Sometimes a recipe calls for fresh corn cut off the cob and if you haven’t done it before or you’re not sure how to go about it, taking corn off the cob can be tricky business.

Corn is odd shaped and cutting it can be a test of patience and quick reflexes.  It can also get messy because corn actually carries a lot of liquid with it.

It doesn’t have to be a game of culinary roulette though!  Nope.  I promise, cutting corn off the cob can be done easily though you still need to stay focused during the task.  No one wants a runaway cob.  Remember that kids.

What do you need to successfully cut corn off the cob without making a mess or losing digits?

A bundt pan.

I swear it’s for cutting the corn and not for a corn cake or molded vegetable Jell-O salad (Ew, right? That has to be straight outta the 60s.)  Multitask your kitchen tools!  Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Once the fresh corn is husked and the corn silk is removed, place the corn in the bundt pan like so.  The hole in the bundt pan helps secure the corn cob in place.  Is it super sturdy? No, you still have to be careful but it does give you support which is what you need when cutting the corn off the cob.

Step 2: Slice straight down.  See how the corn just falls to the bottom of the pan?  This will catch all the kernels and the juice that comes out.  Once you clear a section, scrape it down a few more times to make sure you get all the corn goodness off the cob.

Step 3: Turn the cob and repeat Step 2 until all the corn is off the cob.

Step 4: You’re done! And now you have all the corn plus juice nicely contained in a pan and not all over your counter, floor, ceiling, and possibly fridge.  The corn has been freed and is now ready for whatever you want to use it for.   Except Jello salad!

“But A, now what do I do with these corn cobs?!”

Well if you’re lucky enough to have a kid who loves fresh veggies, like mine does, feel free to give them a taste.

Just a few licks though!  No chewing or eating the cob as that won’t digest all that well.  It helps if you have a seriously long boxer tongue to ensure you are able to lick the entire perimeter of the cob.

Bonus points if your kid gets that crazy gypsy-eyed look on their face at the prospect of, “ZOMG! I can has fresh cobby corns!”

But if you would like to be more practical, the cobs can be added to soups and chili during simmer time for extra flavor and creaminess.  Or toss it in with a pot of beans!

Now what are you going to make with some fresh corn?

With it being summertime, we have the chance to take the kids out and about more.  They get longer walks and more playtime.  The downside is that it is also hotter and just like us, our kids can get hot too.  They can overheat and get dehydrated.  We have to make sure that we pay attention to them to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

Boxers and other dogs that tend to have more squishy faces (or brachycephalic dogs for you fancy folks) have slightly more trouble dealing with extreme temperatures than those dogs with longer snouts.  Here’s a link with more info, scroll down past the human examples.  If you have a dog that falls into this category, make sure you pay even more attention to how they are handling the heat because they are more likely to overheat and have breathing problems.

We have talked before about some cool doggie treats that you can make at home that are easy and inexpensive.  To add on to those treats, you can use unsweetened applesauce instead of plain unsweetened yogurt.   Just put in ice cube molds and freeze.  Your dog will love the cool treat!  Not only will they be eating a fruit instead of a baked treat, they will also be getting some fluids as well.  Especially great if they just got done playing or had a lovely walk.  You can buy unsweetened applesauce or make your own without adding sugar.

If you want to go all out, you can get some bone shaped ice cube trays!  Very cute and very doggie appropriate! There are two sizes, one for the smaller guys and one for the bigger guys.

If you do have a smaller dog who wouldn’t be able to handle the size of a full ice cube, only fill the slots about half way (or even less for the super tiny ones!).  That should give you a good size for your little kid.

As always, make sure your pets (this goes for kitties too!) have plenty of water during the day and free access to the water.  Occasionally go in and change the water throughout the day so they have fresh water.  Take water along on walks with you if you need to and make stops for them if you think they are getting tired.  Early morning and late evenings are good times for walks.  Early afternoon tends to be the hottest and your dog might not handle that so well.

Remember, if you wouldn’t run in it because you think it’s too hot, then your dog probably thinks it’s too hot as well.

Now, go make some cool treats for your doggie and get out there for some play time!  Enjoy your summer!

High humidity means that you can actually swim to your car, the corner, or the mailbox instead of walking like normal folks.  It’s totally true because when you get back home you are soaked through like you just swam through something.  And how does it feel walking in that humidity?  It feels like you dove into a lukewarm bath.  Yeah, it’s pretty gross.

