How to Cut Corn Off the Cob: Keeping All Ten Fingers, Capturing Every Delicious Kernel and Every Drop of Sweet Corn 'Milk'

How to cut corn kernels off an ear of corn using just a knife and a bowl. How to 'milk' an ear of corn to capture the sweet corn liquid. It's easy!

FRESH CORN So many recipes call for "fresh corn kernels" but give no hint, not one, about how to easily cut the corn off those unwieldy cobs. (Hmm. Language question: why is it called an 'ear' of corn? Corn, are you listening? I digress.)

Just take a knife and hack away? Sure, that works. But here's the elegant way to cut corn off the ears, capturing all the kernels in a bowl and catching all the 'corn milk' too.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED
Some corn
A bowl
A sharp knife
That's all!

Easy-Easy Roasted Zucchini ♥

A quick 'n' easy for summer's beautiful zucchini, a "summer" squash. Many thanks to Margie, a reader from Maryland, for sharing this recipe, one she got from a neighbor!

Am I right about this? Some times I think that readers count on A Veggie Venture for vegetable recipes, yes, but even more so as an occasional reminder -- like a speed limit sign on the road, like a string wrapped around a finger, like a sticky note glued to the bathroom mirror -- how good familiar vegetables cooked in familiar ways can be.

Roasted zucchini? Not new. The "recipe"? Dead easy. The "special ingredients"? Let's see, onion, olive oil and ground pepper, nothing special there. And yet when the recipe arrived from my friend Margie, it stayed in my InBox until one day, I just threw it in the oven and then ate it, the whole batch, for lunch. And my -- was I ever reminded just how good roasted zucchini is!

But this wasn't the recipe I'd planned for this week. I loved the Green Gazpacho from Leite's Culinaria and meant to tell you all about it. I took a pretty picture and even wrote the post. But then I got to calculating the nutrition information and found -- whoooo, nelly -- that as written, the recipe racks up 600 calories and 16 Weight Watchers points for a serving. And even though I "Alanna-sized" the recipe by dropping the oil from 1 cup to 1/4 cup, even that added up to 350 calories and 10 Weight Watchers points. Should I post it? I think not, because A Veggie Venture readers are here for healthy recipes, ones we can eat every day.

(And for that many calories? Pul-lease, give me a sweet summer treat, like a slice of Blueberry Cream Pie or First-Prize Peach Pie or a piece of Dimply Plum Cake or Peach Blueberry Cake.)

So consider this your little reminder. And trust me, for a few weeks while the zucchini is so pretty, you just might want to eat this every day. Especially with a little feta crumbled on top. Or spiked with a little hot sauce. Or leftover and chopped up for a salad or an omelet.

Falling In Love with Green Beans: Favorite Recipes

Every year, I seem to fall in love with a new vegetable. One year beets, another year corn. Then one year something hit me about green beans – and I haven't looked back since, collecting one new green bean recipe after another. Here are my favorite recipes. Perhaps this is your year to fall in love with green beans too?

FIRST, HOW TO TURN GREEN BEANS from GOOD to GREAT
Great beans may start with the beans – fresh, snappy, fragrant – but it takes two more things to draw out the most flavor. Once I learned these two "secret" ingredients, wow, there was no not falling in love with green beans.

WATER Cook green beans in what will seem like a lot of water – that means eight full cups for every pound of beans.

SALT What does "well-salted water" mean? Salt the water with a full tablespoon of table salt (or two tablespoons of kosher salt).

BUT AREN'T WE ALL SUPPOSED TO AVOID SALT? Yeah, yeah, I know, salt is supposed to be bad for us and we're told to avoid it. But that advice is directed at the "average" eater who often eats salt-laden processed food and fast food. When we cook at home, when we use whole ingredients, we leave room in our diets for salt – especially when it makes us go crazy for green beans! (More info: According to Salt-Reduction Efforts May Need Different Approach from the Wall Street Journal, 75% of our salt consumption comes from packaged food and restaurants.)