Corn soup

This is a great summer soup that is light and refreshing on a nice summer day.  You can eat it as a side or as a main course.  It would be great with a grilled cheese sandwich or a nice salad.  I put it with a roasted corn salad with red peppers and bacon and a red pepper coulis.


Recipe:          6-7 fresh ears of corn
                      1 medium onion
                      3 cloves garlic
                      2 slices bacon
                      2 tbs worsterchesire sauce
                      6 cups of vegetable stock
                      salt and pepper to taste
                      3 tbs thyme
  

First cut the corn kernels off the ears of corn and save the ears,  cut the onion in half and slice it in to thin slices.  chop up the garlic cloves in to small cubes, cut the bacon in to rough pieces.  In a large pot saute' the bacon on medium heat to cook down some of the fat from the bacon, then add the onion, a pinch of salt and cook until it is translucent and soft(it is good to have it covered through this stage watch not to burn the onions),  add the garlic and saute' until the garlic is soft.  Add the vegetable stock, the corn and the ears of corn, bring to a boil and then turn it down to a simmer and cook for 20min.  Remove the ears of corn and blend in a blender in small batches(be careful not to overfill the blender more than half way and put a towel over the top of the blender when you start it).  Use a fine chinoise (a fine mesh strainer) to strain the soup so you will have a velvety smooth soup use a ladle or  a rubber spatula to push the soup through the strainer making sure you get as much as you can out of each batch discard the leftover stuff on the inside of the strainer.

Grilled mango and avocado salsa

I made this salsa to go on some rib eye's I grilled on the BBQ, but this salsa is a very versatile condiment.  It can be used on most types of fish, chicken, all kinds of meats, in tacos or just eat it with chips.  Other than the grilling of the mango it is a very quick recipe and if you have a gas grill even the mango will not take that long. 

Recipe:  1 mango, ripe

               1 avocado

               3 Roma tomatoes
               1 lime
               1 small jalapeno
               1/8 cup cilantro chopped from the leaves
               salt and pepper to taste

Peel the mango and cut it up into large slices or pieces so you can put them on your grill to caramelize cook the mango on all sides with the grill on high (be careful that you do not burn the mango) once they are done put in a bowl in the fridge to cool down after they are cool cut them into medium size chunks
Cut up the tomatoes and avocado's into small cubes add them to the mango, zest the lime and add it to the bowl.  Cut the lime in half and squeeze one of the halves into the tomato and avocado mixture (I usually start with half of the lime and then add more if it needs it depending on how you like the flavor) add the cilantro to the bowl with all the other ingredients.  cut up the jalapeno into very small pieces (you can decide how spicy you want your salsa by the amount of jalapeno you add and whether or not you use the seeds, the seeds contain the majority of the spice in them so be careful if you do not want it to be super spicy) then salt and pepper to taste (I like to use kosher medium coarse salt and fresh ground pepper) stir all the ingredients together and taste so you can adjust you salt, pepper and lime.