Incredibly Quick and Easy Corn Maque Choux

Sorry for not posting in a while. I'm working on a couple projects that I'm excited to share, but they're very much a work in progress right now.

For now, a super simple recipe for corn maque choux, which is a Creole/Cajun side dish consisting of corn, onions, bell peppers, lots of spice, and some cream. My version is a loose interpretation, because I've never had actual southern maque choux, but it's tasty nonetheless. It also falls under my favorite category of cooking: shit you just throw in a pan without measuring.

You'll need:
1 small onion, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced (if you like things extra spicy, sub a jalapeno with the seeds, etc. removed; and if you don't feel like buying 2 different kinds of bell pepper, use the other half of the red. No big.)
A couple handfuls of corn kernels (I buy the frozen fire-roasted kind from Trader Joe's, but any kind will work. This isn't rocket science.)
A splash or two of cream, half-and-half or milk (you'll want a little sprinkle of flour to thicken up the last one though.
A couple spoonfuls of Essence of Emeril (find the recipe here or buy it at the grocery store. I like to make it without salt so I can season whatever I'm making to my taste)
Salt
Oil
1 T. butter

Saute the onions and peppers in olive oil or butter (or a mixture) on medium/medium-high until soft, then add the corn.

Add a generous pinch of salt, then sprinkle on the Essence. It'll be about a teaspoon, but taste it and adjust. If you used a jalapeno, you might want less because there's cayenne in the spice blend. If you're ballsy, you might want more. I'm on the ballsy side, myself.

Cook, stirring occasionally for a few minutes. Or longer. Whatever. The longer the flavors meld the better, but it's perfectly passable after just a couple minutes.

Here I like to throw on a pat of butter, then a light sprinkling of flour. After it's all incorporated, cook a minute longer, then add your liquid dairy product of choice. Again, if you use milk with a lower fat content, go ahead and be a bit more liberal with the flour.

And you're done! My favorite way to serve this is with a few very lightly seasoned sauteed shrimp on top. And feel free to garnish with some scallion, parsley, or cilantro for a bit of brightness.

Serves 2, or 1 if you're really hungry.

Make it and let me know how it turns out, okay?

The Week of Cooking

Don't get me wrong, I love cooking. This blog used to be a cooking blog. But recently, due to a combination of factors including, but not limited to, time, small/badly lit kitchen, laziness, and cost of fresh ingredients, I haven't been cooking very much. I've kind of been grazing on whatever's around, but I have a goal for this week:

cook real food.

I will be using recipes from a Cooking Light cookbook. It's not as arbitrary as it looks: There are a couple pages in the June section of a week's worth of vegetarian recipes for two people. Now this system is ideal because it can get expensive to buy a new set of ingredients for everything you want to make. This way I'll get to use most of the same ingredients so there is only one shopping list, and I have a hope of actually finishing the ingredients I buy. How many times have I left half a block of tofu or most of a bunch of cilantro in the fridge to languish because I only needed so much? I'm going to say more than once and leave it at that.

So without further ado, the menu for this week is as follows:

Tomato and Parmesan Strata
Orange-Glazed Tofu Triangles with Sesame Rice
Sweet and Sour Tofu
Vegetarian Harira (Moroccan Chickpea and Lentil Stew)
Tempeh with Curried Cashew Sauce

Okay, there are only five recipes. That's because I don't need a recipe to tell me how to make an herb/goat cheese omelet, and I don't feel like assembling ravioli by hand. So sue me.

And in true Starving Singer spirit, I will probably deviate somewhat from the given recipes (this is why I don't bake. I'm a recipe adjuster/modifier/substituter). For instance, I bought arugula instead of spinach. I just like it better, okay?

Anyone know of a website or cookbook that has this system also? There used to be a show on the Food Network like this but it wasn't vegetarian.