During the summer, I crave healthy, local food like salmon, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, blackberries, corn, peaches, the list goes on. We have a great farmer's market on Saturday mornings here in Redmond so Waverly and I spent a fun morning talking with vendors about their bounty and trying some new things. We came home with our basket overflowing with locally grown fruits and vegetables and locally caught tuna and salmon. The sweet corn looked so picture perfect that I couldn't wait to make some for dinner that night. It wasn't until I got home that I remembered that with my braces, I can't eat corn on the cob. Because Ina Garten is always my first stop when researching recipes, I found this recipe for Corn & Avocado Salad and used it as my starting point. We enjoyed this for dinner last night and I was so happy that it made a huge salad because I will be enjoying this every day for lunch this week.
Ingredients
Salad
4 ears of local corn, shucked
3 avocados (with juice of one lemon if serving immediately)
1 pint of heirloom baby tomatoes
1 red bell pepper
1 small jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely diced
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
zest of 2 limes
Dressing
juice of three limes
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon of Trader Joe's Chili Lime Seasoning Blend (This blend is genius. If you don't have this on hand, you can substitute 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper + 1/2 teaspoon of salt + 1/2 teaspoon of pepper)
Directions
Carefully remove all traces of cornsilk from the corn. Boil corn in salted water for 5 minutes. Remove from hot water and place cobs in ice water bath for ten minutes. (If you have a grill, try grilling your corn instead. The light char is a great balance with the lime and avocado flavors.)
Carefully cut bottom of the cob off so it is flat. Holding the corn cob upright, use a sharp knife to slice the kernels off the cob. If you aren't careful, kernels will fly everywhere so try slicing the kernels off in a pie plate. Add the kernels to a large bowl and set aside.
Cut baby tomatoes in half and add to corn. Add the chopped peppers, onion and zest of two limes. If you are going to serve this salad immediately, cut the avocados in one inch squares and toss with the juice of one lemon. Gently add the avocado to the salad and top with dressing. Gently fold the ingredients together. Cover and chill until ready to serve.
Notes
To meal prep this salad for a week, leave out the avocado and the dressing and add just before serving.
Before you seed and dice a jalapeño, don rubber gloves. I didn't and even after washing my hands several times, I still burned my eyes and my mouth terribly when I accidentally touched my hand to my face. It stung for a long time afterwards.
If you don't have time to shuck and boil corn, try using Trader Joe's frozen Fire Roasted Sweet Corn.
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