Chapter 11

THE BOUNTY OF SUMMER

When mountain gardens are laid by and the fruits of weeks of labor begin to cascade down in a glorious fashion formed by daily harvests, work transitions from the garden to canning, freezing or otherwise processing. It also means a veritable embarrassment of riches in terms of food choices. For both of us, this has traditionally been the time of year, more than any other, when vegetables reign supreme on the family table and when meals often are meatless or maybe just have some kind of meat gravy.

Zucchini Pie

2 teaspoons mustard (optional)

Unbaked pie shell

4 cups thinly sliced zucchini

1 cup chopped onion

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon butter

2 teaspoons chopped parsley

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon basil

2 eggs

8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

Spread mustard on bottom of pie crust and set aside. Cook zucchini, onion and butter for 10 minutes until tender and beginning to become translucent. Stir in parsley, salt, garlic powder, pepper and basil. Combine eggs and cheese and add to zucchini mixture. Stir well and pour into prepared crust. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

NOTE: While virtually all the recipes in this cookbook come from one of the authors or their families, this one is courtesy of Mary McLaren.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Cornmeal

Salt and pepper to taste

Egg

Milk

Cooking oil

Sliced green tomatoes

Mix cornmeal, salt and pepper together in a shallow dish and set aside. Mix egg with milk in a second shallow dish. Heat oil to medium high. Drench tomato slices in liquid and then dredge in the cornmeal mix and fry in hot oil until golden brown on each side. Drain and serve immediately.

TIP: Be sure oil is piping hot before putting the tomato slices in it.

—Tipper Pressley

A batch of green tomatoes picked before first frost. Tipper Pressley.

Squash and Onions

Squash

Onion

Butter or bacon grease

Salt and pepper to taste

Slice squash and onions in rounds. Melt butter or bacon grease in pan. Add squash and onions, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. Cook until tender. A very quick and simple recipe that is served often in Appalachia.

—Tipper Pressley

Fried Corn

Fresh corn on the cob—at least one ear for each person

Bacon grease

Sugar to taste—it’s really not necessary if using sweet corn

Water

Cut corn off cob and fry in bacon grease. Add a little water to pan to keep corn from sticking and, if desired, add sugar to taste. Cook corn while stirring for 10 minutes or until done.

NOTE: Corn plays a huge role in Appalachian foodways, and this recipe offers a quick variation to use when corn comes in each summer.

TIP: Butter may be used in place of bacon grease.

—Tipper Pressley

Roasted Okra

For folks who can never get past the “slimy” feel of stewed okra or those who want an alternative to the fried version of this dandy vegetable, roasting can be the way to go. Here’s a delightfully different way to enjoy it.

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 pounds okra (the smaller the pods, the better; for larger ones, cut into 1-inch lengths)

Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Lightly grease a baking pan. Combine olive oil with balsamic vinegar in a large bowl. Add the okra to the bowl and toss until lightly coated. Arrange in a single layer on the baking pan. Roast, shaking or stirring every 5 minutes for 10 to 15 minutes or until the okra is nicely browned.

—Jim Casada

Eggplant Parmesan

1 (or more) nice-size eggplants

Kosher salt

1 egg

Whole wheat saltine crackers, crushed fine

Olive oil

Mozzarella cheese

Parmesan cheese

Marinara sauce

Slice eggplants into ⅛-inch-thick sections and sprinkle with kosher salt on both sides. Place slices atop paper towels and then cover with paper towels. Allow to sit for at least 15 minutes. This will remove bitterness, which can sometimes be a problem with eggplant. Pat dry.

Beat egg with a bit of water, dip each eggplant slice in the beaten egg and then coat with crushed crackers. Brown the slices in olive oil on medium heat (high heat will burn the cracker crumbs). Remove the slices from the pan and add homemade marinara sauce (see recipe in chapter 12). Place eggplant slices back in the pan and sprinkle tops liberally with mozzarella and Parmesan. Cover the pan and simmer until tender (about 15 minutes).

—Jim Casada

Veggie Sandwiches

Don’t forget that you can make some mighty fine dinner (that’s the meal eaten in the middle of the day in the world in which I live) fixin’s by using fresh vegetables to make sandwiches. A tomato and lettuce sandwich suits me quite well, although I’ll readily admit a couple or three slices of fried bacon added to the sandwich is the culinary lace on the bride’s pajamas. Similarly, cucumbers and cream cheese, or cukes and mayo, can provide a tasty sandwich. Or try tomatoes with pimiento cheese, either as a sandwich or atop saltine crackers. I can go through this kind of food like a dose of salts (although that might not be the best comparison when one is talking of food).

—Jim Casada

Holy Green Beans

Productive, easy to grow, good for the soil, wonderfully tasty and delightfully diverse, beans in many forms figure in the Appalachian diet to a degree of prominence matched only by corn, potatoes and pork. Pole beans, half runners, cutshorts, bunch beans and other types of beans provide green beans for cooking in the traditional fashion along with other means of preparation, such as leather britches and pickled beans. Then there are butter beans, October beans, all sorts of dried (or “winter” beans) and more. They are easily stored, lend themselves to all sorts of recipes and have always been an Appalachian favorite.

