Is It Bread? Is it a Vegetable? Is it a Casserole? It’s…. Corn Thing!

We’ve all had those days, the kind of days with Noun Trouble:

“What did you end up getting your son for Christmas?”

“That thing he wanted.”

“What should I wear to the holiday party?”

“That thing. It’s cute.”

“What are we having with the tacos?”

“That corn thing.”

(I’m sure there are plenty of circumstances under which Noun Trouble becomes an actual communication problem, but this isn’t one of them – nobody else could figure out what to call it, either.)

In an effort to satisfy the hungry *and* the picky and still have lots of time to hang out with friends on New Year’s Eve, we opted to set up a taco bar and let everyone fend for themselves. This ludicrously easy side put in an appearance and made everyone happy, and there’s no actual dairy in cream-style corn so if you’ve been living large over the holidays and cheating on your involuntary food restrictions, you can proceed with similar abandon here and not even feel bad afterwards. 

I'm not usually a food-from-cans person. I'm sure there's an amazing version of this that you could make with actual corn scraped from an actual cob, and some heavy cream, and all sorts of extra steps and seasonings and such. Some days I adore recipes like that. Today is not that day. Today is a day when I want to produce comfort food with a minimum of time and effort so I don't look absolutely underprepared to have 30 people in my house and I can spend all my time talking to them and mixing margaritas instead of washing dishes. 

The chiles are optional but you should include them; they add flavor but not heat and hey – they’re an actual vegetable, so if you’re trying to rationalize your recent food choices you can comfort yourself with that teeny little speck of green. You healthy person, you!

From Quick Mexican Cooking by Cyndi Duncan and Georgia Patrick, which also contains an amazing and very easy recipe for enchilada sauce that will make you swear off the canned stuff forever. This isn't my usual style of cookbook but these 2 recipes alone have kept the book on my shelf for 18 years. 

Corn Thing

1 egg, beaten

¾ cup milk (or fake milk of your choice)

1 15-oz can cream-style corn

1 11-oz can whole kernel corn, drained

1 4-oz can diced green chiles

1/3 cup oil

2 tablespoons sugar (optional)

½ cup shredded cheddar cheese (or fake cheese, but I’d almost skip the cheese instead)

¾ cup cornmeal

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt (because you haven’t gotten enough from all the canned stuff)

Heat the oven to 400. Spray a 9x9 baking dish with cooking spray.

Combine the egg, milk, corn(s), chiles, and oil. Add the remaining ingredients, stir to mix, and pour into the prepared pan. Bake 30-40 minutes.