Delcious Recipes from this Summer {What's for dinner}

Today is the first day of Fall and I am totally going to mess with you and talk about Summer.  Probably bad form.  Oh well.  

Corn is  a summer favorite around here.  Once summer starts rolling around, we tend to stalk Facebook waiting for the announcement the Fresno State Corn is here.  You see, Fresno State's ag department grows the most amazing corn.  It's sweet and delicious and well, people line up to get their hands on this stuff.  We make weekly trips at the beginning of the summer so that I can freeze it for the rest of the year.  We kind of have a problem.  My youngest, who for some reason hasn't quite realized the wonderfulness of this corn, started chanting "No More Corn" every time it's brought up!

So, despite the fact that my motivation for cooking, baking, anything creative was at an all time low, I did try out some amazingly yummy recipes this summer (most of them involving corn) that are must haves.  Really. . . They will work with some of those cans of Niblet sweet corn or even better. . . that frozen grilled corn at Trader Joes!  See.  Corn year round. 

I made this Mexican Street Corn Pasta for the 4th of July and it was gobbled up.  This was just amazingly delicious!  I put the cheese on the side. . . because I wanted to be able to enjoy it (dairy allergies kind of stink!).  The creaminess comes from mayo, so a huge win on that part.  The combination of corn, avocado, and bacon are making me so hungry just typing this.  I should move on.

This next recipe is also amazing and involves corn. . . see. . . it's kind of a thing.  Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for this Bacon, corn pasta that was a HUGE hit.  Seriously.  Bacon & Corn make the best combination.  Major drooling going on here. 

Please excuse this side bar: I had another recipe that is one of our favorite corn recipes and well.  It has disappeared from cyber space.  I have it written down and I'm so glad.  I have posted it in one of my previous "What's for dinner" posts and it really is wonderful.  A friend and I were so VERY happy when I realized that I had copied it down.  Because like I said.  It's gone.  I'm not sure what happened to the blog Creative Mama, but the website is gone.  It's been gone for months.  So, friends. . . lesson learned.  Blogs are not forever.  They could disappear and leave you just dreaming for your favorite recipe.  Print or copy down those Pinterest recipes that you know you can't live without.  Pinning them for later isn't always a sure thing. Lesson learned.  Moving on.

Now back to our regular scheduled drool fest.

This next recipe I found because I was inspired by Panera's Thai Chicken Salad.  It's my current go-to lunch item because they got rid of my chicken avacado cobb (insert sad face here. . . you know the one with tears).  But, this one.  It's really good and I can't stop thinking about it after I eat it and I can't eat at Panera every day because. . . well. . . that would get really pricey.  So, I found a copycat and it was wonderful!  You should make it.  We ate a lot of salads this summer because it was just too hot to cook.  bleh.  This one was really good.  You should make it. You can find it here. 

Remember back a few paragraphs?  We ate a lot of salads because it was hot.  By dinner time we are all exhausted and who wants to heat up the house.  I braved the grill a lot, but at some point we even stopped using that because like I said.  This summer was hot.  This recipe was one of my favorites because it offered lots of flexibility.  I could eat the salad and if my husband or kids wanted something more filling, they took the fixings and made tacos.  Easy Peazy.  Everyone happy.  Dinner served.  You can find this recipe here.

Okay, that's enough drooling for now.  I'm going to go wrap up and get out stuff for tonight's dinner. Soccer season has officially begun for us so easy dinner nights have begun.  Did you cook up anything delicious this summer?