Although Momma never used the term, after her death, the family frequently referred to a big pot of green beans as “holy green beans.” In other words, they had had the hell cooked out of them. I think we got the humorous yet accurate description from a wonderful lady, Beulah Suddereth, who helped out with some with household chores as Mom’s health began to decline and continued to do so for Dad after his mate of many decades was gone.

Whatever the origin of the terminology, in our household, there was none of this modern “tender-crisp, cooked with a touch of olive oil” nonsense when it came to green beans. You “looked” your beans (checked them for bugs or pieces of trash), strung and broke them and put the beans in a big pot with plenty of water. Two or three slices of streaked meat were then added and the pot set on a burner. Once the water was brought to a rolling boil, Momma would reduce the heat and the beans would simmer, all the while absorbing some of the streaked meat’s salty goodness, for hours. She would check occasionally and add water when needed, but otherwise, it was just a matter of letting time and heat work their wonders. Incidentally, much the same approach was used for cooking various types of dried beans, crowder peas, cabbage, mustard or turnip greens, poke salad (the final go-round, after it had been cooked and drained twice) and the like.

—Jim Casada

Fried Okra

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice up as much okra as you’d like to serve and toss it in a mixture of cornmeal and flour (more cornmeal than flour) that has been salted and peppered well. Heat a cast-iron frying pan and add enough oil or bacon grease to cover the bottom. Once the pan is piping hot, throw in the okra and cook for about 3 minutes. Try your best to turn the okra over and cook for another 3 minutes. I never manage to turn every piece over—I just give it a good try with a spatula. Put the pan in the preheated oven and cook for about 10 minutes and you’ll have a perfect pan of fried okra to eat. The time in the oven seems to remove some of the grease.

TIP: Tossing your okra in a plastic bag with the cornmeal and flour makes quick work of coating the pieces.

—Tipper Pressley

A plate of fried okra. Tipper Pressley.

Fried Cabbage

Butter or bacon grease

Diced onions

Chopped cabbage

Heat butter or bacon grease in a cast-iron pan. Add onions and cook until tender and slightly browned. Add cabbage and stir well. Cover while cooking—but stir frequently to prevent cabbage from scorching or burning. Cooking time depends on how soft you prefer your cabbage. For cabbage that still has a little crunch, it takes about 5 minutes.

NOTE: Cabbage can be grown as a spring crop or a fall crop throughout much of southern Appalachia, and accordingly, this recipe is equally appropriate to the chapter on autumn’s offerings.

—Tipper Pressley

A fine head of cabbage ready to harvest. Jim Casada.

Fried Squash

Yellow squash

1 egg

Milk

Salt

Pepper

Cornmeal

Olive or vegetable oil

The typical way to cook squash in Appalachia is to fry it. The actual procedure of frying varies from cook to cook. My mother slices squash in circles, tosses it in cornmeal seasoned with salt and pepper and fries it in vegetable oil. As the squash cooks, she stirs it, and it becomes sort of a fried squash scramble.

My preferred method is to cut squash lengthways for larger pieces. Dip squash pieces in a mixture of egg, milk, salt and pepper. Dredge squash in cornmeal and fry in olive oil or vegetable oil, turning each piece as it browns.

TIP: Squash cooks very quickly, so the pan must be watched closely.

—Tipper Pressley

Ground Cherry Salsa

Some Mexican restaurants feature salsa made with tomatillos (Moe’s Southwest Grill offers it as a standard condiment or side). A first cousin to the tomatillo, the humble ground cherry, is often a volunteer in Appalachian gardens that returns year after year. Oddly enough, both are in the same family as deadly nightshade (so too, I believe, are tomatoes and eggplants). At any rate, for those who have ground cherries, turning them into something other than a casual snack when doing late summer and early fall garden work is both logical and easy. If the husk-covered globes have dropped from the plant, whether yellow (an indication they’ll be slightly sweet) or not, they are ready for salsa.

Just remove the husks and mix them with your salsa ingredients of choice—tomatoes, onions, hot peppers and the like—and either run through a blender on a coarse setting or, to avoid quite as much mushiness, chop fine. Incidentally, an ulu is a great tool for this, and if you don’t own one of these Inuit-type knives, I highly recommend acquiring one. Served with chips, plain bagels or even toast points, the salsa is scrumptious and oh-so-easy to make. Incidentally, mixed with some crowder peas or pinto beans, or maybe with some corn cut from the cob thrown in for good measure, it works perfectly well with cornbread salad (see chapter 1).

—Jim Casada

Squash Casserole

3 pounds yellow squash, sliced

5 tablespoons butter, divided

1 small onion, chopped

1 cup cheddar cheese

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

¼ cup mayonnaise

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

20 round buttery crackers, crushed

Cook squash in boiling water until barely tender. Drain well. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in pan; add onion and cook until tender—about 5 minutes or so. Stir squash, cheese, eggs, mayonnaise, sugar and salt into onions. Spoon mixture into a greased 11" × 7" baking dish. Melt the rest of the butter and mix with crumbled crackers. Sprinkle on top of casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until done.

—Tipper Pressley