Fresh Corn Cakes

Do you like cornbread? Do you like pancakes? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, this recipe is for you.

from Southern Living, July 2008

Ingredients

• 2½ cups fresh corn kernels (about 5 ears)
• 3 large eggs
• ¾ cup milk
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup yellow or white cornmeal
• 1 (8 oz) package fresh mozzarella cheese, grated
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Directions

Pulse corn kernels, eggs, milk, and butter in a food processor 3 to 4 times or until corn is coarsely chopped.

Stir together flour, cornmeal, cheese, chives, salt, and pepper in a large bowl; stir in corn mixture until dry ingredients are moistened.

Spoon about ¼ cup batter for each cake onto a hot, lightly greased griddle or large nonstick skillet (do not spread or flatten cakes). Cook cakes 3 to 4 minutes or until tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked. Turn and cook other side 2 to 3 minutes. Makes about 18 corn cakes.

It may interest the enterprising chef to know that these corn cakes reheat well in the oven.

No-Knead Bread

I came home from work one day and found a loaf of this bread just sitting on the counter. Doesn’t it look beautifully rustic? It did not last long.

Spaghetti al Limone

Have you ever read Cook’s Illustrated? Compared to other magazines that enter our house one way or another (Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, &c.) Cook’s Illustrated is very different. In fact, it seems to be the least illustrated magazine around.

But I have nothing but high praise for this magazine. So far I have loved everything that we have made out of it, including this Spaghetti al Limone.

Avocado Club Egg Rolls

My wife celebrated a birthday recently, and she requested dinner out at California Pizza Kitchen. Of course I obliged. We don’t go there often but when we do we enjoy it. This time, though, it wasn’t the pizza that we were thinking about at the end of the meal.

CPK serves these Avocado Club Egg Rolls that we decided are the best thing on their menu. They were so good we vowed to find a recipe and attempt to make them ourselves. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, we found the recipe on the #1 St. Louis website, and now we want to share it with you.

Mulligatawny

My wife and I always make a lot of this soup at a time and freeze it for later. This is the perfect dish for when you are feeling sick, and when you are feeling sick it is so much nicer to just take a bag out of the freezer and reheat than to make it from scratch.

This recipe is classic. It is so classic that my wife’s mother got it out of a newspaper in 1998. Posting this recipe is like preserving a bit of the past. Believe me, you can taste the history; and history tastes good—not all dusty and stale like you might think.

Super-Simple Sorbet

I have to come right out and tell you that I can probably finish making another batch of this sorbet before you finish reading the recipe.

That is why I admit to having a hard time calling this a “recipe”. It’s too easy. I don’t have any difficulty imagining someone could serendipitously put these three things in a food processor, just wondering what would happen, and out would pop sorbet. I’m more surprised that what comes out of the food processor is so darn good. Seriously. Best sorbet you ever had? High probability.

Babies love it, too. This one has my 18-month-old daughter’s stamp of approval.

from The New York Times

Ingredients

• 1 pound frozen fruit
• ½ cup yogurt
• ¼ cup sugar, more or less

Directions

Put all the ingredients in a food processor container along with a couple of tablespoons of water. Process until just puréed and creamy, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. If the fruit does not break down completely, add a little more water through the feed tube, a tablespoon or two at a time, being careful not to over-process or the sorbet will liquefy.