Corn Casserole

* My apologies for such a late post. Le Food Snob was felled by illness for the past three days and has been unable to do much of anything let alone cook and blog.

Having opted for eating Tamales on Memorial Day instead of the traditional grilling out, BF and I decided to BBQ the following evening. On the menu: Johnsonville beer brats, Hebrew National jumbo franks, and Paula Deen’s corn casserole (a recipe I had been dying for a good excuse to try — a BBQ seemed appropriate).

I have to admit that Paula Deen’s recipe sounded good to me when I first saw it (or I wouldn’t have bothered to print it out), but I wasn’t sure how it was going to taste. As it was cooking in the oven it smelt like heaven. If you grew up in the 80’s or 90’s, you may remember the Mexican restaurant: Chi Chi’s. Paula Deen’s corn casserole reminds me of the corn mash that came as a side on your plate at Chi Chi’s. When I was a kid I used to ask for no rice and beans, sub extra corn mash. That’s all I wanted. It was my favorite part of the meal and I always saved it for last. Perhaps in another life, I grew up in the south. I seem to have a strong pull to foods of southern origin.

Paula Deen’s recipe can be found at at foodnetwork.com.

ingredients.

• 1 (15 ¼-oz) can whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 (14 ¾-oz) can cream-style corn
• 1 (8-oz) package corn muffin mix (recommended: Jiffy)
• 1 c. sour cream
• ½ c. (1 stick) butter, melted
• 1 to 1 ½ c. shredded Cheddar

directions.

In the last steps of the dish when adding the cheese, I kept BF in mind and didn’t add any extra cheese (which if he hadn’t been standing right there when I was sprinkling the cheese, I totally would have done). Still I saw him eyeing me as I sprinkled the cheese and finally I blurted out, I didn’t add any extra! That didn’t stop him from prodding the dish when it came out of the oven as if it was an animal he wanted to determine dead or asleep. What are you doing? I asked him as he poked at the dish. Trying to see how thick the layer of cheese is.

While I was finishing the casserole, BF began boiling the brats in Budweiser. (Sorry no nod to Milwaukee here – I couldn’t find a 24 oz. can of Miller anything at the grocery store.) Along with the brats we planned to grill up the hot dogs. An old coworker turned me on to Hebrew National brand hot dogs. They’re great for chili dogs. He has a fantastic authentic recipe for chili beans (of which I’ve asked him twice to give me and he still holds out on me!). Anyhow since I can’t get the recipe from him, I decided we should eat the hot dogs sans chili. Unlike Oscar Meyer wieners, Hebrew National dogs don’t last forever in your fridge.

BF stood over the pot of boiling beer brats and looked at me and said, Should we try boiling the hot dogs in the beer too? I don’t know many foods that don’t taste good when boiled in beer (see beer macaroni and cheese recipe); so I told him to go ahead and boil them. We decided to boil two and leave two plain. Then we would have a taste test.

Finally our belated Memorial Day cookout was ready to eat.

There’s nothing like sinking your teeth into the first Johnsonville beer brat of the summer season. I eat mine on a plain toasted hot dog bun. BF puts mustard on his. He puts mustard on everything. (Gross.)

When it came time to dive into the hot dogs, I told BF to split one of each kind in half (one beer boiled, one regular). That way we could get a taste for both. He looked at me like he didn’t understand what I was saying. I had to repeat myself several times and finally he understood. Here’s what I was envisioning: one half of the hot dog bun would be the beer boiled dog, the other half of the hot dog bun would be the regular dog. So that you could bite into one half and taste the beer dog, then flip go to the other side and taste the non-beer dog. So what do you think he did? He split one of the regular dogs in half. Lengthwise.

What are you doing? I screamed when I saw him doing it. His eyes grew wide still not understanding what to do or why I was screaming. No, the other way, I explained. So we can have an entire dog to put in the bun but two separate halves.

Oh! He said. Finally he understood why I wanted them cut in half by width. Then he just about died laughing.

After tasting  both kinds of hot dogs, I announced that I liked the beer-boiled hot dog better. It tastes less hot-doggy, I said. BF agreed completely. What we couldn’t decided upon was whether the hot dog tasted less hot-doggy because it was boiled in beer, or because it was boiled in beer that contained brat juice (we had boiled the dogs after the brats). Until our next BBQ, we will never know.

So it seems we found a new corn dish (that both of us loved) and a new way to grill hot dogs. BF also learned a new way to cut a hot dog in half. It seems that when we are in the kitchen, we are always learning something together.

Recipe Ratings: corn casserole, ; brats, ; beer boiled hot dogs, ; grilled hot dogs, 