With fall on the way, I had the idea of a fresh corn chowder teeming with local sweet corn before it disappears from the markets. I kept it as simple as possible to really let the corn shine. To make a meal out of it, I sauteed some wild Key West shrimp in garlic, finished with a splash of white wine, and served those on top of the chowder for the husband and I. The kids don’t like their foods to mix….so they had their shrimp on the side. If you have less finicky eaters, you could even stir the shrimp into the chowder for the final minutes of cooking. But I’ll give you the chowder recipe straight up and leave those tough decisions up to you.

Recipe: Sweet Corn Chowder
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small sweet onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• pinch black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh thyme
• 1 large russet potato, peeled and chopped small
• 4 ears corn, kernels cut from cob
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock*
• 2 cups half and half (or whole milk)
• optional: 1/2 pound cooked shrimp, smoked paprika to garnish

Instructions:

1. Heat olive oil in soup pan over medium heat. Cook onion and garlic just until soft and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add salt, pepper, thyme and potato, and cook, stirring, another minute.

2. Add stock and raise heat to medium high until it begins to boil. Reduce heat, stir in half and half or milk, and let simmer for 10 minutes, until potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork.

3. Remove from heat and serve, topping with cooked shrimp if desired, and a dash of smoked paprika.

*If you want to really let the corn flavors shine, check out my friend One Hungry Mama’s corncob stock — brilliant!

These early days of September are full of mixed messages at the farmers market. Summer peaches can still be found, but are quickly edged out by the teeming bins of apples. Cherry tomatoes and okra share table space with the first acorn and butternut squash. Rosh Hashanah is quickly approaching (September 16) — the Jewish holiday that is marked by apples dipped in honey to symbolize the wish for a sweet new year — but when the temperatures are still topping 90 it’s hard to even think about baking with apples just yet. And so this apple fennel salad is the perfect cooling dish when summer heat is overstaying its welcome. Serve alongside fish or even hot dogs on the grill. Simplicity is key when coping with the end-of-day exhaustion of freshly back-to-school kids (and their parents).

Recipe: Apple Fennel Salad
Makes 2-4 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 Honey crisp apples
• 1 fennel bulb, core removed
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions:

1. Thinly slice the apples and fennel, cutting down to bite-sized 1/2-inch pieces if serving little ones. Place in salad bowl.

2. Whisk together salt, honey, apple cider vinegar and olive oil.

3. Drizzle dressing over apple and fennel and gently toss. Garnish with a little of the leafy fennel fronds, if desired.

These particular apples were purchased at the FRESHFARM Ballston market, held Thursdays from 3 to 7pm just across from the Ballston Metro station. (Wondering why the honey crisps are more green than red this year? Blame the heat, says Mrs. Wheelbarrow in the NY Times Diner’s Journal.) We stopped by to sample the new goats-milk cheeses from Peachy Family Dairy in Pennsylvania (the foodie tot was smitten with their Lady’s Gouda Blessings, an almost candy-like treat), picked up some skirt steak from Gunpowder Bison, and sampled the new Savvy Popsicles). Local favorite Westmoreland Berry Farm is there, and Shells Yes!, a Maryland “true blue” certified crab company who makes a fresh and tasty crab and corn hummus. (And crab cakes, of course.)

What’s your favorite food at the market in September?

Welcome spring! Everything seems to be blooming early this year, with the first strawberries arriving at the markets in DC already. The kids and I have only just planted our garden, but it feels like corn season is already just around the corner. It *is* egg season, though — did you know that chickens raised naturally lay fewer eggs in the winter? Warmer days mean our favorite vendors will have more eggs at the farmers market — and that is definitely a good thing.

Eggs play a prominent role in both Passover and Easter holiday celebrations and my kids have been delighted to have hard boiled eggs on hand. Flavor magazine’s latest issue had a great article explaining the difference between commercial and farm-raised eggs and a guide to help you decode the labels on eggs at the grocery store. We prefer to buy our eggs directly from the farmer, but in a pinch, look for cage-free, organic/vegetarian-fed eggs at the grocery. In real life, chickens aren’t vegetarians; when you aren’t buying directly from a farmer and want to avoid animal by-products and genetically-engineered feed, it’s important to get organic-fed eggs.

I first learned to make quiche in high school, when volunteering as a kitchen aide at a school retreat. There, the leftover vegetables from the previous night’s dinner were recycled into breakfast — but now I typically use fresh vegetables and serve the quiche for dinner. It’s so fast to put together — especially if you keep a pie crust on hand in the freezer — and I can steal some time in the yard with the kids while it bakes. This quiche works just fine with frozen corn, so enjoy it now and then make it again when sweet corn is available this summer.

