Seasonal Sauteed Side

Recipe.

I just finished watching Julie & Julia (which I LOVED) and it got me to thinking a bit about a professional cook that really inspires me, Ina Garten. For years, I have watched all of her food network episodes, printed out countless recipes from her site, and tested recipe after recipe in her amazing cookbooks. I've learned so much and I (and my husband) are completely grateful.

One of my favorite "Ina Lessons" is that you don't need to have an arsenal of a 1000 recipes to be a good cook. Instead if you can master a few and learn from their concepts, you can easily create variations that will make your options seem limitless.

So using this concept, I've tried a few variations on Ina's extremely simple but delicious Sauteed Fresh Corn recipe. With wonderful deals at the farmer's market, I end up buying a lot. And instead of eating the exact same thing every night for a week, I thought I should spice it up. Here's one of my favorites:

Southwestern Sauteed Sweet Corn
4 ears of corn
Juice of 1 lime
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Cloves of Garlic, chopped
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 jalapeno, minced (optional)

Remove the husks and the silk from the corn. Using a chef knife, cut the kernels off as close to the husk as possible without removing any of the husk.

Heat butter and oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Cook garlic and jalapeno (optional) to pan and cook for 1 minute. Add the corn and saute for 8-10 minutes until corn is less starchy. Gently stir in the black beans, salt and pepper. Continue to cook until beans are heated through. Squeeze juice of one lime over the entire mixture and finish with any additional salt & pepper that you would like to taste.

Serve this dish warm as a side...or it is also a great topping to use in homemade tacos or in a taco salad. Enjoy!!