Smoked Cochon de Lait, Elote, Chorizo Taco Bowls, Crispy Battered Tofu, Berry Lemonade Bars & More!
It was a cooking week heavy on our homegrown pork, summer veggies and berries, plus ever more pizza!
Cochon de Lait, Fajita Veggies, Red Peas & Elote
This was an absolute incredible spread and it softened the blow of having to harvest a pig much earlier than planned.
One of the pigs born at the beginning April went from normal and healthy to popping a hernia in a day. That’s just how it happens and it’s often genetic and there’s nothing you can really do. There’s a few tricks to try, but we have rolled the dice before and regretted it. So we harvested her last weekend to make sure she wouldn't be entirely wasted/composted if she died from the hernia rupturing.
So that is not the most pleasant thing when discussing cooking ideas, but it’s the reality of farm life sometimes.
Cochon de Lait is technically a suckling pig, still nursing, and this pig was recently weaned, but we rarely actually harvest a suckling pig, so I’m calling it Cochon de Lait. Close enough!
We froze the loin sections and seasoned and slow cooked the front and back legs/shoulders on the smoker and finished it in the oven. No surprise, it was tender as can be.
I also made Sea Island Red Peas with turkey bone broth and salsa in the Instant Pot and a big batch of fajita veggies with green and purple bell peppers, cubanelle peppers and white onions.
We brought the spread to a friend’s house and left them with most of the leftovers, but later in the week we had the rest of the pulled pork and veggies with some sweet corn elote, the first of the season! I did a mayo, lime, cilantro and chili blend for the sauce and parmesan instead of the traditional cojita. Scallions on top, too!
Chorizo Taco Bowls with Black Eyed Peas, Peppers & Corn Salsa
Then we hosted a composting class for fellow farmers on Saturday and went with a similar flavor profile for the lunch spread, this time with chorizo sausage cooked in the oven.
I did Marsh Hen Mill’s black eyed peas for this round, without bone broth in case there were vegetarians. So I used salsa, tomato paste, soy sauce and even brine from my radish salsa to amp up the flavor. And always some kombu seaweed to help with digestibility.
I made a corn salsa with fresh sweet corn sliced off the cob, plus heirloom tomatoes, cilantro, purple bell peppers and jalapeños, white onions, chili lime seasoning and lots of lime juice and zest.
The bowls (really plates) came together with Jasmine rice, the beans, chorizo, sharp cheddar cheese, corn salsa and fermented hot sauce plus sour cream and or my homemade almond and cashew sauce, this time blended with cilantro, chives and jalapeño. Everything was so delicious and was a pretty easy way to feed a crowd!
Large Batch Crispy Battered Tofu
For vegetarians, I also made a big batch of crispy battered tofu. Inspired by this Pinch of Yum Air Fryer Tofu recipe, I tripled the recipe (the batter includes cornstarch, nutritional yeast, soy sauce, oil and spices) and crumbled versus cubed the tofu.
There was more moisture crumbling versus slicing the tofu, so it took longer to get it really crispy, but came out great.
We had a lot leftover and I made sure to season the tofu with just onion and garlic powders and paprika so that the flavor profile would be versatile for leftovers.
So we’ve been eating the black eyed peas and chorizo as taco bowl leftovers but then the tofu with rice, kimchi, Japanese BBQ sauce, spicy mayo and seaweed crispies instead!
Still Perfecting Our Pizza Game!
We’re still constantly making pizza and they just keep getting better and better as we hone our technique with the wood peel and turning them quickly and how heavily to top them!
We had some friends over and did four pizzas with some really good flavor toppings:
A BLT esque pizza with bacon, fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, truffle mayo and basil.
A spinach and artichoke-esque pizza with lemony marinated kale, arugula pesto, marinated artichokes and mozzarella and gouda cheeses.
Andouille, tomato sauce, sautéed bell peppers and olive salad with mozzarella and provolone cheeses.
