Zucchini Cornbread

My mom would make cake-like cornbread back in the day. For the life of me I can't remember with what main dish she would serve it. We were Euro-mutts of a definite haole/gringo variety, so it definitely wasn't anything southwestern, as any spice hotter than grocery store brand pre-ground black pepper would make my Celtic druid hide burst into flames. And we didn't do a lot of traditional southern cooking, despite growing up mostly south of the Mason-Dixon line. I didn't have a standard against which to judge it, but I thought my mom's cornbread was the best in the world. It didn't have the heavy creaminess from a gallon of sour cream, or the authenticity of freshly roasted corn. But it was perfectly uniform like a slice of pound cake, didn't have that unripe-banana mouth-feel that some cornbreads have, and was oh-so-sweet. I'd have two or three slices with dinner, then sneak a square out of the room folded up in a napkin to enjoy in my room or on the porch.

Found out later, all she did was take a basic Betty Crocker recipe and up the sugar and add some vanilla extract.

Been on a bit of a summer squash kick lately, and nine times out of ten, when I get into a rut, it's because I just can't think of anything else to do, out of a lack of inspiration. But this time, it's simply because the Mexican greys and gourmet globes and all of the rest have been so dang good all summer long.

The shredded or chopped zucchini gives the bread some moistness without adding sour cream or extra butter, and seems to be a natural fit for either straight-up corn or corn and jalapeño bread.

And like all good non-recipes, you can play with a couple of the numbers. You can go with as little as half a cup or as much as two cups of zucchini, which can be either shredded or finely chopped. Add an ear's worth of freshly roasted corn, a half cup of frozen, or none of the above. Cut the sweeteners in half or double them. And go a little crazy with the chiles.

Goes great with yesterday's Hot and Spicy Buffalo Chili.

High Plains Zucchini Cornbread, adapted from The Baking Sheet.

½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
¾ cup corn meal (white or yellow)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ cup brown sugar
1 cup buttermilk
(or one cup whole milk, one Tbs lemon juice or cider vinegar, left to stand for 10 minutes)
2 eggs *
2 Tbs molasses
3 Tbs melted butter
Shredded zucchini: 1-2 large or 2-4 small.** (If all you have are mediums, you're on your own!)
Optional: ¼ cup each of corn and/or diced chili peppers

* The Baking Sheet called one egg + one egg white, but I hate discarding half an egg. If anyone tries it with the one egg white, let me know what you think.
** Several recipes called for squeezing out the water from the zucchini. I skipped that part and thought it was fine, and not sure what squeezing out the water would get me.


Heat your oven to 400º and grease an 8 inch square baking pan.

In the good old large bowl, whisk your flours and cornmeal, then baking powder and baking, then salt and brown sugar.

In a separate bowl, whisk your buttermilk, eggs, molasses and butter until smooth and uniform.

Slowly pour the wet into the dry, and stir gently until just combined. Then add the zucchini (and corn and/or chiles, if you're so inclined) and just barely stir again until it looks all even. Pour the batter into your pan, spreading if needed to even everything out.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until it looks like it's just about to brown on top. Cool for a few minutes before slicing.

Freezes quite nicely if you wrap it tightly in a zip-lock or plastic wrap. Wrap in foil and warm in a 200º oven before serving.

Serve on the side of a big bowl of chili.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cake

Can't miss fall dessert.


3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 ounces bittersweet or semisweet
chocolate chips
1 15-ounce can pumpkin
3/4 cup butter (melted)
6 eggs, slightly beaten

Molasses Glaze:
1/4 cup butter
1∕3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup or dark-color
corn syrup
2 tablespoons molasses

Heat oven to 350° F. With nonstick spray, generously coat a 10-inch Bundt pan and set aside.
Measure 1/2 cup of the flour into a small bowl, and add the chocolate chips. Toss to coat.
In a large bowl, combine the remaining flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, spices (cinnamon, ginger, cloves), baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a medium bowl combine the pumpkin, melted butter, and eggs. Add the pumpkin mixture to the flour mixture, and stir until combined. Then add the chocolate / flour mixture and stir until combined. Pour the batter into the Bundt pan.
Bake for 60–70 minutes. It is ready when a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean, but you already knew that, didn’t you? Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and cool for 30 minutes.
Prepare the molasses glaze by melting, in a small saucepan, the butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, and molasses. Bring to a simmer, then cook uncovered for three minutes or until slightly thickened. Cool for five minutes, then spoon over the cooled cake.

