All my posts are a little bit corny, but this one really takes the cake.

See what I did there? Aren’t I clever? It took me a good ten minutes to devise a name for this post – ten minutes that otherwise should have been spent writing an essay. But uni, schmuni.

My flatmate has been complaining of late that I always seem to insult her in my blog posts. Well, this post is intended to completely make up for that and shine a bright light on her (slowly) improving cooking skills. I will take no credit for this recipe, as the entire thing was her own creation. I will also take no credit for teaching her how to conjure up such a recipe, as my attempts at showing her how to cook always end up with me raising my voice and her evacuating the kitchen and me raising my voice because she left me alone in the kitchen. So the moral of this story is that I have taught her nothing and she consequently invented these corn cakes when I wasn’t at home.

But the girl did well. The cakes are deliciously fried yet bursting with enough nuggets of juicy corn to fool you into thinking they’re healthy. They’re good cold, too, as an ideal hangover cure. So congratulations, my dear, not only for creating a fantastic recipe, but for doing it so stealthily that you managed to avoid my cooking wrath.

Corn cakes.

Corn Cakes

1 400g tin of corn kernels, drained

1 potato, grated

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup plain flour (or thereabouts. She’s bad with quantities)

salt and pepper

1 TBSP olive oil, for frying (ditto)

1. Mix together the corn, potato and egg until the mixture comes together.

2. Stir in the flour until you have a pancake batter consistency. The quantity of flour used is just a rough guide – keep adding flour until you get it right.

3. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Heat the oil in a large frying pan until hot.

5. Shape the mixture into tablespoon-sized balls and place in the frying pan, about 5 cm apart.

6. Squash the cakes down until flat and fry on each side for a few minutes, or until golden brown.

7. Remove from the frying pan and drain on paper towels.

8. Serve.

NB: You can add fresh herbs to these to make them a bit more exciting. Or even cheese. Cheese makes everything better.

I’d Tapenade That.

Many, many, many apologies for the 9-day hiatus. We finally got a new apartment after relentlessly fighting in the vicious and bloody battleground that is the Sydney rental market. Viewing after viewing, application after application, rejection after rejection; it’s a savage bloodbath. To all you students considering moving out of home: don’t.

OK, so it’s not that bad. We only really applied for five places and some applications I did slightly intoxicated so my experience probably isn’t much to go by. And living out of home, minus the hours spent cleaning and arguing with your flatmate about cleaning, is pretty sweet.

But yep, we got a new apartment. So my time has been spent scouring and scrubbing and sanitising our apartment in time to move out. But we decided to take a quick break from our frenzied clean up to celebrate with a big bottle of champagne (read: $8 sparkling wine) and food. I’ve told you before about my burgeoning love affair with my blender and am about to bore you again with its excellence. Not only does it make fantastic hummus, lo and behold its also a great tool for making olive tapenade. I’ve loved tapenade for as long as I can remember: it’s salty, oily and can be paired with cheese. Perfect in my books.

Normally I’d prefer to use kalamata olives for this recipe, but they’re bloody expensive. Stuffed green olives are a good substitute though, and have a slightly more delicate flavour. Fresh herbs really lift the tapenade but if they’re not available or too pricey, I suppose you could do without.

Keep the tapenade in the fridge for up to a month and use on toast, sandwiches, pasta or with crackers. Whip it out when entertaining or at the end of your rental crusade.

Green olive tapenade.

Green Olive Tapenade

400g stuffed green olives

1 clove garlic

2 TBSP chopped flat leaf parsley

2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil

squeeze of lemon juice

pepper

1. Place the olives, garlic and parsley in a blender and pulse until well combined.

2. With the motor running, add the olive oil and lemon juice.

3. Season with pepper to taste.

4. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve.