Not-Your-Momma's-Pasta Salad

It gets hot in Florida. REALLY hot. And the last thing you want to even THINK about doing, is cooking a lot of hot food, then EATING a lot of hot food, in the hot hot summertime. It's enough to make you want to grab an ice cold mint julep and give up on the whole idea of food for awhile.

But fear not! There is salvation yet. Pasta Salad to the rescue!

Pasta Salad is incredibly easy, and if you buy a box of "Pasta Salad" to make it, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Save your money and do it from scratch.

What will you need? Well, whatcha got? The basics of any pasta salad are - some kinda pasta, some kinda meat, some kinda cheese, and whatever you have leftover in your refrigerator. Mix with oil & vinegar & a few spices, stick it in the refrigerator for a bit, and it's done!

But for purposes of the blog, I'll tell you what I did to make THIS particular Pasta Salad.

Ingredients:
1 box of bow-tie pasta
about 1/4 - 1/2 cup canola oil
coupla tablespoons balsamic vinegar
garlic powder
4 oz cubed sharp cheddar cheese
4 oz cubed monteray jack cheese
a few tablespoons gorgonzola cheese
a few tablespoons shredded parmesean
1 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 small green pepper, diced
2 garlic-herbed chicken breasts, grilled in the pan & diced & cooled (about 2 - 3 cups)

Cook the bow-tie pasta according the directions, drain, and place into a large bowl. Before it starts to get sticky, pour in the oil & vinegar and toss well, coating each piece. Sprinkle liberally with the garlic powder, and toss again. Place in the refrigerator to cool it down for a few minutes, while you chop up the cheeses & pepper & chicken.

Take it back out again, and add the cheddar, monteray jack, and gorgonzola cheeses; add the chicken, kidney beans, and green pepper. Toss well! Finally, top with the shredded parmesean.

This will feed a crowd; it's a lot of food. It serves well as a main dish, and keeps well in the refrigerator.

Vegetable Pizza

Nursing is a hard job, with small rewards, but one of those rewards comes around the holidays, when everyone and their visitors brings us goodies. Cakes, cookies, candies galore abound at the nurses' station for oh, a week or two before Christmas.

It's wonderful, and gratifying, but it gets to the point when there's sugar overload, and you just can't look another brownie in the eye.

Such was the case one year, when one of our visitors brought in this lovely gem of a food: Veggie Pizza! It was such a lovely, welcomed change of pace. It didn't take much prodding for me to get the recipe. Of course, it's all over the place now - and with good reason. It's fabulous; yummy; looks great; and it's EASY.

Need to bring something to an office party? Bring this, and they'll be begging for you to bring it everytime. I know. I get asked to make it time and time again.

Here's the ingredients:

2 - canisters of Crescent Rolls (they make a "recipe creations" variety now that works great)
2 - 8 oz boxes of cream cheese, room temperature
1 small bag of raw pre-washed broccoli and cauliflower mix
2 Roma tomatoes
Shredded Cheddar cheese

Spray the cookie sheet with PAM, unroll the crescent rolls out of the canisters and fit them onto the sheet to form the pizza dough. If you want, you can sprinkle the edges with herbs and/or garlic powder. Bake it in the oven according to the directions - except, the "recipe creations" says to bake it almost 20 minutes; they lied. Ten minutes would be more like it. You want it brown and done, but not burnt.

Bring it out of the oven, and spread the cream cheese over the dough. Then it's just a matter of adding the toppings!


Cut the broccoli and cauliflower into smaller pieces, spread them throughout the pizza. Chop up the tomatoes, seed, and add those. Top with shredded cheese. Cut into slices. Try to keep yourself from eating it all before the party. MMM! Good stuff. And relatively healthy for you, too!