The Wonderful World of Color: Red Corn And Radish Sprout Salad With Peanut Chili Dressing

    
   When I was a kid I used to love watching Disney's Wonderful World of Color.



   It didn't matter that we never had a color TV, we used our imaginations, that and a piece of cellophane that fitted over the TV screen, the top part blue, the middle pink, and a strip of green along the bottom. Who were we fooling?

   My other experience of color had to do with painting at midnight with my mom. That's usually when she was "inspired" and it often involved  a can of lavender paint, and a spray can of gold. We'd get roused out of bed at 1 a.m. and  armed with brushes, paint, and clear plastic pop beads to help make the dining room chandelier "fancier" we'd attempt to turn our humble row house into Versailles. In the morning, I'd get up and don my navy and white Catholic school uniform and go off till  3 'o'clock when I'd return to Fran's Wonderful World of Color, which always ended with my father's big statue of Jesus in the back yard being spray-painted gold. And then white again. And then gold. I grew up hating bright colors. My answer to every painting question as an adult has bee, "paint it white." Until now that is. We've been renovating the house we just bought and we are now God help us, at the painting stage.

   I never knew there were so many paint colors! Every paint company has different names for the same colors, and not only are there a zillion names, there are also sheens. Who knew about sheens? Flat, matte, eggshell, satin, and so on and so forth. I always said that this house I was gonna take a chance with decor, this house I was gonna go big, go bold, take chances. That is until I got into a few paint stores. Immediately I was intimidated, battered into submission by the difference between Simply White, and Swiss Coffee, which by the way is a different color depending on who's making it. Oh yeah. Paint.  Who names this stuff anyway?  You think I like walking into a store and asking for a gallon of Kitten Whiskers and a pint of Inner Balance? It's too zen. By the way, Zen is also a color. Actually any random word salad is probably a color. Paranoid Pelican, Pond Scum, yeah those are probably colors too, I'll have to check my color wheel (not) which weighs about 5 pounds. With all the color madness surrounding me it's no wonder I was attracted to the red corn I found at the farmers market. Those delicate tones of pale eggshell, blended with the lightest cream, and just a touch of Kitten Whiskers. It was calling to me and so I bought some.

   I thought I'd use this colorful corn to try a variation of the roasted pepper salad I'd made a couple of weeks before. I'm trying to compile a group of easy recipes for back yard get-togethers  this summer, plus I've been pretty lazy with all the color picking, and I wondered if I could make this work. Let me tell you, it worked like a charm. It worked so well, there was a battle over the left overs. Plus, fast and easy is always a winner. The corn, mixed with the spicy radish sprouts, the crunch of the peanuts, and heat from the chilies is a great combo. This recipe will work with any color corn, but if you should run across red corn grab some up,  toss a few ears on the grill and get cooking.

Red Corn And Radish Sprout Salad With Peanut, Chili Dressing

 

Here's What You Need:

4 ears of corn
1  and 1/2 Tbs olive oil plus a bit extra to rub on the corn
1/2 cup of roasted unsalted ground peanuts
3 Tbs chopped fresh chervil
salt to taste
2 cups radish sprouts
1 1/2  tsp dried red chili flakes
2 Tbs lemon juice

Here's What To Do: 

Shuck and clean 4 ears of corn.

Rub the cleaned ears with a bit of olive oil.

Just lightly cover them.

Place the ears of corn on the grill and cook them until they are lightly roasted.

Meanwhile, place the cleaned radish sprouts in a bowl and set them aside.

Add the 1/2 cup of ground up roasted unsalted peanuts  to a small bowl.
Mix in 2 Tbs of lemon juice
1 and 1/2 Tbs of olive oil
Salt to taste
Add in the torn up 3 Tbs of chervil.

Add in 1 and 1/2 tsp of red chili flakes.

Mix everything together well. Set it aside.
Take the kernels off the ears of roasted corn.

Add the roasted corn kernels to the bowl of radish sprouts.

Mix everything together well.

 
Whisk in the peanut chili dressing.

Give it a good stir so that everything is covered, and serve it up!

   This salad can be served hot of cold. It's great as part of a vegetarian menu and also works well with any sort of grilled meat. I'm actually thinking of using this dish as a base for a salmon salad. Give it a whirl, if your family likes peanuts, and corn this could be a keeper. Coming up next, Avocados, and CocoaPlanet  Deep Dark Truffle Chocolate hook up for a Summer romance. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori


  

So Now You've Got All That Rice...Put It To Work!

