While my granny was alive, she used to always say I could make something out of nothing. Back then it meant I had something to do when money was slim and times were tough; it was more of a necessity than anything. Now it is more of a challenge to myself to make better use out of things or to simply see what I can create.
So what triggered this post? Some simple leftovers; let me explain.
We finally went to a local butcher/mini grocery store M & T Meats about a month ago, after years of being advised to check it out. Well over the past month, I don’t know if its just because the food is so good that I don’t want a bite of it to go to waste or my creativity is just running rampant (99.9% sure its both)…but I have been using leftovers to create something new and not as boring as just “leftovers”. We took our weekly trip there today and got home to cook. I remembered we had some leftover corn on the cob; so I thought I would make some creamed corn. I had never made it, but really how hard could it be to take the corn off the cob and add some milk, seasonings and a thickener? I checked out multiple recipes, adjusted to what I had at home and threw it together. Of course while I was cooking, I didn’t take a single photo. I’m still trying to figure out how to “compose” a recipe while photographing it and cooking it. Maybe one day I will get it down. I have been blogging for about 5 years for my photography, so blogging about anything else is new to me and coordinating it all can be overwhelming. I guess it comes down to practice, practice, practice.
Anyway back to the creamed corn. I had 4 bicolor cobs of corn that had been simply boiled in water with salt and butter. The night I cooked them, we forgot them on the stove and never ate them. I put them in the fridge and almost forgot about them until today. Here are the ingredients that I had at home and used to make this simple and delicious creamed corn.
Ingredients
4 ears of cooked corn on the cob
3 TBSP butter
1 cup whole milk
1 TBSP corn starch
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon black pepper (I used freshly ground pepper)
1. Use a veggie peeler to cut the corn off the cob; you can also use a knife to remove the corn from the cob.
2. Set aside 1 cup of this corn.
3. Put remaining corn in a food processor and pulse until creamy.
4. Use the dull side of a knife to scrape off all pulp and milk from the corn cobs.
5. Mix 1 cup of whole milk and 1 TBSP of corn starch with a whisk in a bowl.
6. Melt 3 TBSP of butter over low-medium heat in a saucepan. Add in 1 cup of corn that was set aside, pulsed corn, milky corn pulp, salt, pepper, and sugar. Heat for about 2 minutes, then add whole milk/corn starch mixture.
7. Bring to a slight boil and then turn to low until the mixture has thicken.
8. Serve and enjoy
Just a few other things I “reinvented” over the last week or so. Bought ground beef for burgers and ended up only using about 1/2 of the beef for burger night because two of the kids had to work…so the next day I made tostadas by adding some taco seasoning and using some leftover corn tortillas and veggies from fajita night. After tostadas, I still even used some of the taco seasoned ground beef the next day for some nachos. So that ground beef was stretched out to 3 meals, and they were all quite tasty!
XOXO
-S