Sweet & Spicy Grilled Corn

Here's a simple and tasty recipe for giving grilled corn a little zing.  Sweet & Spicy Grilled Corn combines sugar, red pepper, and smoked paprika with melted butter to make a brush-on coating that turns ordinary corn on the cob into something special.  Best of all, it's super easy!

Remove the husks and corn silk, but leave the end of the stalk attached to make it easier to hold the corn.

Soak the husked corn in a pot of cold water for 15 minutes.  Weight down the corn if necessary to keep it completely submerged.  Soaking keeps the corn moist during grilling.

While the corn is soaking, heat the grill to medium heat and prepare the sweet and spicy butter mixture.

For 3 ears of corn:  Melt 1-1/2 T butter in a small vessel.  Add 1/2 t brown sugar, 1/4 t crushed red pepper flakes, 1/2 t smoked paprika, and 1/4 t salt.  Stir to combine.

After the corn has soaked for 15 minutes, remove from the water.  Pat dry.  Brush with the melted butter mixture, coating the corn on all sides.  Wrap the corn in foil and grill for 15-20 minutes, turning several times to make sure the corn cooks evenly.  Remove from the heat.  Unwrap carefully.  Allow to cool for a few minutes before biting into the juicy, sweet, and spicy goodness of this fresh-grilled corn.

Today's bounty included:

From Jaime Farms:  Carrots, green leaf lettuce, and Persian cucumbers;

From Jimenez Family Farm:  Corn, tomatoes, spinach, dill, and cabbage;

From K and K Ranch:  Asian pears, Bartlett pears, and September King plums;

From Mua Farm:  Asian long beans, ong choy, and bok choy.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Grilled Corn Salad with Lime Vinaigrette

I've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of our first corn of the season.  So, I was delighted to see three beautiful ears of white corn in today's box.  Corn is best eaten as soon as it's picked.  The sweet sugar begins to turn to blander starch almost immediately after the ear is plucked from the stalk, so always buy the freshest corn you can get and eat it right away.

I've been thinking about corn salads for weeks.  When I came home this afternoon, I turned on the grill, pulled the husks and silk off the corn, rubbed the ears with a little olive oil, and put the corn on the hot grill for about 10 minutes, rotating the ears two or three times during cooking.  Then I took the corn off the grill and let it cool.

In the meantime, I finely chopped a little red onion, pasilla pepper, and fresh chives.  Pasilla peppers can be hot, but the hotness is in the seeds, so use as much or as little of the seeds as you like.  If you prefer something completely mild, you can substitute red or green bell pepper.

I also chopped up some cilantro.  If you don't care for cilantro, you can substitute fresh Italian parsley or basil.

Then I mixed up a simple lime vinaigrette using just 2 T of extra virgin olive oil and 2 T fresh-squeezed lime juice.

When the corn was cool enough to handle, I cut the kernels off the ears into a bowl and mixed in the finely chopped red onion, pasilla pepper, chives, and cilantro.  I poured the vinaigrette over the corn salad and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  And that's it!

Here are the amounts that I used:

3 ears fresh white corn
2 T finely chopped red onion
2 T finely chopped pasilla pepper
2 T finely chopped green chives
2 T chopped cilantro, or to taste
2 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T fresh-squeezed lime juice
salt and pepper to taste

Follow the directions above and use these amounts to make four side servings.

I nibbled a little corn when I took it off the grill and it was bursting with juicy sweetness.  This corn is so delicious, you don't need to do anything to it.  So, if corn salad is more work than you want for a mid-summer weekend, just cook the corn on a grill or in a pot of water and sprinkle it with a little sea salt, or decadently slather it with butter while it's hot, or squeeze some lime juice and sprinkle some finely-ground hot pepper over the warm ears, or try a little grated parmesan cheese on the hot ears.  It's all good.

Today's bounty included:

From Jaime Farms:  Romaine, chives, basil, white corn, and eggplant;

From JR Organics:  Tomatoes and green beans;

From Sage Mountain Farm:  Patty pan squash, rainbow carrots, arugula, purple scallions, and yellow candy onions;

From Silver Lake Farms:  Basil or squash seedlings;

From Sweet Tree Farms:  White nectarines and flavor king pluots; and

From Weiser Family Farms:  Melons.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Here's what Tara brought down from Underwood Family Farms today:

Butternut squash
Fuji apples
Dragon carrots
Sweet corn
Kale
Red leaf lettuce
Spinach
Yellow pear-shaped cherry tomatoes
Pink Brandywine tomatoes
Pickling cucumbers

And Silver Lake Farms provided pea shoots this week.