Hot and humidity means that you sweat.  A LOT! Way more than one normally sweats and this also means fluid loss.  In the summer we need to be more vigilant about making sure we take in enough fluids to keep our bodies hydrated and functioning at top levels!

This goes for both athletes and non-athletes.

This is where fruit and veggies become even more important to our diets and our well-being, because they can help keep us hydrated!

So many veggies get a bad rap.  Let’s list a few just for fun.

• Iceberg Lettuce
• Cucumbers
• Celery

All lovely green veggies!  What is everyone’s biggest complaint about them?  “Oh I don’t eat those because they are mostly water.”

Last time I checked, our bodies are literally 60-70% water.

So why stay away from veggies that have lots of water?  Eat that stuff up and hydrate your bod!

Iceberg lettuce makes wonderful lettuce for wraps and dips.  Cucumbers can add crunch to salad or can be topped with hummus for instant snack.  Celery is great in potato salads, with PB, or just as a regular snack.

These are crunchy and yes, they are watery!  Water our bodies can definitely use especially in the summertime!

Fresh fruit can be a great source of fluids as well.  All the melons are totally juicy and great on hot days.  Grapes?  Fabbo!  Cherries, strawberries, and peaches?  Full of wonderful juice!

I don’t like dissing on fruit and veggies because I think everything can be used to benefit and aid us in some way, we just have find a way to use it.

Stay hydrated this summer friends!  Eat your fruits and veggies.

It wasn’t harsh or overly acidic like the canned version.

I could not get enough! From that point on I vowed that when living on my own I would get fresh pineapple when possible for a lovely treat.  It seems that I prefer pineapple more in the summer months.  I’m not sure what the growing season is for pineapple but the summer is when it calls my name.  Along with watermelon.  They have to compete with one another.

Cutting up a fresh pineapple is easy and tricky all at the same time.  Slice off the top and bottom, then slice down along the sides removing the skin.  Then you have to go through and try to remove as much of the “eyes” as possible.  When you chop up the pineapple, you need to maneuver around the core.

And there’s the rub.

After what seems like a lot of work you’re left with some cubed pineapple but a whole heck ton of core!

What to do with all that pineapple core?

Well you could eat it.  The pineapple core is edible although most people tend to not eat it since it has a harder and more gritty texture. What next?

Whatever you do, don’t throw it away!  Save the core!  It can be useful, I promise!

Freeze it!  That’s right, your freezer is your friend and you can freeze that core for later uses.

Perhaps you are making a punch?  Or some sangria?  Or you just want to give that OJ some pizazz at your next breakfast.   Plop the core down into the mix and let it hang out.  It’ll give your drink some extra pineapple flavor!  Plus if the core is still frozen it will help keep the drink cold and delicious.

The core is easy to cut up into more manageable pieces.  You can cube it and then freeze it.  Use instead of ice cubes.  We’ve talked before about how frozen fruit makes great additions to drinks and pineapple core can be used just the same!

It can also be tossed in with a marinade to bring some zip and tang to the dish.

Pineapple core can be handy! And once we start using it in different applications we won’t feel like we’re tossing half the pineapple away once it’s cut up!

I have it in my head that grilling makes kitchen cleanup easy!  Everything gets prepped ahead so there are minimal dishes to wash after it’s all said and done.

Oh how I wish this were true!

Instead I find myself frustrated with the fact that I have a ton more dishes and such to cleanup than I originally planned on.  This is because grilling can be deceptive when it comes to how many dishes you actually need to use.

Just for starters there’s the utensils that are needed for grilling.  Meat forks, flippers, and tongs of various sizes and lengths.  Add in the fire and it can be like a bad talent show.

Then there’s all the plates and platters!  If you’re grilling meat, then you need two different plates, one for raw and one for cooked.  Veggies of course are going to get their own plate but thankfully that can get reused since raw dead veggies don’t carry around nasties.  Unless you are trying your hand at grilling some romaine for a grilled chopped salad.  Back away from the romaine!

By the end of the event you’re staring down platters, utensils, and some how a Yahtzee cup that got used making you wonder just how strong those margaritas actually were.  If you are like me, then you get a little frustrated at the extra work load.

My solution to counteract all the dishes that can pile up quicker than sequins during a costume change on Dancing with the Stars?

