Help!

This happens every summer! No matter how I plan or cut back on the amount I plant, it happens. I am officially swimming in a sea of little tomatoes, specifically grape and yellow pear tomatoes. I plant them at the edge of the garden every year so that they can vine over the edge and cover the vast expanse of concrete wall that a past owner saw fit to install. Every year they go wild, so this year I cut back on the number of plants and only put in three, yes, I swear there are only 3! One plant is the grape and 2 are yellow pear. Now, as you can see, they are ripening in abundance.



So, I am calling out for help. Any ideas on how I can preserve these little gems? Last year I made and canned sauce using roma's. I can't imagine a sauce with these little sweet gems, but I have an open mind. Any ideas are welcome and appreciated!

Hmmm, the mind spins, and you know what I am thinking. Is it possible to merge them with milk, cream and sugar? Do I dare? To be continued..........

Sweet Corn Strawberry Margarita Ice Cream

I'm sure by now you have figured out that I am infatuated with my ice cream machine. I love ice cream, and I admit it! If I could figure out a way to make any meal into ice cream, I would, well, with the exception of a few things (sushi and eggs sunny side up come to mind). Turkey and dressing ice cream, pumpkin pie ice cream, see what I mean? Ok, maybe I am a bit delirious. Having said that, it is no mystery how I came up with a sweet corn ice cream with strawberry margarita flavors swirled in, or maybe it is a mystery. Anyway, I tried it and it isn't too bad, in fact, it is pretty darn good.

This concoction was made with more of the fresh corn from The Hahn Farm, and frozen whole strawberries that I picked earlier this year. The taste of the corn really stands out, reminding me of creamed corn pudding. The strawberry taste was not as prominent as I would have liked, so I used the extra sauce as a topping, which was quite good. I wanted to get the taste of the margarita mixture. I hope you will give this a try, don't be afraid! If you do, let me know how you like it, or if you have already made something similar, leave a comment as well. As with the other recent posts, the base of the ice cream is adapted from the Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream vanilla bean recipe. The rest is my imagination.

Sweet Corn Strawberry Margarita Ice Cream
makes about 4 cups

2 cups 2% milk

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 1/2 ounces cream cheese, softened (3 tablespoons)

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

3 ears of fresh bicolor sweet corn

2 cups whole frozen strawberries

2 tbl sugar

1/3 cup water

zest of 1/2 orange

zest of 1 lime

2 shots tequila

generous squeeze of both orange and lime juice

lime slice to garnish

Mix 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch and set aside until later.

Cut the corn kernels from the cob and break the cobs into 3 or 4 pieces. In a large saucepan, combine the remaining milk with the heavy cream, sugar, corn syrup, corn kernels and broken cobs. Bring the milk mixture to a boil and cook over moderate heat until the sugar dissolves, about 4 minutes. Remove the mixture from the heat, cover and let infuse for 1 hour.

After 1 hour, remove the corn cobs, and puree the mixture. You can do this with an immersion blender as I did, or pour in a blender to puree. With the mixture back in the pan, reheat over medium high heat. Then off the heat, gradually whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Return to a boil and cook over moderately high heat until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 1 minute.

Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Whisk in the salt. Set the bowl in an ice water bath and let stand, stirring occasionally, until cold, about 20 minutes (make sure this gets cold so it will freeze properly).

Strain the ice cream base into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. When the ice cream is about 5 minute from being done, add 1/2 cup of the strawberry sauce and continue to process. Pack the ice cream into a plastic container.

Press a sheet of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the ice cream and close with an airtight lid. Freeze the vanilla ice cream until firm, about 4 hours.

When ready to serve, place the container in the fridge for about 15 minutes to soften. I served scoops in margarita glasses with a lime wheel. Cheers!

For the sauce:

While the mixture in infusing, place the strawberries, 2 tbl of sugar, water and citrus zests over medium high heat. When it begins to bubble, turn the heat to medium low and cook until the berries are soft and the sauce has thickened. You can use your spoon to break up some of the berries while they are cooking and you should stir occasionally. When thickened, remove from the heat, add the citrus juices and the tequila. Stir well and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. You will have about 1 cup of sauce, so you will have some left to serve with the ice cream.

