Shell Beans and Summer Vegetables Stew with Cornbread

Fresh, local vegetables inspired a southern vegetarian meal that started with watermelon margaritas and fried okra. For the main course, I turned once again to the book Local Flavors in which Deborah Madison creates a summer vegetable stew that combined all the local vegetables I had on hand. The stew also incorporates fresh shell beans which are beans that are too large to be eaten in their pods and not yet fully dried. Some typical shell beans are borlotti, white runner beans, and cranberry beans, and soybeans and purple-hull beans can be eaten this way too. Purple-hull beans are a common Texas crop, and they’re available right now in their fresh form. Shell beans do not require soaking and cook in about 30 to 40 minutes. With my CSA vegetables, locally grown beans, and homegrown herbs, I had what I needed for a summer stew.

Sticking with the southern theme, cornbread was a natural to go with the stew, and this was a great excuse to use my cast-iron corn stick mold. My Mom gave this pan to me a couple of years ago, and I hadn’t gotten around to using it, but I love it because it’s something I have in common with Jacques Pepin. In Chez Jacques, in the story about fried chicken and cornbread, he describes a cast-iron cornbread mold with seven corn-shaped indentations which is exactly like mine. So, he wrote a recipe for cornbread that makes just enough batter to fill that mold, but he admits he sometimes has extra that he bakes separately in a small pan. I followed his recipe which interestingly involved separating eggs, frothing egg whites, and then folding them into the batter. I ended up with a little more batter than I needed and baked a small square of cornbread in addition to the molded sticks.

Preparing the stew was a simple process of adding the vegetables in the correct order for cooking times and seasoning each layer as it was added. To begin, olive oil was warmed in a Dutch oven over low heat, and bay leaves from my struggling to survive tree were added. Then big chunks of onions and halved garlic cloves were added with thyme sprigs and sage leaves. That was covered and left to cook while the rest of the vegetables were cleaned and chopped. Then, carrots were added followed by potatoes and then green beans. Big strips of bell pepper and thick pieces of pattypan squash went on top of all of that, and last but not least were tomatoes with their juices. That was all left to simmer for about an hour while the purple-hull beans cooked with some garlic and thyme. When the shell beans were cooked, they were added with their cooking liquid to the stew. A quick basil pesto was made to garnish each serving of stew.

Given how little effort went into the layering and simmering of the stew, the resulting flavor was surprisingly good. The herbs had mingled their way through the sauce of the stew and gave it a richness I didn’t expect. The low heat allowed the vegetables to retain their shape and some texture, and the garlic had mellowed to a nice state. By stirring the basil pesto into the bowl of stew, a sharper, brighter herb and garlic flavor was added. It was a fresh, warm bowl of summer, and it couldn’t have asked for better company than the cornbread.

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Tuscan Squash Pie

In my last post, I mentioned the Cooking Away my CSA group. The information shared by this group will reveal what’s offered in different areas at different points in the season, and it’s great for getting ideas about how to use the vegetables we receive. When I receive a lot of one vegetable and need ideas, I reach for Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. I go straight to the index, look up whatever that vegetable is, and find several options influenced by different cooking styles from around the world. Here in Austin, it’s already that zucchini time of year. I’ve received zucchini and yellow squash in my last couple of CSA pick-ups, and last week, there was also a big, pretty pattypan squash. I find pattypans are a little firmer or maybe thicker-skinned than other summer squashes, but I tend to use them as I do zucchini. So, when I looked up zucchini in the World Vegetarian index, I found Tuscan zucchini pie and decided it would be just as good with pattypan squash.

In making this pie, I went rogue with a few of the details. Obviously, I made a substitution for the main ingredient. I also added some red bell pepper because I had some that needed to be used, and I thought it would look as nice as it would taste. And, even though the ingredients were supposed to have been split between two eight-inch pans, I piled them all into one 12-inch tart pan. A custard was made from eggs, flour, milk, and water. To that, minced garlic, sliced scallions, salt, pepper, and nutmeg were added. In the introduction to the recipe, there’s a suggestion about adding some grated parmigiano reggiano if you’d like. Of course, I’d like, so I most certainly added the cheese. The sliced squash and bell pepper were arranged in the tart pan in two layers, and the custard was poured over top. I reserved a little grated parmigiano to sprinkle on top, and then drizzled on olive oil before baking.

To serve, a second drizzle of olive oil was suggested for each piece, but I used leftover basil oil instead. Although this is a custard pie, it’s not heavy at all and the vegetables are the main attraction here. The custard served to just barely bind the sliced squash into a cohesive whole. The scallions and garlic added great flavor, and in my opinion, the parmigiano should have been included in the recipe rather than mentioned as an option. This was a nice dinner with salad and garlic toast on the side, but it would work well for brunch too. The amount of custard could be easily scaled up, and several other vegetable combinations come to mind that might be used here. It’s essentially a crust-less quiche, but with these particular vegetables, and just a few tablespoons of grated cheese, it was a perfectly light, summery meal.


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