At the peak of summer we try to eat as much corn on the cob as possible, because it’s so good this time of year. This year I’ve been exploring recipes that use fresh corn and recently decided to make this Corn, Bacon, and Parmesan Pasta from the Smitten Kitchen blog.

This recipe comes together in a flash, so you’ll want to prep your corn and bacon before you get going. I managed to get the bacon perfectly crispy without burning it, which was very satisfying. You’ll want to keep a close eye on how it’s cooking up, and as it starts to crisp, move it around the pan frequently. That way you won’t have any bits that are getting blasted by hot spots in your pan.

We used fresh cavatelli that we picked up at the farmers market. It’s sold frozen and was more than we needed for the recipe, so I had to take a few minutes to pry off 8 ounces, but that didn’t take long. It was a fun shape for this dish as pieces of corn nestled into the cavity.

This is a very simple and light dinner. We got two dinner servings out of it, but we didn’t have anything on the side. If you add a side salad; a green veggie; or a plate of heirloom tomatoes with salt, pepper, and olive oil; you could stretch to 3 or 4 servings. This would also be very easy to scale up.

One of Deb’s latest recipes is this Buffalo Chicken Cobb Salad, which I made less than two weeks after she posted it to the blog. I don’t do them super often, but we like an entree salad here and this combines our preferred cobb salad format with buffalo chicken. What’s not to like? (This isn’t a Deb, but another favorite cobb salad variation is this Autumn Cobb Salad, which will basically take any roasted squash you can throw at it.)

For veggies I used a mix of cucumber, celery, carrot, bell pepper, and tomatoes. But as she says, you can really do whatever combination of veggies you like. I did skip the blue cheese because I’m just not a fan. I thought about substituting cheddar, but I didn’t think we’d miss the cheese, and I was right.

I did a pretty simple baked chicken thigh for this. They got a brief marinade in some olive oil, salt, pepper, Penzey’s Mural of Flavor spice mix, and a splash of champagne vinegar. I prepped an entire two-pound package because I know we’ll use up the leftovers.

This came together pretty easily, though it is one of those meals where there’s a lot of chopping. But that also means there’s a lot you can do ahead of time. Basically you can prep this entire meal ahead of time, and I don’t think you’d even need to do it at the same time.

The Baby Wedge Salad with Avocado and Pickled Onions caught my eye immediately when Deb posted it to the blog this spring. I like to do taco night, but I struggle with a side dish. Last summer I was throwing together corn salads, which is fine but not quite what I was looking for. Normally I don’t gravitate towards iceberg lettuce, but the form factor intrigued me and I knew this would feel light and refreshing in the summer.

Overall this dish was a winner! The presentation is really fun, and the crunch of the iceberg is great with the various other toppings. It’ll look like too much of everything, but you want that abundance with iceberg. Especially since there isn’t really a dressing on this.

The one major hitch I ran into was that I accidentally burned the first batch of pepitas. If you’re also starting with roasted ones, start that one minute timer the second you start to see bubbling, and be ready to take them off the heat right away.

I also encountered a minor hitch, which was that I didn’t have enough red wine vinegar to pickle the onions. So I just used some from a big jar of them we keep in the fridge. The flavor profile isn’t quite the same since I made these with white vinegar, but I don’t think we missed much.

I know that not everyone wants to use the oven to make dinner in the summer, but if you’re not opposed to the idea, the Turkey Pesto Meatballs and Orecchiette from the Smitten Kitchen Blog are a great way to use up some of that summer squash you bought at the farmer’s market.

Instead of pesto, I use a homemade basil garlic sauce and just add some additional parmesan cheese as I go. I try to make a batches of that a couple of times during the summer, and then freeze it for use later. So it’s not as much work as it sounds like (at least all on one day). I don’t miss the pine nuts, especially in something like this, but if I wanted that texture I’d probably add some toasted walnuts, chopped fine.

I made this once last summer, and put half of the meatballs and squash in the freezer. They held up pretty well, but for me the 1/4″ thick slices of squash were a little too thin, especially once frozen. They kind of fell apart. This time I sliced them thicker, somewhere in between 1/4″ and 1/2″ inch.

As I did last year, I made the full amount of meatballs and squash, but halved the rest of the recipe to make two dinner servings. I actually knocked the amount of pasta down further, to 6oz, but probably could have gotten away with 4 or 5oz. When I want to make the leftovers, I’ll just heat up the meatballs and zucchini while the pasta boils, and then make the brothy sauce.

This is a light but satisfying summer meal, and it would also lend itself well to being made ahead of time.