Blueberry Angel Food Cupcakes with Royal Icing

These little cupcakes were an experiment that I previously mentioned in my Lemon Verbena Ice Cream post. I had in mind little cakes to serve with the ice cream and always love the combination of lemon and blueberry. The berries were purchased fresh at the farmers' market, along with the eggs for the cake. I found the recipe for the cake on the Cooking Light site and have made many of their angel food cakes in the past. I thought I would put a different spin on them and make them into cupcakes. Not a bad idea, but I made a few mistakes and will be trying them again. So, I am posting my results, will post again when I make another attempt and would love any feedback from those out in blogland who have had better success.

The taste of the cupcakes was great, light, sweet with a few berries in each little cake. The problem was, I did not fill the cups enough. I planned on them rising up, which they did not. The batter was very light, I made sure not to over mix. Next time I will fill the cups to the top.



The other problem, after filling 12 cupcake papers, I had tons of batter left! I did not have the patience that day to keep making cupcakes, which I should have done. Instead, I poured the batter that was left into two 9" cake pans. Not a bad solution, but not a great one either. Again, the batter did not fill up the pans, and the resulting cakes tasted wonderful, but were not very high. The cake did not come out of the pan very willingly, probably should have lined the bottoms with parchment, but I salvaged them none the less, cut each cake into 4 wedges and they are in the freezer. So far I have taken one of the pieces out, let it thaw, tore it into chunks and served it with the remainder of the lemon verbena ice cream, and it was fine. Not sure what I will do with the rest.

When the cupcakes had cooled completely, I iced them with a generous dollop of royal icing and placed a plump blueberry in the center. Then I covered them with cling film and kept them in the fridge overnight. Before serving the next day, I let them come to room temperature. I don't think anyone noticed their short comings, they were gobbled down fairly quickly.

Here is the recipe for the cupcakes. I thought I would still post my results, even though they were not quite what I wanted. I'll be trying this again, that is for sure.

Blueberry Angel Food Cupcakes
servings to be determined at a later date!

1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
1 cup sifted cake flour
12 large egg whites (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 1/4 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
2 tablespoons sifted cake flour
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind

Preheat oven to 375°.
Sift together 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cup flour.
Line 12 muffin tins with cupcake liners.

In a large bowl, beat egg whites with a mixer at high speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and salt; beat until soft peaks form. Add 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating until stiff peaks form.

Sift flour mixture over egg white mixture, 1/4 cup at a time; fold in. Fold in vanilla and blueberries.

Combine 2 tablespoons flour and lemon rind; toss to coat. Sprinkle over egg white mixture; fold in.

Spoon batter into cupcake liners and bake for 20-25 minutes until the tops are just golden. Let cool for 10 minutes then remove from the pan. While they continue to cool, prepare your royal icing.

To make the icing, add 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tsp. powdered eggs white, 2 tbl water in a small mixing bowl. Beat with a hand mixer until the icing begins to get thick, then add 1/2 tsp lemon juice. Continue to beat until the icing thickens again. If you need to thin it a bit, add more lemon juice or if it is too thin, add a bit of powdered sugar and beat until the desired consistency.

Ina's Butterflied Chicken

This week's Barefoot Bloggers recipe choice was fantastic! I have to admit, I was a bit hesitant to take this one on. We are not huge meat eaters, but, a challenge is a challenge and I have vowed to cook the good eats of Ina and besides, chicken with lemon, garlic and rosemary, who could turn that down? Stefany of Proceed With Caution chose this recipe of Ina's. Thanks to her, we had an absolutely delicious meal last night and I have another great recipe to prepare for guests. The great thing about most of Ina's recipes are that they can be prepared in advance, as this one was. Just unroll the bird and pop on the grill, have a little wine, and within 30 minutes or less, dinner is on the table.

