Seasonal Sundays: Summer Sweet Corn (Week 29)

Grab the butter, all, you just might need a stick or two for this week's "Seasonal Seven" recipe collection of sweet corn recipes. I hope you'll find one or two destined as "keepers" in your own recipe collections. Here's to the hunt!

Seasonal Sundays, a weekly newsletter ♥ KitchenParade.com, a seasonal collection of recipes and life ideas in and out of the kitchen.

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays ...

As ever, thank you for welcoming me into your InBox and RSS feed reader. It's your kitchens, your lives, I conjure while writing ...


"Knee high by the Fourth of July" ... that was long the expectation in Iowa and Illinois, the center of corn country. That was then, what forty or more years ago?

On Friday, we drove north from St. Louis toward Iowa along the Mississippi River to explore a wildlife refuge where the gravel roads were lined with field corn taller than me, even on my tippy toes with my fingers reaching skyward.

But July and August are "sweet corn season" in this household, just like April and May are "asparagus season" and so I'm thrilled to share my favorite summer sweet corn recipes, hoping to persuade you to bring home (harvest?!) corn by the dozen.

PS Isn't it funny, calling corn "ears" of corn?!

In Praise Of ...

  • ... new hummingbird feeders, after the lids on the last ones cracked, I picked these hummingbird feeders with built-in perches, never thinking that the hummingbirds would use the perches, but they do! and ... get this ... so do other birds! I had no idea!

  • ... more zen in my life, in the last two years, I've toned down our dining room from a garish red (not my pick) to a buttery cream color, it's so soft and soothing and lets a painting that never before had a "happy place" finally stand out ... but the room felt a little too cool and had so many hard angles ... so last month I bought this lovely Hearth & Hand squat brown glass vase from Target (the color reminds me of an Iitala glass vase from Finnish designer Alvar Aalto I've long admired but is no longer available and even other colors cost 10X as much) and filled it with a bundle of subtly colored silk hydrangeas ... very pretty! and just the softness I was hoping for

  • ... a lazy hour (or two ...) floating in the pool, avoiding the news, the worry, the outright angst about what might lie ahead for our country

Democracy Matters

The country needs calm, thoughtful and assertive voices amid the chaos inflicted by a minority hellbent on taking/retaining generational power by strangling democratic principles and equal rights. None of us have to personally change the world. We just have to do our part. Pick one thing for the top of your To Do List this week.


Political violence is anti-democratic, anti-Christian and anti-American. End of story.




THE SEASONAL SEVEN:

For this week's recipes, I aimed for recipes where summer's best corn is the real star ...

  • ... from must-make basics to old favorites with a special twist (homemade creamed corn with a touch of butter and rosemary? be still, my heart)
  • ... from starters to sides to soups to salads to ... yes, suppers!
  • ... the one recipe that just might knock your socks off? try the Sweet-corn Soup with Shrimp
Creamy Ricotta with Tomato-Cucumber-Corn Salad Creamy Ricotta with Tomato-Cucumber-Corn Salad ♥ KitchenParade.com, a simple tomato-cucumber-corn salad served with Homemade Ricotta.

Fresh Creamed Corn ♥ KitchenParade.com. How to DIY creamed corn with fresh corn and rosemary. Homemade and nothing like canned creamed corn!

Cooler Corn: How to Cook Corn in a Beer Cooler (or use same great technique on the stove!) ♥ AVeggieVenture.com

Summer's Best Corn Chowder, a classic summer soup ♥ AVeggieVenture.com, packed with our favorite fresh and seasonal summer vegetables. Great for Meal Prep.

Chilled Zucchini Noodle Salad with Pesto, Sweet Corn & Sun-Dried Tomato, another healthy, easy summer salad ♥ A Veggie Venture. Vegan. Gluten Free.

Summer Green Bean Salad, another easy summer salad ♥ AVeggieVenture.com, just steamed green beans, sweet corn and Spiced Pickled Red Onions. WW Friendly. Vegan. Gluten Free.

Swiss Chard Skillet Supper with Tomatoes, Corn, Fresh Dill & Feta, a great vegetarian supper ♥ AVeggieVenture.com. Healthy and delicious, no beating that combination!

Four ears of fresh sweet corn, linked to recipes for fresh, frozen and canned sweet corn ♥ KitchenParade.com.

