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Succotash Acini di Pepe Salad

Late summer is the perfect time for succotash--both lima beans and corn are in season--and this dish turns it into a filling pasta salad. 

Course Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword pasta salad

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Servings 6

Ingredients

for the salad:

• 8 oz acini di pepe
• 2 strips bacon
• 1 pint fresh lima beans, shelled
• 3 small ears’ worth of corn kernels
• 3 oz crumbled feta
• 2 scallions, diced
• 1/4 red onion, diced
• 1 cubanelle pepper, diced

for the dressing:

• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/3 teaspoon ground mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon honey
• 3-4 tablespoons mayo
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

for the dressing:

• Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl until smooth, set aside.

for the salad:

• Make the pasta according to package instructions. Drain and allow to cool. Set aside.
• Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a large skillet until crisp. Drain on paper towel-lined plates then cut into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.
• Drain all but about 1 tablespoon of grease in the pan. Add the lima beans and corn and saute until the lima beans are cooked through, about 10 minutes . Remove from heat and allow to cool.
• Place the pasta, bacon, lima beans, corn and all remaining ingredients in a large bowl and toss to evenly distribute them. Add the dressing and toss again to lightly coat the contents in dressing.
• Serve immediately or up to 24 hrs later.

Notes

If you plan to serve it later, for freshest tasting results, wait to dress the salad until ready to serve.

Fresh lima beans need to be cooked about 10 minutes before serving to neutralize a compound called linamarin, which breaks down into cyanide. 

 

Orzo would be a good sub for the acini di pepe.

I first tried fresh lima beans a few years ago and was amazed at their softer texture. Frozen is pretty good but if you have fresh, that’s the way to go. I actually bought these over a week ago when I went to a farm stand for tomatoes for my birthday, kept them in the pod in the fridge and they were still good so don’t feel like you have to buy and shell them the same day. That pressure often deters me from buying things that haven’t been shelled but I haven’t found it to be an issue for lima beans. 

Succotash is a classic and at least around here, there are only a few weeks when you can get really great sweet corn and fresh lima beans at the same same time so I try to make it at least once. This time I thought I’d turn into to pasta salad to eliminate the need for a second dish for dinner.

I’ve been busy because sadly, my mom who has been living with brain cancer for the last 14 months is now home on hospice. She’s doing very well mentally at the moment–she’s nearly her normal self–so I’ve been trying to get over there to visit frequently. Luckily they don’t live too far away but it does take up a good bit of the day. Thanks to the pandemic, going out for a quick bite after a visit really isn’t an option. I’ve had to get creative. For dinner, we prepped the salad to the point where I’d add the cheese, scallions, red onion, and pepper and stuck it in the fridge. When we got home, I just added the remaining ingredients and the dressing and served it with some quickly cooked sockeye salmon. It really made for a speedy yet filling meal. 

I think pasta salads have a reputation for being heavy and not very fresh tasting but I think that’s unfair. My trick is to add a healthy dose of an acidic ingredient to the dressing–in this case, lemon juice) and something creamy (mayo) to really help lightly coat all the ingredients without weighing them down. Then, I chose a small pasta that didn’t overwhelm the corn kernels and lots of fresh-tasting mix-ins– crunchy raw cubanelle pepper, red onions, and scallions. The lima beans need to be cooked before eating so I sauted them in a bit of bacon grease with the corn. Late August corn can be slightly tougher than earlier corn so the brief saute insured it was soft. If your corn is already very tender, you can put it in the salad raw. The end result is a pasta salad that is incredibly fresh tasting, has great texture variety, a lightly smokey flavor and a just enough pasta to make it more filling. 

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Ritzy Crab Cakes

Restaurant-worthy Baltimore lump crab cakes with little filler and a secret ingredient--Ritz crackers! 

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Keyword blue crab

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

refrigeration time 1 hour

Servings 6

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2-2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
• 1 lb fresh lump blue crab meat
• 1/2 cup Ritz cracker crumbs about one sleeve
• butter

Instructions

At least ONE HOUR before you want to bake the crab cakes.

• In a large bowl, whisk the egg, mayonnaise, dijon, Old Bay together until smooth. Add the crab meat and cracker crumbs. Use your hands, or a spoon if you are squeamish, to evenly distribute all ingredients. The mixture should be able to hold its shape. If it's too dry, add more mayo. If it's too wet, add more Ritz crumbs.
• Cover tightly (I like these lids) and refrigerate for at least an hour or up to 24.
• Preheat oven to 375. Butter a baking sheet. Use a 1/2 cup measuring cup (rounded if you have it) and portion out the crab cakes on the buttered sheets, about 1-2 inches apart. You should have about 6 crab cakes.
• Top each with a sliver of butter.
• Bake for 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned and heated all the way through. You can broil them briefly for more color if needed.
• Serve immediately or at room temperature.

Notes

Use lump or jumbo lump fresh blue crab meat for best results. 