Improv Blueberry Bars

One of these days, I'll know what I'm doing. Talking in general terms there, but if you want one specific, you could start with understanding the chemistry of how simple house hold items, like flour and eggs and oils, respond to heat. I mean, I've only been applying heat to food and soon-to-be-food substances for half a century now ... you'd think I'd have paid attention maybe once or twice as to what exactly was going on inside that black box on the wall of the kitchen.

I always thought baking was all about following directions to the T. (Why the T? Why not the S?) But when you can't follow them exactly, because you need an ingredient substitution or don't have the right kind of pan, then you need to actually know what you're doing. Which I don't. I guess it's kinda like jazz. The secret to improvisation is a thorough understanding of the fundamentals. If you're going to cross the line, you have to know where the line is.

So we've been playing around with some desserts yesterday, with delicious albeit less than photographic results. Made a peach pie with Palisade peaches, following the basic peach pie recipe: standard pie shell plus a filling of peaches, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, butter, and flour.


But these were Palisade peaches ... twice as juicy as your standard Georgia, South Carolina, or California peach. So the pie tasted great, but it a little sloppy. Could have used a little tapioca or maybe some more flour. Something to account for these specific peaches.



Same thing with a wonderful blueberry bar recipe I saw at One Ordinary Day. Check out her pix over at her site. Looks perfect as a dessert or snack. Looks like something that would disappear at a family gathering or that would keep in the freezer for quite some time. Whole wheat flour, fresh fruit ... just plain cool all the way around.

Gave the ingredients a quick scan ... yep, got 'em all. So started cranking out a batch without a worry in the world. And mixing the batter couldn't have been easier.

Last step: spread the batter into a 10.5"x 15" jelly roll pan ... oops! No such item in my kitchen. Not a big deal ... can just use a rimmed baking sheet, yeah? So I spread the batter onto a baking sheet ... a 12" x 17" baking sheet. Oops! Only around fifty square inches difference there. Not enough batter to make it to the edge. Dug around and found ... an enameled lasagna pan. That should work, yeah?

Well, it sort of did. But the lasagna pan takes a lot longer to heat up than a simple metal sheet, so while I got a nice crispy top layer, the bottom didn't firm up. Had to stick it back in for another 15 minutes at a lower temp to get the bottom fully cooked without burning the top. Ahhh, well, there you go ... if I had thought about the physics for two seconds, I would have seen that coming. But I still wouldn't have known the right time / temp combo to fix it without trial and error. Because I'm no Miles Davis.

In the pantheon of kitchen disasters, this little experiment doesn't even rate a footnote. My bars weren't as pretty as Michelle's, but they tasted great. And I'd like to experiment a little bit more, maybe make them even more shortbready. But it would be nice, one day, to have a full grasp of the fundamentals so I'd know what was going to happen when I changed Step X into Step Y.

OOD's Blueberry Cookie Bars

½ cup light oil

¼ cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar

(I actually used 1 cup sugar + 2/3rds cup of agave nectar)

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract or one vanilla bean pod

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

¼ tsp baking soda

2-3 cups blueberries or mixed berries (fresh if you got 'em, frozen works just as well, but as always, use them frozen, not thawed.)

Heat your oven to 350º. Lightly grease a 10½"x 15" jelly roll pan.

Mix your flours and baking soda in a medium bowl. Then cream the oil, butter, and sugar in a large bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, and beat well.

Add the flour mix slowly, gently mixing as you do.

Spread ⅔ of your mixture into your pan and then add your berries.

Spoon the remaining batter on top of the berries — no mixing required, because the batter will spread out as it bakes.




Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the top is golden. Allow to cool in the pan, then slice and serve.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Spent the weekend on M's folks' farm, and finally got to watch her mom make a pie from start to finish. Typically, we're showing up late and the pie's already in the oven. This time, we got there late again ... but she made the pie the next day, so for once, we were early ... well, early for tomorrow, if that can still count as early.

Anyhoo ...


