Elote Salad

I will admit, my obsession with corn is getting a little out of control. But what can I say, corn is delicious! A fresh ear of sweet corn in the summer? Doesn't get any better. Bianca and Gus also really love corn. Like, REALLY love it. So they are happy with this recent obsession.

I've had elote on the brain lately, and have been dreaming of making a vegan version of it. I have had this elote recipe flagged for a while now and was building my arsenal to bang this out for dinner one night. The night that I decided to make it, I popped the corn in the oven to roast when I said to myself, "hmm, how can I make this into a main dish?" When alas, I decided to turn this into an elote salad! I had some lettuce and spinach in my garden that I had yet to harvest and some squash left from our last CSA... all of that together with extra of the crumbled tofu topping and we have ourselves a well-balanced winner of a summer dinner. I should note that my meat eating roommate was passing through the kitchen as I was making this... and I told him the tofu was cheese, so he sprinkled some on his sandwich and proclaimed how delicious this "cheese" was.

The dish had a bit of a sweetness to it from the corn, some crazy flavor action from the garlicy squash, a bit of spice from the overkill amount of hot sauce I accidentally poured in, but luckily cooled down by the tofu... and all of this was over some super crispy and fresh lettuce and baby spinach from my garden. Each of these components alone were delicious, but when you put them all together... we are talking something out of this world.

Elote Salad

Inspired by Munchin with Munchkin

Materials:

• 2 ears corn (still in husks)
• juice from 1 lime
• 1/2 cup firm tofu, crumbled
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon nutritional yeast
• 1/4 cup cashew cream
• 1/4 cup nayonnaise (vegan mayo)
• juice from 1/2 lime
• olive oil
• 2 medium size summer squash, sliced into rounds
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• lettuce of choice
• hot sauce

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Place ears of corn in the husks in the oven for 30 minutes.
3. While the corn is roasting:
1. Combine the tofu, salt, vinegar, lime juice, and nutritional yeast and set aside.
2. Heat up a swirl of olive oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat and sauté the garlic and summer squash for about 3 minutes. 
4. Remove the corn from the oven, let cool, remove the kernels from the cob, and sprinkle with juice from 1 lime.
5. Toss the corn with the cashew cream and nayonnaise.
6. To assemble the salad: lay down the greens, top with the zucchini, then the corn, then the tofu, and finally top off with a dash of your favorite hot sauce.
7. Enjoy!