By Canning season. August. The ritual that doesn't stop — not for pandemics, not for cancer, not for the calendar measured in months instead of years. The corn is ready: ten rows of Bodacious, ears fat and sweet, silk brown and drying. I harvested at dawn on Saturday, standing in the backyard in my robe and boots, pulling ears from stalks taller than I am, and the smell of the corn silk and the dew on the leaves was the smell of every August of my life, the Weber August, the canning August, the August that says: the food is ready. Preserve it. Carry it forward. Winter is coming.
I blanched and cut and froze sixty ears. The kitchen was a factory again — steam and knives and cutting boards and freezer bags labeled "Corn — Aug 2020." Jack helped, standing on his stool, labeling bags with his neat handwriting. He's my canning partner. He's been my canning partner for three years. The partnership is the transfer — the same transfer that happened in Marlene's kitchen when I was ten. I am Marlene. Jack is me. The stool is different. The corn is the same. The teaching is the same. The chain doesn't break.
Green beans next. Pickles next. Tomatoes after that. Fifty jars minimum. The number is important this year in a way it hasn't been before — this year I'm canning for two kitchens, my pantry and Grinnell's, because Marlene canned sixteen jars last year and this year she will can fewer or none, depending on the chemo, depending on the energy, depending on how the cancer allows her to spend the diminishing supply of August days. So I'll can for both. I'll put up enough for this house and for that house and the jars will line the shelves in both kitchens and the corn will taste like summer in both kitchens and the woman who taught me to can will open a jar in January and the corn will be mine but the recipe will be hers and the jar will be the bridge between the two kitchens and the two women and the two Augusts — this one and every one that came before.
I drove to Grinnell Sunday with twelve jars. Mom was in the kitchen. She'd canned six jars of green beans. Six. Down from sixteen. The chemo is taking her energy, rationing it, and she'd spent what she had on six jars because six jars is better than none and Marlene Weber cans in August even when the August might be her last. She was tired. She sat after showing me the jars. She said, "Yours are better labeled." I said, "Jack labels mine." She said, "That boy." She said it the way she says everything about Jack — with the quiet recognition that the lineage holds, that the chain is intact, that the farming gene and the canning gene and the labeling gene have all made it through to the next generation. That boy. That's the whole eulogy, if you need one. That boy.
After a weekend of blanching corn and driving jars to Grinnell, I needed something that used the pantry I’d been building all summer — beans, corn, the flavors of August turned into dinner. This Tex-Mex Bean Bake with Cornbread Topping became the meal I made on Sunday night after I got home, Jack already asleep, the kitchen still smelling faintly of steam and freezer bags. There’s something right about crowning a pot of beans with cornbread: it’s the corn coming back around, transformed, carried forward into supper the same way a labeled jar carries summer into January. Marlene would approve of any recipe that wastes nothing and feeds everyone.
Tex-Mex Bean Bake with Cornbread Topping
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef or turkey
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 1 green bell pepper, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can (15 oz) pinto beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes with green chiles
- 1 cup frozen or fresh sweet corn kernels
- 1 packet (1 oz) taco seasoning
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 cup shredded cheddar or Mexican blend cheese
- Cornbread Topping:
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 egg, beaten
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- 2 tbsp honey
Instructions
- Preheat oven. Heat oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside.
- Brown the meat. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the ground beef or turkey until no longer pink, about 6–8 minutes. Drain excess fat.
- Build the filling. Add the onion and bell pepper to the skillet and cook 4–5 minutes until softened. Stir in garlic and cook 1 minute more.
- Season and simmer. Add the black beans, pinto beans, diced tomatoes with chiles, corn, taco seasoning, and cumin. Stir well and simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes until slightly thickened. Season with salt and pepper.
- Transfer to baking dish. Spread the bean mixture evenly into the prepared baking dish. Scatter the shredded cheese over the top.
- Mix the cornbread topping. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, melted butter, and honey. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir just until combined — do not overmix.
- Top and bake. Spread the cornbread batter evenly over the bean and cheese layer. Bake for 20–25 minutes, until the cornbread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Rest and serve. Let the bake rest 5 minutes before serving. Serve with sour cream, salsa, or sliced jalapeños if desired.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 420 | Protein: 24g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 52g | Fiber: 9g | Sodium: 780mg