FOOD EXPRESSIONS WITH SUMMER FRESH PRODUCE June 22, 2005 Susan Noble Family and Consumer Science Extension Agent

Frankenstein played with monsters. Ben Franklin tinkered with electricity. Picasso created with paint. My chosen method of self-expression is food.

I've been expressing myself lately and have some great results to share. Don't panic; there are no monsters coming to visit and nothing will shock you. Actually, the results were as attractive as any masterpiece by Picasso.

The first result I have to share is Blueberry Potato Salad. Okay, maybe this combo is a little shocking. But it's a good shock; you'll get no pain as old Ben may have gotten from his kite.

Several weeks ago, my Extension counterpart in Bladen County was telling me about the Blueberry Cooking Contest she coordinates as part of the annual Ammon Blueberry Festival. My urge for self-expression kicked in, and I offered to judge.

Of all the contest entries, the Blueberry Potato Salad was the standout for me. With its good looks and great taste, the dish took top honors in the Salad Division. I liked this salad so much I decided to serve samples of it at the recent Blueberry Day at the Southeastern Regional Farmers Market.

Here my self-expression really kicked in and went experimental. I needed to make a large amount of the salad to be able to serve a crowd. The prospect of peeling oodles of potatoes was not appealing, so I used canned diced potatoes. I thought the results were fine and not a single taster complained.

For the record, after draining the canning liquid from the potatoes, I rinsed them quickly with tap water. If your family would be suspicious of perfectly shaped little cubes of potatoes, try potato slices to fool them into thinking homemade.

Result number two is mixed vegetables. I'm not talking about those corn, pea, and perfectly cubed carrot mixtures you can buy canned or frozen. I 'm talking garden-fresh corn-on-the-cob, string beans, and new potatoes. If this doesn't sound like much of a new idea, keep reading.

Here, I must confess that my college home economics education was not complete. (Sorry, Dad; maybe they will refund some of your money.) We were taught all about the science of cooking with pressure but not how to actually use a pressure cooker. Go figure.

Several summers ago, an acquaintance was talking about how quickly she could put a meal of fresh vegetables on the table after a day at work. She described cooking corn, string beans, and new potatoes all together in a pressure cooker.

This appealing idea stuck in my brain till I decided to try it. I asked one of my co-workers, Etherlene Scott, who does use a pressure cooker frequently, to be my partner in culinary crime. Though Etherlene does use a pressure cooker, she had never used it to prepare fresh vegetables. So we read the instructions and came up with a plan.

First, we placed the proper amount of water in the bottom of the pot. Regardless of the quantity of veggies you are cooking, always use the full amount of water for your size cooker. This information will be in the manual that comes with your cooker. Because we were cooking three different vegetables, we used the largest amount of water specified, which was for the potatoes.

Next, we added the rack that comes with the cooker. Certain vegetables such as corn-on-the-cob, should be cooked on a rack. This too will be indicated in you manual.

If you've lost your rack, no problem; make one. We were cooking such a large amount of vegetables that we had to use two cookers. One did not have its rack, so we rolled up wads of aluminum foil to create something similar to a rack.

We placed husked and cleaned ears of corn on our racks.

Then we had to do some figuring. We wanted the 3 different vegetables we were cooking together to cook in the same amount of time. Cooling the cooker, opening it to add a different vegetable, and starting it over didn't seem practical to us.

According to our manual, corn-on-the-cob cooks in 5 minutes and string beans in 3. The time for potatoes depends on their size. So that our potatoes would cook in the 3- to 5-minute range, I cut the new potatoes into quarters.

We placed the potatoes over the corn and finished with the beans. Then we cooked (or pressured) the mixture for 3 minutes (at 15 pounds of pressure) after the control began to jiggle. As soon as the time was up, we reduced the pressure by placing the cooker under cold running water. All vegetables should be immediately cooled in this way to prevent overcooking.

Then we opened the cooker to find perfectly cooked vegetables. We drained off the water, added some margarine for seasoning, and dived in.

Besides great taste in little time, we discovered other advantages of cooking vegetables under pressure. Because flavors do not mingle in steam as they do when cooking in liquid, you can truly cook a meal-in-one in a pressure cooker. This means only one pot to wash.

Cooking in steam also preserves nutrient value.

The kitchen stays much cooler with a pressure cooker compared to boiling water to cook vegetables. This can be a real plus on hot summer days.

All of these are great reasons to try pressure cooking vegetables. It's the one pot to wash that really appeals to me, so I'm off to buy my own cooker. If you have pressure recipes or tips, it's your turn to share them with me.

Recipe by Johnny Coble.

The use of brand names in this column does not imply endorsement by the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service of the products or services named or criticism of similar ones not mentioned.

E-mail address: Susan_Noble@ncsu.edu

Mailing Address:
P. O. Box 2280
Lumberton, NC 28359-2280

Phone: 910-671-3276
Fax: 910-671-6278

Date Created 6/22/05