Roasted Corn Guacamole

Ingredients

• 2 cups frozen corn, defrosted, or kernels from 3 fresh ears of corn
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp finely chopped red onion
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, finely chopped
• the juice and zest of 1 lime
• 1 jalapeno, stemmed and seeded, finely chopped
• 1 avocado, pitted and chopped

Preheat oven to 450. Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper or tinfoil.
Spread the corn kernels in an even layer over the sheet. Drizzle olive oil over it and sprinkle with enough salt and pepper to make it tasty.
Roast for 20 minutes, until the corn turns a golden brown. You want the corn to caramelize a little. It might be a little crunchy. That's ok.
Remove corn from oven and set aside.
In a bowl, combine the roasted corn, red onion, cilantro, lime zest and juice, avocado, and jalapeno. Mash it all together. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with corn soup.

Thoughts: We probably didn't roast the corn for long enough, and it probably wasn't totally defrosted when we put it in the oven. At least, it certainly wasn't at room temperature. Next time I would make sure to cook it until it caramelizes. The flavor was pretty intense as it is, but it would have been better caramelized. This tastes a lot like Chipotle's corn salsa, actually. It's hella spicy. If you're going to serve it with the corn soup, I might recommend taking the jalapeno out of either the guacamole or the soup. You don't really need two of them. Also Dan thinks that the flavor is good, but the texture needs work.

Disaster Index: 2/3-10

Corn Soup

Ingredients

• 3 cups frozen corn kernels, defrosted (or kernels from 5 ears of fresh corn)
• olive oil
• garlic
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, stemmed and chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1.5 cups chicken broth (or veg)
  
• cilantro sprigs
• sour cream
  

Put kernels in a blender. Don't blend yet. Just let them sit there.
Combine oil and garlic in a small soup pot over medium heat and let cook until fragrant. Add onion and jalapeno and cook until vegetables are soft and translucent, about 6 minutes.
Transfer the vegetables to blender and puree with corn until smooth.
Pour the corn puree back into the soup pot and place over medium heat. Add cilantro sprigs. Stir constantly for a few minutes until soup thickens. This will be tricky because this soup is so thick that when it splatters, it really splatters. Just do your best. Your stove will be a mess, but just come to peace with it.
Once soup has thickened a little, add the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, decrease heat to a simmer, and cook for 15 minutes (covered, if you value your stovetop).
Top with roasted corn guacamole and serve. Garnish with sour cream and cilantro sprigs.

Thoughts: Hella easy to make, but hella spicy. It's those really ripe jalapenos. We got a whole bag of them and we're still working on using them up. So only make this if you like really spicy things. Also, don't drink alcohol with this soup -- it will just make the spiciness even worse. There wasn't a whole lot of depth of flavor here, probably because the spice took care of that. But it's good nonetheless. A good starter recipe. We'll see what else we can add to it, I think.

Disaster Index: 2-3/10

Creamed Corn

From Martha

Ingredients

• 6 ears corn
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter (Or however much you need. You need more? I won't judge.)
• 1 garlic clove
• .5 -- 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper, to taste

Grate four ears of corn into a bowl. Carefully slice off kernels from remaining two cobs using a sharp knife and transfer them to the bowl. Scrape cobs with back of knife blade to extract liquid into the bowl. Don't just scrape the knife in one direction -- scrape it bidirectionally. Otherwise it won't really work.
Melt 1 tbsp butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant (30 seconds or so). Stir in corn mixture, thyme, salt, and pepper.
Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for about 25-30 minutes or until corn is slightly toothsome. Stir often, otherwise the corn will stick to the bottom and your kitchen will start smelling like popcorn and you'll be like "oh my god, that's so weird -- my kitchen is smelling like popcorn" and then you'll realize your corn is burning. Avoid this.
Stir in remaining tablespoons of butter. Serve immediately.

Thoughts: This was sort of a pain to make. Grating the corn isn't the worst thing, but scraping all the cobs afterward was really tedious. There must be a better way, but I don't have enough time to attend to this sort of corn research. Someone get on that and let me know. But otherwise the process was easy enough. Despite this, I didn't really like this dish. The texture was all well and good, but the thyme made the whole thing taste like Thanksgiving, which was off-putting for a summer dish. Also I don't really like thyme, even for Thanksgiving. Should I have thought of that before endeavoring to make this? Possibly. I had one serving and then made Dan eat the rest. I think he liked it all right, though he would also put in less thyme in the future (ho ho ho). In the future I think I would see if Paula Deen has a recipe that involves cream or something. This one was a little lacking in the rich flavor I have come to associate with creamed corn.