When the weather turns cool, I think of soup; and one of my fall favorites is roasted butternut squash soup. It's delicious and so easy to make - simply roast the squash, puree it, and thin it with the liquid of your choice: water, stock, milk and/or cream. Season it with salt and pepper and you've got a wonderful starter; add a nice salad and/or some grainy bread and you have a lovely meal.

If you want to get fancy, you can add some flaked Dungeness cake or shrimp. You can cut the kernels off the ears of corn from today's box and add them, too. I like to add a little freshly ground nutmeg to my soup; squash seems to love that sweet spice.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

1 butternut squash
3-4 C chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 C cream (more or less to taste)
3/4 C flaked Dungeness crab
3/4 C fresh corn kernels
freshly ground salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cut squash in half lengthwise. Scoop out seeds and compost them. Place squash, cut side down on a lightly greased baking an and roast in oven until very tender.

3. Remove from oven and set squash aside until cool enough to handle. Then scoop out squash; compost them skin. [You can roast the squash in advance and refrigerate it for several days before making the soup.]

4. In a blender or food processor (or with a fork), puree the squash. Pour it into a stock pot and add 3 C stock. Heat to a simmer, stirring often. Turn down heat, add remining stock and/or cream, if desired.

5. Stir in crab and corn. Season to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Sweet Corn Salad with Orange Vinaigrette

Here's what Farmer John had for us in Silver Lake this week:
Daikon radish
Golden zucchini
Sweet corn
Dandelion greens
Carrots
Red chard
Tuscan kale
Romaine lettuce
Cherry tomatoes
Squash blossoms
Lemon basil

And here's what Tara brought back from Underwood Family Farms:
Bicolor sweet corn
Lemons
Texas sweet onions
Japanese turnips
Red seedeless watermelon
Galia melon
Red leaf lettuce
Celebrity tomatoes

Nothing screams summer like fresh-picked sweet corn. Grilled or boiled, and slathered with butter and salt, fresh corn is a classic American treat. It's fun to eat, too. Pick it up in your hands and gnaw the kernals off the cob. Few foods offer that kind of primal pleasure.

You can make a delicious salad with fresh, sweet corn. Just grill up a few ears, cut off the kernels and mix it up with some onion, pepper, herbs, and a light vinaigrette. I've been using some of Farmer John's tasty lemon basil in my corn salads this season. It adds a beautiful bright flavor and color that complements the creamy sweetness of the corn.




(Pics show jewels from Rebecca's garden, without her since July 6. Bye sweet lady, I miss you but sometimes I think you're still here - Tara.)






Sweet Corn Salad
2-3 ears sweet corn, grilled or boiled and cooled
1 small red onion*
1 small or medium red bell pepper**
2 green onions
About 20-25 lemon basil leaves, more or less to taste
1/4 C olive oil
3 T cider vinegar or rice vinegar
1/2 orange
1 t agave syrup, optional
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut the kernels off the corn and put them in a bowl. Compost the cobs, or feed them to the chickens - my birds love them.

2. Finely chop the red onion and add it to the corn kernels.

3. Seed and dice the red bell pepper and add it to the corn and onions.

4. Finely chop the green onions and add them to the bowl.

5. Tear the lemon basil leaves into coarse pieces and add them to the bowl.

6. In a separate small bowl or 1-2 C measuring cup, mix the oil and vinegar together. Using a microplane grater, grate the zest of 1/2 orange and squeeze its juice into the vinaigrette. Stir in the agave syrup.

7. Pour the vinaigrette over the corn salad. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

This salad gets better when it sits a little, so make it a few hours or even a day ahead.

*You can use the Texas sweet onion from Underwood Farm instead of red onion, but use only about 1/4 of the Texas sweet onion, as the ones we received today are pretty big.

**You can use green, purple, or orange bell pepper if you prefer. I'd avoid yellow bell pepper simply because of the color.

Enjoy!

Shelley