Good to Know!

What's Brand-Spankin' New?!

Wondering about a recipe from the last while? Check Recent Recipes from Kitchen Parade and Recent Vegetable Recipes from A Veggie Venture.

Garden Pasta Salad with Mint Vinaigrette ♥ KitchenParade.com, light on the pasta, generous with the summer's best fresh veggies and all tossed in a g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s mint vinaigrette.

Old-Fashioned Potato Salad, another classic salad recipe ♥ KitchenParade.com, all my mom's tricks for the summer picnic and potluck favorite.

Easy-Easy Hummus Salad, another Quick Supper ♥ KitchenParade.com. Just a light, loose homemade hummus topped with fresh summer vegetables. So good!
  • THE RECIPE Easy-Easy Hummus Salad Another Quick Supper, just a light, loose hummus topped with chickpeas, fresh summer vegetables and feta. (PIN This)

Light & Lemony Crab Salad, another meat salad ♥ KitchenParade.com. Easy, inexpensive protein.

July: Reader Favorites

How to Sweeten Lemonade with Fruit Not Sugar, summer experiments with ♥ KitchenParade.com using pineapple, watermelon and more.

July: Lost Recipes

Summer Couscous with Mango & Tomato ♥ KitchenParade.com, couscous all dressed up for summer, quick to make and studded with bites of fresh mango and perfectly ripe summer tomatoes.

Looking Back ...

Soups & Salads Especially for July

Zucchini Carpaccio, another easy summer salad ♥ AVeggieVenture.com. Super Simple. No Measuring. Vegan. Low Carb. Whole30.

Silly (But Fun?!) Food Holidays

  • July 14th — National Mac & Cheese Day (Mac & Chicken Just mac 'n' cheese with chicken, just mac 'n' cheese with protein.)
  • July 16th — Hot Dog Night (Fun Pretzel Roll Hot Dogs, a make-ahead sandwich for parties, tailgaters, campers, hunters.)
  • July 16th — National Fresh Spinach Day (Kitchen Parade recipes that call for spinach.)
  • July 17th — National Peach Ice Cream Day (Rustic Fruit Ice Cream, an easy, no-cook rich, creamy and fruity ice cream. Oh my, that peach.)
  • July 19th — National Raspberry Cake Day (Raspberry Morning Cake, a fruity coffee cake.)

A Quick Peek Into a Real-Life Kitchen

Just so you know, everything's not all pretty pictures around here, in the background is a pile of dirty dishes. And just like many (all?) of us, come five o'clock, I too draw a blank about what to make for supper, despite so many recipes I so dearly love. Here's a quick peek from this week.


Chicken Salad for Sandwiches ♥ KitchenParade.com, simple, fresh, useful. WW Friendly. High Protein.
  • THIS WEEK Another week, another swim party, this time with lunch for out-of-town guests. I made up a 1.5x batch of my signature chicken salad, that was perfect for two dozen small sandwiches. So good!
  • THE RECIPE Chicken Salad for Sandwiches Makes up in minutes with pantry ingredients. (PIN This)

Fresh Corn & Tomato Salad ♥ KitchenParade.com, simple in name but much more than the sum of its parts, this is a classic summer salad.
  • THIS WEEK I ran out of time to make even the super-simple Cooler Corn for a family swim party on Sunday, leaving me with a dozen ears of corn to eat up. First up? So good!!
  • THE RECIPE Fresh Corn & Tomato Salad Perfect corn, perfect tomatoes add up to more than the sum of their parts.

Don't Be a Stranger ...

I'd love to hear from you. Comment, send me a quick e-mail (my current address is in the FAQs), dot-dash in Morse code, build a fire for smoke signals, launch a message in a bottle, send a Christmas letter, get the dog to yip, toss me a note wrapped in a rubberband, write a message in the sky, scratch a note in the sand, listen to a seashell, tuck a question into a plastic Easter egg, whatever.


  • Any advice for Seasonal Sundays?
  • Just one thing that would make it more useful for you?
  • Anything else? Chime in, chat away.

Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail, you'll find my current address in the FAQs. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. When you make my recipes, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below or better still, on the specific recipe's page.

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2024

Alanna Kellogg
Alanna Kellogg

A Veggie Venture is home of "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.

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