"You know, I mean, I'm not poor or anything, but I eat a lot of spaghetti"
Pasta is a nice pantry staple for lots of reasons. It's cheap, it's a no-brainer to prepare (if you can boil water, you can cook spaghetti), and let's face it - pasta is romantic. (Lady & the Tramp. Need I say more?)
Okay, so trying to leave movies and justified reasons as to why one should keep pasta in one's pantry aside - I must say, I don't really like the stuff. It's boring and drab to me. I mean, I'll eat it and am not disgusted by it - but if I went the rest of my life w/o another plate of pasta - I don't think I'd notice.
Here's where it gets a little complicated for me, though. See, while I could take or leave spaghetti & all that other Italian "hoop-plah, rustic this, bellisimo that" - I could not give up on pasta salad. It's one of my favorites. Very not-traditional Italian (supposedly, a "true" Italian never makes pasta salad. that's what I hear anyways) but I don't care about that. I like pasta salad. There I said it. And I'll say it again, and again, and again.
It's the end of summer, and tomatoes are kind've dwindling. They've past their "peak" as far as summer is concerned this year. It's kind've a good thing though for me, because that means they go on sale at the grocery store! Yay! Roma's are 99cents for a pound. I even bought a package of 6 for 99cents at Fresh & Easy this weekend. *Also, fun fact. A tomato's scent is not the actual tomato itself. It's the stem that gives off the familiar smell. Cool, huh*
Now you have a sort've "back story" on my excitement for tomato sales and my feelings for boring spaghetti and love of pasta salad - let's stop with the run-on sentence and get to the recipe already.
Ingredients:
1/2lb De Cecco Penne
2 Roma Tomatoes
Salt
Directions:
Boil Water, Add Penne, Cook til al dente
Pulverize Tomatoes, add to drained & still warm pasta
Refrigerate up to 3 days
I did just that. I was fresh out of basil (both live & dried), had no EVOO on hand, and did not add garlic because I'm on a garlic strike. (I'm seeing how long I can stand to cook without it. So far it's been 14 days and I haven't really missed it. Surprising and weird). Any of these additions would have been great to include.
Fast forward to today. It's day 3 and my pantry and fridge are stocked. The only imagined and wished for luxury I now have is a small $1.99 Pompeian bottle of EVOO. I add 1/2teas dried oregano, about 10 whole canned black olives sliced, some shredded leftover chicken, and a splash or two of white wine vinegar (I'm guessing 1teaspoon's worth, maybe more). Next go around, if I want to duplicate this "made-over" Day 3 version again, I'll repeat all of the steps up until the addition of the white wine vinegar. I feel like the vinegar would end up making the pasta mushy if stored too long. I can't say for sure, but better safe than sorry - and will add the vinegar last minute or just before serving.
 |
| totally mixed this salad with my bare hands |
 |
| dress to impress |
 |
| ready for its close up |
 |
| FORKED! the perfect bite. |
This is a great picnic salad - no mayo, light and fresh, and costs close to just a $1 to prepare. I could go on and on about other variants and additions. But, less is more sometimes. This is onna those x's.
No comments:
Post a Comment