Feeding Friendship: Corn Edition

Ellie chose this week's seasonal ingredient: fresh corn. Wegman's has been selling it 5 or 6 for $2, and you can hardly beat that, so I was happy to participate. Now, I'm sure you all know I'm not much of a vegetable fan- getting better, but not there yet- so I thought a long time about what to do with this ingredient. Just nights before our new ingredient was posted, I had grilled some corn for George, so I didn't really want to do the same thing again. Luckily, Real Simple just sent around an email regarding recipes for end of summer ingredients, including corn. I took a look through all their corn salads and salsas until the right dish popped up: Corn Spoon Bread. Leave it to me to turn corn into a carb. To make it, I first went through the adventure of cutting all the corn off of the cobs...also known as the Great Corn Explosion of 2011. Though it got less coverage than the recent earthquake or Hurricane Irene, it had a much larger impact on my kitchen. I got it done using a serrated bread knife until I had 2 cups of corn kernels.

Per the directions, I added the corn to 2 cups of whole milk to the 2 cups of corn and brought it to a boil. In a separate bowl I whisked the remaining 1 cup of milk with 3/4 cup of corn meal, then whisked it into the boiling milk.

I stirred it for 3 minutes as it thickened up quite a bit, then I removed it from the heat and added 2 Tb unsalted butter, 1 Tb fresh thyme, 2 beaten eggs, 1 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp black pepper. After a good stir, I poured the mixture into a cast iron skillet that I had treated with Pam. You can make it in a casserole dish too, I just went with the skillet since I make Irish soda bread in it and it seems to go well. Then it went into the oven for around 30 minutes.

The directions say 30, but I cooked it for several minutes longer than that, even in a convection oven. Maybe it's because I used egg beaters and it made it less thick, or you may just need to cook it a little longer than 30 minutes. In the end, the thyme makes a nice balance to the sweetness of the corn kernels, and it's one step away from a vegetable! I served it with some grilled pork chops and a Basque smoked cheese risotto.