Thursday, July 12, 2012

Cherry Tomatoes & Hot Peppers

When in Rome …

Do you have an over abundance of those leftover garden vegetables?  Believe me, as a native Mainer I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be deep-frying cherry tomatoes, but… as they say, in the South, “it ain’t food unless it’s fried”.  These fry up so tasty and who would have thought anything fried could be good for you? 


1-2 dozen cherry tomatoes
1-2 dozen hot peppers (I used jalapeƱo and Chile peppers)
1 cup self-rising buttermilk corn meal
½ cup all purpose flour
1 egg
1¼ cup beer
1 tsp Creole seasoning
Oil for deep frying



Wash and dry veggies and let stand at room temperature before cooking.

Combine corn meal, flour and Creole seasoning and mix well.  Beat egg slightly and add to beer, pour over corn meal/flour and mix well. 

Dip veggies in batter to coat.  Be sure to cover all of the tomato before dropping into the oil or they will pop.

Cook in batches a few at a time.  Peppers for two minutes or so and one minute for the tomatoes.  Cool at least 10-15 minutes before eating tomatoes because they are very hot.  Serve with your favorite dipping dressings.  Honey mustard and Ranch works really well.

© Crackerberries 2012

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Cranberry Fig Jam - In the Bread Machine






Too many Figs?  Here's an idea for you.

My bread machine has a jam cycle and I’ve never tried it because, to me, making jam in a bread machine just seems like cheating.  Today I had some leftover cranberries, and the fig tree looks so sad with all of those over ripe figs that I just can’t keep up with.  The birds are helping, but they only eat half of a fig, and then move on to the next one.  I decided to try out the bread machine where it's so dang hot to stand at the stove stirring, and stirring, and stirring.

2½ cups mashed figs (about 2 dozen)
1¼ cup mashed cranberries (½ bag)
1 pouch of Certo liquid pectin
3 Tbsp lemon juice

Put all ingredients in the bread machine and press the jam cycle.  My bread machine does a 2lb loaf size.  Recipes should not exceed 3½ cups (mine did by ¼ cup and I didn’t have a problem).  Good luck.  I can’t wait to try it again! 


Yield: five 8oz. freezer jars.

©Crackerberries 2012