Cheap Bastid's Corn Disaster

Sometimes you can be just too damn cheap. Like when sweet corn was on special last week at Fraiser Farms at 6 for $1. That’s the cheapest it’s been all year. So I bought some.

Well, last week was a busy week at work. I wasn’t home for dinner until Friday evening. My beautiful bride, Mrs. CB informed me that we needed to use up the corn which had been sitting in the fridge for a week. So OK, it’s going to be a sweet corn weekend. Great. We both love sweet corn.

So we proceeded to eat up all the sweet corn. Every day for 3 days. But hey, we both love sweet corn. We boiled it and we broiled it. I even offered to make corn fritters but Mrs. CB prefers it still on the cob. And even though it was starting to get just a bit old, it was sure good; still sweet, still juicy. I like mine roasted with some charring on the kernels, Mrs. CB wants me to just show hers to the grill to warm it a bit.

It was perfect last night with some sirloin and Friday night with homemade meatballs in tomato sauce. But, as we all know, corn likes to extract its revenge. I remember the many times I help Papaw slop the hogs when I was a kid vacationing at their farm in Kentucky. Toting the slops down to the troughs and then shoveling some field corn to the hogs. They love both. They’d loudly crunch the corn off the cobs and then leave the cobs behind.

Did I mention revenge? Well, this may start to get a bit indelicate but…for some reason we will announce news of our bowel movements to one another. Such terms from my “delicate flower” as “poopie”. Ah hell, we all know what a number 2 is, right? Well, if you do 2 of them the second one is a #4 (2 x 2 = 4) and if you do 3 then you just did a #6. And, I just did a great big TMI didn’t I?

The morning after snarfing down sweet corn you just gotta love the heady aroma of “Neutra-Air” spray wafting out of the bathroom.
Sweet corn season will be over pretty soon. And it’ll be 6 months before there’s anymore. We have to enjoy it while we can—and while it’s at a Cheap Bastid price.

When it’s all gone, here’s the only “sweet corn” we’ll have for a while:

Cheap Bastid's Summertime Corn Salad

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


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.

This is really easy and is really tasty. 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!