Simple grilling - veggies

The Year of Bessemer Food

I've shared this with several friends this Spring. I discovered (with the help of two friends) Sweet Heat Seasoning at Freshfully in Avondale. I'm sure it is available elsewhere, but Freshfully is worth the drive to get fresh eggs, vegetables and other locally grown products.

Okra

Wash your okra, and skewer 3 or 4 with a short wooden skewer. Brush with olive oil, and sprinkle liberally with Sweet Heat. Place on hot grill for about 10 minutes, turning a couple of time, until browned, like in the picture.

Just serve them on the skewers. Even those who do not like okra will love these. The slime is cooked out of them. These are SO good.

(Hint: soak skewers in water to prevent them from burning.)

Corn

I use Sweet Heat on corn as well. Corn can certainly be grilled in their husks but I prefer to shuck them so I can clean the silks out well. Then I butter my aluminum foil. What?

It's easier than buttering the corn, just use a knife and spread on the flat foil. You'll get used to it.

(Here is where I insert a math lesson, valuable because I am afraid that Bessemer residents don't get this in school, with their 36% graduation rate and all. See my previous posts).

I use a soft butter and spread it in a rectangle starting at one edge (the length of the corn) and extending about 6.25 inches from the edge (corn is about 2 inches in diameter and about 6 inches long, so the area to be buttered is the length of the corn times the circumference of a piece of corn. The circumference (distance around a circle, or a piece of corn) is the diameter times π.

π of course, is 3.1416 (approximately) so 2 x π is (close to) 6.28. Therefore, the area to be buttered is ?

Then I sprinkle Sweet Heat seasoning on the butter, and roll them up (click on the picture to embiggen and see the Sweet Heat bottle)...

...until they are tight little corn on the cob packets. Now the butter and seasoning are in contact with the corn.

Cook these for about 10 minutes over a hot grill, rotating 1/4 turn every 2 or 3 minutes. The corn will come out hot and juicy, but with a little bit of brown on some of the kernels. Yum. Sorry I don't have a picture of the final product. We tore into them and were halfway done eating them when I thought about it.

Sweet Heat can be used on other veggies or poultry or in soups and other ways.

Enjoy the Summer Solstice and grill something today. It 's the longest day of the year.

Thought. We have Winter Solstice parties and music to set the tone on that cold night in December. Does anyone celebrate the Summer Solstice?

Fudgy Cake Pops

The Year of Bessemer Food

I've still been cooking (and politicking) and just haven't had much time for blogging.

But these cake pops were a hit, so I thought I would share.

First you need a cake pop pan. This one is made by Nordic Ware and available at Target (in a variety of colors).

Here is the pan, with some fresh-baked cake balls.

Notice the silver colored keys that keep the bottom and top pieces of the pan tightly secured.


Fudgy Cake Pops

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp cocoa
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
24 lollipop sticks
Chocolate and white chocolate coatings (available for dipping fruit and such)
Sprinkles

Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour pan (or use a baking spray with flour), set aside.

In medium saucepan, over low heat, melt chocolate chips and butter together, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and pour into medium bowl (or mixer bowl).

Add egg.s one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Add flour and salt and stir until blended.

Spoon batter into bottom half of pan (the half without holes) filling each well so it mounds over the top of the pan (the batter is pretty soft, if you let it sit for a few minutes it isn't quite as runny, something I discovered because it takes two batches to use it up. Don't try to mound it up in a ball, though, just a little more than level is OK).

Place top half on top and secure with keys.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes until toothpick inserted into hole comes out almost clean. Cool 5 minutes in pan, remove cake balls from pan and allow to cool completely on wire racks.

Trim cake balls as necessary.



Melt chocolate coatings according to directions on package.

Insert lollipop sticks into cake balls, and dip balls into melted chocolate, and turn to allow excess to drip off. Use spoon to assist in dipping. Decorate with sprinkles as desired. Place on parchment paper to set (can cool in refrigerator).

Makes about 24 cake pops.

Chicken Soup (not your grandma's)

The Year of Bessemer Food

The Birmingham News printed some chicken soup recipes today so I thought I would throw mine into the mix. This chicken soup is good for the soul, but even better for the palate. It combines some flavors that you may not be accustomed to using together.

It might appear complicated at first, at least compared to opening a can of that brand name kind, but it's really not. Start the chicken. While it's in the oven, prepare the rice, and after the rice is on, slice the veggies. If you do not want to use wine in the recipe, substitute apple juice or diluted cider vinegar.

This soup will chase away the blues, clear your head, and make you feel all warm inside. Normally it would be cold outside this time of year and we would need something like this. It's described as the ultimate comfort food. But it is good on a warm January night as well, so try it.

Chicken Soup (not your grandma’s)

Making a Red Velvet Cake

Bessemer Opinions hasn't been the same since the demise of radio station 100.5, but now we have a link to Birmingham's Mountain Radio over to the left, so you can listen to good music while cruising the site.

I'm still not back into the political sphere full fledged yet, so I'm not going to comment on Montgomery or Washington today. Instead, I'm treating you to some Red Velvet Cake.

I came across a new recipe by Keri Fisher in Cook's Illustrated Holiday Baking edition.

Did you know, that in spite of the massive amounts of red food coloring used today, the base red color comes from a chemical reaction between the acidic ingredients (vinegar and buttermilk) and the natural cocoa powder? (Don't use Dutch processed cocoa, it won't rise properly in this cake). The acid allows the anthocyanin in the cocoa to be released in its red form. This is the same reaction that makes hydrangea blooms pink when in an acid environment (as opposed to blue in an alkaline environment). Could we make a blue velvet cake? I might do some experimenting.

Buttermilk powder and natural cocoa

I made one slight change to Keri's recipe. Instead of using fresh buttermilk, I used Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend powder, after being convinced that powdered buttermilk is just as good to use in recipes, with no reduction in quality; assured. It's easier to have buttermilk on hand this way, for biscuits, cakes, pancakes.

In this recipe you combine the dry ingredients (which for me included the buttermilk powder), the liquid ingredients (which for me included an extra cup of water to replace the liquid buttermilk), and the cocoa and red food color in separate bowls. I also learned that weighing my flour and sugar (when weights are given in the recipe) yields more accurate measurement than measuring by cups.

Flour, baking soda, salt, buttermilk powder


Eggs, water, vinegar, vanilla


Cocoa and food coloring

Cream the butter and sugar and then add the other ingredients like you would for any cake, alternating dry and liquid, and ending with dry. Then mix in the red cocoa mixture.





In the past my Red Velvet Cakes have been either 3 layer or a bundt type with a glaze. this recipe calls for two layers but could easily be made a three or 4 layer (many recipes call for splitting the two cooked layers and making 4 that way).




Whip up a fluffy batch of cream cheese frosting and you have a product that Keri describes as living up to both the "red" and the "velvet" in its name.

Cook's Illustrated doesn't have this recipe up on its site yet. After I've tasted this cake and decided whether further changes are needed, I'll post the recipe on here.

The finished product


If you are in the right place at the right time this evening, you can have a slice of this cake.

Lemon coconut cakes

Every year I make a couple of these for parties and family gatherings between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I also make a few for friends (for a small fee).

If you want one, let me know.


They are three-layer cakes, with a lemon-coconut filling separating the layers. Fresh grated lemon peel and fresh lemon juice is used.


Here the three layers are ready to be frosted.

I spread a cream cheese frosting on the cake which is then covered in flaked coconut.


Here is the finished product. Call or email me if you would like one for your holiday gathering.