Subtlety in a Summer Supper: Lavender-and-corn and summer squash.

[fish_echo]

There was a farmer's market today and I went, as I like to do. As is my usual custom, I did a quick circuit of the market to see who was selling what and for what prices (and to sort of mentally compose menus etc) and then did a second circuit wherein I actually bought things. This entire post exists because the first booth I went past had lavender (which is unusual) and I thought to myself, 'oh, I could do something with that!' I spent the rest of my first circuit coming up with a rough sketch, which of course got radically altered once I got home and conferred with the rest of the refrigerator contents and smelled/tasted how it all was cooking up, but eh, so it goes. The point of that ramble was to say: um, not really directions so much as a rough accounting of what I did?

There are two dishes here, the lavender-and-corn and the summer squash. They go rather well together and combine to make a light supper, although if you'd rather have a full meal, I'd suggest adding a nice toasted starch-- ideas I contemplated were: naan, lightly toasted cornbread, a very not-rich biscuit, fresh tortillas, or maybe a simple quesadilla. (Um, yeah, and I also was thinking that a bit of my father's homemade beef jerky would have gone quite well too. Which is clearly not a starch. So, um, let your tummy guide you.)


QUICK DESCRIPTIONS

Recipe 1: Corn with Lavender

A subtle play of flavours in a refreshing summery dish. The warm and soft corn is nicely complimented by the cool and crisp lemon cucumber. It requires a little bit of time and attention during the cooking but isn't inherently difficult.

Recipe 2: A Basic Summer Squash Sauté

Quick, easy, tasty.

Time and serving sizes for making both
1.5 hr-ish
2 people for supper

Photos
I took pictures with my phone, but it's new and I'm having a devil of a time getting it to talk to my computer. Once I get around to figuring that out, I'll update this with pictures. When I do that, I'll drop a quick note to the comm whenever that happens, because I know some people find pictures helpful.


RECIPE 1: CORN WITH LAVENDER

Ingredients
fresh lavender (~9 stems)
olive oil
raw corn on the cob (2 ears)
piñon nuts (aka: pine nuts, pinoli, pignoli) (a handfulsworth)
leek (1)
lemon cucumber (1)

Methods
Prep

1. Ahead of time, strip the lavender blossoms from the stems and put in the olive oil to soak. Um, not too much, not too little? I used maybe a cupped palm-full? I don't think it's too crucial... Anyway, I did this about an hour before I started cooking. I didn't think to warm the oil on the stove before adding the lavender-- I should have!
2. Toast the piñon nuts: put the raw nuts in a pan (no oil needed, any sort of material pan can be used) on medium heat. Stir frequently. Keep watch as lightest brown spots develop (yay! that heralds deliciousness!) and now keep stirring nearly constantly, keeping an eagle-eye out so that you can pull the pan off the heat once the nuts develop medium brown spots. (You want to make sure you don't over-cook them, they can go from medium brown to veryverydark brown (ie, burnt) sadly quickly. If you're concerned that you might overcook, you can always lower the heat towards the end.)
3. Cut the leek stalk (the white and light greenish parts) lengthwise and then cut each half into sections 0.5cm thick. (And actually I think it's better in this dish when the coins become disaggregated in the pan, so no worries about this step, just cut it to pieces.)
4. Take two really fresh and deliciously sweet looking ears of sweet corn. Then get really sad that they were stored in a plastic bag and so have mold in spots. Realise this means no corn on the cob. Remove the scattered bad bits. And then cut the kernels off the cob, cutting as close to the cob as possible. There will always be some deliciousness left behind. Make a second pass with the knife, if need be. Always end by taking the back (not the blade!) of the knife and running it down the cob, so that the germ, additional kernel, and a little bit of cornwater comes out. Save all of this.
5. Dice the lemon cucumber. Realise that this means basically 'scoop out the seedy bit' (keep it) and then dice the remainder. (I skinned mine because the rind was a bit tough. Use your judgment on if yours is tender enough to keep on). Possibly put the lemon cucumber back in the fridge to chill (I didn't do this because I didn't think of it, but I think it might have been even more awesome had I done it).

