Home Sweet Home

It's Kentucky week on Accidental Syrup!! I apologize for my lack of posting activity this past week. John is doing an away rotation this month in Lexington so I've been a bachelorette since August 2nd with nobody to cook for. But this week I'm in Kentucky visiting my parents and John when he's able to get away from work. As I've said before my gusto for good food is only multiplied when I'm home with family- so this week should make for some yummy posts!

My parents live in Harrodsburg, about 30 minutes outside of Lexington and it just might be the most beautiful farm country anywhere. One of my favorite things about Kentucky is the four very distinct seasons. Summers are not too hot and the extra sun light makes for many a great sunset dinners on one of the three great porches at Windy Hill Farm.

I arrived yesterday afternoon and my mom had the perfect Kentucky Summer menu planned. Summers here could make almost any meatlover do without as the local vegetables are ridiculously fresh and flavorful. My mom had fresh corn, Kentucky wonder pole beans and new potatoes from a neighbor up the road, green and red tomatoes out of her own garden, and two racks of lamb from a farm right here in town.

Mom battered and fried the green tomatoes as an appetizer. She dunked the tomato slices into a bath of sour cream and milk (works the same as buttermilk!) and then coated them in a corn meal/flour mixture before pan frying them until golden brown in some olive and canola oil. The wow factor was actually in her Roma Tomato Jam that she made to accompany them. She found the recipe in a cookbook that I gave her a couple of years ago from The Boathouse Restaurant in Charleston! She sauteed 1 medium onion (minced), 1 1/2 quarts roma tomatoes (chopped) and 1 T chopped garlic in some olive oil over medium-high heat. She then turned the heat down to low and added 1 cup balsamic vinegar and 1 cup brown sugar. It cooked over low heat until the mixture had a jam like consistency (about 30 minutes). It has a tart, sweet and savory flavor that was perfect schmeared on the fried green tomatoes. It would also be good with chicken, pork, okra, anything really! Another note about the tomatoes - try to avoid using tomatoes that have ANY pink to them when sliced. You really need the firm green texture to avoid any mushiness.

*Note also yellow pepper and gorgeous Zinnias from mom's garden!

The green beans were actually started earlier in the afternoon. The pole beans have to be stringed well as you're snapping them into pieces -they are pretty tough otherwise. Mom starts with 2 to 3 thick slices of bacon in a big pot and renders them down until crispy. She then sets the bacon strips aside to crumble into the beans before serving. The cleaned/snapped/stringed beans go into the pot with the bacon drippings over med-high heat and you stir them constantly until the beans are all bright green and almost translucent looking (3-5 mins). Once that happens, you fill the pot with water- about 2/3 of the way up the beans- bring to a boil- and turn the heat down to a simmer. You want to liberally season with salt and pepper and mom tucks half of a sweet onion into the beans for added flavor as well. The beans cook for about hour- though you have to watch to ensure there is always enough liquid. (add some water if you need to along the way). 15 or 20 minutes in to the cook time, you tuck maybe 10 small new potatoes in with the beans to cook as well.

Now, you CANNOT have these beans without another critical southern accoutrement- slightly pickled cucumbers and sweet onions. You peel and slice a cucumber and thinly slice a sm/med sweet onion. Then you pour over some cider vinegar, a little bit of water a pinch of sugar and some salt to make a bath. I'll have to get the proportions from my mom but you let this sit in the fridge for an hour or so and it's pickly but still crisp. You scoop these over green beans, collards, etc. on you rplate and it's just amazing.

These beans with the cucumbers and onions will forever remind me of my grandmother- all Kentucky fare does really- but I have the greatest memories of visiting her during the summer and eating meals just like this one on her porch. After dinner, my sister and I would run around the yard attempting to catch lightening bugs in jars until my grandfather said it was time to go to Baskin Robbins for ice cream.

Anyways, I digress... so along with the beans we boiled some delicious sweet corn and then grilled two racks of lamb, seasoned simply with some Lawry's and black pepper. The lamb was a wee bit of a disaster at first. Because my mom got it from a local farmer, it wasn't trimmed as well as it usually would be from the grocery store. The extra fat quickly melted on the grill and caused quite the grease fire in the bottom of the grill. The flames of course seared the racks more quickly than planned so we pulled them off after a few minutes and finished them in the oven at 350 degrees until they came up to 150 or 160 degrees. (med rare/med for lamb). Nontheless they turned out perfectly!

With the lamb (well before, with and after the lamb actually) we had first some Spanish Rioja and then a Beringer Cab- both delicious. We did two taste tests. My mom and dad are hooked on the Montecilla Crianza Rioja- they buy it by the case. Its about $9 a bottle and it really is fantastic. They've been buying the 2003 but recently brough home some 2005. We opened one of each and found that the 2003 definitely had some more depth to it but both were tasty. The other reasonably priced staple at their house is the Beringer Founder's Estate Cab. Same price point, we opened one regular Beringer Cab and one Founder's Estate Cab to try side by side and again the favorite did prove to be superior, but both were good. (especially considering we were 4 bottles in at that point...)

And for dessert, another Kentucky specialty, strawberry shortcake. Now I say Kentucky specialty because this is not your average sponge cake or Bisquick variety shortcake. We slice fresh strawberries and let them macerate in some sugar for a few hours and then we layer them with vanilla ice cream and pie crust. Yes, pie crust. You roll out the crust until slightly thinner than what you'd use for an actual pie, cut it into 3x3 inch squares or so, sprinkle with granulated sugar and bake on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees until lightly golden brown (8-9 mins). The combination of the crispy crust with the ice cream and berries is really far and away better than any other shortcake in my opinion. (Apologies, the wine tasting did not help my photography or food presentation skills one bit.)

More Kentucky home cooking on deck for tomorrow- so check back soon...