As I mentioned before, we have a ton of veggies included two more ears of sweet corn on the cob so I looked through my recipes and found this one from Food and Wine for a sweet corn salad with pancetta and mushrooms.

Of course, salad is a great way to use veggies and along with the corn I also had mushrooms that desperately needed to get used so I thought now would be a great time to try this recipe out.

I went to the store and had some difficulty finding pancetta so I decided to try salt pork which I’ve never used before. The recipe also calls for crimini mushrooms but I had baby bellas so that substitute would have to do as well. I bought a salad blend because that’s what I like a little more than frisée and went with a goat cheese instead of the recommended gruyére cheese. Clearly, this recipe was taken more as a guide but with cooking, I have no problem substituting ingredients. I’m the one eating the dish and it’s all fine with me.

I cooked the corn and cut the kernels off the cob, cooked the salt pork (which turns out, is just saltier bacon), and cooked the mushroom in the leftover pork fat. The mushrooms got this great earthy, meaty flavor which I loved and I ended up wishing I had just a little more mushrooms to add. I whisked lemon juice, honey, vinegar, and olive oil together and seasoned a little with some pepper since I knew the salt pork was already quite salty. I tossed everything in the dressing and called it a salad.

Overall, it was a really good salad that was super well balanced. The lemon juice was a little strong and I should’ve balanced the dressing a little more before tossing everything together but I like tart lemon juice so it wasn’t terrible or too overpowering. With the earthiness of the mushroom and the creamy goat cheese I was soo happy. The corn added such a nice sweet crunch when everything else got a little soggy and it was just a really great, filling salad. A great use of the veggies that I was super happy with.