Recipe/ Salads

Summer in a bowl? No, in my mouth… please.

Have you ever wrapped your mouth around a gorgeous, well buttered, beautiful ear of local, organic corn? Me either. Until today. Well, technically, it was last week – but holy crap! It was nothing like the corn you get at the grocery store!

While it’s true, in-season grocery store corn is tasty and juicy – it’s nothing compared to the enlightened corn grown out on the Saanich peninsula. I’d been waiting and hoping to get some fresh corn in our CSA box and lo and behold, it came (along with a bunch of other delicious CSA goodies):

Inspired by this momentous event I decided to throw together a relatively no-cook Summer salad that can dub as both a veggie friendly entree, or a meat eater’s side. It made it to the bowl – some assembly required – and then straight into my mouth where it exploded with flavor. Twice. And then I ate some of this for dessert. I encourage you to toss this salad and mow down as soon as possible. It’s filling, yet light and oh so Summer in a bowl. No, wait – in your mouth.

P.S. Did I forget to mention…? In addition to finding corn in my box, we also receive a newsletter each week that tells us about the ingredients we’ve got, news from the farm, and recipes to try. Well, this past delivery sure made my day! This is just a snippet of the newsletter, but it sure is ef’ing cool!

Sorry about the ghetto crinkles in the paper, etc… sometimes things get a little crinkled around here. Yay for both the mentions of Peggy @ My Fiance Likes It So It Must Be Good and Chef Heidi Fink @ Lip Smacking too!

If you’re curious about CSAs (community supported agriculture) you can click here to check out Saanich Organics (my box delivery program) or here to see what Farm Folk City Folk have to say about it plus a listing of a lot of the programs in and around British Columbia, or here for CSA producers in the United States, or here to read the Wikipage on CSAs (because we know everything on Wikipedia is always entirely accurate, right?).

Summer In A Bowl

Ingredients

For Summer:

2 Ears of Local, Happy Corn, shucked.
2 to 3 C tomatoes, chopped.
1/2 Red Onion, finely diced.
2 Avocados, seeded, skinned & chopped.
1 540ml Can Black Beans, drained and well rinsed (sub dried beans, soaked & rinsed).
1 Red Chili, seeded and finely chopped.
1 Clove Garlic, finely chopped.
1/4 C Fresh Organic Cilantro, finely chopped.
1/4 C Fresh Basil, roughly torn.
Kosher Salt & Fresh Cracked Black Pepper.

Ingredients for Dressing:

1/4 C Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
4 Tbsp Good Quality Balsamic or Red Wine Vinegar.
Juice of 1 Lime.
1 Tsp Ground Cumin.
Kosher Salt & Fresh Cracked Black Pepper.

Instructions

Pre-heat your grill to medium-high heat. While that heats, bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the corn. Cook 2 minutes, drain, and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Toss in a little olive oil, season with salt and pepper and place on hot grill to lightly char the corn - make sure it doesn't burn. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
While that cools, toss the rest of the Summer ingredients into a large bowl. Set aside.
Combine the dressing ingredients in a mason jar - just lid & shake. Or, if you don't have a jar, a fork or whisk and bowl will do the same thing.
Now, hold the corn skinny end up on the cutting board, and slice straight down the length of the ear with a steak knife to remove the kernels from the cob. Add to your Summer bowl, dress with the dressing, and toss well to combine.
Eat.