Remember those grape tomatoes from a few days ago? I was determined to find a new recipe to use them. I don’t even like tomatoes. Let me rephrase that: I don’t like raw tomatoes. It’s the only thing I’ll pick off a sandwich immediately. I’ve never liked them raw. But they are fine if they are cooked or blended in things like pasta sauce or chili. I’ll even eat them raw in fresh salsa, but never by themselves.

Years ago I enjoyed a dish called Corn and Tomato Linguine on the menu at a Memphis restaurant, so I Googled it. The dish, not the restaurant. The restaurant is long gone, but even better, I found a recipe for Corn and Tomato Fettuccine. It was simple to make, didn’t have a lot of ingredients, and looked yummy. I loved the colors of the vegetables in the pan (above). As I often do, I modified the recipe just a bit. I find that some recipes don’t have enough seasoning. I blame this on where the author grew up usually. Southern recipes have more spice than Northern recipes. So here’s a link to the original and then I’ll post what I changed about it. You can decide which one you like better should you choose to make it.

Here’s a link to the original recipe from the Taste of Home website.  Now here’s my version:

Ingredients:
4 green onions chopped
2 ears of corn – cut off the cob
1/2 cup of red sweet pepper chopped
About 20 grape tomatoes
Fettuccine – cooked and drained, about two cups
olive oil
salt (I use Himalayan salt from a grinder)
pepper
Lemon pepper
feta cheese
dried (or fresh) parsley

I sauteed the peppers, onions, and corn in olive oil for about ten minutes on medium heat, seasoning them with lemon pepper. I cut the grape tomatoes in half. Some of the larger ones I quartered. And then I added the tomatoes to the pan for about five minutes, stirring with the other vegetables.

I drained the pasta and then put it back in the pot. I seasoned it with salt and pepper and added a pat of butter. Then I added the vegetables to the pasta and stirred well. I seasoned with dried parsley, more lemon pepper, and a bit more salt and pepper as needed.

I served the pasta with feta cheese sprinkled on top (pictured below). I’m not a huge fan of feta so I got garlic feta. It was excellent on this dish! Overall, it tasted great. The only thing I would change if I made it again is I’d add more olive oil to the noodles. The butter just wasn’t enough and the noodles were very dry. If you like a cold pasta salad-type dish, this would be perfect. But the noodles definitely needed some moisture. I added a bit of olive oil to the leftovers and they were perfect.

If you check out the original recipe, there is no lemon pepper in this dish and they use regular tomatoes chopped. They also boil the corn first before cutting it off the cob, but I like sauteed corn that still has a bit of a crunch. And as I said, I like more spice. They also add fresh parsley with the feta cheese at the end. I don’t really care of parsley, and honestly, even using dried parsley in this dish, I couldn’t taste it. So use whatever you like! That’s the best part of a new recipe – make it your own!