Last week we were still enjoying and appreciating the last of the summer weather. And because it was so warm our meals reflected that. So last Friday we had the last Caesar salad for dinner; we've had to put the furnace on finally in the reality of autumn finally having arrived. Night-time lows flirt with frost, and if we have a day absent full sun our large windows aren't able to usher in the warmth to the interior of the house that the sun brings us.

To counter the Caesar salad last week I acceded to my husband's request for Chelsea buns, one of his favourite desserts, instead of focusing on fruit as usual. And, since the weather was in the process of turning colder throughout the week, we thought we'd return to having stir-fries, always a favourite. My husband had brought home a large bag of bock choy (though we often prefer bean sprouts or broccoli), after his last shopping expedition so that was useful.

Yesterday, a casual search on the Internet for a recipe that would incorporate ricotta cheese, corn niblets and tomato gained me a nice, quick recipe for dinner that my husband really enjoyed. It never would have occurred to me without that found recipe to make pancakes for dinner, but that's what I ended up doing.

I had three ears of corn I wanted to do something with and an excess of ricotta cheese, along with plentiful tomatoes and I thought all three go together well, but didn't want to use pasta. The recipe for corn/ricotta pancakes was just the thing. It called for:

2 ears of corn, niblets sliced off  the cob        3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs                                                              1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 cup flour                                                       1 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp. snipped chives

Accompanying the pancakes were tomatoes grilled for six to eight minutes sprinkled with olive oil and basil leaves, and pesto added after the grilling process.

I had substituted sour milk for buttermilk and increased the corn niblet content, as well as the amount of chives that I'd gathered from the garden. I also added a tiny bit of salt and pepper. The finished product, after the pancakes were done was a little bland for my taste, though my husband raved about the pancakes. We both liked the tomatoes accompanying the pancakes. I might consider doing them again, but perhaps using grated old cheddar for a bit of taste zing. I might also, in future, use whole-wheat flour instead of the unbleached white I'd used.

We had a small fresh garden salad with avocado, cucumber, tomato and lettuce to preface the main course, and strawberries freshly picked (!) and trucked in from Isle d'Orleans; amazing really, fresh Canadian strawberries in October...!