Summertime is Corn Time

I recently delved into my very first grilled corn. Seems strange that I never have and I don't really have a reason. But I got a bee in my bonnet to do it, and do it I did dammit! So after making my corn purchase at Szalay's Farm Market in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio I was ready to do it. I got advice from several different people on how to do it several different ways, so as I always do, I took what I liked out of that advice and then winged it.  First, look at this gorgeous corn! Szalays' does it right!I've never once been disappointed. The yellow/white corn combo is winner.

I pulled off the outer layers of the husk and all the inner silks, leaving just the inner, lighter colored husks on the corn. Then soaked the ears in a big bowl of water with about 3/4 cup of sugar. So about a gallon or so of water to the sugar. I let them soak for half an hour.

While they soaked, with about 10 minutes or so left, I got the grilled heated up. The inner husks did not cover the corn completely but that was fine with me, I wanted some of the char marks on it. So on the grill they went!

The first (and well, maybe the only mistake) I made during this process was that at first, I did not close the lid of my grill. I rarely do this, so I didn't think to do it this time. But when I went out for the first turn, I could see that the husks were charring and the corn itself still looked very raw. The lid needs to be closed to seal in the heat and cook the corn more evenly. After I realized this, it was smooth sailing. I turned it several times in the cooking process. All totaled, it was probably about 15-20 minutes, with a turn every 5.

While the corn was cooking, I prepared a big salad with lettuce, herbs and scallions from my garden.  Tomatoes aren't quite ready yet.  With croutons and some nice Havarti cheese, with a similar balsamic vinaigrette, it was a refreshing yet hearty salad.
 

I also decided to make a Romano cheese and sage (from the garden again) butter.  I happen to really love the taste of sage on corn, but that may not be your thing.  So try chives, or thyme if you prefer.  Once the corn was done, I peeled off what was left of the husks.  They did get pretty burnt up, but the corn did not.

Then a slather of Romano sage butter, and it was time to sink our teeth in!  Delish!!!

If you've never tried grilling your corn, I highly recommend it!  

Rocking the New Grill

A gas grill is an essential part of my summer. Sure, as a purist of most things I do prefer charcoal, but it's not always convenient. So since we've been in a home (as opposed to an apartment), we've had a grill. In recent months, as if either willing our grill to bite the dust or just sensing it was coming, Nick and I have looked at grills whenever we were in Lowe's or Home Depot or anywhere else that sells grills for that matter. Sure enough, this past week flames started shooting out of the area where hose meets burner and, since I wasn't outside at the time it was happening and didn't turn it off quickly enough, it melted the knobs to the panel, rendering them useless. I guess we're lucky those flames didn't shoot down the hose and into the tank.

New grill time!

We did a run to four stores to comparison shop.... Lowe's, Home Depot, Target and Sears Hardware. The first three had very comparable models from different makers. All were black and stainless. All had a side burner, all had pretty much the same stuff and all were $199. $200 being the limit we set for our grill, the Weber was out. Damn!

We saw grills with ovens in the bottom. Grills with refrigerators in the bottom. Grills with built in rotisseries. Grills that were black, white, stainless, red, blue or green. Grills that had practically whole outdoor kitchens attached to them!

We ended up going with the Brinkman model from Home Depot. I chose it because my smoker is Brinkman and I was on a little bit of a smoker high.



Ain't it perty?

It has, as Nick likes to call them, big manly knobs. But be warned, these lovely chrome looking big manly knobs are plastic. That was kind of annoying.




It has the side burner, which I suspect I probably won't use much. I never really had a need for one before or wished I had one. But who knows, maybe I'll surprise myself.




And on the other side, it has a counter and a bottle opener. That bottle opener kind of made me laugh. It brought forth images of manly men, drinking beers and grilling giant slabs of meat.



And here was our first meal on the new grill. Burgers and dogs. The one with American cheese is Nick's, the dog is Nick's. I absolutely despise hot dogs, always have. I just happen to luck out when I took a couple burgers out of the freezer. One of them was one I had made with sauteed onions, feta cheese and parsley. Mine!! Mine!!! Nick wasn't upset to have the plain old cheeseburger though. As an aside, I have been seasoning my burgers with a blend I got the last time I was at Penzy's. It's called Mural of Flavor and it's awesome!