Corn and pasta are two ingredients I wouldn't think of pairing, but tonight I did so with fabulous results. The inspiration for this dinner came from a recipe on Amateur Gourmet, one of my favorite food blogs. I read about it last week, and have been salivating thinking about it ever since. Tonight I had a friend over for dinner, and it seemed the perfect occasion to try this simple pasta dish.
Adam's recipe came from the Alice Waters cookbook Vegetables and is called Summer Squash and Corn Pasta. I deviated from the recipe quite a bit to use what I already had, but the structure of the recipe is basically the same. Corn, zucchini and mushrooms were surprising bedfellows in this dish, but complemented each other amazingly well. The smoothness of the zucchini, the crunch of the corn and the juiciness of the mushrooms collaborated in each bite, not to mention the beautiful contrast of color and texture. Though summer is coming to an end in most parts of the country, it's still in full swing here in Phoenix, so this dinner felt like the perfect summer meal- nice summery ingredients in a light sauce.
See Adam's website for the original recipe from Alice Waters' cookbook. What follows is the modified recipe I prepared.
Zucchini & Corn Pasta
3 zucchini, diced
8 crimini mushrooms, diced
3 ears of corn, corn cut off the cob
1 jalepeno pepper finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
a handful of Italian parsley, chopped
1 box of fettucine pasta
Saute the zucchini in 2 tablespoons of olive oil for several minutes and season with salt & pepper. Add the corn, garlic and jalepeno and continue cooking for several minutes. Add 2 tablespoons of butter, the parsley and 4 tablespoons of pasta water (the water the pasta is boiling in). Cook for another minute or two and then add the cooked pasta.
Though I love to cook, I'm not very adventurous when trying new recipes. I tend to stick to my arsenal: the recipes I've been making for years and know like the back of my hand. My excuse is that when cooking from a recipe I end up spending a fortune on groceries I don't already have around the house. However, that wasn't the case tonight. I had all the ingredients on hand except the corn, jalepeno and parsley, and at .59 cents each for the corn, .50 for the jalepeno and .50 for the parsley, I'd hardly qualify that as spending a fortune. This dinner certainly opened my eyes to combining ingredients I wouldn't have traditionally thought to combine, and also allowed me to cross off #57 on my list: add another recipe to my arsenal.
2 comments:
hey nephew.. i hope that dish taste way better than it looks!!!
love ya c
Hey, don't be talking trash about my dinner! Though I have to admit, when I initially took the picture I thought it had been captured rather disgustingly. But after partaking in its deliciousness, all I see when I look at that picture is a steaming bowl of loveliness. (Seriously, the bowl is steaming, did you notice that?! Talk about masterful photography! Hahah)
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