Cookies sheets and tin foil.

YES!

Alright, granted it might not be as pretty as Mamaw’s platter with the bluebell flower print but it gets the job done and saves you time in the kitchen.  If you are cooking meat, it can go right on the foil and right outside to the grill.  When all the meat is on the grill, just toss the previous piece of foil and cover the cookie sheet with another piece.  When it’s time for cleanup, just toss the foil and you’re done.

Veggies can go on a covered cookie sheet as well.  If you’ve got a mix of things that are going to finish and come off the grill together, use a bigger cookie sheet to handle the larger batch.

Plus cookie sheets are a lot more outdoor friendly than Mamaw’s platter!  If a stray gust of wind comes up and the cookie sheet takes a tumble, not a big deal.  That platter might end up in a splatter though (roll with it).

We grilled on Sunday and I totally forgot about this tip until I was looking at my kitchen and cursing myself for using so many dishes.  Then I remembered when I used this tip before and how much simpler life was then.

So the next time you grill, try using some cookie sheets wrapped in foil for transfering the food around and see if it helps you out at the end of the day.  I can’t help you with that Yahtzee cup though.

I remember being given the job of shucking the corn as a kid.  I had to sit out in the back yard with a bowl and a paper bag.  The paper bag was for the husks and corn silk while the bowl was for the fresh cleaned corn. When we lived in North Carolina it was common place for people to shuck their corn in the grocery store instead of at home.

I admit that I found this to be the oddest thing.  I still took mine home as I didn’t really want to be standing around in the grocery store for an extra half an hour to shuck corn.

I stock up on summer corn as much as I can and then freeze it so I can enjoy throughout the rest of the year.  But that’s another tip for another day.   Today we’re talking about cooking corn!

Boiled corn was the only way we ever had corn when I was growing up.  It wasn’t until around 2001 when the Food Network was starting to take off that I was exposed to other ways of cooking corn.  There are so many ways that we should have a discussion just on that, yes?

I have not yet mastered some of the other ways of cooking corn but I have mastered boiling corn.  Or at least my approach to boiling corn has worked the best for me so far.  Boiling corn is really easy and doesn’t take as long as people want to make it out to be.  Here’s what I do to get the best tasting boiled corn.

Andrea’s Method for Boiling Corn on the Cob

1. Bring a large pot (like a pasta or soup pot) of water up to a rolling boil
2. Drop in the corn
3. Allow the water to come back up to a boil
4. Boil corn for a minute or so
5. Turn off the heat and put a lid on the pot
6. Allow corn to hang out in the pot until you’re ready to eat

This works for fresh corn or frozen corn on the cob.  The water in the pot stays hot gently cooking the corn and also keeping it warm.  I will get the corn started and let it hang out while I finish cooking the rest of the meal.  This is especially handy if you’re having corn with some grilled food because the corn can hang out while you finish up grilling whatever you’re having with the meal.

Can you over cook the corn this way?  Yes.  But the corn would have to be sitting in the pot for something like 45 minutes or so which is a long time.  That can result in some mushy corn.  Ideally, you don’t want the corn sitting in the water for more than half an hour.

This is a really easy method for boiling corn that results in nice sweet corn with a slight bite to it.  You don’t have to worry about a bunch of boiling water while you’re trying to cook other things and the corn will be ready when you are.  The next time you have corn on the cob and you’re boiling it, give this a try!

One random Saturday I watched Ina make some shrimp cocktail and she roasted her shrimp.

Chef, what?!

Why this never occurred to me before I have no idea but I was determined to give it a try.  Cooking seafood takes only minutes, it’s pretty fast and really effortless once you get experience under your apron.  Shrimp do not take long to cook at all but roasting them means I don’t have to dirty a skillet and that’s really all that is needed for me to fall in love.

My desires are simple folks.

I preheated my oven to 400, lined my baking sheet and sprayed it with some nonstick spray.  I dumped on some seasoned shrimp and tossed that in the oven.  I kept a close eye on them because shrimp cook quickly.  I didn’t even have to turn them! In about five minutes I had perfectly cooked plump shrimp.  No skillet or pot of boiling water required!

Unless I’m making a saucy dish of some sort, this is my new method for cooking shrimp.  It’s fast and so easy making couch time arrive a lot sooner!

