An Instant Classic

I've been flipping through cookbooks and cooking magazines a lot in the past few months, searching for new dishes to try, both sweet and savory. My recipe hunting arose from the desire to plan my meals for the week in advance so I don't buy too much at the grocery store. See, I'd developed this rather bad habit of buying too much without really knowing what I would make with it all, and far too much food went to waste.

Advanced grocery planning has worked well so far, except when I buy fruit. For some reason, I can't stop myself from buying too much fruit. The only progress in this arena has been to scale back on the amount of grapes I'll buy for a week; I went from a full bag to 1 or 2 clusters. In the summer, it's even harder to resist the siren's song of all the lusciously ripe fruit, like peaches, nectarines, plums, berries, pineapple.... But I digress.

There have been a few of these recipes I've tried out that, shall we say, won't be reappearing in my kitchen. The Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake comes to mind. The actual slices of meyer lemon in the cake were too tough and bitter to enjoy despite being briefly boiled and then cooked in the cake. Several soups have also been sadly disappointing too. One was too sweet (sweet potato/north african soup, flavored with peanut butter and honey, was just too sweet for me, even without a full dose of honey), others lacked enough flavor to encourage me to polish off the entire batch of soup (tuscan veggie soup, which just didn't have any kick or memorable flavor to it).

But there have been numerous recipes that became an instant favorite. I've even returned to a few of these multiple times already, indicating they're here to stay. Ellie Krieger's Pumpkin Muffins (topped with tasty little pumpkin seeds) survive a month or two in the freezer individually wrapped; just set it on the counter before you go to bed and voila! a tasty and healthy breakfast component. Sorry, I need more than just a muffin for breakfast, so these often get paired with yogurt or a smoothie. Or Ellie Krieger's Asian Summer Rolls, which, by the way, I'm making for dinner tonight. They're perfect for the days you don't want to turn on the stove or oven and you just want to assemble. I fill mine with rice noodles, carrot, green onion, avocado and mint. It's also very critical to soak up as much of the dipping sauce as you possibly can. Trust me on this. Or Whoopie Pies. Hot damn, so tasty and fun. Or Ina Garten's Plum Tatin or Alton Brown's Individual Peach Upside Down Cakes...

Last night, I tested a new recipe and immediately knew it was going to join my repetoire of summer dishes. It may even make a cameo appearance mid-winter, so I can remember what summer tastes like. Best of all, it's incredibly easy to make.
Martha Stewart Living - Campanelle with Corn, Scallions and Arugula
http://www.marthastewart.com/777179/campanelle-corn-scallions-and-arugula

I took some liberty with this recipe, though...
*I didn't add arugula or parmesan cheese at the end.
*I substituted orichette pasta in for the campanelle pasta, since that's what I had in the cabinet.
*I eyeballed the ingredients - 2 handfuls of frozen and thawed corn off the cob (from last summer's crop!) in the corn puree + 3 ears of fresh corn cut off the cob added to the pan. And I didn't cook the corn beforehand. I was unclear about whether I should do that and decided, because it was already 9pm, that I would skip that possibly unnecessary step.
*I substituted a jalapeno for the Thai red chili, since that's what I found at the grocery.

The resulting dish was amazing - a combination of pasta and creamy corn, with a bit of smokiness from the crisped bacon. The addition of arugula and parmesan cheese would probably take this dish to the next level, but I am not a big fan of arugula (though I desperately want to be!) and absolutely detest reheating greens of any sort in a dish.