Figonomics 101.

 

 Rosie's fig trees are prolific producers

and the Hawthornes have been eating a lot of figs lately.

Today, I'm pairing figs with wine-poached pears,

toasted walnuts, and a seasoned crème fraiche.

Rosie's Figs And Poached Pears

1 pear

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Juice and zest of 1 orange

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 cup wine

1/2 cup water

1 cinnamon stick

3 whole cloves

1/3 cup sugar

handful of toasted walnuts

2 figs, sliced

2 TB crème fraiche

1 tsp wildflower honey

dash cinnamon (to taste) 

Prepare poaching liquid.

Combine juice, zest, wine, water

vanilla cinnamon stick, cloves, and sugar.

Stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves.

Simmer for 10 minutes.

Add pears to simmering liquid and simmer, uncovered,

turning the pear occasionally and spooning the syrup over top

to help them color evenly, about 30 minutes.

Remove from heat and let pear cool in poaching liquid.

Remove pear from sauce pan,

slice, and transfer to serving dish.

Arrange fig slices around pears.

Bring poaching liquid to a simmer

and continue to cook until reduced by half.

Make the crème fraiche mixture.

Combine crème fraiche, honey, and cinnamon.

 Spoon some of the reduced poaching liquid

 over top of pear and fig slices.

Dot with crème fraiche mixture

and sprinkle toasted walnuts over top.

Enjoy!

Pear goes into poaching liquid.

Ladle liquid over top and rotate pear.

Took about 30 minutes.

I already had homemade crème fraiche on hand.

For crème fraiche,

 you need to make it the day before you need it.

Crème Fraiche 
Must be made the day before you plan to use it.

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 TB buttermilk

1 TB lime juice

Mix all together.

Cover with paper towel and leave on counter overnight.

Stir, cover, and refrigerate the next morning.
Usually I use a cup of cream.
This time I wanted a more intense flavor.
And I got it.

Crème Fraiche Mixture

2 TB crème fraiche

1 tsp wildflower honey

pinch of cinnamon, to taste

Mix all together.

Plate with sliced figs and poached sliced pears,

toasted walnuts,

seasoned crème fraiche, and poaching liquid.

This is plate-lickable good.

Amy From New Jersey - These Corn Fritters Are For You.

A few days ago, I received an email from Amy of New Jersey, requesting a recipe from Just Ask Rosie for corn fritters. Amy, this is my first attempt at corn fritters, but it won't be my last. I have a few more recipes rattling around in my brain that I want to try out, but I did want to get something out in a timely fashion for you. Now, I'm a fan of Southwestern flavors which I guess refers to corn and black beans and chilies and cilantro. And those are the flavors I incorporated into my first foray into fritters. I have other ideas too. I'd like to do something with a sweet fritter. And I also want to try some creamed corn fritters. I assure you, more fritter recipes will be forthcoming.

Here's the money shot, corn fritters with my salsa and seasoned creme fraiche.

Now click on this to enlarge it and you have a glimpse into Rosie's brain as she whups up a corn fritter recipe. Scary place, ain't it. First, Rosie is going to make a sauce for her fritters, which are still up in her scrambled brain.

My ingredients: creme fraiche lime chives scallion cilantro

I grated lime zest into my creme fraiche.

Then I snipped the chives into the creme.

Added the sliced scallions.

And dropped the cilantro in. My dipping sauce is done and it's quite good. You could use this for chips or tacos or burritos.

Now, on to the fritters:

First, I cooked some black beans. You could use canned, but I prefer real cooked beans. They taste better to me. Also, if you use canned, be sure you rinse them thoroughly.

My mise en place for my corn fritters: 1 1/2 cups fresh corn (5 ears) 1/2 cup black beans 1 cup flour 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp cumin 1 jalapeno 2 scallions 1/2 cup buttermilk 2 eggs my leftover roasted red pepper and next to the red pepper at bottom right - fresh green coriander seeds

First, I mixed the dry ingredients together - the flour, baking powder, salt, and cumin.

