Quick & Easy, Super Cheesy

 

So, as most of you know, we have been open during all the Covid-19 closures. We have been incredibly lucky to keep our doors open and have been continuing to go the extra mile in terms of cleaning, sanitizing and such to keep everyone, customers and staff alike, safe and to keep us open for our community. We cannot thank you all for your patience, your respecting distancing, phone and internet ordering and popping in to see us. You  can't know how happy, and slightly normalizing it is to see even half your faces.  

 

As I am sure you can understand, we have been riding our own CoronaCoaster of ups and downs, stresses, concerns and absolute exhaustion these days. We are so very lucky to still be working, and super busy, (thank you day drinking home schoolers!) but as I am standing at my kitchen sink every night, washing out my face mask in screaming hot water, trying to shake the yucky feeling in my tummy from having upset a customer by asking them to please wear their masks properly, or thinking about how my self-imposed distancing, because of my exposure to the public, has me missing my friends and hanging out, I assure you, the tired is real. 

 

 

 

One of my great joys in these melting after my day moments is when I can cook a meal for my husband, kick my shoes off and scroll through the pages upon pages of posts from friends and foodie groups. Everyone posting food porn photos of what they are making now that they have some extra time on their hands. While takeout is great, (and a huge shoutout to our local restaurants that are doing their best to stay open and feed us!!) many of us are finding comfort flexing our kitchen prowess. Never seen so much sourdough in my life by the way. I look forward to kitchen time all day, most days, but there are always times I just want a quick, easy dish that is super low key but over delivers in the flavor department and just a couple nights ago I threw together a quick, soul satisfying dish that left the husband and I grunting like cave people, elated with the simplicity and utter escapism found at the bottom of our, empty-too-soon bowls.

 

Take the 20-sih minutes.

Find some excitement and shoulder-lifting pride in creating a moment to step out of the new normal into a new favorite. 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients

 

As always, I don’t follow directions so there is/are no exact measurements here so get your inner chef on and, as always, adapt to the size of your table and flavor preferences. Here is, sort of what I did.

 

4 Ears of Corn- simply grilled, cooled and cut off the cob. If fresh is not looking good, a couple bags of frozen is totally fine.

½ Pound of Your Favorite Bacon- I used Hobb’s, chopped

1 Tablespoons Olive Oil

1 Large Bunch Scallions- diced

Splash of White Wine or Stock, about ¼ cup- room temp

¼ Cup, (or more if you are like me) Fresh Basil, finely diced

8 Ounces dried Pasta, Spiral if Possible

1/3 Cup Grated Parmesan

1 Tub Sweet Grass Pimento Cheese $7.99 at The Wine Country

 

This is a wonderfully easy and flexible recipe so do as you wish here but for us, I did the following.

 

Grill corn and let cool enough to handle, cut off the cob. If you are using frozen. Let it thaw before cooking.

 

Fill a large pot of water and put it on to boil, salt when tiny bubbles form.

 

Heat large skillet over medium high heat and add a tablespoon of olive oil. Add bacon and cook until crisp, remove and drain on paper towels.

Now, most recipes would tell you to drain some of the bacon fat, (I prefer the term “Bacon Jus”) but I am not fooling anyone. Drain if too fatty but you do want some fat and pan nubbins.

Add corn and sauté until popping and your kitchen smells like sheer indulgence. Splash in stock or wine and cook until liquid is nearly gone.

 

Cook pasta and reserve some of the pasta water to help thicken the sauce if needed, it will be needed I assure you, but a couple ladles ought to do you.

 

Toss chopped scallions into corn sauté until just warmed through, add drained pasta, the Parm and Sweet Grass Pimento Cheese, salt and pepper, toss, a lot, adding reserved pasta water for desired texture. Take off heat and finish with bacon, torn basil and a more grated Parm if you desire.

 

Easy

Quick

Does not heat up the kitchen much and it feeds the needing soul. 

 

Wines to go with!

 

 

https://www.thewinecountry.com/fx-barc-2017-vouvray-pointe-de-silex-loire-valley.html 

https://www.thewinecountry.com/fontainerie-2013-vouvray-extra-brut.html

 

https://www.thewinecountry.com/beaumont-2017-hope-marguerite-chenin-blanc-south-a.html 

https://www.thewinecountry.com/abbazia-di-novacella-2017-kerner-alto-adige-italy.html