Corn and Chive Pudding

One of the things I love about my new job is that I am trying new foods that I otherwise might have thought I hated.  When I first read the recipe for the corn and chive pudding before my cooking class last Friday night, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it.  First, it had chives in it, and you all know my aversion of any type of onion.  And the second thing I was leery of was the texture.  I thought it would taste like baby food.

Boy was I wrong!  When I make this at home (and I will!) I would add some chopped jalapenos for a bit of heat, but this is a winning side dish.  Hopefully you’ll still be able to find fresh corn in your neck of the woods for a few more weeks to give this a try.  Otherwise I would substitute white shoepeg canned corn for this recipe.   This recipe (and more!) can be found on The Chopping Block’s website here.   I am also making this recipe 10 servings of a heaping 1/2 cup.   It’s really rich!

If you were to come to one of our cooking classes, that’s what your “mis en place” would look like that I prepare for you ahead of time.  It has all your ingredients you would need for a recipe.  We left the cheese whole for the guests to grate, and had them guests shuck and use that corn zipper to get the corn off of the cob.  And did I mention you get 15% off of almost anything in the retail store if you attend and event or cooking class?!

Because we provide you with everything you need to make all the ingredients, we provide to go containers because you’ve essentially paid for all of the food with the cost of the class.  It’s surprising how many people have no interest in taking home the leftovers!  It was lucky for me, because on Saturday morning I made a corn and chive pudding savory breakfast pancake.  All I did was take 3/4 cup of the pudding and added in a couple tablespoons of flour – it made the pancake 9 smart points, but the egg white scramble was only 1 point, so this whole plate of food was only 10 smart points.  Salty, sweet and savory – best combo evah!  I will see if I can tweak this recipe a bit to get it a bit healthier – maybe subbing in mostly almond milk and reducing the heavy cream. 

**************

My sister and I finally got to celebrate my Mom’s birthday today.  Since my sister works downtown, it only made sense to find a place to eat near her office.  When she first recommended taking my Mom there I thought “there is no way Mom would go for that” because it’s a lot of spicy food – and Momma doesn’t like spicy food.  But she took a look at the menu at Heaven on Seven and saw some dishes that weren’t spicy, so that’s where we decided to go.

Yep, this is what the restaurant looks like 365 days a week.  Did I mention that they have a lot of hot sauce?  Over 2,000 on the walls and tables!

And why have I never heard of sweet and spicy Tabasco?!  It was delicious.

I had pretty much decided what I was going to get before we got there.  I’ve had a jones for fried chicken and when I saw they had a Nashville Hot Chicken dish, I was sold.  And thanks to my friend Dana for scoping out the menu and mentioning fried green tomatoes, we got those to start with.  And my picky sister ate one!  Corn meal batter and a warm remoulade.

So many awesome things to choose from!

I like how they have to word “beef debris.”  I meant to ask our server Carrie (great server by the way!) what that meant, but forgot.   Each meal starts out with a cup of their signature gumbo.  Holy balls – this picture does this absolutely no justice, because it was SO FLAVORFUL I could have eaten a whole pot of it.  That’s one dish I want to attempt at home this fall and winter.

My sister got Italian breaded steak sandwich, my Mom got the New Orleans BBQ shrimp over cheesy grits, and I got the Nashville Hot Brown chicken. 

Everything was delicious.  My sisters sandwich was humungous – seriously 4 servings of beef in that sammie.  My Mom’s N.O. shrimp had such a depth of flavor, and well, how wrong can a perfectly cooked piece of spicy fried chicken be?!  I actually only ate a few bites of my chicken because I was so full from the fried tomatoes and gumbo.  Please note that if you are in Chicago and decide to hit up Heaven on Seven – cash only.  No debit or credit cards are accepted.

It was a fun day off.   Always nice spending time with my Momma and sister.   Now I am up bright and early to get to work to make apple pie all day!  Be sure to check out my Instagram posts later today. 

Make it a great day!