In another bowl, I added the black beans and fresh corn ...

... along with the minced jalapeno, the sliced scallions, the chopped roasted red pepper, and the green coriander seeds. Now, as to the availability of some of these ingredients, notably the green coriander seeds: I've never seen these in any market anywhere. But I live on the Outer Limits. Perhaps at ethnic markets in very large cities, you might find them. But then I've never seen a recipe calling for fresh, green coriander seeds. You can always find coriander seeds in the spice section of your market. But if you tried to bite one of them, you might chip a tooth. They have kind of the same flavor as the raw seed, but when you bite into a raw coriander seed, there's just an exciting burst of fresh citrusy and green flavor. Bottom line: if you don't have your own cilantro plants blooming and setting seeds, then just add in some fresh cilantro. You can always find that. But then, if you're one of those Cilantro Haters, just use fresh Italian flat leaf parsley. By the way, if you don't know what coriander is, it's the seed of the cilantro plant. I grow cilantro year round and it's just now blooming and forming seeds. One day, I just popped one of the green seeds into my mouth and loved it and started incorporating them into my cooking. The green seeds eventually turn brown and hard and then are ready for planting. I planted a handful of cilantro seeds today among the cucumber, squash, and zucchini I planted the other day.

In a third bowl, I mixed the buttermilk and eggs.

At top left, the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, cumin); in the middle, the good stuff; at top right, the wet ingredients (buttermilk and eggs).

Mix together the eggs and buttermilk and the bean/corn/roasted pepper/scallion/jalapeno/coriander.

I added the wet ingredients to the dry.

And got a nice, thick, clingy batter ...

... to which I folded in the veggies.

Isn't this pretty?

Incorporate well.

I dropped the fritters by tablespoons into my hot oil. (375 degrees, but I never check it with a thermometer. I can look at it and tell it's ready. The top of the oil swirls around.)

Do not crowd the pan. Cook for maybe 2 minutes, until a nice crispy brown.

Drain on paper towels.

I served the corn fritters with slices of avocado with lime juice drizzled over top.

Ooh, Oooh, OOoooh! Dip it in the creme fraiche.

What can I say? I could taste the corn. I could taste the black beans. The jalapenos. The smoked red pepper. The fresh coriander. So many flavors. Mr. Hawthorne said this: "I wouldn't order this again. Had you done it more like a hush puppy with all the goodies inside, and crunchy outside, it would be great." What a curmudgeon. He's so damn critical of everything I cook. I liked it and so did my children.

Amy, this was my first stab at this. I will tweak it and hope it meets Mr. Hawthorne's lofty standards. I thought it was very good.

I didn't use up all the batter last night. This morning I made more corn fritters for breakfast. I dropped the tablespoons of batter into corn meal. Then fried them. Mr. Hawthorne like these much better. If I would change anything about the original recipe, I would change the 1 cup of flour to 3/4 cup cornmeal and 1/4 cup flour. I think. I'll have to try it and see.

As it was, it was damn good. And there are none left. That's my test for goodness. No leftovers.

Ticky Makes Tortillas And Rosie Makes Appetizers.

Ticky's main reason to come visit the Hawthornes, outside of the fact that she missed us horribly and couldn't stay away from us for another day, was to get help in "tweaking" recipes. She wanted to take basic recipes for crepes and tortillas and make certain substitutions so they would be healthier. Quite a noble undertaking, Ticky. Instead of making the recipe for white flour tortillas which I got from Kelly of Evil Shenanigans, which contained the evil, vile, never-to-touch-these-lips lard, Ticky wanted to make a lighter version, not containing theevillard, and containing her blessed whole wheat flour. And by the way, I have made the evil version of these tortillas, and they are devilishly good. Thanks again, Kelly.

Ticky's substitutions were white whole wheat flour instead of the evil white all-purpose flour and vegetable oil in place of theevillard.

