Beautiful day in Neighborhood
As a tradition of the National night out in the 1st week of August every year, every neighborhood holds the potluck dinner to celebrate. And it also serves to get to know the neighbors as well as to prevent crime by informing each other by email. Every neighborhood has the nominated block captain who organizes this event each year. The block captain informs all the neighbors about the block outdoor party through email one month ahead. Usually, as a traditional American party meal, the dishes would include grilled meat, burgers, and hot dogs. Every family also brought different food items such as pasta salads, chili, baked beans, potato salad, fruits, and desserts.
After moving to this neighborhood, this national night out is our 4th Summer block party to meet neighbors in the summer evening. Children had fun eating food and making more friends as their play dates. Adults also introduced each other to get to know the neighbors. This year some new homeowner moved into our neighborhood as old neighbors moved out with their own reasons. Since young families moved in, my neighborhood now has more children and they do biking, skateboarding and different kinds of outdoor activities. As we stay in the state of the cold weather, all of us appreciate the warm weather of Summer. Most Minnesotans are excited when the winter ends.
In August, most vegetables are fresh from the local farms, Sweet corn is the most delicious vegetable to enjoy as a summer treat. Every year I have made one item of Burmese food for this special evening, this year I made sweet rice with corn. I did write a similar recipe once but without sweet corn. It is simple to make and also a good afternoon snack to enjoy with green tea.
Sweet Corn with Sweet rice ( 3-4 serving)
Ingredients
4 cups Sweet rice or Glutinous rice ( soaked with cold water overnight)
2 cup Corn ( Scraped from the cob 4-5 corn on the cobs)
1 cup Shallots ( Thinly sliced)
1 tsp Turmeric powder
1 tbsp Salt
1 tsp Sugar
1 cup Canola Oil
3 cup Water
Instruction
1. In the Chinese wok or non-stick pan, add oil and heat the pan with medium-high.
2. When the oil is heated, add the turmeric powder and shallot then fry till golden brown.
3. Strain all the shallot from the oil onto a paper towel.
4. In the pan with the oil which is previously fried shallot, cook the rice together with corn.
5. Add salt and sugar to the rice and stir.
6. Add 1 cup water and stir every ingredients to mix with the rice
7 Add the rest of the water and cover with lid.
8. Turn down the heat to medium and cook the rice. May need to stir occasionally.
9. When all the water has evaporated and the rice sticks to the pan. It is ready.
10. We may cook this rice in a non-stick pan to get the crispy top layer of cooked rice.
( This sweet rice is also suitable to have with fried chicken or fried fish)