Now, I have never deboned anything! I studied a few of the videos on the web, and decided to leave this to the experts. I wanted to serve something that resembled chicken and not a dish that looked liked Edward Scissorhands had prepped it. My first call to a "large" grocery store butcher was hysterical. When I asked if he could butterfly and debone a chicken he answered that, "he had never done that before" and that I, "must be watching one of those cookin' shows on TV". Ok, on to the next town. I called Heinen's, where I spoke with Doug. "No problem", he said. "Great, I will pick it up tomorrow", I answered. So, next day, off I went, about a 35 minute drive to pick up my bird, as well as a few other little foodie items. He did a great job, so if you read this Doug, thanks go out to you. The bad thing is that this was such a great way to cook the bird, you will be hearing from me again!

The recipe is very straight forward and easy to prepare. I only made one bird, so I will give the quantities here that I used. Grilling was a bit tricky, just take it easy unrolling it on the grill. I cooked it skin side down, then used 2 large spatulas to flip. It cooked up in the time as instructed. I served the bird with cheddar mashed potatoes, a fresh fig (from Heinen's) for garnish and a green salad full of fresh grape tomatoes from the garden. For dessert, well, that's another post to come, but here's a hint; I have lots of fresh corn and an ice cream machine.....

Ina's Butterflied Chicken
serves 4

2 tbl chopped fresh rosemary leaves, plus 1 sprig
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Good olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 roasting chicken (2 1/2 to 3 pounds each), deboned and butterflied
1/4 lemon, thinly sliced

Mix the chopped rosemary, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, 1/2 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoons salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper together in a small bowl to make a paste.






Place the chicken on a sheet pan, skin side up, and loosen the skin from the meat with your fingers. Place the paste under the skin of the chicken. Rub any remaining paste on the outside and underside of the chicken.

Turn the chicken skin side down and scatter the lemon slices and sprigs of rosemary over the chicken (I stripped the leaves and scattered them). Season with salt and pepper. Roll the chicken up, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Heat a grill with coals. Spread the coals out in 1 dense layer and brush the grill with oil. Unroll the chicken, place it on the grill and cook for 12 minutes on each side.

Okay, we have a gas grill, so, oil the grill and make sure it is nice and hot. Keep the grill about medium high heat and begin grilling the bird skin side down. Carefully flip, using 2 spatulas ( i did lose a bit of the skin as you will see in the photo). My chicken cooked in the time she gives.

Here is the cooked bird, straight from the grill. I cut it in half, then in half again, separating the white and dark meat and placed them on a generous scoop of cheddar mashed potatoes.

Sweet Corn and Cod Chowder

I made a trip to The Hahn Farm again yesterday for sweet corn and came home with a bag loaded with beautiful ears of sweet bicolor corn. They also had Ginger Gold apples which I have never tasted, so I grabbed a bag of those as well. As always, I received a generous dozen (14 ears), so I will be cookin' up lots of delicious corn. For dinner last night I paired the corn up with a pound of nice wild Atlantic cod to make a delicious chowder. This was really a meal in a bowl. I did not have any carrots or celery in the house, so I used red onion and a few of my Blushing Beauty sweet peppers from my garden. The weather was very pleasant yesterday, mid 70's with a brisk north wind, hinting of fall weather and a great night for chowder. Here is the recipe I came up with.

Sweet Corn and Cod Chowder

make about 6-8 servings

3 tbl unsalted butter

1 cup diced onion

1 cup diced sweet pepper

1/3 cup flour

1 80z jar clam juice

2 cups (1 large) baking potato diced into 1/2" pieces

2 cups fresh corn ( 2 ears)

4 cups broth (I used veggie, but chicken or fish would be great)

2 cups water (or more broth)

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1# cod cut into 1" pieces

1/2 cup half & half

fresh dill

In a large soup pot melt the butter over med high heat. Add the onion and peppers and saute until the onion just gets soft, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the veggies with the flour and stir to coat.



Continue to stir and cook another minute. Add the clam juice to the pan, stirring constantly and cook 1-2 minutes until it begins to thicken. Toss in the diced potatoes, broth and water and stir all the ingredients together. Then add the salt, pepper and thyme and when it come to a boil, turn down to simmer and cook about 10 minutes.