Next time you make shrimp, give roasting a try and see what you think!

2 parts liquids to one part quinoa.

You handle it just like you would rice which makes it easy peasy! It also provides a sense of familiarity to a dish that might be a new cooking adventure.  The quinoa absorbs the liquid and sort of fluffs up.

Because the quinoa absorbs the liquid, you can use different liquids for cooking.  Chicken or veggie stock make great choices and will give the quinoa a hint of flavor that it won’t get from water.  You can split the different and do half stock/water and half wine. Sounds yummy, right?

If I don’t know what I’m going to do with the quinoa, I will usually stick with cooking it in water.  But if I know it’s going to be part of a savory dish then I’ll go ahead and use some stock for cooking.

Liven up quinoa and try using alternative liquids for cooking!

Of course there are a few exceptions of things I’ll add to my oats, like fruit for example.  Oh summer time and peach oats, how I cannot wait for you to show up!  Another thing I really like adding to my oats is quinoa.  It gives my morning breakfast a little bit of a twist in texture but not enough to throw off the meal.  It’s an easy and quick way to bump up the protein content of the oats without having to rely on a nut butter or going the savory oats (eggs, etc) route.  Since I don’t like savory oats at all, quinoa is right up my alley!

I add in cooked quinoa when I add in the oats.  If I’m making oatbran, once it starts to thicken up a bit, then I’ll toss in the quinoa.  I add probably about 1/2C of quinoa to the mixture.  The oats and oatbran I make in the morning gets divided between Scott and I.  I eat 3/4 of it because I eat and need a bigger breakfast than he does.

I’ve read that one can make a breakfast dish with straight up quinoa.  Cooked quinoa with the addition of some liquid will result in a creamy breakfast dish much like oatbran in texture.  I have not tried this out only because I’m too in love with oats and oatbran to move on to another.  For now, I’ll just keep adding in some quinoa from time to time.

One of the best tips I have for making pizza at home is prep ahead!  You all know by now that I’m huge on getting things done ahead of time when you can.  It makes life so much easier! And it will make you feel great when you can easily assemble a wonderful meal at home as opposed to reaching for something processed and icky.

Prepping ahead is key for me!  If I didn’t prep ahead then we wouldn’t be having pizza on Thursday night!

Dough:

We’ve talked about how you can make the dough ahead of time and freeze it.  You can also make it a day early and just keep it in the fridge.  I usually make the dough the day of, after lunch and let it hang out till I’m ready to use it.

Toppings:

Toppings I will sometimes prep the day before especially if we’re going to have a lot going on.  I precook sausage too!  My goal is to have everything ready to go so that when it is time to assemble the pizza, that is the only thing I have to do is assemble.  Nothing else!  No chopping, mixing, prepping, nothing.  Just layer and bake!

If you make sauce, definitely get that going early.  You can even make large batches and freeze in servings just the right size for pizza.  Pull it out the day before and stick in the fridge to thaw.

If you use pre-shredded cheese, stock up when it goes on sale!  That will store in the freezer easily.  Then when ready, pull out and stick in the fridge for a few hours before you need it to give it a chance to thaw out.

Know your veggies:

All veggies are great on pizza but some need a little more love and care before topping your pie.

Carrots and zucchini are faves around here.  They contain a lot of liquid and can make the pizza soggy if not dealt with before using.  I like them shredded because then I can fit more on the pizza!  I shred them and place them on paper towels.  I fold them up in the towels and place in a storage bag. I let them hang out like that in the fridge for several hours or even a day.  The paper towels (or dish towel if you prefer) will soak up and pull the moisture out of the veggies.  This way they will not cause the pizza to be soggy, but will turn out nice and crispy when baked!

Mushrooms can be full of water too.  I lightly sautee them before adding them as a topping.

Peppers and onions, if thinly sliced will brown up nicely.  Big thick slices of pepper might not cook enough and can leak some water out on the top.

Sundried tomatoes can burn quickly, even the marinated kind.  They do best mixed with cheese instead of right on top.

Broccoli should be chopped small so that no one is forced to bite into a huge broccoli floret!

Fresh spinach can be chopped and sprinkled right on top.  It will wilt nicely! Precooked spinach can sometimes lay heavy and taste the same.  Fresh keeps things light and airy!

Now get busy prepping for pizza this week!  You know you want to make some!