Corn Cakes & Couples Cooking

Earlier this week, we picked up our basket of produce from Bountiful Baskets. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this group, it is a food co-op that distributes produce baskets nationwide on a weekly or bi-weekly basis depending on the site. To participate, you purchase a basket and what comes in the basket is always a surprise. It has been a great way for us to experiment with new ingredients. Aside from the benefit of exposure to potentially new ingredients, we've found that we save a decent amount of money buying our produce this way as well. A basket only costs $16.50 and I guarantee I would spend a lot more than that for the same amount of fruit & veggies at any other grocery store. I highly recommend checking to see if your area has a pick-up site. And if not, you may want to consider getting trained to become a site coordinator yourself. You can find information about all of that and more here.

Anyway, included in our basket this week were beautiful, golden ears of corn. Only a day or so before we got the corn,  I had come across an intriguing recipe for Summer Corn Cakes with Chopped Tomato and Avocado Salsa that I was really looking forward to trying. You can imagine my excitement when I saw that we got corn this week!

I got to work preparing the batter for the the Corn Cakes by cutting the corn kernels off the cob. I had visions of sitting at the dinner table as a child and watching as my mom or dad gracefully sliced ribbons of corn onto my plate in one fell swoop. I lifted my knife, ran it down the side of the corn, and looked on in shock at the corn kernels flew off in all directions around the kitchen. "What am I doing wrong?" I asked myself. And Eric answered, "try a bigger knife." 

He was right, the weight of the bigger knife worked a little better, but it was still a more stressful process than I had imagined. After I had finished prepping the batter, I left it to sit while Eric and I hit the gym for an evening run. When we got home, Eric joined me in the kitchen to help prepare the rest of our meal (because otherwise we would have been eating at 10pm).

The couple that cooks together stays together. Unless that couple is Eric and me. Each time we pair up to prepare a meal together, I have high expectations for a laid-back, enjoyable evening in the kitchen. Cracking jokes. Sipping wine. Exchanging smooches. For some reason, that is never our reality despite the fact that we are (I would say) an otherwise very loving couple. 

To truly and fairly explain the dynamic, I think I'd have to admit a lot more about myself than I am willing to admit right now. Like the fact that I am too sensitive, or that I am too uptight, or that I am still trying to learn to enjoy the process of cooking as much as I enjoy the product. But let's not talk about that stuff today. Let's just say Eric and I are still trying to work out the dynamics of our kitchen relationship. 

Getting nice & crisp!

I can think of a million other things this salsa would be good with. Including substituting a bacon vinaigrette for the dressing in this recipe (ooooh, so bad.)

Thankfully, Eric put up with my shenanigans long enough to help me by preparing the salsa and keeping me calm when I thought I'd ruined my Corn Cakes. And, as usual, we followed the recipe with the exception of adding:

(you guessed it!) 1 jalapeno, diced to the Corn Cakes. 

My plating technique could certainly use some improvement.

The first thing we tasted when we sat down to eat were bites of the cakes. Delicious. Then we took bites of the salsa. Equally delicious. THEN we tried the two together (as I'm sure was intended by the deities of all things edible). The sweetness of the corn with the creaminess of the avocados with the spiciness of the jalapenos was truly heavenly. It was a satisfying, light, and delicious meal. A go-to delight for a meatless night.