After that time, add the corn and continue to cook until the corn has cooked through and the potatoes are done. Add the fish to the pot, give it a stir and let the fish cook, about 5-6 minutes. When the fish is cooked, remove the pan from the heat, add the half & half, and stir until heated. Serve with a generous sprinkling of chopped fresh dill.




A few "corny" hints: To remove the pesky silks, give the ears a good rinse under cold running water. When cutting the kernels off the cob, stand the cob upside down in a large bowl, then run a sharp knife along the cob. The bowl will catch the cut kernels.

Another Ice Cream Recipe

Tired of all the Ice Cream recipes? I hope not, because I have more ideas brewing in my brain. As I mentioned in the Lemon Verbena Ice Cream post, I had previously made Jeni's Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, following the recipe exactly. It was amazing. So much so that I took it to the last party with my friends and it was inhaled so quickly that I never got to take a good picture of the finished product.

So here is the recipe, along with a few lowly photos. By the way, I just placed an online order with the The Organic Vanilla Bean Company for more lovely vanilla beans. When I was at the grocery store yesterday to buy them they wanted $13.49 for 2 beans! No way! The prices at the online site were fantastic! I'll update on the shipment when it arrives.

Jeni's Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
makes 3 1/2 cups

2 cups whole milk
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 1/2 ounces cream cheese, softened (3 tablespoons)
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt


Fill a large bowl with ice water. In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch. In another large bowl, whisk the cream cheese until smooth.


In a large saucepan, combine the remaining milk with the heavy cream, sugar, corn syrup and vanilla bean and seeds. Bring the milk mixture to a boil and cook over moderate heat until the sugar dissolves and the vanilla flavors the milk, about 4 minutes. Off the heat, gradually whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Return to a boil and cook over moderately high heat until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 1 minute.







Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Whisk in the salt. Set the bowl in the ice water bath and let stand, stirring occasionally, until cold, about 20 minutes.


Strain the ice cream base into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Pack the ice cream into a plastic container.
Press a sheet of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the ice cream and close with an airtight lid. Freeze the vanilla ice cream until firm, about 4 hours.

Come on and vote for me!

Hey all, I entered this contest for a $1000 room make over from Pier 1! So, if you go to the site and look me up, email is: gardengalkim@yahoo.com, you can cast a vote for my "livin' in dreamland" room. The voting starts September 19 and goes until October 9th (I will post another reminder then). Just look for the Pier 1 site badge with the contest ad in my sidebar, click on it and it will take you to the contest, where you can also enter. It was fun to play with the design. What I could do with 1000 clams at Pier 1, makes the head spin.

Here's hoping and Thanks in advance!

How cool is this?

I am officially a Key Ingredient Featured Blogger! I just received the confirmation from Chief Blogger Sophie. You can see my featured blog post recipe, my Quick Lemon Lavender Fruit Turnovers, here. She wrote a nice introduction to the recipe, thanks Sophie, and thanks to Key Ingredient for featuring me! If you are new to the site, as I was, you should visit and sign up. It is a great place to look for new ideas and post your own recipes. When you find a recipe that you like on the site, you can import the ingredients to a shopping list that can be printed out. There is even a place to start an online cookbook which can also be printed at a later date. I am just getting started with the site and really enjoy it!

Lemon Verbena Ice Cream

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you will remember how happy I was to see that Jeni's Ice Cream was participating in the Food and Wine Celebration that I attended this year. If you have never tried her product I pity you. It really is the creamiest, smoothest ice cream I have ever tasted. So, you can imagine how excited I was to find this article on the Food & Wine site featuring Jeni along with a few of her recipes! I have already made the Vanilla Bean recipe, in which I followed the exact instructions. It turned out perfectly!

This week I hosted the last summer Stitch n' Bitch. I wanted to have a really special treat for my girls and we had talked about making Lemon Verbena Ice Cream. Knowing that Jeni's recipe was a good based to use, I added the verbena from my garden. Here are a few pictures of the verbena.







