Labor Day feast

Inspired by having company, we did a barbecue for Sunday of Labor Day weekend. The meat was simple; the vegetables were almost all from the garden. Western-style pork ribs marinated in Stubbs' barbecue sauce. A couple chuck-eye steaks. The queen of the barbecue: sweet corn. We don't have the room to grow it, so we've gotten a few bushels over the past few weeks which we barbecue and freeze. First the ears are soaked in a bucket for an hour or more, then barbecued in the husks. They don't need much cooking but even if they get singed, that only accentuates the flavor in the kernels nearby. Cut off the kernels and freeze in bags. Cole slaw – thinly sliced cabbage, sweet onions, and grated carrots lightly dressed with olive oil and cider vinegar, and sprinkled with a few chunks of apple, raisins, and roasted sunflower seeds. Potato salad with hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, and basil. Broccoli-tomato salad: Sauteed the broccoli lightly with garlic. Added tamari and balsamic vinegar, and then chunks of tomatoes. Added sliced olives and goat cheese. We grew the tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, broccoli, onions, garlic and basil. I gave up growing carrots. I can't grow everything well.

rhubarb pie

It's Fourth of July so will do something traditional - rhubarb pie! This time I'll put in some serviceberries since they were abundant this year and last. Although I was eating them fresh last week, we still had some in the freezer from last year when Steve put a tarp down and shook the tree. I've been laboriously separating stems from berries, so just a few will go in. They do make it extra special - a few red gems thrown in!

The serviceberry, by the way, is a wonderful landscape tree. Native to eastern North America, it's covered with delicate white blossoms late April or early May. The berries are delicious and very popular with the birds and squirrels. In the fall it's astounding as the leaves turn from red and purple to burnt orange.

Whatever fruit is available for a pie, I fall back on the same basic recipe. The pie crust recipe comes from Craig Claiborne's The New York Times Cookbook and the filling part is based on the fruit pie recipe in Let's Cook it Right by Adelle Davis.

Pie crust:
Stir together: 2 cups flour and 1 tsp salt
Add: 2/3 cup shortening
Mix until lumps are no bigger than little peas.
Sprinkle in ice water (about 1/3 cup but it depends) and mix until it stays together. I start mixing with forks and end up with my hands making balls.
Form two balls - one bigger than the other, and cover and put them in the refrigerator for an hour or more. It makes it easier to roll out.

This next step is probably not necessary but it prevents a soggy crust.
Preheat oven to 425°. Roll out the bigger ball for the bottom crust and put it in a 9" pie pan. Flute the edges. Pierce with a fork intermittently over the surface for air to escape. Place a smaller pan like a cakepan on top to keep the crust from rising. Cover with foil and put in the oven for 8 minutes. Remove cakepan and foil and bake for another two minutes. Take it out of the oven.

Fruit pie:
Preheat oven to 375°
4 cups fruit - cut up
1/2 to 1 cup sugar depending on sweetness of fruit
3 to 4 Tbsp whole wheat pastry flour depending on wetness of fruit
dash of salt
Mix together and add to pie crust. Roll out top crust and cut into long strips and lay them criss-cross on top.
Bake for about 40 minutes til it looks done.

For the rhubarb I used the full cup of sugar. Sometimes I make pies with fruit I had previously canned, like peaches and plums, and they already had sugar so then I just 1/4 cup sugar to the pie.

early summer eats

As usual, the night's menu revolves around what is fresh in the garden. Lately there's a lot of peas: sweet peas and snap peas. The snap peas are tempting for a crunch right off the vine, but cooking them every so slightly really brings out the sweetness. I generally put just a little oil on the fry pan and get it good and hot; sauté the snap peas briefly, sometimes with minced garlic, and then toss on soy sauce. They're good in a salad, and of course in a stir-fry with other things over rice.

I remember clearly the first time I tasted fresh sweet peas out of the pod. I was in junior high and ironically my classmate from Manhattan shared some on our end-of-the-year school outing taking the boat around the island. I was skeptical at first as the cooked peas my mother served were only surpassed in vileness by the cooked spinach. But these were a totally different thing, and the beginning of an awakening to fresh vegetables.

The sweet peas go well into a spring tabouli. I don't even cook the little ones but mix them into the still-warm bulghur. The basic recipe I borrow from The New Moosewood Cookbook, but then I vary the vegetables.

1 cup bulghur
1 ½ cups boiling water
1 tsp salt
black pepper, to taste
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed

Add the boiling water to the bulghur and cover and let sit 30 minutes or more. Mix in the other ingredients above. Then the recipe says to refrigerate before adding the vegetables, but that might be a more essential step when tomatoes and cucumbers are to be added. This time of year, I don't necessarily refrigerate at this stage, but toss in the peas, and some parsley and maybe mint. Dill, why not? Whatever I got that seems suitable. A few chickpeas are nice. Green onions, yes!!

Tonight are a lot of collard greens. Torn from the stems and cut into ribbons; add them to the garlic sauté, and then liquid – this time broth from the hambone that had been secreted in the freezer for months. Some are added to tonight's black bean soup; and the rest saved for another day in the freezer.