Grilled Corn

What?!? Two recipe posts one right after the other?? I know I am on a roll right now!

The awesome thing about this grilled corn is that you can do so much with it. I don't mean like tricks, I mean like you can serve it as a side for a Mexican meal (a'la this one) or BBQ or burgers or anything else that's summer time cuisine. This is easy but looks pretty impressive.

What You Need:

Corn still in the husk

Butter

...yea...that's it!
What You Do:

Heat the grill. You want it nice and hot when you toss the cobs on.

Shuck the corn. Don't pull all the leaves off, just the outside but leave the last set of leaves on. Pull them back and pull off the strands of corn silk. Don't get all OCD about the strands but get as much off as possible.

Next, get your hands nice and buttered up. Use about a tablespoon and put it in your hands and butter that cob up. Then pull the leaves back up around the cob. Use a strand of the pulled off husk to tie the top.

Now you should have a nice package of corn.

Place the corn on the grill

Let it sit for about 5 minutes and then turn.
You'll know when the corn is done as you'll see the husks pull back a little and the corn will be a nice yellow color. All in all, it should take about 15 minutes.

Pull back the husk, throw some salt and pepper on....then go to town!!
Num, Num, Num!!

Spring is here....

How do I know this? Because there are so many yummy things at the Farmer's Market that I can nosh on. This past weekend, I went to the market to get some veggies for the next week and ended up with a full basket of goodies. For lunch, I ended up making a huge plate of salad. I cut fresh tender avocados, firm spicy radishs, juicy cucumbers and ripe tomatoes. I covered the whole thing with a few pepperonis, some hearts of palm and salty feta cheese.

It was the perfect salad to end the weekend on.

As I was cutting up the tomatoes, I was hit with a powerful scent memory from when I was growing up. Tomatoes and I have a long and serious relationship. From the first time I convinced my little sister to go out to my mom's garden with a salt shaker to now when I walk into a farmer's market I have loved the little jewels of tender flavor.

There is something earthy and homey about the scent of the tomatoes. They are so very tender but surprising resilient. It doesn't take much to bring out the flavor either. Just a tiny touch of firm pressure, a little seasoning and your hit with such strong wonderfully developed complex flavors. It really doesn't take much to open up the array of possibilities that a simple tomato offers.

When I was young, my mom planted tomatoes every year. There was nothing better than taking a salt shaker out to huge fenced in garden, stepping gingerly past the rows of squash, beans, corn, bell peppers and cucumbers to walk barefoot in the warm dirt to the tomato plants. Plucking one ripe, robust, red tomato straight from the vine, licking the warm flesh so the salt will stick and the biting into it like it's an apple is the definition of summer.

So when I got my veggie treat's home.... I couldn't help myself. I indulged my inner child, closing my eyes to imagine myself back in my childhood home. Where the air was sweeter, summer was infinite and my biggest concern was the tomato juice dripping down my chin in the garden at dusk.

Prickly Pear Jam!

"SON OF A NUT CRACKER!!!"

Said for my mother's benefit as I fell up the mountain into a cactus while trying to get more prickly pears for the baskets my sisters and I make for our friends.

This was not the first prickly pear gathering that we had tried to do this particular year.
Laura (my sister) and I had stopped outside of Wikenberg on the way up to the mountains. We had all been a touch worried since we hadn't seen any near my parents house so we had decided in our infante wisdom that stopping the car on the side of highway 93 with two small puppies was super smart.

And I personally had decided that picking prickly pears in flip flops in high grass where you can actually see the desert floor was equally intelligent.



This actually wasn't at all smart in any way shape or form.
Laura's puppies freaked out and kept hiding behind her legs since the cars were whizzing by us a mere 10 feet away. Which meet I was gathering the fruit (yes, the red bulbs on the top of the cacti are called fruit) by myself .... in the tall grass .... in flip flops.

Whoa boy! I am a smart one!!

The thing with gathering the fruit from the cacti is that you need to use metal tongs as the juicy fruit is covered in teeny tiny opaque needles. Needles that if you get in you are really hard to get out. As I'm congratulating myself on my ability to gather all this fruit by myself with cars whizzing by, a sudden lull in traffic occurs..... and a very distinctive rattle was suddenly heard.

Picture me, Laura and the puppies running for our lives next to the highway with traffic and hauling a bucket full of fruit covered in needles.




Once we got the fruit to my parents cabin we started the hard part, de-needling the prickly pears.

This means that they needed to be boiled and boiled and boiled and boiled and boiled.
To do this, we hooked up the propane tank and a the pot we use to deep fry turkey.
after that, we had to
strain and strain and strain and strain and strain and strain
the softened fruit.
We broke down the fruit and then used a dish towel that we ran the juice through several times.
Whatever you do ...

DO NOT SQUEEZE
the juice to hasten the straining. You will get those super fun needles in your jam ... and then on your toast .... and into your mouth!

OUCH!



The first time we did this process we only yielded about half a quart of juice.
Enough to make only 12 jars tiny of jam.
Which is why we then went off to see if there was maybe possibly a few prickly pears left on the mountain.

SURPRISE!
There is apparently a difference in elevation (silly us). Which resulted in a longer life for the fruit. Hmmm.... I guess the highway adventure was not really needed.

Instead climbing mountains to find fruit would have been "easier". I mean, we did all fall in cactus.
But the juice from the prickly pears from the mountain was amazing!

Yes, this jam requires a lot of work. But oh man.....
This jam is so totally worth it!!

The recipie is for after you have done the juicing.

What you need:
1 package pectin
2 1/2 cups prickly pear juice
3 tbl lemon juice
3 1/2 cups sugar

What you do:
Combine pectin and prickly pear juice and bring to a hard boil
Add sugar and lemon juice and bring to a hard boil again
Boil 3 more minutes, wait until the mixture is glossy
Remove from heat and and skim the foam
Pour into prepared jars and before you seal make sure that that the glass is clean
Put on the lid and rings, make sure the jar 'pops'
Let cool

If you cant wait to try the jam, you can always eat the foam. It becomes kind of gelatinous and is really good.

If you want help....... you'll have to call my Mom or my aunt Mary Ellen.

Something simple....Guacamole!

I'm a total sucker for some great Guac. One of the chica's at my work made some killer avocado mash for a Guac competition that was going on and She was kind enough to share it with me. I made it last night to go along with some shish kabobs

Things you Need:
5 avocados
1/3 cup of cilantro (chopped very thin)
1/3 cup of red onion (minced)
1/8 cup of jalapenos (minced)
1 Lemon
2 teaspoons of salt

Add all together and mash mash mash!! When I did this last night I removed all the seeds from the jalapeno's. Its much too spicy with too many in. But now that I think about it, maybe a little spice in the life would be good.