I'm amazed by rhubarb. It sells for around $3 / lb for conventional in most grocery stores, which isn't bad. The thing is, it's the easiest thing in the world to grow. You plant it, and it grows. Basic stuff.

And apparently I have a rather unconventional sense of beauty, because I think it's a beautiful plant. Big and bold, assertive, staking it's claim. Most folks, though, think of it more as a cross between a weed and a shrub ... a shreed, if you will. Ungainly and gangly, with no apparent symmetry or form. But I appreciate it's strength and perseverance, which more than make up for not being a leggy super-model of the plant world.


In a world that favored function over form, everyone would grow rhubarb right in front of their front porch, or as a divider between their yard and the neighbors. Ugly? Yeah, right, call it ugly when you're having yet another free pie or cobbler, courtesy this shreed that keeps coming back year after year.

For more on the wheres and whyfors of rhubarb, check out this. The key point is, rhubarb is about the tartest thing you'll ever taste, but the common misconception is that you have to kill it with tons of sugar to tame it down. But tart and sweet aren't like a pH factor — you can't just add them together until you get a neutral. Too much sugar kills the tartness of the rhubarb, and you just get an overly sweet pie. You really don't want to use any more sugar than you would for a peach pie of the same size, just enough to take the edge off without drowning it.

Here's the original family recipe:





And if you can't read the 3x5 card, here's another version:

Strawberry/Rhubarb Pie

1.5 cup sugar
4 Tbs minute tapioca
1/4 tsp salt
2+cups rhubarb
2+cups strawberries


Pastry shell for top/bottom
2 cups flour
2/3 cup + 2tbs crisco
1/2 tsp salt
5 Tbs cold water

Optional
1Tbs butter

Combine sugar /tapioca/salt.
Add fruit, mix well, let stand.
Spoon fruit into pastry shell.
Optional: dot with butter





For the pie crust, it's just: mix flour and salt, cut in shortening, sprinkle with water and you toss it with a fork, gather into a ball and roll into a shell.








Bake at 375 for about 40 mins. Watch the edge of the crusts; if the edges start to get too dark, remove from the oven, cover with strips of foil, and return to the oven. Wait for the fruit to really bubble or the rhubarb will be crunchy.

Peach Pie

Betty Crocker's 9 inch Pastry shell

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
⅓ cup plus 1 Tbs shortening
2-3 Tbs cold water

Measure flour and salt into bowl. Cut in shortening thoroughly. Sprinkle in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing until all flour is moistened and dough almost cleans side of bowl (1 to 2 teaspoons water can be added if needed).

Gather dough into ball; shape into flattened round on lightly floured cloth-covered board. (for Two-crust Pie, divide dough in half and shape into 2 flattened rounds.) With floured stockinet-covered rolling pin, roll dough 2 inches larger than inverted pie pan. Fold pastry into quarters; unfold and ease into pan.

For One-crust Pie: Trim overhanging edge of pastry 1 inch from rim of pan. Fold and roll pastry under, even with pan; flute. Fill and bake as directed in recipe.

For Two-crust Pie: Turn desired filling into pastry lined pie pan. Trim overhanging edge of pastry 1/2 inch from rim of pan. Roll second round of dough. Fold into quarters; cut slits so steam can escape. Place over filling and unfold. Trim over-hanging edge of pastry 1 inch from rim of pan. Fold and roll top edge under lower edge, pressing on rim to seal; flute. Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil last 15 minutes of baking. Bake as directed in recipe.

Note: If using self-rising flour, omit salt. Pie crusts made with self-rising flour differ in flavor and texture from those made with plain flour.
Note: If possible, hook fluted edge over edge of pie pan to prevent shrinking and help keep shape.
Note: Simply roll dough out on wax paper, invert dough and wax paper into pie dish, and peel off wax paper.

Filling:

5 cups sliced fresh peaches
1 tsp lemon juice
1 cup sugar
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ tsp cinnamon
2 Tbs butter

Heat oven to 425°. Prepare pastry. Mix peaches and lemon juice. Stir together sugar, flour and cinnamon; mix with peaches. Turn into pastry-lined pie pan; dot with butter. Cover with top crust which has slits cut in it; seal and flute. Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil last 15 minutes of baking.

Bake 35 to 45 minutes, or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust.

Reference: Betty Crocker’s Cookbook - 1972, Page 316.