Peter's Cooking Diary #2

Well this week will be a bit shorter of a session, as I only cooked one main dish, but there was also a side dish to go along with it.

This week, I really didn't know what to make, so to jump start my brain I looked at the local grocery store ad. Ground beef was on sale, so i thought i would do something with it, I don't use beef that much, but I looked through my cook books, I came across a sloppy joe recipes and that is what I decided on.

The recipe was call smokey joes, so there is a little bit of heat, and they are a bit smokey, I actually adjusted the recipe and removed the brown sugar, I am sure it would have been fine in the mix, but I just didn't want to extra sugar involved. I probably should have tried the regular recipe before I change it. I just like to make the recipes as I would like though.

To go along with the sloppy joes, I made some chili lime corn to go along as a side dish which is one of my favorite simple recipes.

I use frozen corn for this recipe, but fresh would be more ideal. If you did have fresh corn on the cob, I would love to grill it and get it a little bit and get it caramelized. I cook the corn in some butter in a large pan. I used about 2 pounds of corn for my recipe, but you can scale this to your own needs. I used one small can of fire roasted chiles, to add a bit of a different flaver to combination, added salt and pepper to taste, and finished with the juice of a whole lime for some acidity. I love the sweet corn with a little bit of tang. It is a good side dish for anything that I would normally grill, or really anything at all in my mind.

One last little tip that I have for this week, involves making  my own pizza at home, but not completely. I love taking one of the fresh made pizzas from a grocery store, I prefer getting a cheese pizza and just making it my own. I have done this with frozen pizzas too, I especially like it with Digiorno garlic bread pizzas.

One sample pizza that I made is a cheese pizza that I topped with canned tuna(I know it is weird, but I love it, give it a try some time!), sliced kalamata olives, chopped fresh garlic(you can saute it first if you would like), chopped fresh basil, a sprinkle of both oregano and red pepper flake. It makes it into a great experience with fresh ingredients, without the time it would take to make a pizza completely from scratch.

Til next time!
Peter