Disaster Index:4/10

Cold Avocado Corn Soup

Ingredients

• 1 fresh or frozen ear of corn, shucked
• 4 cups + 2 tbsp water
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1.25 cups chopped white onion
• 2 fresh chilies -- we just grabbed two chilies that looked medium hot (our grocery store doesn't label the chilies) -- I think it was one Serrano and one Jalapeno
• 2 ripe avocados
• 3 tbsp fresh (or bottled, honestly) lime juice
  
• 1/4 cup sour cream

For the cilantro oil:

• 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro (we used WAY more and this was not necessary)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt

Roast the corn over your gas stove (or use a grill, if you have one), until kernels are charred in spots, about 4-5 minutes.
Transfer corn to a cutting board, and, when cobs are cool enough, cut the kernels from them. Then cut the cobs into thirds. Don't throw them away.
Chop 1 cup of white onion.
Put the kernels, the cobs, 4 cups water, garlic, salt, and 1/4 cup of the chopped onion in a pot and boil it for about 20 minutes, or until there are 3 cups of liquid remaining. Remove from the heat. Discard the cob sections.
Chop the chiles, discarding only the stems.
In a blender, puree the corn mixture, the chopped chiles, and the rest of the onion (should be 3/4 cup).
Strain this mixture through a fine mesh sieve and into a bowl. Press on the solids to get all the moisture. Discard the solids, and return the remaining broth to the cleaned blender.
Peel and pit and avocado, and add it to the blender. Put in 2 tbsp of lime juice. Blend everything together until smooth.
Transfer soup to another bowl, cover it with plastic, and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

To prepare the cilantro oil:

Puree the cilantro, oil, and salt in the cleaned blender. You'll probably have to scrape the blender down several times. When smooth, remove mixture from blender and strain through a paper towel over a bowl for 15 minutes. Don't press on the solids this time.

To assemble the soup

Peel and pit the remaining avocado. Scoop out small sections with your melon-baller (or use a 1/2 tsp measuring spoon) and toss them with some lime juice.
Whisk the sour cream together with 2 tbsp of water until the mixture is smooth.
Season the soup and ladle it into the bowls. Put some avocado balls in each bowl, and drizzle with cilantro oil and sour cream.

Thoughts: This was pretty easy, all told. The cilantro oil didn't work out as well as we were hoping. I think we used a higher ratio of cilantro:oil than we were supposed to, so it didn't yield a whole lot of oil and the straining process left more solids than it should have. Otherwise, I think everything else was pretty awesome. This recipe says that it's supposed to yield something like six servings, but it doesn't. It yields like, maybe four. So I would go ahead and multiply everything in this recipe by 2. We went through it way too quickly. I also think that it could have used a little more flavor -- I suggest red pepper flakes, and maybe also some sort of cumin? I'm not sure what Dan thinks of this. I'll ask him later.

Disaster Index: 2.5/10

Corn Risotto

Ingredients

• 2 ears corn
• olive oil
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 5 strips turkey bacon
• 3/4 cups Arborio rice
• 3 cups chicken stock (or veg stock, if you must)
  
• additional water, as needed
• salt
• pepper
• parsley
  

Using a sharp knife, slice the kernels of corn off of the cob. You should have about 1 cup of corn.
Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and saute until soft and fragrant (about 8 minutes). Add the bacon and saute for another 5 minutes. Add the rice, and stir with wooden spoon to mix with the onions. Start adding the stock, about 1/2 cup at a time, adding more when the rice has absorbed the stock. Do this for like, 15 minutes, until the rice starts to get tender. Add the corn and stir. Add enough stock such that the rice is tender but not mushy.
Stir in parsley, salt, and pepper. Eat.

Thoughts: This was pretty easy to make and it was super delicious. The corn and bacon make the texture sort of chewy, which is pretty delightful. This is super tasty. That's all I have to say.

Disaster Index: 1/10