I'm as corny as Small Works in August . . . isn't there a song about that?

  
Something big is happening this weekend.  A day many Minnesotans dread.  And with good reason, because as the weather man said dejectedly on the 10:00 news the other night, "Once it's August, it's the State Fair.  And as soon as the Fair ends, it snows."  

Yes, we're a bit fatalistic about summer's  approaching demise in Minnesota.  The dread starts sometime near the end of spring and nags at the backs of our minds from the day we plant our annuals to the day we see our first big black cricket . . . dark harbinger of summer's end. 


But there is good news as well, my friends!  For now we are in the high holy days of sweet corn in the Midwest.  We've passed "knee high by the fourth of July" and have made the jump to "as high as an elephant's eye" and you just can't beat sweet corn eaten right out of the field.

Here in Hinckleyville, we go to the "corn drive-thru" down the street at Pahl's farm market -- HONK FOR CORN!  You pull up, honk your horn and they hand you a brown paper bag just bursting with the stuff.  We've already had our family "Corn Fest" this year, an event at which Russ attempts to kill himself by eating corn on the cob (and has darn near succeeded on several occasions.)

Don't try to get between Russ and his corn.

But we're a corn loving family in all four seasons.  And being the Twin Peaks freaks-n-geeks that we are (Lindsay went to the Twin Peaks festival out in Washington for her high school graduation trip -- it's that bad), we of course had to come up with a good recipe for creamed corn.

And it has become a beloved staple at family gatherings!  

I was raised on the canned stuff and liked it as much as you can like any canned vegetable, but I wanted to come up with something much better than that.

So I married my love of New Mexico with an amalgam of several creamed corn recipes and landed on something that is SO WONDERFUL, it will definitely enhance any Hooray-it's-August Fiesta you may be planning this weekend.



Here's the recipe:

(I use frozen corn,
but you could of course
cut some right off the cob
if you have that kind of 
dog-days-of-summer energy)

Hinckley Creamed Corn

(brought to you via Snoqualmie Falls, WA and Santa Fe, NM)

20 oz. frozen corn
1 pint half-n-half
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 lg. can (7 oz.) chopped green chiles, drained
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. flour
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan


In a skillet, combine corn, 1 cup half-n-half, salt, sugar, pepper, green chiles, and butter.  Cook until butter is melted. Whisk together remaining half-n-half and flour and stir into corn.  Cook over medium heat until thickened, and corn is cooked through.  Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan until melted.  Serve hot. 

(I usually make it, dump it in a casserole and put it in a warm oven until we're ready to serve.) 

 

By now you should know that this is as close

  to a food photo as you're going to get on Small Works.

Happy-Husking Weekend!