I can’t remember where I heard of this movie, but it had been on my list since last year. King Corn documents two friends who move from Boston to Iowa to grow an acre of corn. In the process of determining where their crop will end up once it’s harvested, they learn all about the increasing use of corn in the US food system.

If you’ve read much on food these days (think Food, Inc. or Michael Pollen, who’s interviewed in the film), you probably have an idea of the role corn plays in US food. Still, this movie focuses just on corn, and it was really interesting to me, despite already having an idea of where all the corn goes in the US (basically, everywhere). Almost everything Americans eat contains corn: high fructose corn syrup, corn-fed meat, and corn-based processed foods are the staples of the modern diet.

If you see this just after Dirt! The Movie, as I did, you’ll be horrified by everything they spray on their crop: ammonia fertilizer and herbicide (they’re using GMO corn that’s resistant, more on that in tomorrow’s post). And that’s how it’s done these days on US monoculture farms.

If you’re interested in other documentaries, director and Producer Aaron Woolf directed Greener Grass: Cuba, Baseball, and The United States, a WNET-ITVS co-production that won a Rockie Award and aired on PBS.  In 2003, Aaron directed Dying to Leave: The Global Face of Human Trafficking and Smuggling, which won a Logie Award and aired on the PBS series Wide Angle.

I know, I know. The name sounds less than appealing. But this is yummy in a big way. The original name was Taco Pie, but I really didn’t get much of a taco feel from it, at least in the Mexican sense (I don’t think I ever once saw a ground beef taco while living in Mexico). This is more of a Tex Mex recipe. Or a Southwest recipe?

Keep in mind this is another hearty fall/winter dish. Sorry, Northern Hemisphere readers. I wouldn’t recommend this one for a hot summer evening.

This is a two-part recipe: I’m including the directions separately for the cornbread base and the tart filling.

Start out by preheating your oven to 350°F/180°C.

Ingredients for cornbread base:

1 cup Gluten-free flour (I used a blend of rice flour and fine corn flour)
1 cup Cornmeal
1 cup Water
2 Eggs
1/4 cup Olive oil
1/4 cup Honey
4 t. Baking powder
3/4 t. Sea salt

Preparation for cornbread base:

Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, then add moist ingredients. Mix well. Pour into a deep dish tart pan and set aside.

Ingredients for tart filling:

1/2 kg. Ground beef
1 1/2 cups Goat cheese, shredded
2 Yellow onions, finely diced
2 Tomatoes, diced
1 cup Corn kernels (or the kernels of one corn cob, steamed and cut off the cob)
1 fresh Chile pepper, finely diced
7-8 fresh Mushrooms, finely sliced
2 T. Crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 t. Cayenne pepper
1/2 t. Oregano
2 t. Cumin
1 t. Sea salt

Preparation for tart filling:

Dice onions, chile pepper, and tomatoes and shred cheese. Slice mushrooms.

Saute onion in a large saucepan until translucent. Add mushrooms. Once sauteed, add ground beef and cook, breaking up the beef into bits. Add tomatoes and spices, and mix well. Once beef if browned, add corn and mix well. Turn off heat and strain beef in a large colander to drain grease.

Putting it all together:

Spread half of the beef mixture on the cornbread batter base. Top with half the shredded cheese. Repeat, spreading the rest of the beef mixture in the tart pan and topping with the remaining cheese.

Bake, uncovered, for 20-25 minutes, until cheese is melted and the cornbread base sets.

The first photo was of the completed tart getting ready to go into the oven. The second was it just after coming out of the oven, and the third was after serving.

Enjoy!

Fresh Corn

This is a great summery salad for lunch or a hot evening. Plan ahead to soak the beans overnight and get the cooked ingredients chilled in time to put the salad together. You could also substitute canned beans for dried, but I’m really not in favor of canned foods, so I don’t use canned beans. You can, of course, substitute any other kind of beans if you have a preference.

The recipe that inspired this salad (which I didn’t bookmark as usual, so I can’t find the URL to link to it) called for black beans, but unfortunately I didn’t have them, so I used these unmarked (sold by bulk, in a little baggy) white beans that I had at home, which may be navy beans or cannellini.

BTW, did you know that Argentina is one of the top ten dry bean producers worldwide? I had no idea.

Ingredients:

1 Chicken breast, grilled
2 cups Beans
1 ear Corn, steamed and cut off the cob
Handful Broccoli florets, slightly steamed
1/3 Red bell pepper, diced
2 stalks green onion, diced
Handful Cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 Lemon, juiced
Olive oil
Salt, Pepper, & Red pepper flakes

Preparation:

Soak dried beans overnight, then cook for about an hour, until soft. Chill.

Grill chicken, then chill.

Steam corn and broccoli, and chill.

Once all the hot ingredients are chilled, combine all veggies, chicken, and beans in a large bowl, and dress with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Enjoy!

To be more specific as to the unhealthiness of wheat flour, check out the answers to Is unbleached flour bad for you? and Is enriched wheat flour bad for you? Or take a look at this discussion on Recipezaar.

Now that I’ve been avoiding wheat flour for over a year, I feel absolutely terrible when I do make exceptions. The last time I ate pasta I asked Agus to please remind me how awful it made me feel in case I ever got a pasta craving again.

The good thing is, there are alternatives to wheat. Namely, alternative flours like soy, corn, and rye, which work for most baking recipes. And soy and rice pasta.

The hard thing is getting over the wheat addiction. On the Recipezaar forum, SWalker posts “I was reading the Karinas Kitchen blog the other day and wasn’t shocked when she said that after 6 years of being gluten free she no longer likes the smell of the bakery department.”

Ha. I can’t wait for that day. Freshly baked wheat bread still smells SO good to me.

So, good experiment, but the original proportions were the best so far.

Luckily, this bread machine has a “super fast” cycle that makes a small loaf in just under an hour, which is perfect because I don’t waste as many ingredients and I get fast results: the mystery of whether or not it works is resolved in record time.

So far: FAIL.

Yesterday afternoon, I did my first loaf with half soy flour and half rice flour. It came out solid, with nicely browned crust. But the inside was weird: dry and kind of flaky. Neither of us were happy with it.

So today after getting back from the gym, I put in ingredients for a new loaf with just soy flour. It’s not coming out of the pan very easily. It kind of fell apart when I tried to turn it out of the baking pan, and the rest of it is still sitting in there. Agus actually laughed when he came home from work and saw it. We ended up breaking pieces off of it to accompany lunch. The verdict: great flavor, great texture (soft and moist), but the falling-apart factor is pretty bad.

I really didn’t want to add corn flour to this because I didn’t want to make a corn bread, but I will probably try half soy, half corn for the next time. I also have garbanzo flour which I have been wanting to try, but haven’t built up the courage to do so just yet. Maybe I’ll do half soy, a quarter corn, and a quarter garbanzo. Will blog results once they come out. And of course, once I have a usable recipe I will share it.

Ingredients:

1 c. soy flour
1 c. cornmeal
1/4 c. honey
4 T baking powder
3/4 t. salt
1 c. water
2 eggs
1/4 c. vegetable oil

Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, then add wet ingredients and mix for about a minute. Pour into a greased baking pan. Bake at 425°F or whatever your oven‘s equivalent is for 20-25 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.