Italian sausage, roasted eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes, marinated kale, fresh mozzarella and marinated feta.
The funny thing was that of the four of us, we each had a different favorite, which makes me feel like it was a win!
We had some defrosted dough left, so we had a fun lunch pizza date on the following Monday with a BBQ pizza with chives and a caramelized onion, fig jam, brie, basil and balsamic pizza.
Andouille in a Blanket and Basil Vinaigrette
Grant recently had some pigs in a blanket made with pizza dough at Midway Pizza and wanted to recreate in our pizza oven.
This was kind of a last minute Friday night thing but they came out so delicious and it was just cute and novel and fun.
He halved and quartered some leftover Andouille (we decided the quartered was preferred), rolled the dough, cut it into pieces and wrapped around. We pre heated the cast iron a bit and started them in there, knowing it would be easier to turn them in the pan versus straight on the pizza stone.
We had extra dough, so we put some bread cheese in some of them for a doughy mozzarella stick situation that also came out great!
I had also made a basil vinaigrette and the bright, punchy contrast was great to dip them in, along with my homemade almond cashew sauce and a bunch of fresh veggies and more sweet corn.
Lacto-Fermented Bread & Butter Pickle Relish
I always have been more of a dill pickle than a bread & butter pickle person, but Josey’s Goods helped me realize how delicious bread & butter pickles can be with a bunch of spices like turmeric, cinnamon, celery and mustard seeds.
So last year I started making a lacto-fermented relish version of bread and butter pickles, which is amazing on burgers and sausages and even in salad and other sandwiches.
This was pretty cucumber heavy, but I do like a percentage of onions and sweet peppers included. I have done versions in late summer with lots of sweet cherry and lunch box peppers and the natural sweetness of the peppers works really well here.
But the mission here was to use up the bountiful pickling cucumbers, so it was more cucumber this time, with some orange sweet peppers, purple bell and banana peppers, too.
I usually use about three tablespoons of salt to a half gallon of veggies and I also use some kind of sugar for cucumbers to kickstart the fermentation and ensure it ferments faster since cucumbers risk molding more than brassicas like cabbage and radishes.
This time I used some jalapeño fermented honey, along with the spices mentioned above and it went from clear to cloudy and sour (from the probiotics doing their thing) in just three days. I pushed it to a fourth day just because and it came out so great — sour and pickle-y but even though the sugar from the honey gets fermented out, the sweetness from the cinnamon and earthiness from the turmeric really comes through and makes a great balanced relish.
Black & Blueberry Lemonade Bars
Citrus curd bars are so refreshing as a summer dessert!
I started making these with NYT Cooking Pink Grapefruit Bars last spring and then switched to these Strawberry Lemonade Bars for strawberry season. After making both, I do like the crust better on the grapefruit bars, so I continue using that on future batches, but I only bake for about 30 minutes, versus the 40-45 minutes it calls for.
And then I did look up a few recipes for blackberry lemonade bars but ended up just amending the filling for the Strawberry Lemonade Bars, subbing a little over a half cup each blackberries and blueberries for the strawberries and adding some lime zest and juice to the lemon zest and juice portion.
They came out perfect! The fuchsia color is fun, bright lemonade flavor is perfect for summer and I love that it uses a bunch of eggs since we always have extra cracked eggs.
Blueberry Lime Galette with Rye Crust & Homemade Ice Cream
For the pizza night with friends I mentioned, I also made my first fresh blueberry dessert of the season (before the berry lemonade bars!).
I cooked the blueberries on the stove a bit first with lime juice and zest, sugar and cornstarch to make sure they really jammed up and didn’t bleed everywhere in the galette crust.
For the dough I did a basic pie crust with Barton Springs rye flour as a portion of the flour, brushed with cream and sprinkled with turbinado sugar on top.
And then stovetop method did indeed work great because the filling really stayed together in sliceable form once it was baked!
We also are in our ice cream era, so we had homemade vanilla ice cream with it and it was a dream. Life doesn’t get much better, right?