Sisters Dinner

[digitS']

It is really time for me to try the Rattlesnake (Cascade Giant) beans as a chili or soup. The beans were planted late and grew slowly in the Sisters garden. So, they required a late harvest. We actually had a light frost before I pushed my way into the Painted Mountain corn and stumbled thru the squash and pumpkins to get to the beans. But, this is how I'd planned it - only one meal with green Rattlesnake beans and now, to make use of the dry beans. The pods have been drying on a greenhouse bench for a couple of weeks and should be ready to give up their seeds.

There are the smaller Buttercup squash left - the larger ones haven't been touched yet since I hope they will have a better storage life than the little guys. Even the tiny ones that were obviously not fully mature were very suitable for baking so there's been no problem with the winter squash so far .

The Painted Mountain corn as an ingredient for cornbread is a big ? mark. I'll try Seedcorn's suggestion of running the soaked seed thru the food processor rather than milling the dry corn. This is necessary since . . . I don't have a mill, anyway . What I'm especially uncertain about is the milk required for the recipe. I think evaporated milk will be the best choice since there will be, at least, a modest amount of water in the corn meal from the start.

Anyway, I'm starting this thread as a way to commit to beginning the soaking process . That's always been a hang-up with using dry beans. It gets late in the evening, Sleepy Steve's brain doesn't work . . . I forget to put the beans in a bowl of water :/.

digitS'

 

[hoodat]

Rattlesnakes are very hard beans if fully dried. When I grew them I brought them to a boil and then turned off the heat and let them soak overnight before I cooked them. Treat them kind of like pintos which need a long slow cooking rather than Navy bens which cook fast. They taste great.

 

[digitS']

It worked!!

I'll start with a cell phone picture of breakfast this morning . . . okay, there was a slice of Buttercup pie also !

Painted Mountain Cornbread

Steve

 

[NwMtGardener]

That pretty corn made a really pretty cornbread! How'd it taste??

 

[thistlebloom]

Oooo Steve! I'm excited by your cornbread success! Did you have to modify your basic recipe much? I have a whole wheat and honey cornbread recipe from my grandma that I would like to try with my PM.

 

[digitS']

I used Albers regular cornbread recipe. What I did differently was 3 things:

Since the seed was whole & then soaked, I measured it before soaking and decided to use 1 1/2 cups of corn and call that 1 cup of corn meal no matter what it amounted to after soaking and processing.

I sifted the meal thru the screen and ran the heavy stuff back thru the food processor, then sifted it again and discarded about 2 tablespoons of that.

Then, evaporated milk was used instead of regular milk, 1:1.

The beans were not "very hard" as Hoodat suggested. Instead, they weren't really fully mature - they were just a tiny bit wrinkled. I think that was a result of the plants starting a little late in the year and growing in amongst the corn. But, aren't they pretty after soaking overnight?

They cooked up nice and it only took 90 minutes:

The cornbread was very tasty, kind of nutty! I wish you could smell the bean soup! And, I was encouraged to make 2 Buttercup squash pies instead of just baking a squash . . . It didn't take much convincing:

Steve

edited on 9/20/2013 to show just one of the pictures the URL of which, Picasa in its wisdom, saw fit to change :

 

[digitS']

Here is the Painted Mountain corn after soaking:

With all the dark kernels, this won't make a cornbread that is just yellow!



Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Wow! What a beautiful meal that made Steve!
So you soaked the corn , ran it through the food processor and sifted it?
I love the color of the finished product

 

[digitS']

Sifted then tossed what didn't go thru the screen back in the food processor.

Then, I sifted that again and tossed in the garbage what had been thru the machine twice but still wasn't fine enuf to go thru the screen. I'm not really sure what that was but it was coarse.

The entire processing took about 5 minutes .

Now, I'm wondering how putting wheat thru the machine after soaking would turn out . . . Maybe I couldn't make cornbread out of it (maybe I could ) but I bet it would be good as a breakfast cereal!

Steve

BTW - I used to soak whole wheat overnight and give that to Dad's horse. He didn't get a lot and he sure enjoyed it. It never occurred to me that I could run that wheat thru a food processor for my own use . . . but then again, there weren't any food processors in those days that I knew about .

 

[ksacres]

Looks sooooo good!!!