As far as I am concerned, July Fourth isn’t primarily a day for cooking. I think of it as a day for family and community.
I love to swim with family and friends. I enjoy watching the Independence Day parade at noon in Shelburne Falls, and I adore listening to Mohawk Trail Concerts’ annual jazz offering in the afternoon. I’m thrilled that the latter two events are returning this year after their COVID-induced hiatus in 2020.
I’m not a fan of fireworks. I spent too much time when I was little overseas in countries where explosives were readily available and children could burn themselves. If my neighborhood is planning a display, however, I try to be a good sport and not cover my eyes and ears too obviously during the fireworks.
Despite all of these activities (and more!), one has to eat — and it’s nice to have something in one’s repertoire for Independence Day that goes beyond hot dogs.
You may have your own special summery dishes: a great aunt’s potato salad, a smashed hamburger (these are very popular right now on the internet), sun tea, a strawberry pound cake.
Here I offer a couple of suggestions in case readers need a little recipe inspiration. The first recipe is for a hot-dog relative, kielbasa. It comes from Tammy Hicks of Hicks Family Farm in Charlemont.
Tammy was for many years our local postmistress. (She preferred the term “postmaster.”) When Tammy gave me her favorite holiday recipe, it sounded so good (and so much NOT like work) that I ran to the store and bought the ingredients. There are only three of them. Ingredients, that is.
Tammy usually makes a lot of this, tossing between two and five pounds of kielbasa into her slow cooker. For one to two pounds, she uses the amounts of jelly and barbecue sauce I indicate here. For more, she doubles them.
I know it seems a bit … unculinary … to publish a recipe with heavily processed foods. My family enjoyed this stew, however, and I don’t mind dishing up processed foods once in a while as long as they don’t make up my regular diet.
For dessert, I suggest a red, white and blue sundae. It uses strawberries (which are finishing up their season in these parts) and blueberries (which are starting theirs). If you want to simplify life, look in a cookbook for a standard ice-cream formula that doesn’t require cooking like my custard recipe.
If you want to make things even simpler, purchase your ice cream. I suggest a high-quality local brand like Bart’s or Maple Valley.
Still, making ice cream is fun. My mother and I feuded for years about the proper way in which to prepare this treat. She grew up hand churning it. Throughout my youth, she maintained that you didn’t deserve to eat the ice cream if you hadn’t put in the work to churn it. I found hand churning tiresome and messy.
When she was in her 70s, I snuck out of the house one day and came home with an electric ice-cream maker. It involves a little forethought: one has to freeze the insert in which the ice cream is stirred for many hours in advance.
The end product is so easy and tasty that eventually even my mother approved. I highly recommend purchasing one of these machines.
I wish you a glorious fourth of activity and eating.
Ingredients:
1 pound kielbasa, cut into bite-sized pieces (Turkey kielbasa will do. ANY kielbasa will do, but it’s nice if it’s spicy to offset the sweet sauce.)
Half of a 12-ounce jar of grape jelly
Half of an 18-ounce jar of good quality barbecue sauce
Instructions:
Combine the ingredients in a slow cooker. Cover, plug in, and cook on high for 2 hours or on low for 4.
Serve on July 4 with cornbread, devilled eggs, and coleslaw (or whatever you have in the house). Serves 2 teenage boys or 4 normal people.
The Sauce:
Ingredients
2 cups cut-up strawberries
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 generous tablespoon butter
Instructions:
Place the berries, sugar, and lemon juice in a nonreactive (stainless steel or enamel) saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat, add a little bit of the butter, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes.
Turn off the heat, stir in the remaining butter so that it melts, and continue to stir the mixture for 3 to 4 more minutes to distribute the berries. Use immediately or refrigerate. Makes about 1-1/3 cups sauce.
Ingredients:1½ cups milk
4 egg yolks
2/3 cups sugar
1½ cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 pinch salt
Instructions:
Heat the milk until it is steamy but not boiling. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and the sugar until the mixture is thick and light yellow (about 4 minutes).
Whisk a bit of the hot milk into the egg mixture. Then whisk in more, up to ¾ cup. Whisk the milky egg yolks into the remaining milk. Cook over medium heat until the custard begins to thicken but does not boil (about 2 to 3 minutes on my gas stove).
Remove the custard from the heat, and strain it into a heatproof bowl or pot. Cover and cool thoroughly.
When the custard is cold whisk in the cream, vanilla, and salt. Place this mixture in your ice-cream freezer and churn until done.
This recipe makes a little more than a quart of ice cream.
Assembly:
For each sundae, scoop out ½ cup ice cream. Spoon on some strawberry sauce, dab on a little whipped cream (optional but good), and top with a couple of fresh local blueberries.
Tinky Weisblat is the award-winning author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook,” “Pulling Taffy,” and “Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.