For this recipe I used 2% milk in place of the whole milk to see if I could lighten up the calories and fat without losing the creaminess. I think it tasted about the same as the original. I love the fact that there are no eggs in her recipes, it cooks up very quickly. Be sure to chill the base till quite cold as well as to freeze the dasher at least 20-30 minutes.

I served the ice cream along with some Blueberry Angelfood Muffins. I will post about the muffins later, they were very good, but just an experiment. The combination of lemon and blueberry is always a winner. Here is the ice cream recipe with step-by-step photos.




Lemon Verbena Ice Cream
makes about 3 1/2 cups


2 cups 2 % milk
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 1/2 ounces cream cheese, softened (3 tablespoons)
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 cup of verbena leaves, roughly chopped
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Rinse the fresh verbena leaves under cold running water, then swish in a bowl of cold water to remove any unwanted critters or dirt from the garden. Then give them a good spin in the salad spinner and lay out on a towel to dry. Reserve about 4 large leaves to add in later. Just before you are ready to add them to the milk mixture, give the rest of the leaves a rough chop.

Fill a large bowl with ice water. In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch. In another large bowl, whisk the cream cheese until smooth.

In a large saucepan, combine the remaining milk with the heavy cream, sugar, and corn syrup. Bring the milk mixture to a boil and cook over moderate heat until the sugar dissolves, about 4 minutes.Off the heat, gradually whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Return to a boil and cook over moderately high heat until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 1 minute.

Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Whisk in the salt and stir in the chopped leaves. Set the bowl in the ice water bath and let stand, stirring occasionally, until cold, about 20 minutes (it took my mixture closer to 30 minutes to get cold).

Roll the 4 leaves that you reserved up tightly and cut into very thin slivers. After you strain the ice cream base add the slivers to the mixture and then pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Pack the ice cream into a plastic container. (I strained mine through a fine sieve into another bowl, pressing quite a bit on the leaves to extract to flavor. Then I added the finely chopped leaves and poured it into the machine. This was just an easier, less messy option for me).

Press a sheet of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the ice cream and close with an airtight lid. Freeze the ice cream until firm, about 4 hours.

You will really enjoy the taste of this ice cream. Just the right amount of lemony flavor and oh, so creamy. Thanks Jeni!

note: I will be posting on the Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Blueberry Anglefood Muffins shortly, stay tuned!

Grilled Mexican Corn Salad with Mango and Jicama-WWW

The title is quite a mouthful and so is the salad. Crunchy, cool with a bit of a bite from the radish and sweetness from the grilled corn. This is a great salad to serve as a main course or side dish. It goes together quickly and holds up for a few days in the fridge very well. You could grill the corn in advance with another meal, or pop it on the grill just before assembling, which is what I did. I really enjoy looking for recipes for Em's Weight Watcher Wednesday, about as much as I look forward to what others will be posting that day. You can see the original recipe here. Try this salad, I think you will really like it!







Grilled Mexican Corn Salad with Mango and Jicama
serves 4 as a main course
POINTS® Value: 5

4 medium corn on the cob, shucked
cooking spray
6 medium radishes, red, thinly sliced
1 medium jicama, cut into 1/4-inch cubes (about 1 lb)
1 medium mango(es), ripe, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 Tbsp cilantro, fresh, chopped
3 Tbsp fresh lime juice
2 Tbsp olive oil, extra virgin
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 large tomato(es), or 2 small, ripe, sliced into eight 1/4-inch-thick slices


Preheat stovetop grill pan or an outdoor grill. Lightly spray corn with cooking spray and grill until browned on all sides, turning occasionally, about 7 to 10 minutes; remove from heat and allow to cool. When cool enough to handle, slice off kernels with a knife into a large bowl.

Add radishes, jicama, mango, cilantro, lime juice, oil, cumin, salt and pepper to bowl; mix to combine.

Place 2 slices of tomato on each of 4 plates and top each with 3/4 cup of corn mixture.