CORN! by Sarah Henning

Don’t you just love being smack-dab in the middle of sweet corn season? It’s just a total delight, right? Right. Unfortunately, the lack of rain and horrific heat has been really hard on the corn crop, so get it while you can.

The past few weeks, we’ve been lucky enough to get corn at our Rolling Prairie CSA pickup. And, honestly, though I have recipes for corn, there’s probably nothing better than eating sweet corn straight off the cob.

But just telling you to eat corn straight off the cob probably makes for a boring blog. Instead, we’ll go in a different direction. Last week, at our CSA, we got the aforementioned corn, plus potatoes, onions, cherry tomatoes, squash, beets and cucumbers.

Such a nice variety, right? Gotta love it.

So, the hubby made his favorite recipe from Nancy O’Connor’s “The Rolling Prairie Cookbook” these excellent Green Onion and Potato Pancakes.

The hubby's favorite potato pancakes, covered in cheese. by Sarah Henning

They used up the potatoes, plus we had the aforementioned corn on the side. Meanwhile, the squash and beets went into juice, the onions ended up in storage, and the cucumbers and cherry tomatoes ended up in various salads. Among the salads, was this Thai-inspired one I made using dinosaur kale, cucumbers, tomatoes, red pepper and — because I had them — kelp noodles.

Pad Thai Salad ... YUM! by Sarah Henning

It looks really involved, but it wasn’t at all. All I did was make dressing, soaked the noodles in it and then mixed the sauced noodles with the chopped veggies. It was really, really good and all you really need is a blender, cutting board and knife.

Pad Thai Salad

Salad

1 bunch dinosaur kale

1 pint cherry tomatoes

1 cucumber

1 green onion

Basil (Thai or otherwise … I used purple and genovese basil), for garnish

Lime juice

1 bag (uncooked) kelp noodles or 1 bag/box rice or soba noodles, cooked and cooled

Sauce

1 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup no-salt almond butter

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 to 2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 to 2 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon miso (I used white)

2 tablespoons low-salt tamari (or other soy sauce)

2 medjool dates, chopped

Pinch cayenne (or more

Place noodles in a bowl, spray generously with lime juice and let them soak while preparing the salad ingredients. Tear kale into tiny pieces, halve the cherry tomatoes and chop your cucumber and green onion. Mix together the kale, tomatoes, green onion and cucumber in a large bowl and set aside.

Make the sauce by putting all ingredients in a blender. Blend until the sauce is smooth and creamy. Pour over your noodles. Let soak for at least 10 minutes.

To serve: Portion out the kale mixture in bowls. Top with a generous helping of noodles and sauce. Garnish with basil leaves. Enjoy!

Serves 2 to 4. If you have leftovers, store the salad and noodles separately, if possible.

What'd we get this week? Potatoes, tomatoes, beets (one turnip was mixed in), cucumbers, summer squash, blackberries and mushrooms.