   Rice seemed to be the one thing that regularly turned up in the leftover bowl in our house. Not that we didn't eat rice growing up. It's just that rice always seemed to be something that my mom would make and there always seemed to be so much of it ! No matter how much we choked down, there always was more of the damn stuff, and nothing is more depressing than looking into the fridge on the morning after anything and finding a hard, cold, tough, stiff, congealed bowl of rice. It usually got tossed after a few dispirited days of all of us staring at it hiding behind the "real" butter my parents always bought for big dining events, trying not to be noticed, wishing we'd all just go away and let it harden in peace. And sure enough, a couple of days later there would be a bowl-shaped rice sculpture sitting in the Hefty bag awaiting it's final trip to the dumpster.
    Now I hate hate, hate waste. I will go out of my way to make a meal stretch more ways than Silly Putty on a July day. What's not eaten gets recycled and composted. Also I try to cook only the amount of stuff that I know will get eaten, one day or another. But sometimes no matter how careful you are, you just get rice, rice and more rice. There's nothing to be done, and that's where this recipe comes in, the makeover for tired rice. 
   Rice, meet Rice Curd, the solution to leftover, neglected, lonely old rice. This cold salad can be made in just a few minutes, and for pennies. It works with Indian food and also goes fabulously  with any Potluck bringalong, or back yard Summer time event. You'll never toss it again.

Indian Rice Salad

Here's what to do:
 Take 1 cup of cooked rice. In this case I used the leftover rice from the Coorgi Roti I'd made earlier. The Coorgi Roti demands soft, freshly made, fluffy rice, the Rice Curd is not so particular. In fact it actually helps if your rice has been hanging around for a few hours.

 Take the rice and mix it together with:
  1 cup of plain yogurt
 Add some salt to taste.
 Now for the chaunk or tempering:
 In a small pan heat  2 Tbs of vegetable oil.
 When the oil is hot toss in:
  1 tsp of mustard seeds
  3 dried red chilies
  5 curry leaves (if you have them)
 When the mustard seeds start to pop and the chilies darken, you are done.
 Pour the oil and spices into the rice and yogurt mixture.
 Give it all a stir and sprinkle a few chopped cilantro leaves across the top.

   There it is. Yes, that is all there is to it.  Nothing exotic (well maybe the curry leaves) nothing fancy, just a simple cold rice salad with a bit of a kick. Every now and then it's good to be simple and put that leftover rice to good use.
 Coming up next. I take a challenge to turn a Bastille Day Lunch in an Indian direction. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori
  

Fun With Chickpeas, An Easy Party-Ready Salad.

   This has been quite a week around here. In  the midst of recovering from Film Festival Fun, Monday morning saw my stove hiss and spark at me and then drop dead. With a final Sssssssss it just went black. All the blinking lights flatlined, no alarm, no clock, it ceased to cook. It was no more. Now help is on the way via Sears, coming on Saturday to fix it. So, it's all good.
   Meanwhile while I wait for the repair person, all the cooking plans I had for this week are out the window since I'm left with a microwave and a gas grill. Luckily I'd fixed an amazing salad for my birthday party a couple of weeks ago that could almost be prepared with no cooking at all. Almost.
  This salad can be served hot or in my case cold, and it works great as the centerpiece of a vegetarian feast to accompany any grilled fish or meat at summer potlucks or cookouts. There are two ways to go with this dish. You can either go canned or fresh with the chickpeas. Broken stove Kathy says canned chickpeas would be perfect, but when I made the dish, the stove was working so I used fresh chickpeas.
  Chickpeas or ceci beans as I grew up calling them are a cute little lentil that suffer from some serious shrinkage. 1 and 1/2 cups of dried chickpeas don't look too imposing. Hardly a crowd pleaser. Before a bath they're these tiny little wizened brown beebee looking thingies. But after a good overnight soak....

Voila! Fat, round, golden chickpeas! Yum!

   Now this same effect can be achieved by opening a couple of cans of chickpeas, but I love to see the metamorphoses of chickpeas in the pan, and yeah, I was also the kid who sent the box tops in for sea monkeys too. So if you are going the non-canned route here's what to do:

Chickpea Mango Salad

Drain the soaked chickpeas
Pour 1 quart of water into a large kadhai or skillet
Add the chickpeas
Bring the water to a boil.
Once it's boiling, reduce the heat to simmer, and simmer the chickpeas for about 2 hours or until they're tender. After the chickpeas have been simmering for about 1 hour and 45 minutes add in about 1/2 tsp of salt.

When the chickpeas are tender and cooked through, drain them.

 Here's where the two track chickpea salad gets back on one track again.
  Here's how to put it all together.

 In a large skillet heat 2 tsp of vegetable oil
 When the oil is hot toss in:
  1 tsp of mustard seed
  1 tsp of urad dal

When the mustard seeds start to pop and the dal turns color add in:
 1 dried red chili pepper
 1 tsp of chopped curry leaves

 Stir it all together and cook it for about a minute or so.
 Add in the cooked chickpeas and saute them for a couple of minutes.
 Now take the pan off the heat and add in:
 2 Tbs of fresh grated coconut
 1 finely chopped green chili

 Stir everything around again and add in the zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/2 of a mango cut into strips

Mix all these ingredients together and sprinkle 1 Tbs of chopped fresh cilantro over the salad, and boom, you're done!

   Now this salad involves a teeny weeny bit of cooking (especially if you use canned chickpeas) and could even work with a skillet and a gas grill if you're in my stoveless condition.
   Coming up next, a steamy treat... no not that kind of steamy. .. from South India. I'm also involved in my first Vook experience which I'm going to be sharing with you. If you haven't Vooked yet, you're gonna love it!  Follow along on Twitter @kathygori