co-housing, but it was devoured by our 30+ guests before I could snap a photo of it!

So, the next time you have garden tomatoes and basil (and perhaps corn) on your hands - give this amazing dish a try. It works as a side (as seen above) or drizzle with cheese of your choice and melt to make it a one-pot meal (I enjoyed the leftovers from the first one that way, with cheddar).

1.5 cups tomatoes, peeled, cored, and diced
1 jalapeño chile, seeds and stems removed, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup chopped basil or cilantro
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon lime juice
Kosher Salt and black pepper, to taste
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick)
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
.5 cup whole milk (we used 2% from Snowville Creamery)

Fresh corn off the cob

To make the cobbler:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Toss together the diced tomatoes (together with their juices - don't let them get away!), diced jalapeño, garlic, basil or cilantro, cumin, and lime juice. Add Kosher salt and black pepper to taste.

3. Melt the butter in a 2.5-3qt. oven-safe skillet or Chef's Pan, on low heat. Once the butter is melted, remove the pan from the heat.

4. In a bowl, bring together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and Kosher salt. Add the milk and stir. Add and stir in corn, if using. Pour the batter over the melted butter in the skillet. Do not stir the batter. Spoon the tomato mixture on top of the batter and again, do not stir. Bake for about 30 minutes, uncovered, and remove from the oven when golden, brown and delicious!

Fun playing with garden tomatoes, corn and basil never tasted this good!

Fun Playing with the Bounty of the Garden

Is the fall equinox here already? Almost. The garden is turning down, and I have barely shown you any of the goodness Bob worked so hard to produce. So - at the risk of making all of our mouths water for things soon to be gone until next summer - here are some of the highlights:

Garden BLT:

Bob's Made From Scratch White Bread

 
Assorted Garden Tomatoes - Black Crim (our favorite) Front and Center, the Yellows are Azoychka

Garden Lettuce and Tomato Slices

Trader Joe's Organic Mayo with Chopped Garden Chinese Flowering Chives

The chives lent a new and crunchy dimension to the already fabulous BLT. Bacon came from Czuchraj Meats at the West Side Market.


Caprese Salad - Garden Tomatoes, Fresh Mozzarella, Basil, Balsamic, EVOO, Salt & Pepper


Slovenian Sausage (Czuchraj Meats), Ohio City Pasta with Garden Tomatoes, Grilled Long Island Peach with Butter


Whole Wheat and Long Island Peach Pancakes






More Czuchraj Meats Slovenian Sausage, Grilled, with Garden Tomato, Green Beans and Pepper.


Garden Lima Beans




Simmered Lima Beans Sauteed in Olive Oil with Garden Peppers

We're not done yet, but we feel the minutes ticking down for our precious plants. Gotta play with your food while the sun shines (and the garden grows)!

I Have Given Myself Over to the Pork Side, Episode I - Bacon

Cue the Darth Vader music! I now realize that it is pointless to resist. I have given myself over to the PORK side!

As most of you know, I was raised in a Conservative Jewish house on Long Island, in New York suburbia. We did not keep kosher (though my father's mother did), but we generally observed quite a few of the dietary rules imposed by Kashruth - more as a cultural than religious matter (my mother wouldn't know what to do with a sausage or pork roast if you gift-wrapped it for her). Drinking a glass of milk with a meat meal, for example, seemed gross (and it still does, to me), and I never put cheese on a cold meat sandwich - but that doesn't keep me from enjoying veal parmigiana. And other than the occasional package of bacon (after all, who doesn't like bacon), you would seldom find any shellfish or pig parts in the house where I grew up. Ironically, after I moved out, my mother because enamored of ham and cheese sandwiches; ham had always been an unidentified object in our house, and I always passed on it at school lunch. My pre-marital exposure to pork was mostly bacon (yum!) and the occasional taste of mass-market sausage (not so yum).

Since I moved to Cleveland in 1995, I have been exposed to a world of artisanal pork, and have tasted many varieties of chops, roasts, sausages, and charcuterie with pleasure. It was with this background that we ordered half a Berkshire hog from Blue Egg Farmer Kathy Breychak this year.

Our first tastes of our hog were mostly bacon. We also sampled some sausage, which we ate like burgers:

Inspired by Michael Rulman's BLT Challenge, we enjoyed a few amazing BLT's once the tomatoes came in this summer.