Recipe: Corn and Feta Quiche

Ingredients:

• 1 crust for 9-inch pie
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup feta cheese, crumbled
• 1 cup corn (if frozen, defrost)
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• pinch dried thyme
• optional: green onion, thinly sliced

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees and back chilled pie crust for 10 minutes. Remove and lower temperature to 325 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk and salt. Gently stir in cheese, corn, and green onion if using. Pour into pie crust.
3. Bake for 40 minutes, until set through. Makes 6-8 servings.

Note: If your kids will go for it, you can add color and a little spice with diced green pepper, Hatch chilies or jalapeño.

What’s your family’s favorite egg recipe?

When she heard I was finally conquering my slow cooker phobia, my friend Jill was quick to share her favorite black bean soup recipe. I made a few substitutions, starting with vegetable broth instead of chicken to make it Meatless Monday-friendly. Instead of the spicy serrano pepper I used a canned chipotle pepper with a bit of the adobo sauce, which gave it just a subtle flavor kick. (In fact, I may serve it with some sliced jalapeños for the adults, next time.) And as Jill noted in her instructions to me, don’t skimp on the lime juice, which really brightens the flavors of this soup.

Tofu-fearing- and bean-adverse-husband wasn’t wild about it (“needs bacon,” he suggested), but both kids devoured their bowls — which counts as a definite win in my book. We were out of tortilla chips so I toasted some corn tortillas to serve on the side.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup
Adapted from Cooking Light, March 2009

Ingredients:

• 1 pound dried black beans
• 4 cups (32 ounces) vegetable broth
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 chipotle pepper and 1 tablespoon adobo sauce (chipotle canned in adobo sauce)
• juice of one lime
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• sour cream
• fresh cilantro, chopped (optional)

Instructions:

Rinse beans, place in a large bowl and cover with cold water. Let soak overnight, then drain.

Combine beans, broth, onion, garlic, water, cumin, bay leaves, chipotle pepper and adobo sauce in slow cooker. Cover and cook on low 10 hours.

Discard bay leaves. Add lime juice and salt, then serve. Top with sour cream and chopped cilantro.

~

This post is shared with SoupaPalooza — Come join SoupaPalooza at TidyMom and Dine and Dish sponsored by KitchenAid, Red Star Yeast and Le Creuset.

Now, a confession: I’ve had a life-long fear of slow cookers. We never had one growing up, and the thought of something cooking while I was out of the house for the day made me nervous. Plus, so many recipes I’d seen relied heavily on processed foods — a bottle of this, can of that, packet of something else. But with two kids and an ever increasing number of after-school activities, it was well past time to conquer my fears and embrace the slow cooker. Then, I saw Aviva of The Scramble mention that she’d bought her first slow cooker, and had formed a “slow cooker support group” with another local blogger, Laura of Mother Would Know. They let me tag along (via Twitter) and we first made a slow cooker pot roast that was easy and delicious. The second recipe was for a whole chicken, simply rubbed with spices and cooked with onion — no liquids or anything else.

Like Laura, I made many tweaks to the original recipe. My five-year-old is sensitive to pepper, and the recipe called for black, white and cayenne. I omitted them all and upped the paprika instead. (And used a smoked Spanish paprika.) And then I added a lemon, quartered, with the onion in the bottom of the slow cooker. It infused the chicken with even more flavor and the meat was remarkably juicy when the chicken was finished.

There was one other change I made that I probably wouldn’t do again. I had a half can of Great Northern beans leftover from something else, so I dumped them in thirty minutes before the end of the cooking time. There was a lot of liquid in the bottom that I figured they’d cook in …. but it didn’t occur to me that that liquid was largely grease. The lemon juice helped, but I probably wouldn’t include the beans again. Aside from that misstep, both kids ate the chicken without complaints, so that’s a definite win in my book. We had this for Valentine’s dinner, so I served it with sweet potato tots and strawberry-watermelon salad for an all-red meal. In the future I’ll add a little green to the menu.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Paprika Chicken
Makes 4-6 servings.

Ingredients:

• 1 (3.5-4-pound) roasting chicken
• 1/2 yellow onion, sliced
• 1 lemon, quartered
• 4 teaspoons kosher salt
• 3 teaspoons smoked Spanish paprika
• 1 teaspoon thyme

Instructions:

Mix together salt, paprika and thyme in a small bowl. Remove giblets from chicken, if included, and pat chicken dry. Rub spice mixture into skin, and inside cavity. (Optional: place chicken in a large plastic bag and refrigerate overnight.)

When ready to start the slow cooker, arrange onion slices and lemon quarters across bottom. Place chicken on top, cover, and set slow cooker on low. Cook for 5 to 6 hours, until juices run clear when you cut into the leg. (Mine took 5 1/2 hours.) Remove chicken to paper-towel lined platter to absorb some of the grease from cooking and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

If you’re a slow cooker fan, please tell me your favorite things to cook. More ideas are definitely welcome!