Grilled Corn Panzanella
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Corn for me is the quintessential high summer vegetable.
As a kid my oldest and dearest friends had a cottage in Muskoka that my family used to go to many times a summer. The kind of cottage that’s hard to find these days in Muskoka, amidst all the monster homes that people summer in, this is a real cottage (or as we say on the west coast, a cabin). It was built by my friends great-great-aunt and uncle, from scratch all the way. They even built some of the furniture and sewed the quilts. It was the home to our most elaborate games and biggest adventures as kids, and I loved it.
Since moving to BC I haven’t been back, which is alarming and hard as it’s been nearly 6 years now, one of my friends was recently up there and Instagraming pictures and it broke my heart a bit. Food was never a big priority up there; besides hot dogs, one great bakery, and traditional Thanksgiving dinner, my food memories from the cottage are few and far between. But I do remember stopping along the way at farmers stands and getting corn. Corn before “peaches and cream” corn, that was savoury instead of sweet and had a much stronger flavour that the kind you can pick up at the grocery store these days, at least where I live.
But I found some at the farmers market the other day, bright yellow and deeply flavoured. I grilled it and put it in this salad and it tasted like summer, the idyllic kind you can only have when your on school break and have nothing to do the next day but swim.
Grilled Corn Panzanella
2 cobs Corn
1 cup Cherry Tomatoes, halved
2 cups Bread, cubed
1 handful Basil
1/4 cup Olive Oil.
half Lemon
Salt and Pepper
Grill the corn- for me this means on a grill pan on my stove top. You could do this on a BBQ or under a broiler. You want to get it nice and charred.
Once cooked take a serated knife and cut the kernels off the cob.
In a frying pan over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Toss in the bread cubes and toast until it starts to darken on the edges. Salt.
Add the corn and the tomatoes, toss a couple times. Add in the basil and the lemon, adjust the seasoning and serve!