Cooking

1. Get a skillet out which will happily hold everything you are going to add, put it on medium-low heat.
2. Pour the lavender olive oil onto the pan, rotating the pan so that the oil covers the surface. Add all of the corn, stir. Watch how the cornwater and oil kind of mix, isn't that cool? (Answer: yes.) Stir occasionally.
3. After about ten minutes, mix in the leeks, continuing to stir occasionally.
4. Keep an eye on things, I guess 5-10 min after adding the leeks it'll be ready to pull off the heat. However, to actually tell, taste the corn and look at (&/ taste) the leeks. Let the food tell you when it's done. Ideally, the corn should be only-just-completely-cooked. (It's a travesty to overcook happy fresh corn.) I kept this on really really low heat whilst I was fiddling with the squash, stirring rarely, and that was fine.
5. Note with regard to the above step: when that's almost done, throw in the piñon nuts. (Basically, the only concern here is to add them at some point where they won't receive enough additional heat that they would burn.)
6. When you are ready to serve, pull it off the heat, top with the lemon cucumber and eat!

Notes

• There's a certain amount of the prep work which can be done simultaneous with the cooking (especially when you are cooking these two dishes together), but I never can figure out how to describe that, and people's comfort/skill at such things are always so individual. *handwaves*
• I used extra virgin olive oil.
• I did more of a coarse chop on my cucumber, which made it a bit too overpowering. And I cut the leek as full coins-- the ones which didnt' fall apart made for too much leek in one mouthful.
• If there's leftover lemon cucumber, serve it on the side with a bit of salt sprinkled on top.

RECIPE 2: A BASIC SUMMER SQUASH SAUTÉ

Ingredients
Some summer squash
Italian seasoning
grated Cheddar and Mozzarella cheeses
olive oil

Methods

1. Wash and pat dry the squash, cut off the blossom end and the stem end.
2. Cut the squash into coins a few mm thick (~1/4"). If you want, you can halve or quarter them. Remember, you want things to generally be similar in size (and smaller things cook more quickly), so if you have irregularly shaped squash, decide how important a common level of done-ness is when you are deciding to subdivide (or not) the larger pieces. (I generally use 'being able to fit a few pieces on a fork' as my default guide.)
3. Put a bit of olive oil in the pan (use a large pan if you're like me and maybe chopped up one more squash than you really needed), enough that it'll just coat the bottom.
4. Sauté the squash, stirring frequently. (In more detail: Put the pan on the range on high heat. (In order to tell when you've reached temperature: put one slice of squash into the pan, you've reached temperature it starts kind of spitting and acting like the oil is hot. I know, that's rather useless, I'm sorry, I don't have a better idea of how to describe it! /o\ ). Once the pan is at temperature, dump all of the cut squash in and stir. Stir frequently.)
5. Keep an eye out and when the squash look almost done to your taste, throw the seasoning on, stir briefly and throw the cheese on. Leave the cheese just briefly (let it have a chance to start melting) (use this time to put the spices away and the cheese and go, hmmm, what's on the other burner.). And then stir the cheese in. At this point, you're going to want to keep stirring things, keeping the cheese melting and hopefully not sticking on the bottom of the pan (scrape at it before it starts burning! If it burns it's a -bleep- to clean. And if your cheese does start burning on the bottom, raise it up off the heat and keep stirring, possibly dump it onto it's serving plate). Once the cheese is all nice and melty, you're good to go!
6. Nom nom nom. (Best served warm.)

Notes

• I am very much not a fan of 'Italian Seasoning/Herbs/whathaveyou' (I prefer to have the fine control that working with a stocked spice cabinet gives you), but my flatmate is very fond and so I gave in today.
• I just grabbed the cheese we already had grated. I'd say using whatever hard cheese you already have would be fine.
• I used 2 zucchinis (courgettes), 1 yellow zucchini, and 2 long necked squash. But, whatever you have to hand works. (I don't claim that there's a lot of variation in the tastes of summer squash. Mostly I just like the different colours and different shapes.)
• This is a quick&dirty basic recipe. It's not what I think of as 'my' squash sauté, but given how much variations one can give to 'sautéd squash', I'm not sure it really matters (it's not like I make 'mine' that often anyways). But maybe eventually I'll actually get around to writing it down -- assuming I can get my gut to articulate which of the variations it is that it wants to identify with, that is.

I'm sorry that this is all very rough and informal! :( If I'm unclear or if you have any questions, drop a comment and I'd be happy to help!

And if you have any suggestions, observations, etc etc, please also drop them in comments!

Comments

[takemyrevolution]

Ooh, how interesting; I just restocked my lavender supply today! I'll have to try that corn recipe. Thanks for sharing! :)

[fish_echo]

:) You are quite welcome!

(And feel free to pop back after you've tried it-- this is different enough from what I usually make that I'd love any feedback.)