Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Best Pasta Salad Evah

This is for Donna Boucher aka Miz Booshay who was asking about pasta salad recipes. Donna is a photographer extraordinaire and just all round nice gal. I love her blog, if you haven't been by, do go see her wonderful photos.

Pasta Salad
(adapted from Susan Branch, I think it's in her Summer book)

1 lb rotini pasta
1/2 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced fine
1 bunch broccoli
1 bunch snowpeas
1 red and 1 green bell pepper
1 can black pitted olives, drained
1 jar, drained, green olives
1 can baby corn, drained
1 cup parmesan cheese, the real stuff if you can find it
salt and pepper

Cook pasta until al dente (the rotini usually takes me 13 minutes) and drain. Put in large bowl and set aside. I use one of those pasta pots that has a built-in drainer, so I can leave the pasta water for blanching the veggies. If you don't have one of those, either scoop the pasta out of the water quickly, or put another pot on to boil.

Pour oil in saucepan and cook garlic over LOW heat. You do not want to brown the garlic or cook it very long as it turns bitter. I suppose you could also cook it in the microwave, as it doesn't take very long, under a minute as I recall. Set aside to cool.

Lightly blanch the broccoli and snow peas for only 1 1/2 minutes. Remove and immediately plunge under cold water to stop cooking. You can use any veggies you want - zucchini, green beans, anything. Just don't cook them longer than a minute or two. Drain the veggies.

Toss the pasta with the oil/garlic mixture. Add the blanched veggies, the other veggies and the cheese. Toss. Lick fingers. Repeat.

It makes enough to feed a crowd.

8 comments:

BB said...

Sounds yum but where is the amazing macro photo of the end result??? C'mon girl!!!! Show us your stuff!!!

:-)
BB

A Novel Woman said...

Bush Babe, I said that's how one makes it, should one feel so inclined. Tonight, I picked up pizza. Want to see a photo of that? :) While I was waiting, I quizzed the girl behind the counter about her multiple piercings (tongue, three in her lip, tongue, bridge of her nose, all over both ears, and two humungous ear pluggy thingies that make holes in the lobes big enough to hang an umbrella. I was curious and had time to kill.) She was very sweet, had a bee-youtiful eyes, the colour of the sky and blonde dreads to her waist.

Actually, speaking of food photos, I took a macro shot of a bit of trail mix. My daughter's employer, the lovely neighbour and friend whose garden I cannibalize for my flower photos, gives my daughter these amazing bags of trail mix every day. There are chocolate tabs, dried mango, seeds, nuts and dried figs. When you see the photo, you'll know why I felt compelled to photograph it.

Stay tuned....

A Novel Woman said...

(ahem)

She had TWO bee-youtiful eyes.

Bloody typos....

rambling caper said...

It fit in better the first time ;-) Sorry, I'm an old coot. Once we went to a pizza place, and I couldn't even order anything, I felt so nauseous at the sight of the multiple facial piercings of our waitress.

laughingwolf said...

oooooooooo yummmmmmm!

rambling caper said...

And, wolf, some of them were clicking against her teeth! shiver

Anonymous said...

clematis
clématite in Paris

Donna Boucher said...

How did I miss this until today!!!
Thank you so much!!
I too love Susan Branch.
Lover her artwork!

Thank you very much for sharing this recipe!!!

Love,
Donna