WOW! Our Latest Culinary Discovery: Sweet Red-White Corn!

We discovered this unusual corn at a wonderful little local Italian market – we didn’t even know either one existed (both the corn and the market!) until last weekend! It’s a hybrid variety of sweet white corn and red Indian corn – and it’s delicious!!

Sorry for the bad lighting; the kernels are more white than yellow!

DD and I can only manage half an ear of corn with dinner, and I was glad I had reason to break an ear in half! Take a look at the color pattern difference in these two halves of the same ear:

Two halves of the same ear - very different color patterns!

We were enjoying the corn so much, I didn’t think to take a picture of the cob after a bite was taken until I’d already demolished two rows. While some of the rich redness in the kernels fades during cooking, the cob stays ruby red:

Faded kernels, deep red cob!

The differences between red-white corn and regular corn is that the red-white has slightly crisper kernels and a bit lighter corn flavor. I’d get more of this unusual corn in a second; in fact, I’m getting more tomorrow!  :D

What We’re Doing During This Unbearably Hot Summer….

It hasn’t been what we’d call a “fun” summer – it’s been SO hot and humid that none of the neighborhood kids are even playing outside and hardly anybody is even barbecuing!! We were more active during all those heavy snow days – at least we could breathe when we went outside!

This hot weather poops me out!

It’s been over 100 degrees and HUMID, so the heat index is still 110+. But we NEVER miss the county fair, so we went last weekend in the evening instead of during the day – the temps actually went UP 2 degrees and the humidity got worse! That’s just crazy! If you didn’t carry around a big ice cold lemonade or some such drink, you just melted away into a big puddle.

So all of our outdoor plans for Daisy have been curtailed for the most part – she can’t stand excessive heat and runs to lie in the shade almost immediately. So instead of going here and there to explore new outdoor places, we turned this:

into this:

and this:

into this:

Chocolate covered blueberry clusters

MORE chocolate covered blueberry clusters!

We may be stuck indoors, but we’re having a great time with summer fruits!

A Birthday in the Daisy Family

Taking a brief break from Daisy Doings to share something yummy with you.

Last week was DD’s birthday, so naturally I made one of her favorite dinners – homemade spaghetti and meatballs. And for her birthday cake, she requested my flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache.

Happy Gluten-free Birthday DD!

I was a culinary maniac for two solid days!

Our little family party was lots of fun, but don’t you just hate it when your birthday falls on a weekday? You still have to work all day and you only have a few hours of party time at night, before you have to start prepping for the next workday. It’s a gyp – I think people should have a paid day off on their birthdays.

Unfortunately Daisy didn’t get to partake of any birthday goodies. I make meatballs from ground turkey rather than beef, and we all know what happens to Daisy when she gets foul fowl into her tum….. She did get a couple small bits of unsauced pasta, though, which she scarfed down with gusto. In typical Daisy style.

DD follows a gluten-free diet – she’s got a wheat allergy, as I mentioned in a previous post. I gotta say – with all the choices now in gluten-free dining, she doesn’t miss out on much anymore, and she can eat heartily while still staying a size zero! ::grumblegrumblegrumble::

This cake is decadently rich and incredibly sinful, but worth every bite. Depending on how you serve it – with chocolate ganache, a raspberry sauce, a caramel drizzle, or anything else your heart desires – you change it just enough to make it seem new. You can even make it in small, individual sizes for perfect dinner party servings!

Here’s the simple recipe (I halved it, which is the picture you see):

1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup white sugar
18 squares bittersweet chocolate, 1 oz. each (18 oz. total)
1 cup butter, softened
6 eggs
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Grease one 10 inch round cake pan and set aside.
2. In a small saucepan over medium heat combine the water, salt and sugar. Stir until completely dissolved and set aside.
3. Either in the top half of a double boiler or in a microwave oven melt the bittersweet chocolate. Pour the chocolate into the bowl of an electric mixer.
4. Cut the butter into pieces and beat the butter into the chocolate, 1 piece at a time. Beat in the hot sugar-water. Slowly beat in the eggs, one at a time.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Put the cake pan in a larger pan filled with boiling water halfway up the sides of the cake pan.
6. Bake cake in the water bath at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) for 45 minutes. The center will still look wet. Chill cake overnight in the pan. To unmold, dip the bottom of the cake pan in hot water for 10 seconds and invert onto a serving plate.

Personally, this method of removing the finished cake from the cake pan never works for me. It pulls away from the edges by itself, so that’s not a problem, but the bottom tends to stick pretty tight. Next time I’m going to bake it like I bake banana bread – with a single layer of wax paper underneath so it’ll pop out easily and I can just peel the wax paper off. Hopefully that’s the key!