Corn, Zucchini and Blue Cheese Salad

Yum!

Ok, so, there's a definitely possibility that this post is going to crash my website for most of today. I have tried my best to make the file as small as I can without compromising quality, but somehow my website always mysteriously crashes after about 100 views whenever I put up a podcast (my web hosting company assures me that it's not because they can't handle the additional server load, but we all know that's exactly what it is, duh.). So if you can't access it today, try again tomorrow.

And please do try again, because this is a great salad! It's made almost entirely with ingredients from the farmer's market and it tastes amazing. And I think these baby carrots might only be an early-summer product, but you could easily julienne regular-sized carrots for the same effect.

And, if I do say so myself, the video is pretty cute too. I spend a *lot* of time on these -- about 20 times longer than it takes me to cook, write and edit a non-podcast post -- if not more. So I feel justified in fishing for compliments a bit. One of my next Sugarlaws upgrades is going to be a better video camera (or, perhaps, a new hosting service), since right now I'm just using the built-in camera on my iMac, which was definitly not meant for this task! But, expensive video camera or none, working web server or not, this salad is still delicious. Go give it a try.

Corn, Zucchini and Blue Cheese Salad

INGREDIENTS

1/2 pound carrots, either baby carrots or julienned regular carrots, ends trimmed

1 small to medium-sized zucchini

1 ear corn, husked

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp mustard

1 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese

Sea salt

DIRECTIONS

Put a large pot of water on the stove to boil. Meanwhile, julienne the zucchini and saute it in two tsp of olive oil on medium-low heat for about 3-5 minutes until cooked and lightly caramelized, and set aside.

When the water is boiling, add the corn on the cob and leave it for 6-8 minutes to cook. When the corn has about 1 minute to go, add the carrots and blanch them for about 90 seconds, or until they change color. Remove the corn and carrots and drain them. If you used baby carrots with skins, peel the skins off with your fingers (they will come off easily, like blanched nut skins).

Cut the corn cob in half and stand each half up on the cut side. Cut down the side of each half-cob to remove the kernels (watch the video if you're confused about this step). Toss the cut corn to break up large pieces.

In a small bowl, whisk together the mustard, vinegar and salt. Add the olive oil in a slow stream until bound together.

Toss the carrots, corn, zucchini, cheese and dressing together in a large bowl. Taste and add more dressing or salt as desired. Serve!

Serves 2-3 as a side.