Photo by Donalyn Ketchum of The Creekside Cook.
The August 26 farm share for Glade Road Growing is slated to include paste tomatoes, colorful sweet and hot peppers, tomatillos, summer squash and Rosa de Tropea onions. The tomatillos (Mexican husk tomatoes) would be excellent in a salsa verde (puréed with hot pepper, onion, garlic and a bit of water in a blender, simmered for about 15 minutes and cooled and then seasoned with chopped cilantro, lime juice and salt to taste.)
As for the tomatoes, summer squash, onions and peppers, here's my recipe for a savory cornbread inspired by Christine Gallary for Chow.com (She's now the food and cooking editor at TheKitchn.)
Photo from Chow.com (maybe by Chris Rochell, since no credit given and he's the staff photographer)
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1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F, with one of the racks set in the middle.
2. You're going to be using either a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan, an 8-by-8 inch baking disk, 2 7 inch cast iron cornstick pans (Lodge makes the ones I've used) or a 10 " cast iron skillet. I prefer the corn stick pans or the skillet because it makes a crunchy crust and you can serve the bread while it is still warm. For this method, you can heat the skillet in the oven for at least 15 minutes and then grease with extra virgin olive oil or unsalted butter right before pouring in the batter. Don't do this with the baking pans! Just grease them set them aside on the counter until you're ready to pour the batter.
3. Grate into a medium bowl, enough summer squash (about 1/2 #) to make 1 cup and 1 small onion. Cut two small tomatoes in half and drain juice and seeds and then chop finely and add to bowl. Removing the stem, membrane and seeds from a sweet pepper, chop it finely to make 1/2 cup--or you can use mostly sweet peppers with a bit of the hot peppers. If you use the latter, be sure to keep your hands away from your eyes! Add pepper to bowl. Finely crumble 2/3 cup (3 oz.) feta cheese into the bowl and use a rubber or silicon spatula to fold until mixed.
6. In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients and whisk together:
1 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp ground sea salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 1/4 teaspoons dried oregano
7. In a second large bowl beat two large eggs and whisk together with 1 cup Greek yogurt until smooth. Fold the veggie/cheese mixture into the egg and yogurt mixture until evenly combined.
8. Pour veggie/egg/yogurt/cheese mixture into flour mixture and stir until flour is just incorporated. Be careful not to overmix this batter--it's fine to have a few streaks of the cornmeal.
9. Use the spatula to scrape the batter into the prepared pan or skillet, pushing it into the corners and smoothing the top. Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees F and bake 20-25 minutes until the bread is golden brown all over and a toothpick inserted into it comes out clean. It will take about 30 - 40 minutes in the square pan. It will take longer to cook in the loaf pan. You'll want to test it in several spots, because if you hit the cheese, it might appear the bread isn't cooked. Place the pan on a wire rack to cool (5 minutes for the corn sticks, 10 minutes for the skillet, 10 - 15 for the square pan or loaf pan, then turn the bread out onto the rack and transfer to a wooden cutting board.
10. You don't need to do anything with the corn sticks. If you've used the skillet, you can cut the bread into wedges as shown below. If you've used the square pan, cut into 2 x 2 inch squares. If you used the loaf pan, you need to let it cool for at least another 15 minutes and then cut it in thick slices. Serve (with lots of unsalted butter, if you want to be decadent!)
