Fresh from the Cornfield

The other day I went to New Pi for some fresh produce, and I decided to buy a couple of red bell peppers. I'm not a big fan of peppers, or anything spicy really, but roasted red peppers are actually pretty good and I've been in the mood for some real summer food, something colourful and full of vitamins. I also bought a few ears of sweet corn, since they were only thirty-nine cents each and locally grown. Though most produce is expensive and hard to find in Iowa, corn is one thing we generally have plenty of.

Lately, I've been thinking so much about the corn, cherry, lemon basil, and jalepeno salsa I saw on another foodblog (can't for the life of me remember which one) so much I've practically been dreaming of it, but I wasn't sure I could really re-create and besides, I don't have a grill and I wasn't sure corn would actually char in the oven. So last night I took a look at the About.com Southern cooking site and scanned through the corn recipes there. I found a recipe for stuffed green peppers that looked pretty good, modified, and came up with the following. It was quite delicious, I thought, bringing out the natural flavours of the veggies well, and is of course quite healthy compared to, say, corn pudding or creamed corn.

Corn-Stuffed Red Peppers

Start with a couple of red bell peppers. Chop off the tops and remove the white membranes with a knife. Shake out the seeds or scrape them out with your fingers, but be careful with the knife because you want your pepper in tact. Put the peppers in a saucepan and cover with lightly salted water. Bring to a boil, boil five minutes, and drain.

Get about a cup of fresh corn kernels off the cob. I had three ears, so I just shucked them all and reserved the rest to fry with onions later. Throw in about a quarter of a small onion, diced, a small handful of diced grape tomatoes (or regular tomatoes would be fine), a tablespoon of flour, a scant tablespoon of margarine, a dash of salt and pepper, and a small pinch of cayenne. Mix together with your hands (or be good and use a spoon; I just like feeling my food).

Spoon the filling into your peppers and pack down so that they'll stand up on their own. As you can see, I didn't really have a small enough dish for this, but it worked fine sticking them in the corners. They came out not quite full, so you could use slightly larger amounts than I did; I wasn't really measuring. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes. I only did 35 and the corn was a teeny bit crunchy, though still good; I would recommend tasting your corn to make sure it's tender but don't burn yourself. Also I think this dish would be good drizzled with balsamic vinegar, but I decided to keep it simple this time.