"Creole Sauteed Corn"

Cooks Country Magazine published this recipe in their recent August/September issue and I thought it looked like it would go great with some grilled chicken I have planned for dinner tonight. My aunts Dot and Fern are from Oklahoma visiting my mother, so I think they will like this side-dish.

The recipe calls for corn, bacon, scallioins, bell pepper, clove, parsely, thyme and just a touch of hot sauce.

I put it together earlier in the day and the first few spoonfuls were very flavorful.

Read more about this recipe here.

"Jim's Famous Hamburger"

We decided to do something different with a hamburger tonight, so in order to "pull it off," I went to my favorite recipe site, "Simply Recipes."

Immediately "Jim's Famous Hamburger" popped up and my real name being, Jim, I clicked on the link and had a look.

It looked good: rosemary; A-1 Steak Seasoning, with thick slices of avocado, tomato, and onion; with mayo, mustard, and catsup (to taste of course).

The only ingredient we didn't have was fresh rosemary, so my wife jumped down to the grocer (actually she drove down because she had a few other items to pick up) and brought some home.

The recipe called not only for a couple heaping tablespoons of chopped rosemary, but also a couple tablespoons of A-1 Steak Seasoning which we found a bottle of in the fridge. We have no idea how long we have had it because we never use the stuff.

After we got it all mixed and formed and grilled and eaten, we agreed these were probably the best grilled burgers we have ever had. Really! If you would like the full recipe, you can find it here, at Elise's site, Simply Recipes.

I didn't get a photo of the burger. Darn. They were so good; so I posted my hamburger sketch from flickr here instead. Maybe next time I'll get a honkin' good photo of these bad boys.

"Tomato - Mango Salsa"

We discovered mangoes last April when at a friend's in Marathon, Florida. She grows them, along with bananas, pineapples and other exotic fruits we don't have here in Washington state. We are so new to them that we don't know yet if they are available during the winter months. Seems reasonable though they would be since they are grown in the tropics. I guess we'll find in a few months though, right? But then we have tomatoes during the winter months - hard, tasteless tomatoes also grown in the tropical zones.

Anyway, since we now have fresh tomatoes coming on, and the mangoes are REALLY delicious right now, especially the ones we bought at a new Mexican grocer in our town a couple days ago. So I went on line, found some mango - tomato salsa recipes, then put my own together from all the data I collected.

Read more about Diego's "Tomato-Mango Salsa."

"Diego's Tomato-Cotija Cheese Salad"

With a plate of home-grown tomatoes sliced over shredded ice-berg lettuce, and sprinkled with shredded cotija (ko-tee'-huh) cheese, chopped cilantro, and drizzled with a touch of ranch dressing, and a big ol' glass of iced tea, and you can enjoy any summer day, no matter the temperature outside.

I found the cotija cheese in a mexican grocery in Pasco, WA. It's a new one near the Blue bridge and very clean! They have tons of this cheese I had never heard of so I asked what it was and how to use it in Mexican dishes. Authentic mexican food calls for this rather than cheddar. If you can't find cotija, try guyere, or if nothing else, cheddar. Crumbled Blue cheese would work too, but I found the cotija - perfect.

Very refreshing!

"Cucumbers, Peppers, and Onions"

One of our favorite summer dishes is my wife's, "cucumber, peppers, and onions." We aren't sure how the recipe found its way into our collection; but we think it was probably my mom who gave it to us - or maybe we got it from a magazine, or a cookbook with a red cover with white lines running at perpendicular angles. Doesn't really matter though, because this little side-dish provides a full and refreshing taste during long, hot, summer months.

Read more about this delicious treat, here.

"Honey-Ginger Grilled Salmon" *

When I was a kid living in the panhandle of Texas, the only time we had salmon was when my mom would make patties out of canned salmon and fry them in a skillet. It wasn't until I was in my forties, when we moved to the west side of Washington state, that we discovered the real taste of fresh salmon.

My next door neighbor in Sequim, WA., and I, used to do a bit of king salmon fishing. It was then I learned there is no comparison between salmon that was swimming in the Straits of Juan de Fuca an hour ago to the salmon we now purchase in Costco; but we have discovered a menu from McCormick that really levels the difference.

The marinade is made of honey, ginger, orange juice and soy. Read more about it here.