During our weekly vegetable safari at Fraiser’s Farms grocery store Saturday, I came across the first sweet corn of the season.  And it was pretty reasonable at 5 ears for $1, plus it was nice and big and fat.  So I just had to get some.

I’ll put up with the aftereffects of corn the morning after for that sweet, roasted crunchiness the night before.  And this was some tasty stuff.  But then I got the bright idea of making one of my favorite warm weather salads to go with grilled chicken yesterday, and I even remembered to take a few photos (kind of after the fact but I still got some good pictures to share).

Now, this isn’t the cheapest of Cheap Bastid recipes, but it’s a good one.  The reason it’s not real cheap is that you’ve got to buy some mozzarella cheese which runs about $5 a pound but that’s OK because tomorrow night we’re going to make my favorite grilled cheese sandwich for supper—grilled mozzarella and tomato with basil on sourdough bread.

So here’s a simple and fast summertime salad for grilled dinners, picnics or any other occasion:

Cheap Bastid’s Summertime Corn Salad

1 ear of sweet corn

2 Roma tomatoes--chopped

1/3-1/2 cup chopped red onion

½-3/4 cup mozzarella cheese cut into appx ¼ inch cubes

2-3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1-2 tbsp chopped basil (fresh is best or dried)

Salt & black pepper

Directions:

Stand ear of corn up on a platter or in a shallow dish and cut the kernels off with a sharp knife.  (Jab a fork in the top or use a “cob knob” to hang onto the ear of corn).  This will give you about a cup and a half or so of corn kernels.  Chop onion and tomato and cube mozzarella.  Put everything in a bowl, add basil and balsamic then salt and pepper to taste.  Put covered into the fridge to cool down for about a half hour.  Serve as a side dish.  And double the recipe if you’re having more than 3 or 4 people or want lots of left overs. (If you don't have balsamic or don't like it, give this a squirt from half a lemon because it needs just a bit more acid than the tomatoes to bring out the flavors).

This is really easy and is really tasty.  Plus, there's that added thing of using totally fresh ingredients to give you mouth that "zing". Give it a try.

Cheap Bastid Test:  Corn was $.20 per ear and the tomatoes cost about $.50.  I used maybe $.25 worth of onion and about $1.50 worth of mozzarella.  Total cost:  $2.25.  A bit pricey and if I weren’t planning on using the mozzarella up this week I might have taken a pass.  But this is just so tasty, that I had to make it as a treat.

That’s the Cheap Bastid way:  Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!