The "quick bake" or convection setting on your oven is great for this recipe! It's basically an air fryer. 

Since it was my birthday and we couldn’t go anywhere (thanks to life and pandemic conspiring against me once again) I went all out for my meals that day. I went to the seafood market and bought soft crabs for lunch, claw, and lump crab meat the day before so I’d be all ready. 

For lunch, we had soft crab sandwiches (with Old Bay hot sauce added to the egg!) with yellow tomatoes and lettuce. My husband made some potato salad, some fancy deviled eggs, and a coca-cola cake so all we had to do was make the crab cakes for dinner. Not as easy as going out to eat but not bad either. 

I know I have posted a few crab cake recipes here before. Growing up my mom always fried them and made them with more affordable backfin or a mix of backfin and lump and torn bread (recipe here). That’s very good and how I sort of think of crab cakes in general because growing up, we didn’t really go to restaurants or get take out so we’d make our own for special occasions.

As an adult, I’ve made non-Old Bay crabcakes which, while tasty, seemed wrong and a version closer to what my mom made but with saltines instead of bread which is another homestyle crab cake technique that a lot of other families I knew over the years did instead. Basically, they are all good. 

However, these are not, by and large,  the crab cakes that you will encounter at restaurants. Those crab cakes are always made with lump (even jumbo lump) and very little filler. They are also more often broiled, not fried. Lump crab meat is the most delicately flavored, most expensive (there is very little of it in each crab) yet fairly sturdy of the crab meats. It’s large chunks of straight crab which are not only eye-catching in the crab cake but satisfying to bite into.  This recipe makes those kind of crab cakes. 

This spring we watched Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu and Kerry Washington’s character makes the family she’s working for meatloaf using Ritz crackers. What a meatloaf revelation! I made a meatloaf that way earlier in the month and really was very good–buttery and rich but not overpowering. 

So when it came time to make some fancy crabcakes for my birthday I thought, why not try it with Ritz? Turns out, it was a great idea. These crab cakes had a ton of fresh crab flavor but just a hint of something rich and almost buttery but you wouldn’t quite guess it’s Ritz crackers. It’s almost as if the crab cake is being held together by nothing but an egg but it’s at the same time creamy and solid. It was really a revelation. The Ritz crackers were so light!

As I said, restaurant generally broil crabs like this but for at home, I found that baking the crab cakes browns them and ensures that they are cooked through (raw egg) which can be tricky with a home broiler. You can always broil them briefly at the end if you want them extra browned or with a slight crunch. 

These are much more delicate than the fried crab cake recipes I linked above so I don’t recommend frying them. 

I will say that lump (or jumbo lump) crab meat is very expensive but for special occasions, I think it’s worth it. Your side dishes should be simple anyway to make the crab cake the star! If you serve them with a dipping sauce, I recommend tartar sauce with a little Old Bay stirred in. Cocktail sauce is popular too but I find it can be a little overpowering. 

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Coca-Cola Sheet Cake with Cream Cheese Peanut Butter Frosting

This is a moist, rich. deeply chocolate cake with a surprising ingredient--Coca-Cola. The icing is a nod to the tradition of adding peanuts to a bottle of coke. 

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword cake

Ingredients

for the cake:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1 cup Coca-Cola not diet, not Coke Zero
• 8 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup milk

for the frosting:

• 8 oz brick cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter, at room temperature (your peanut butter shouldn't be cold anyway!)
• 3 cup confectioners sugar

Instructions

for the cake: (you can make the cake the day before you want to serve it)

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-by-13-inch jelly roll or cake pan.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the sugars, baking powder, and flour. Set aside.
• In a medium saucepan, combine the Coca-Cola, butter, oil, and cocoa and bring to a boil over medium heat. Allow to cool slightly.
• Beat into dry ingredients.
• Stir in the eggs, milk, and vanilla.
• Pour into prepared pan.
• Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes. Cool, in pan, on a wire rack for 5 minutes then remove from pan and continue to cool on a wire rack.

for the icing: I like to ice the day we are going to eat the cake so if you made the cake a day early, ice it the next morning.

• Place all ingredients in a medium bowl (or bowl of a stand mixer) and beat, with an electric mixer, until well combined and light and fluffy.
• Spread on cooled cake.

Notes

This is a Texas Sheet Cake-style cake so don't be alarmed if the finished cake is on the shorter side. 

Salted peanuts and/or sprinkles make a cute decoration! 

If you want to lean into the Texas Sheet Cake aspect, make the cake the night before and allow it to cool completely in the pan, then ice just the top the next day. 

Today’s my birthday! In the past we’ve gone away for the week, it is August and prime vacation season after all, but last year my mom was rehab after her brain cancer diagnosis and surgery, and this year she is back in rehab again so we are sticking close to home so I can manage her care. Add in a pandemic and it means we really aren’t even leaving the house! Woo!

My husband took the week off anyway and we have a new puppy so making delicious food and staying in seemed like a logical plan. Or the only plan, if I’m being honest.

