CSA: when there is too much corn

This has been offered by eg, who is on her third season of CSA and finding tomatoes and corn are maybe a bit abundant. Her cook’s notes say the chili is good but the dumplings need more cheese.

Chili with Cheddar Cornmeal Dumplings (inspired by Target!)

Chili
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 red pepper, chopped
2 ears worth of corn kernels – about 1 ½ cups
3 large tomatoes, chopped (do not drain)
1 4 oz. can chopped green chile
1 tablespoon Chili powder
1 tablespoon ground Cumin
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups Red Kidney Beans, drained
1 cup water

Dumplings
¾ cup Cornmeal (I used Stone Ground Yellow Corn Meal)
1 Tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

1 egg
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon melted butter
2 ounces grated cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350°.

Heat oil in a medium saucepan or skillet. Saute onion until almost tender. Add garlic and cook for another two minutes. Add red pepper and cook until pepper starts to soften. Add corn. Add tomatoes and their juices and the chile and cook for about 5 minutes until the tomatoes are getting soft and mixture is starting to get soupy. Add Chili, Cumin, black pepper, and salt and cook for 2 or 3 minutes. Test for seasoning and adjust to taste. Add Kidney beans and water.

Pour mixture into an ovenproof dish, approximately 2 ½ to 3 quarts, that is not too shallow so that the dumplings have room to float. The one I used was 7 x 9 x 3.

Put into oven and bake for about 30 minutes. After the chili has been in the oven for about 25 minutes is up, prepare dumpling batter. Stir together cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Add buttermilk, egg, and butter and mix just until combined. Stir in grated cheese.

Remove dish from oven. Turn oven up to 425. Put spoonfuls of batter on top of chili – I used a soupspoon and got 7 ½ dumplings. Return dish to oven and cook for 15-25 minutes until dumplings are golden brown.

She sent another one, too, but no photo of it.  I’ll publish it later this week.