It has been cold here again, after a burst of warm weather. This is often the way of spring in the upper midwest, and it means sometimes we want to eat summer foods and sometimes we want to eat stew or soup or roast chicken. Here is a side dish for the stew or roast days. It is easy, uses ingredients mostly on hand and tastes good.

The ingredients are: frozen corn (I had about 3 cups from corn we froze last summer); chopped onion (about 1 cup); chopped red pepper (about 1/2 cup), 1/4 teaspoon each of basil, oregano and red pepper flakes, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

In trying times (or even in non-trying times), feel free to substitute. Any oil (or butter or ghee) instead of olive oil; another color of pepper instead of red or another vegetable altogether like cut-up green beans or little bits of broccoli or even finely chopped kale or spinach or other greens. And feel free to monkey with the proportions. There should always be more corn than other ingredients. I think there should always be onion. And of course you could change up the herbage: cumin instead of basil for example. I like red pepper flakes, but maybe you don’t so use a bit of black pepper instead.

But I digress.

Our corn had been cooked before freezing so all I had to do was thaw it out. I think thaw-only would also work for store-bought frozen corn, as it will cook in the skillet. Or cook it according to package instructions but on the short side of the time called for as it will continue to cook.

I chopped the onion and red pepper. I put the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. I put the vegetables (and the salt and red pepper flakes) into the skillet when the oil was warm but not blazing hot. Sizzling is not the idea.

After about 5 minutes, the vegetables had softened and then I added the basil and oregano.

If you are using black pepper instead of red pepper flakes, add the black pepper at this point.

I stirred the mixture around and added the corn, which was a little juicy (for lack of a better word) having thawed out. I cooked the mixture until the corn was thoroughly warmed through and then it was ready.

This picture illustrates the benefits of a large dining room table in times of physical distancing. I had the yellow-blue plate; Philip had the green-blue plate and Maggie had the salmon-blue plate. Physical distance while retaining conversational possibilities.

Here’s the corn in the bowl, looking colorful and a bit herb-y.

Take care of yourselves. Eat well, stay physically separate but emotionally and socially connected and read frivolous books.