Mató & Maple Syrup » corn

Summer share

alexandra — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:21:55 +0000

This week’s share came with many favourites: cherry tomatoes, corn, green beans, cauliflower, dark leafy greens, eggplant, purple potatoes… I had to take a picture, of course, but I haven’t had a minute to sit down and download it and upload here (how I wish my camera would send pictures directly to flickr!). This abundance of tasty produce got me thinking about what to make with all of that. The eggplants are gone. A friend came over last night and since I knew she likes eggplants, I roasted them in the oven seasoned with some oregano, olive oil, salt and pepper. Once nicely roasted, I added a bit of balsamic and olive oil and we ate all 5-6 small eggplants with some bread and cheese. It was that awesome.

But what to make for tonight? Some sort of salad with the corn would be great. The internet is filled with great ideas for salads mixing corn, green beans and tomatoes, of course. I knew I had made a good one a couple of summers ago. A couple of clicks later and voila: a corn, green beans, tomatoes, and feta salad inspired on a recipe by Mark Bittman. Can’t wait to try it when I get home today!

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.