CrankyCakes

Colorful, easy and refreshing, this is a nice use for all the stuff starting to show up or wind up here in the gardens and CSA shares.

Making it also marked the last use of my favorite bowl, which has finally cracked through to such a degree that liquids seep out.  It’s now on the porch with some straggly hot pepper plants limping over its side.

Sweet Summer Salad
4 servings

• 4 ears of corn, boiled for 30 seconds (yes, only 30), and kernels cut from the cobs
• 1 qt. edible pod peas (snow or sugar snaps), strings removed, blanched for 30 seconds

• 3 cups watermelon, either cubes or balls
• 1 T. lemon or lime juice
• 1 t. fish sauce or umeboshi vinegar
• 1 dash vinegar based hot sauce

Mix it all together and serve cold or at room temperature.

Are you like me with your lack of melon-picking luck?  I smell them to make sure they smell as much like a sweet version of themselves as possible.  Yup, and I poke the blossom end to make sure it has a nice give.  I heft them to evaluate whether they’re heavy for their weight.  I’ve even laid down in the middle of the garden to place my ear on a watermelon so I could squeeze it to listen for an alleged tell-tale cracking that means it’s ripe.

But still, as often as not I end up with kind of blah melons.  And I hate to waste food, so I’ve worked up a couple of things to do with melons that are less than perfect.

1.  Popsicles! You can puree 1/2 a melon with some juice concentrate and anything else you like.  These were 1/2 a tasteless canteloupe, 1 c. blackberries, and 1/2 c. apple juice concentrate.  If I made them again, I’d strain out the blackberry seeds, but they’re good!

2.  Treat them like a vegetable in a salad.  Just pretend it’s a slightly sweet cucumber or zucchini, like in the Peach-BLT Salad posted earlier this summer.

3.  (Not pictured) – Puree it and add it with fruit juice concentrate to plain gelatin for better, natural DIY jello.

Less waste, more creativity, and more nutrition.  Cool.  What do you do?

I always burn the pancakes.  As I was making the dry mix to bring along with us, I was trying to talk myself out of freshly made pancake breakfasts on the cookstove for our first camping trip of the year.  I always make pancakes when we’re camping. I always burn them, distracted or inattentive for one minute and there they go.

I was grabbing ingredients for the mix and calculating times to see if I could possibly cook the pancakes ahead to just reheat on site, I kept thinking how I always burn them.  Mommy always burns the pancakes.  We go camping and we can count on a few things – hikes, and beach time, and s’mores, and our funny orange sleeping bags.  We try to stay in our favorite sites and leantos and we love to travel with our favorite friends, and in the morning Mommy burns the pancakes.

So I made the mix and brought the add-ins (fresh blueberries, blueberry jam for putting on top).  We hiked and the boys were big enough to set free to explore the brook behind our campsite and we all got covered in mud and found cool pieces of mica and couldn’t get our fire going to save our  lives.  And in the mornings I burnt the pancakes and all was right in our camping world.

Well, you know, sort of.

Pancake Mix

• 2 c. unbleached white flour
• 2 c. whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c. buckwheat flour
• 1/4 c. + 2 T. baking powder
• 1 t. salt
• 1 t. cream of tartar
• 1 T. sugar
• 1/2 c. instant nonfat dry milk
• 3/4 c. powdered buttermilk
• equivalent of 2 powdered eggs (or 3 egg whites)

Rehydrate with about 1 1/2 c. water and 2 T. oil.  Cook until burnt.

A couple other things I made and liked …

Melon balls with fresh lime and a splash of maple syrup:

Caesar salad (romaine leaves and Cardini’s dressing) with freshly made (and burnt) croutons made with torn pieces of bread cooked (and burnt) in too much butter:

And a sandwich of halved, fresh-picked strawberries with mascarpone on sourdough bread.  No picture, but very good!