BLT: Garden Lettuce, Tomato, & Hungarian Pepper, Bob's White Toast, Breychak Bacon, Mayo

None of our BLTs would have been eligible for Ruhlman's contest, because the butcher of the hog smoked the bacon (and the mayo was Hellman's). These were some of the most delicious moments of our summer and fall, though.

BLT "Deluxe" - with Farmers Market Egg:





 







And finally - the last BLT of the season - on Bob's Freshly Baked Wheat Bread - I couldn't bear to toast it!


















 






And now, summer is over and the tomatoes are gone. Sniff.

We have used the bacon grease in so many kitchen applications; the smell and taste have been everywhere - no old coffee can for this liquid gold! I tried - I tried to resist my feelings. But the rich, sweet smell and taste of the Pork Side had me in its grasp. Would there be no salvation? Save me Obi-Wan Kenobi - you are my only hope!

To be continued . . . .

More Fun Playing with Holiday Food

I have been remiss in blogging lately - so busy with so many things! The most recent busy-ness has been the Jewish New Year - Rosh Hashonah, which literally means "the head of the days." We enjoyed two nights of friends and their family, and some terrific food. Thanks to my friend and fellow blogger Tom of Exploring Food My Way, I knew I didn't need to take a lot of photos this time around. Follow the link in the prior sentence to see Tom's photos and account of the pre-dinner festivities.

I did take a few shots, which I'll share with you:


Dinner Table - Each Place with a Ramekin of Ohio Honey


Garden Cherry Tomatoes and Horseradish, Gefilte Fish with Carrots

Once again, Mister Brisket delivered with wonderful raw fish for the Gefilte.


Platter of Assorted Garden Tomatoes with Garden Basil, and Garden Radishes and Peppers



Note to self - remove the reflective spoon from the plate before snapping picture when next you photograph.



I will stop here, so as not to spoil Tom's Part II post. This is a time of year about reflection and renewal. I have been doing a lot of that lately. I resolve for the New Year (5770, folks - the sixties are over) to continue playing with my food!

Fun Playing (One-Handed) With Holiday Food and Good Friends

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately - lots of time devoted to PT and rehabbing my shoulder. I've got a backlog of photos to share!

When last we left our intrepid food lover, she had just survived catering a weekend party for 65 people one-handed, with the help of some very special people. As the calendar would have it, Rosh Hashonah was scheduled to begin the next day, Monday September 29, at sundown. What to do?

As it happened, my good friend Linda, who has recently been through some tsorres (troubles) of her own, had neither the energy nor the desire to deal with her usual family holiday celebration. Together, we concocted the perfect plan - she'd bring some ingredients to my house on Monday morning, and we'd prepare our holiday meal together in my more spacious kitchen, then we'd enjoy a quiet New Year celebration with just our two couples the first night, and another friend in addition the second night.

I wasn't very camera-able at this point, so most of the photos are courtesy of our dear friend Edsel, who was the "other friend" the second night!

I did take photos of our beautiful soup pot - filled with lovely vegetables, and one pullet from Linda's freezer (which had started life at the Breychak Blue Egg Farm) and one pullet from the one and only Mister Brisket. Together with a few Blue Egg chicken feet, it was going to be something special:



Linda made the Maztoh Balls, using the recipe from her book, Onions, Onions, Onions. This is not the way I make them - she adds onion, schmaltz (chicken fat) and seltzer to the basic egg and matzoh meal batter - and she doesn't separate her eggs. I was game to try something different!


Linda's Matzoh Balls Cooking


The Festive Holiday Table

Sliced apples and Ohio Honey honey are first, together with Challah from On the Rise Bakery. Also, sliced hot peppers from the garden.


Gefilte Fish and Garden Horseradish

Thanks to Mister Brisket for providing the delicious raw fish mixture!


Garden Tomato Salad

This was surprisingly tasty with the addition of Thai Basil (I thought Bob was nuts when he told me that was how he was making it).


Chicken Soup, Matzoh Ball, Carrots, Noodles


Linda's Citrus-Braised Brisket



Linda did the brisket at her place over the weekend - a gorgeous hunk of grass-fed meat from Miller Livestock. She used a combination of North African spices and citrus for an interesting and tasty spin on the traditional holiday brisket.


Bob's Potato Kugel

Delicious, as always.

We were too stuffed both nights to cut up the garden melons we'd been gifted with, so no dessert (well - we did kinda dig into the leftover Chocolate Covered Bacon with Almonds the second night - but don't tell, since that wouldn't be kosher).



Since there was lots of soup left, we froze some, and I made another batch of Matzoh Balls for Yom Kippur the following weekend. It was sublime!