Our
neighbor attends a church that is part of a group of church’s providing food,
shelter, and other assistance for short term homeless families and we offered
to help with some meals. We scheduled
our first one to coincide with April's BBQ day so we could deliver the meat
fresh out of the smoker.
My
initial menu thought was to provide fairly classical BBQ fare of meat, beans,
and mac & cheese. Since it was big
meat and chicken day on the smoker, I cooked a couple of pork butts and some
thighs. For the sides, I was thinking
Ranch Beans until I found a recipe for baked beans that sounded good and could be cooked in a crock pot, requiring very little attention on a busy day. The other side dish changed from
mac & cheese to Pasta Salad Primavera to provide some veggies. I looked at several recipes and ended up with
the following:
Pasta
Primavera Ala Larry
Ingredients:
2
lb. Rotini pasta (or your favorite)
4
cups carrot, diced
6
cups yellow squash, diced
6
cups broccoli, small florets
4
cups red bell pepper, diced
4
cups frozen peas, thawed
1
can black olives, halved
1
jar marinated artichoke hearts, halved
1 tsp.
each dried oregano, basil, thyme leaves
½ -
1# hard salami, julienned
2
pkg. Kraft cheese crumbles, 4 cheese blend
½
cup parmesan, grated
1½
bottles Newman’s Caesar Dressing
¼
cup EVOO
S&P
to taste
Directions:
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and prepare a large ice water bath. Add
carrots to the boiling water, and simmer 2 minutes. Add squash, and cook 2 minutes more. Add broccoli and bell pepper, and cook 2 minutes
more. Add peas, and cook 2 minutes more.
2. Pour
everything into a large colander, drain, and dump into the ice water bath. When cool dump back in the colander to drain,
then into a large bowl or pan.
3. Refill the pot with salted water and bring to a rolling boil, add pasta, and to al dente. Dump in the colander and rinse under cold
water to cool.
4. When
cool, add the pasta to the veggies along with the next eight ingredients and carefully mix well.
5. Taste,
adjust S&P, and remix.
I failed to
get a shot of the delivered salad, so this is our bowl the next day but the
broccoli had lost it’s bright green color.
For
a pasta salad in which a lot of veggies are desired, this one is a very good
and I will make it again. It goes without saying (so why did I you ask?) that all ingredients can be varied for individual taste – we added the larger amount of salami
to ours. This recipe makes a bunch as
written and one fourth of it would be about right for a regular batch.
Photos
best if enlarged by clicking on them.
Have
a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.
Larry
4/17/13
meal date
What a nice thing you and Bev did for the less fortunate and how thoughtful to include a lot of vegetables in the salad. Great meal.
ReplyDeleteSam
Very good Larry. Several times a year I feel guilty for not volunteering to those kinds of activities. I don't have a good pasta recipe lie this one. Bookmarked.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great thing for you to do! And I think the pasta salad sounds like a perfect addition to the meal. Looks fantastic!!
ReplyDeleteI can't think of a nicer thing to do-
ReplyDeleteYour pasta salad I have no doubt was enjoyed.
Velva
Great mission project, Larry... Lucky family(families) that received that meal. WOW!!!! Looks incredible. The pasta salad is perfect and did give them some veggies...
ReplyDeleteThanks for doing this. I worked for a church for many years --and we always appreciated volunteers who gave of themselves like you did. God Bless.
Hugs,
Betsy
A wonderful project and delicious food you picked to share.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure everyone enjoyed that pasta. It looks wonderful. I'm sure it made you happy to be able to do something you enjoy and help others at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet your meal was very greatly appreciated. It sounds delicious.
ReplyDeleteLarry, Very nice indeed! I'm sure that all of the food you cooked and this pasta dish that you created were much appreciated... Take Care, Big Daddy Dave and Laurie
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that everyone enjoyed your nice gesture and the food...it had to be delicious.
ReplyDeleteThis looks and sounds like a delicious pasta salad and what a kind gesture for such a worthy cause Larry and Bev!
ReplyDelete