She measured out 1 cup of her God-sent whole wheat flour using the correct dip and sweep method for dry measurements. To this she added 1/4 tsp each of salt and baking powder.

Then she added a little less than 1/2 cup warm 1% milk. I liked that little tornadic activity going on with the pouring of the milk. Because she used oil instead of theevillard, she needed to add more whole wheat flour until she could get a nice ball of dough.

Ticky gathered her dough into a nice ball on a lightly floured board.

She separated it into 6 little balls and let it rest for a while.

Then she rolled each ball out to make a thin tortilla.

Here's the video of virgin tortilla-flipper, Ticky, flipping her very first tortilla. Good job, Ticky!

Now it's my turn to take over for the appetizers. I have bottom left - myevillard tortillas. Bottom right Ticky's heaven-sent tortillas. In the back I have buttah, paprika, coriander, cumin, and cilantro.

I melted my buttah and added the paprika, coriander, and cumin.

Then the minced cilantro went in.

And I brushed each tortilla wedge with the butter mixture. Put in a 350 degree oven until crisp. Geeze, I don't know how many minutes. Do I have to tell you everything? Just set the timer for maybe 10 minutes, check 'em then, then add on a few more minutes. And bake until done. Cooking is a learning experience. I can't give you exacts, since there really aren't any. (Except in serious baking.) When I say a teaspoon of this or a teaspoon of that, I do that for my tastes. Your may want more or less of certain ingredients, such as spices (not leavening ingredients like baking soda, baking powder, or yeast). Always err on the lesser side when adding seasonings. You can always add more. Taste as you go along and layer your seasonings.

The day before, in anticipation of Ticky's visit, I made creme fraiche. Very simple. Very easy. And it beats sour cream out of the ball park.

1 TB buttermilk goes into 1 cup heavy cream.

Add 1 TB lemon juice.

That's it. Cover and let sit overnight at room temperature.

The next morning you have this glorious, thick concoction. Cover and refrigerate. Next up, I'm making two different dips for the tortillas: The first is a kidney bean concoction. The second is a seasoned creme fraiche.

First, I rinsed about 6 ounces kidney beans.

And poured them into a pot of boiling, salted water. I let them boil a couple of minutes, then turned the heat off, covered them, and let sit for about an hour or so. I rinsed the beans under cold water, then poured them back into a fresh pot of boiling, salted water, let boil for a few minutes, turned off heat, covered, and let it sit again. Repeat one more time, if needed. I like toothy beans, not mushy beans.

Here are the ingredients for my bean dip: cooked kidney beans (Reserve some of the beans for garnish.) (If you wanted to Sandra-Lee this, you could use a can of rinsed kidney beans, but I may come and haunt you.) 1 jalapeno (I like it hot, so I keep some of the seeds and the ribs.) 2 garlic cloves, minced 2 TB cider vinegar 1/4 cup oil (not olive oil) mixed with 1/4 cup water 1 tsp paprika 1 tsp freshly ground pepper 1 tsp chili powder salt to taste Tabasco to taste I processed all the ingredients in my mini-processor, then slowly added the oil/water.

Taste and adjust seasonings.

Heh. Youngest Hawthorne came in, took one look, scooped up a chip of dip, and said, "I hope this doesn't taste like it looks." It didn't. Next up is another dip. My seasoned creme fraiche.

My ingredients: creme fraiche jalapeno cilantro lime juice and zest Wait a minute.

Is it cold in here?

Here I have: creme fraiche grated zest of lime minced jalapeno minced cilantro

lime

I added the juice of 1/2 lime to my creme fraiche.

Then stirred in the lime zest, jalapeno, and cilantro.

Seasoned creme fraiche, red bean dip, and seasoned tortilla chips.

Tortilla wedge with kidney bean dip topped with

lime/jalapeno/cilantro creme fraiche. This is so simple to make and soooooo delicious. Please try it. You'll be glad you did. Hey, have I ever told you wrong?