Aww, Shucks! Seared Salmon Over Fresh Corn Salad

As a continuation from yesterday's blog, I will be showcasing the goods from Whole Foods in these recipes- that sounded sorta snobbish and weird. I'm totally not snobbish about it. Use what you like dear ones, while I drink my Cristal in the comfort of my lush surroundings...oh, wait. (squealing tires) Sorry, minor lapse in judgement. Rather, I am flanked by my 3 year old son and daughter in the not-so-over sized recliner, trying to console my teething baby boy, while tiny, needle-like elbows jab me in the most unwelcome places. There is no Cristal, no comfortable seating, but lots of love...and repetitive questions.

Anyways, I got my kids to work in the kitchen...again. They don't see it as work. Well, maybe Lily. She has limited patience for chopping vegetables so I moved her over to shucking corn. That got her interest. Anything involving shredding or tearing is her kind of cooking. She appears to be using the corn as a baseball bat? All I know is that she enjoyed picking off all the strands of corn silk, sniffing the corn and then asking if she can eat it. Isaiah got into it as well. He was using his muscles ("just like Barney does"-it's the episode on fitness...okay, I have to say, lately, anything you say, Isaiah responds with the previous comment. So you could say, "wipe your face" or "put your cup in the sink" and the same response would ensue.) to tear off the corn husks, but in a real tough guy way. He even had his muscle shirt on. I love my kids.

What makes this funnier is the fact that my children are wearing the crowns they got from none other than Burger King. You may be thinking, is Burger King now serving organic foods? Ah, no. Yes, I do occasionally feed my children trash. Even more reason to eat organic the rest of the time. I never claimed to be a purist. Sometimes the cure for my PMS is a Whopper- hold the tomatoes.

So we whipped up a little fresh corn salad. I debated between making creamed corn or this, but I chose the fresh preparation because the corn was insanely sweet and crunchy, I mean, why would I alter it in any way? We tossed in the veggies, made a quick vinaigrette and done!

I simply seared the salmon in a pan with olive oil. I seasoned it with salt, pepper, rosemary and shhhhh...a pinch of sugar. It's something my mom does and it makes it so brown and caramelized on the outside, who could resist? (That was pretty much the recipe for the salmon. I don't need to write it out for you, do I? You're smart people. Just make sure your pan is super hot and cook for about 3-4 minutes per side.)

Fresh Corn Salad

Prep time: 15 min.
Serves: 4

2 ears fresh corn
1 small carrot, grated
1 green onion, thinly sliced
1/2 of large tomato, cubed
approx. 1/3 c. cubed cucumber
1/2 Hungarian hot wax pepper, minced (jalapeno would be good too)
3 tbls. rice wine vinegar
1 tbls. olive oil
8-9 basil leaves, thinly sliced
1 tbls. fresh dill, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the corn off the cob, toss with all the other ingredients. Notice my ratio for a vinaigrette is backwards, I did that on purpose. Let fattening (gotta make up for that BK snafu), more flavor, but do it how you like. Let it set in the frig 15 min. for best flavor and forget about left overs...if your hubs or boyfriend is like mine, it will be eaten out of the Tupperware container before you can even think about having it for lunch the next day. Cheers!

P.S. I am lovin' all the comments on the last post! You guys have some great ideas and I love hearing your viewpoints!