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.

Seriously Simple Soup.

When times get tough, soup is what’s called for. It’s nourishing, nutritional and tasty (I searched desperately for a synonym for ‘tasty’ starting with ‘n’ to keep the alliterative ball rolling but only thought of ‘nommy’, which probably doesn’t even exist and, if it did, would just be plain ridiculous. But anyway). There’s something comforting in a bowl of hot soup. Memories of bad days and general teen angst are brought back by the only cure all: my mother’s chicken and vegetable soup. Potato soup will forever remind me of my Ukrainian grandmother. Pumpkin soup will always conjure up the first time I made soup myself, as a naive 12-year-old who thought adding cheese was a good idea.

Following the bake-a-thon, which proved to be fantastically therapeutic, I decided to up the healing ante and make some chicken and corn soup for my dear flatmate. Admittedly I’ve always been wary of the stuff – finding the varieties available at local Chinese restaurants strangely comparable to glue. An excess of corn flour (and Lord knows what else) means I’m always left with that claggy mouth feeling and a bowl of unfinished gloop. But I decided to persevere, if only for the sake of household peace.

Searching through recipes for the soup, I was saddened to find that most of them contain bacon, shallots, sesame oil, ginger and chicken breast – things that, sure, probably make the dish undoubtedly delicious, but things that I certainly can’t afford for one lowly meal.

So we KISSed – and for all of you that know us, no, this does not put to rest those rumours – by Keeping It Simple, Stupid. We omitted pretty much everything and made it a very basic, but nevertheless flavoursome, dish. By all means add the aforementioned ingredients to make it even better but, if the only thing at your disposal is a few tins of corn and some low-grade meat, go with my option.

Chicken and Corn Soup.

Chicken and Corn Soup

Serves 2

2 chicken legs

1 400g tin of corn kernels

1 400g tin of creamed corn

2 cups of chicken stock

1 TBSP soy sauce

1/2 tsp ginger powder (optional)

2 eggs (optional)

salt and pepper

1. Place the chicken legs on a roasting tray and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2. Roast them for around 30 minutes in a 200C oven, turning occasionally for even browning.

3. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

4. In a large pot, place the corn kernels, creamed corn and chicken stock.

5. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer.

6. Add the soy sauce and ginger powder and season to taste.

7. Using your fingers, tear the meat off the chicken legs and add to the soup.

8. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes and then remove from heat.

9. Ladle into bowls and stir an egg through each one.