Magazine Food Looks So Beautiful

I love (zucchini) squash.  Yellow or green, acorn or spaghetti.  I love it cooked, baked, roasted, and even as fries! When I was looking through "Real Simple" magazine I fell in love with a recipe for linguine with summer vegetables and goat cheese.  I looked at the small ingredient list and decided I had to make it.

Here is what you need:

3/4 pound of linguine

1/2 cup of chopped walnuts

3 tablespoons of olive oil

2 cups of fresh corn (from 2 ears)

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

salt and pepper

2 pints of cherry or grape tomatoes

2 small zucchini cut into thin ribbons

2 Tablespoons fresh oregano leavs

4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled

Lets get cooking:

Cook pasta according to package, but when you drain save 1/2 cup of water for later

Heat oven to 350 and spread walnuts out on pan to toast, tossing occasionally.  Toast until fragrant or 8-10 min

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat.  Add the corn, garlic and salt/pepper.  Cook until the corn is tender

Add the 1/2cup water, corn , tomatoes, zucchini to the pasta.  Cook over medium heat, gently stir until the liquid is thicken and coats pasta (add more cooking water as needed).

Serve sprinkle with oregano, walnuts, and goat cheese

I was really excited about this dish, but honestly it let me down.  It ended up tasting very bland.  I added some extra pasta because we had a 4 people eating dinner instead of 3.  I think that adding the extra pasta and not compensating with more oregano and more garlic might have made this dish seem plain.  I decided not to use the goat cheese to try and keep it vegan.  The goat cheese would have helped with the flavor too.  I would like to go back and the tomatoes and goat cheese.  My poor tomato plants did not fair well in the wet summer we had so I didn't have enough to put in my recipe and I don't use tomatoes regularly so I didn't want to buy any.  I loved having the toasted walnuts! They were a great touch on the pasta.  I think I need to give this dish another try some time.  I wasn't as careful paying attention to the instructions as I should have been and I put the squash in the skillet.  That might not have made any difference but thats something else I want to go back and fix.  The picture in the magazine is so beautiful and I was let down by it :(

I hope you all can try the dish and make it work for you.  Overall I give it a poor rating because it ended up so blah... but again I think I could make improvements and make the dish more flavorful.  I am not sure it was all me though, I think this is a plain dish.  Best of love food friends!

Happy Munching!