The weather is finally
nice here in Kentucky so my husband, mother-in-law and I sat outside one
evening and grilled chicken and asparagus for a great relaxing dinner. We even had a small salad made with the
greens from our garden. The next day, I
needed to find something to take for lunch and my usual as I have written
before is refrigerator salad, using everything left over plus some fresh greens
and salad dressing plus croutons made from left over bread and stuck in the
freezer. This, however, would not work
in this case, so I needed a new plan. I
decided to try pasta salad.
Now, I must begin by
saying that I have never been a pasta salad fan because I don’t like mayonnaise
except on a tomato sandwich. But,
recently I tried a pasta salad made with veggies and cheese tortellini that had
an Italian dressing. So, I thought I’d
give it a try. I had a box of healthy
pasta shells made by Barilla. The pasta
is actually made with carrots and tomatoes and although the color is orange,
the pasta is quite good. I removed the
skin and bones and cut the chicken and then cut the asparagus in sections and
tossed in as well. Searching through my
fridge, I also found and added pickled white beets (so my salad was not red),
olives, carrots and Italian dressing. I
also added fresh basil and chives from the yard and a bit of Parmesan Cheese. It was really quite good and more filling
than my usual salad.
I did a Google search
to try to learn about the history of pasta salad but only found that Italians
traditionally topped lettuce with cold pasta while the Greeks mixed pasta with
various veggies, etc. I haven’t figured
out how we got to the potluck mayo-based salad from my childhood. I’d love to hear your favorite combination or
anything you know about the history of pasta salad. Let me know!
One year ago - Stuffed and Fried Day Lilies
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