I have always loved looking through cookbooks and cooking magazines but to be perfectly honest only the ones with the pictures. The picture is what grabs my attention and then I read the ingredient list to see if I have everything on hand, or at least a facsimile of what they ask for so I can hopefully make my own version. I am also realistic in knowing that my plate will never look the same as the one pictured, I may get a little disappointed at first but the flavor can sometime make up for my lack of plating skills. Yes I will never win chopped for my plating but I am all about the flavors.

We decided to have fish for dinner the other night and I was thinking it should be a little light we had snacks out on our friends boat and didn’t need a heavy dinner and I didn’t feel like having cereal, yes that can sometimes happen in our house. I wanted a light dinner; not crazy light but light for us, the flavor still had to be there, sometimes I feel light can lose a little of the flavor love we so enjoy.

I still have a ton of sunburst cherry tomatoes from the garden that I want to use and while I didn’t have corn on the cob on hand, I had no problem substituting it with a can of corn for a last minute tomato bacon corn salad. it was so yummy that my husband declared “oh you need to blog about this, you hit it out of the park” – I love when he says things like this, he doesn’t even read my blog, he loves to tell people he doesn’t need to; he lives it.

This is great for a side dish or use it as a salsa as I did here.

Serves 4–6

6 slices of thick-cut bacon
1 medium onion, diced (about 1 cup)
cut kernels from 4 ears of corn (about 2 cups) – I used a can of niblets
3 cups halved cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
salt, to taste
fresh ground black pepper, to taste

In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp.  Remove bacon to a plate and set aside.

Turn heat down to medium-low and add onions to the bacon drippings in the skillet.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion has softened – about 5 minutes.

Add corn, turn heat back up to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally, until corn is tender and just starting to brown in spots about 7–10 minutes.

Remove corn and onion mixture to a large mixing bowl and let cool for about 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, crumble bacon.  Add the sliced tomatoes, bacon, basil, and vinegar to the bowl with the corn.  Sprinkle in a big pinch of salt and some fresh ground black pepper. Toss everything together add more salt and/or pepper if needed.