Corn, Meet Curry

Despite my trendy sense of style and adventurous, big-city taste in food, I do still treasure some fond memories of my childhood in Nebraska. One of those memories is putting up corn.

A few of you are nodding and smiling nostalgically, the rest are going "What the actual heck are you rambling about this time?" For the latter, allow me to explain, it's a question I hear quite frequently.

So, when the sweet corn is ripe, it's all ripe at once. So, after waiting all through spring for fresh corn, you now have ALL THE CORN. And that corn needs to be preserved somehow so it doesn't go to waste. You can only eat so many ears of grilled corn-on-the-cob at once, only make so much corn salsa. So, when I was a small child, we would have one big day during the summer where my mom and I would go to my grandma's house and help her "put up corn" which included shucking, cooking, and putting corn into bags to be frozen and used throughout the year. We'd start with buckets stuffed with ears of corn and end with a freezer stuffed with corn. Now, this may not sound like much fun, but for a little kid, it was great. Me and sometimes a couple of cousins would make a huge mess shucking the corn outside and getting silk and husks everywhere, then steal nibbles of fresh corn right as it was being cut from the cob. Plus we got to play at my grandma's house, it was great. 

The taste of fresh sweet corn will always remind me of those good times, so this recipe for summer vegetable curry is both nostalgic and new for me. I did feel a twinge of shame for having to BUY corn. When it was in season, we would give the stuff away, we had so much. But corn I had to pay for is better than no corn at all, and it's still cheap. This recipe is bursting with flavor and it's different than any curry I'd ever had. The corn adds a sweetness and the lime cuts through the heavy spices quite nicely. I'm always up for a nice curry, and this one has a lighter flavor that's perfect for summer.

It's topped with goat cheese. If you haven't tried goat cheese, it's generally next to feta in the grocery store, and it's very good. It's cheese, of course it's good.

Here's the recipe I used:

https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/simple-summertime-basil-chicken-curry-coconut-ginger-lime-rice/

Sprinkles of Kim:

-I don't really like coconut, so I used almond milk

-No cilantro. That stuff tastes like soap to me.

-I took the vegetarian suggestion and used chickpeas because I had them and I didn't have chicken thawed. I like chickpeas in curry, so I recommend giving it a try, or go half-and-half for some texture variation
-I couldn't find curry paste, so I just put in a couple tablespoons of curry powder. Also, spice level is completely up to you, curry does not have to burn your mouth.
-I added mushrooms because I though the texture would work well with this recipe. I was right.