Dinner Tonight, Pasta Salad Tomorrow – May 24, 2013

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

Honey Nut Muffins - May 19, 2013

My husband and I thought we’d try a box of off brand Honey Nut Cheerios.  It seemed like a great idea when we didn’t have anything else at home for breakfast, but as soon as we did have alternatives, the opened box sat in the cupboard for weeks.  In fact, they started to get a bit stale even with all the preservatives in cereal. 

I knew there had to be a way to use them and I was surprised to find there are actually several websites devoted to nothing other than the many uses of Cheerios.  Some of these uses like necklaces and funny doughnut seed packets don’t even involve eating the cereal, but I thought that should be a minimum requirement.  So, I found something that always makes me happy, a muffin recipe, just in time for Mother’s Day brunch. 

Cinnamon Applesauce Muffins

2 cups Cheerios cereal (I used Honeynut Cheerios)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1 cup applesauce (I had one last jar of homemade applesauce which was not enough, so I used apricot jam for the rest)

1/3 cup milk

2 T. vegetable oil

1 egg

1/2 cup raisins (I used ½ c. dried cranberries and ½ c. walnuts)

Heat oven to 400° F. Spray bottoms of muffin tins or use paper liners.  Crush cereal (I did this in blender).  In large bowl, stir together cereal, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda.  Add each additional ingredient one at a time until moistened. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.  Bake 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown.

I doubled the recipe which made 24 delicious muffins, so I had some to freeze, others to eat at brunch and a few still to share.  There was also about a half cup of Cheerios still left in the box and I can say that they made great bird food!

One year ago today – Natalie’s Peanut Sauce and peanut butter cookies