I hadn’t had a Coca-Cola cake in many, many years but Coke has been on my mind thanks to the aluminum shortage making soda (in cans) vexingly difficult. Please let me have my one vice!

Traditionally it’s made with a boiled soda icing which is fine but I don’t love the “crust” that forms so I wanted to make something different. It’s my birthday so I can do what I want!

I don’t know how the practice of putting peanuts in bottles of coke started but I’ve had it in both the traditional way (straight up salted peanuts in a coke bottle) and a fancy version with homemade peanut syrup and cane-sugar Coke. It’s a solid combo–who doesn’t like salty and sweet together?

I decided to take it one step further and make a rich Coca-Cola cake and top it with a light, peanutty frosting? I don’t always love straight peanut butter frosting so I opted for a cream cheese base which I think was the right way to go. It was lighter in texture but still full of peanut flavor. Since it’s my birthday we topped it with sprinkles but I think peanuts would be super cute. It is a Texas sheet cake style cake so it is a literally “short” cake–only a bit more than an inch and a quarter–but it’s very rich so I don’t think you will be disappointed by the lack of height. If you want to lean into the Texas Sheet Cake aspect, make the cake the night before and allow it to cool completely in the pan, then ice just the top the next day. I like icing on all sides so I iced it like I would any other cake.

The cake is surprisingly not as sweet as you’d think. Well, it is still quite sweet but the peanut butter tempers that quite a bit. I suggest serving it in modest squares.

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Chocolate-Butterscotch Butter Mochi with Coconut

A rich, chocolatey version of Hawaii's easiest and possibly tastiest dessert.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword bars

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

cooling 1 hour 30 minutes

Total Time 2 hours 45 minutes

Servings 40 squares

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 cups mochiko sweet rice flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• ½ cup butterscotch chips
• 1 12- oz can evaporated milk
• 1 13.5- oz can coconut milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• ¼ cup unsweetened dried coconut also known as dessicated coconut

Instructions

• Butter a 9x13 inch pan. Set aside.
• Preheat oven to 350.
• In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together mochiko, sugar, baking soda and cocoa powder. Set aside.
• In a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter and both chips together until melted and smooth, stirring frequently. Allow to cool slightly.
• Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, and vanilla.
• Whisk in the chocolate mixture until well combined.
• Pour the wet ingredients into dry ingredients and whisk until smooth.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until the center of the pan is set and when the tip of thin knife is inserted into the middle of the pan it comes back basically clean with no raw batter.
• Cool completely, in pan on a wire rack. Sprinkle with coconut, slice.

Notes

• Store at room temperature in a covered container.
• If your chocolate/butter mixture is too hot and it cooks the eggs a bit when you whisked it in, Strain the whole mixture through a sieve, discard the solid bits and then pour it into the prepared pan.

I made these during a particularly difficult time this weekend (detailed here if you are interested) and if I can do that, you can totally make them in just a few minutes today.

I think butter mochi is one of Hawaii’s tastiest sweet treats and since we are all staying home right now (or should be) it’s a good excuse to make them at home. Apparently in Hawaii, they are sold all over and are at every bake sale but here in Baltimore, we have to make them ourselves anyway so why not now? They are sort of the Hawaiian equivalent of a brownie or blondie but with a texture closer to–but not quite– that of Japanese mochi. I can’t find a super clear history of them but they seem like sort of a mash-up of dango, bibingka and of course, mochi to me but made even easier (gotta appreciate the American love of convenience) with easy to find shelf-stable ingredients like canned milk and coconut milk and the fact that it is made in a huge pan so you can just slice and serve it. So simple!

Using the right flour is key. They have a slightly chewy, bouncy texture and to get that, you need mochiko sweet rice flour. It’s the same flour you use to make mochiko chicken so I always have some on hand. This recipe calls for about a box of flour. Make sure that if you don’t use Koda Farm’s mochiko sweet rice flour, the rice flour you use is (mochiko) sweet rice flour and not just “rice flour”. Sweet rice flour is made with short-grain, sweet glutenous rice and you need it to get the correct texture. There are other brands out there but I do highly recommend Koda Farm’s Mochiko Rice Flour. It’s very easy to find here, even Safeway has it.

Traditionally butter mochi is plain/vanilla flavored but I went wild and added chocolate and butterscotch because every non-chocolate dessert I eat just makes me wish for chocolate. I’m really not in the mood for making something I don’t 100% want to eat. I decided to top them with a fine layer of coconut to bring out the flavor of the coconut milk, which really gets covered up when you add chocolate and butterscotch. It also makes them a little easier to eat because they are slightly sticky, especially the next day when it’s so hot and humid out.

They are very rich so I recommend cutting them into small squares and using them to buy friends and make your neighbors like you so you don’t end up eating a whole pan yourself. Or eat them all yourself, I don’t judge. I don’t think they would freeze well and they only keep for a few days at room temperature so bear that in mind.