Smoking up Peppers, Goat Cheese and Corn

Long time no chat with.  Busy is an understatement.  Not only are we working on moving our office - yes, we're down to eight file cabinets from twenty four but they do all still need to be scanned in and the new scanner is not dependable... - but a lot of my clients have been sending their friends and family my way.  I can't think of a higher compliment.  Maybe if it was preceded by, "Gosh, you look like you've lost a lot of weight, I need you to talk with my sister..."  LOL, I can only wish those first words were coming out of people's mouths.  At any rate, it's been a wonderful crazy busy around the office.  By the time I've gotten home and fixed dinner I've been way to chatted out to chat some more.

Pepto Bismol and I were very good friends today.  Tonight was supposed to be dinner with my friend Vicki.  She's one of those friends you are SO lucky to have.  You can tell her ANYTHING and she never breathes a word of it.  She listens to whatever you need to say.  She's the bestest.  I was bummed. We were to head to Bravo's.  Italian food absolutely wasn't a good idea.  Turns out she felt as crappy as I did.  So, we rescheduled.  I had a bag of rotisserie chicken in the fridge at the office.  That came home with me.  Comfort food was on  the menu.  Cousin Polly's Chicken Elegante.  Let me digress here for a minute.  Isn't it funny how you can have a bad belly and something that normally wouldn't be on the recommended list for said condition is perfect?  Yup, that's the way with chicken elegante.  If you get a chance to go back and read the original post I talk about when I fixed for my ex.  Every time I fix it for Connie, he says, "Jim Hutton was an idiot.  This is FABULOUS!" 

Along with the chicken, I thought I'd reheat some of the corn on the cob from the other evening.  Except it was smoky.  REALLY smoky.  I'd reheated some Jack Stacks ribs by smoking them on the grill and at the same time had made some killer peppers (yes, I'll tell you about those in a minute.) The corn on the cob got thrown on the grill at the same time so it got smoked.  The last pieces got left on the grill with the lid down while we ate.  They just positively soaked up all that leftover applewood smoke.  What in the world could I do?  To my collection of recipes.  I scan in way too many recipes.  Just like I have way too many cookbooks.  This time it served me well.  There was a recipe from Fine Cooking for maple, mustard, thyme butter for corn on the cob.  Maple is frequently in bbq sauce.  It'd play well with the smoke. 

I made a sample batch.  Connie got back from Lowe's and I handed him a cold ear of corn.  "Is this ruined?"  Wow, that's smoky!  "So, what do you think of it with this on it?"  The maple syrup plays well with the smoke.  That'll work.  Indeed it did.  I'd use this on any corn on the cob - smoked or not!

As promised, the killer peppers.  A few months ago a friend of mine ran into a friend of his.  She asked if he worked with anyone on his planning and he gave her my name.  She called, she and her hubby came in and we discovered we'd met kindred foodies.  Now, we start our meetings by comparing menus!  Love working with folks like them :-)  At any rate, Al had to stop in last week so he brought two recipes to start with.  One was for Tri-Color Peppers with Goat Cheese from prettyfood.com.  I HAD to try it.  Soon.  I was drooling reading it.  And, I'd decided that I'd also smoke the goat cheese since that's something we love. 

What did we think?  The peppers were amazing.  Hot and cold.  Instead of cutting them in chunks, I cut them in half so the goat cheese wouldn't leak out.  Since I'd smoked it, it was runny, not crumbly. 

Now, my friends, I have two of the easiest and best recipes in ages to share with you.

Tri-Color Peppers with Goat Cheese

Ingredients:
 
bell pepper - red, yellow or orange - or mix thereof
4 oz goat cheese
olive oil
fresh basil cut in ribbons (ok, I confess, I was barefoot and didn't want to walk to the garden so left this out... it was still fabulous)
1 T olive oil (dressing for one pepper, increase as needed for additional peppers)
2 t balsamic vinegar
1 t brown sugar

Directions:

Cut the pepper(s) in half and remove all the seed and membranes.  Brush them with olive oil and either grill them or smoke them.  Put the goat cheese in a grill safe pan and drizzle it with olive oil.  Smoke it until it's bubbly.  Mix the olive oil, vinegar and brown sugar.  Serve the goat cheese in the pepper halves drizzled with the dressing. 

adapted from prettyfood.com, thanks so our friend Al!


Corn on the Cob with Mustard, Maple, Thyme Butter

Ingredients:

1/4 c butter (I used 2 T and not 4T)
1 T Dijon mustard
1 t grainy mustard (I used almost a tablespoon)
1 T maple syrup
1 t fresh thyme (reduced from 2 t in the original recipe)

Directions:

The original recipe called for making a compound butter.  I decided to melt the butter instead.  That worked perfectly.  The butter was melted and I whisked in the other ingredients.  We served it in Mom's old copper skillet and drizzled it onto the corn.  Fabulous!

adapted from Fine Cooking