Pasta with Corn Pesto

 This delicious Linguine with Fresh Corn Pesto comes right from the pages of the August Bon Appetit magazine. I am trying to make more recipes out of all those cooking magazines I have. I am always so excited when they come in the mail and I pick so many things I want to make, then during the week I get so caught up with everything that I usually resort to an easy favorite for dinner, forgetting that I have so many new recipes to try.

 This recipe was not so easily forgotten. Corn is at the peak of the season here in Southern California, and it is sweet, abundant and really inexpensive, so this was the perfect recipe to throw into the mix. Pasta is usually a once a week meal anyway so there was no excuse not to try something this easy using fresh, sweet corn. We chose to have this as a side with some grilled chicken and a green salad, but you could easily mix in some chicken pieces and make it a one bowl meal.

Tagliatelle with Fresh Corn Pesto

(adapted ever so slightly from Bon Appetit August 2010)

4 bacon slices, chopped

4 cups fresh corn kernels ( I used 4 ears of corn)

1 large clove minced garlic

1 1/4 tsp.Salt

3/4 tsp freshly ground Pepper

 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1/3 cup  toasted pine nuts

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

8 oz tagliatelle or any pasta you choose

3/4 cups torn basil leaves.

Cook bacon in a large skillet until crisp and brown. Remove from pan, leaving bacon drippings, and let bacon drain on a paper towels. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of drippings from skillet. Add corn, garlic, salt and pepper to the skillet. Saute over medium high heat until the corn is tender, but not brown, about 4 minutes. Reserve 1 1/2 cup of the corn mixture and scrape the remaining corn into a food processor. Add 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese and pine nuts to the processor and with the machine running, slowly drizzle the olive oil through the feed tube. Blend until pesto is almost smooth.

Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until done. Drain pasta, reserving 1 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Place pasta in pasta bowl, add pesto, reserved corn kernels and about 1/2 cup of the basil. Toss pasta adding reserved cooking water to thin to desired consistency. Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Sprinkle with remaining basil and reserved bacon. Serve with additional grated Parmesan cheese.

Note: the amount of pesto from this recipe could easily sauce 1lb of pasta. The recipe called for 8 oz of pasta, I used 12 oz of linguine and had plenty of pesto sauce.
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