Mató & Maple Syrup » corn

Corn, green beans, and tomato salad with feta

alexandra — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:03:34 +0000

It was a hot day today, Alan and I had run around all day and after having had a hearty lunch, we didn’t really feel like having a big meal for dinner. So I thought it would be good to make a salad with the intriguing greens I got from Kind Organics this morning. I got a bag of mixed greens that included several kinds of herbs such as mint, basil, parlsey, at least six different kinds of lettuce, and edible flowers. It looked colourful and aromatic. I also had a bag of green beans from last week’s market which needed to be cooked soon. At first I thought a Niçoise salad would do the trick. But browsing through Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian I came across a very simple recipe for a salad made of corn, tomatoes, mint & fetta cheese. I had bought a few ears of corn at the market that would probably not stay fresh for very long so this seemed like a good basis for the salad I had in mind. So I steamed the green beans (about 1 1/2 cups of green beans) while I sliced the corn off the cobs. The corn was so sweet and fresh it could be eaten raw. I then chopped about 1 1/2 cups of heirloom tomatoes. When the green beans were almost ready, I mixed in the corn, let it warm in the steam for a couple of minutes and removed the corn & beans from the steamer and placed them in a large bowl to allow them to cool. Once the corn & beans were cool enough, I mixed in the tomatoes, crumbled 3/4 cups of fetta cheese, and seasoned with about 3 tbsp olive oil & a bit of salt & pepper. I placed two handfulls of greens on a plate and topped it with the corn salad and sprinkled a bit of balsamic vinegar. I cannot emphasize enough how tasty something so simple was.

Notice the flowers on the right bottom corner:

Alan devoured his meal in no time at all:

We capped the meal with a glass of white wine and a simple dessert made of cantaloupe served with a tablespoon of maple syrup, which we ate in our balcony watching the sunset.

Vacations

alexandra — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:22:17 +0000

The five people who read this blog are probably wondering if I fell off the face of the earth… or gave up on cooking. Fear not, I’m still around, I just spent a week at a cottage three hours north of Toronto with no access to internet. This was my life for a week:

We stayed on an island, at Skeleton Lake, with no access to a car or grocery stores. That meant we had to bring all the food we would need for a week. The friend who picked us up (and whose cottage we were renting for the week) took us to some local markets and we loaded up on seasonal veggies – a box of tomatoes, lots of corn, raspberries, strawberries, green beans, onions, etc. We had brought up some meat from Cumbrae’s just because we knew we would have access to a barbecue.

We used to live in a house in Montreal and then on a townhouse and the only thing I really miss from having a house is the bbq. I looooove grilled veggies and would rather cook a lot on the bbq. So we exploited it to the fullest at the cottage. Some days I even barbecued for breakfast! Nothing fancy – just a tomato & cheese sandwich made into a panini on the grill. Very yummy. Here are some of the meals we had up north:

Hamburger with grilled tomato salsa, roasted corn, and grilled cauliflower.

Fingerling potatoes, spicy Italian-style sausage from Cumbrae’s, and arugula salad with strawberries, raspberries, tamari nuts, tomatoes, and a grilled onion

I had some leftover steelcut oats from a previous morning breakfast so I had it for lunch one day with kale, tomatoes, and a fried egg on top

Amazing colours

alexandra — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:09:41 +0000

This was lunch yesterday. I couldn’t get over how beautiful the colours were, particularly in contrast with the blue bowl.