All-American Pasta Salad

This dish is a fresh, cool, simple, make-ahead treasure for summer pot-luck dinners like the one we are attending tonight!

Ingredients:
1 pound Penne pasta
8 ounces smoked Gouda cheese
1 jar diced pimentos
1 jar artichoke hearts
1/2 purple onion
1/2 pint grape tomatoes
1/2 green bell pepper
3 green onions
1 can sliced black olives

Dressing Ingredients:
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
2 tablespoons red pepper jelly
2-3 tablespoons vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Boil up the pasta to the al dente stage.  Drain, rinse, and set aside to cool.

• Slice the Gouda cheese wheel in half and cut into pie shaped wedges.

• Then, dice up those wedges into small bite-sized pieces.

• Admire it just a bit because it is beautiful, fragrant, and good-a!  
• Slice half the purple onion and dice the slices up into little yummy pieces. (Save the rest for salads later in the week ahead.)

• Slice and dice half the green pepper and put the rest in the fridge for another recipe.

• Pick three beautiful green onions from Mike's garden and wash them up in the sink.  Well, you might want to pick yours from somewhere else but make sure you wash them up somewhere.  Then, snip them up into tiny little pieces. Yep, the whole thing - green and white as well.

• Drain the black olives in your favorite little colander spoon thingy.

• Drain, rinse, and chop the artichoke hearts - right in the heart of them.

• Rinse the grape tomatoes.  It's okay if you eat a couple, too.  Then, slice them in half.

• Open the jar of diced pimentos and pat yourself on the back that you thought to get the diced ones which will save you a bit of chopping.

• Plop each of the veggie pieces on top of the al dente pasta in a big old beautiful bowl.  Do it in an arranged way so that the colors look beautiful for a photo.

• Now mix up a little tangy and sweet dressing for this beautiful concoction.  Start out with a cup of mayonnaise.

• Add some home-made sweet pickle relish - about two tablespoons.  (If you don't have home-made relish, it will be okay to use some of the bought kind.)

• Plop in a couple of tablespoons of red pepper jelly to add some tang to it.

• Pour in a little bit of vinegar - two to three tablespoons.  I used some out of my home-made bread-and-butter pickles so it would have a bit more bite to it.  Then, stir all this together and admire the beautiful little flecks of wonderfulness inside.

• Sprinkle in some salt and pepper to taste and plop this right smack dab in the center of the bowl of veggies and pasta.

• Toss everything together making sure to coat all of it with a bit of the yummy dressing.

• Cover with some clear plastic wrap so you can admire the colorful beauty of it as you set it in the fridge for all the flavors to marry together for a couple of hours or so.  Give it a quick, refreshing toss just before you serve it!

(It is quite alright if you dish yourself up a spoonful to eat with some left-over chicken livers as a late lunch so long as nobody - well, at least Mike - knows.  After all, somebody has to taste it to make sure it is going to be alright for the pot-luck!)

Strawberry Pie

Delicious and low calorie!

Ingredients:
1 graham cracker pie crust
1 1/2 cups cold water
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
2 cups fresh strawberries, sliced
1 large package strawberry sugar-free Jello

• Blend water and cornstarch in a small saucepan over medium heat.
• Stir till bubbly.
• Add strawberry Jello and continue to stir till cool.
• Pour over sliced strawberries and stir to coat them well.
• Pour strawberry filling mix into pie crust.
• Chill till set.
• Serve with a dollop of whipped topping.

If you are counting Weight Watcher points, this entire pie is about 30 points!

Cornbread Salad

This is a dish my Mama makes from time to time and I love it.  Like so many other things Mama makes, I cannot duplicate it and make it taste as good as hers.  So, if you make it, after you taste it, just add a notch or two to the goodness of it and you will have the taste of my Mama's!

Ingredients:
Cornbread
Beans, a can, drained (Mama uses pintos or kidneys)
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 package Ranch Dressing Mix
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayo
2-3 tomatoes, diced
1 can whole-kernel corn
2 cups grated cheese
1 pound bacon, fried till crisp

Preparation Instructions:

• Plop a half-cup of sour cream into a mixing bowl with your pretty red spatula.

• Add a half-cup of mayo.

• Dump a package of Ranch Dressing Mix on top.

• Stir till well blended and set aside for the flavors to mingle.

• Crumble the cornbread into a dish.  I had six corn muffins left from last night's take-out dinner from Nana's Diner.

• Rinse and drain the beans.  I had some left-over October beans from dinner a couple of nights ago.

• Layer the beans on top of the crumbled cornbread.

• Dice up a half-cup of red bell pepper and put it into your antique measuring cup.

• Realize you don't have a green bell pepper and dice up a half-cup of yellow bell pepper and put it into your antique measuring cup.

• Admire the beauty of the colors of your diced bell pepper in your antique measuring cup.

• Go out to Mike's garden and get some green onions and wash them up good.  (Well, you might not want to go to Mike's garden to get your onions.  You might want to get yours somewhere else because he might get a little mad if loads of people came over and started pulling up all his onions.)

• Snip them into little pieces and sprinkle them over the pepper layer.

• Realize you don't have any tomatoes left.  Decide that Mike doesn't usually like tomatoes on his salad and skip dicing those up and spreading over top of the onion.

• Realize you don't have any corn.  Decide that you don't really need that either and skip draining it and spreading over top of the onion.

•  Get some of Mike's yummy bacon.  (You can get some of that from Mike because he would love to sell you some!)  Fry it up after you finish frying what you want to eat for breakfast.  

• Crumble it up and put it on top of the vegetable layers.  Then, remember that it is supposed to go on top and pick about half of it off and put it back on the plate.  (You can skip this step if you are smarter than me and have fewer interruptions.)

• Spread the Ranch Dressing mixture over top of the veggie layer.

• Spread the grated cheese over the top of the dressing mix layer.

• Sprinkle (what is left of) the bacon over the top of the cheese layer.

• Cover and chill for at least three hours.  

• Serve it up and eat it up with a big old smile on your face!

• (Thank Mama for the recipe the next time you talk to her.)

Easy Carrot Cake

Last week we got together with family and it was suggested that I bring a cake or something sweet.

So...I did both!

I had seen somewhere that a creative blogger had created an Easter Egg Fruit Salad.  (Sorry I don't recall my inspiration source!)  So, I decided to give that a try.  It was easy and turned out beautifully!

Thinking of Easter and spring and bunnies, I decided to make my cake something that I haven't baked in a long, long time... Carrot Cake!

Look at all that decadent deliciousness!  

Doesn't the orange-y beautifulness of those carrots look great?

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1/4 cup applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup pecans
2 tubs cream cheese frosting

Instructions:

First, I thought you needed to enjoy a beautiful photo of the rich, orange carrots pre-cake style!

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

And...another look at those beautiful carrots!

• Grease and flour two nine-inch round cake pans and set aside.

• Using the food processor, grate the carrots to a rough chop.

See, they are still beautiful even after they are grated to a rough chop!

Another angle of that beautifulness!

• In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt till combined and set aside.
• Beat the sugar and oil till smooth in the bowl of an electric mixer.
• Add the eggs one at a time and beat well.
• Stir in the applesauce and vanilla.
• With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour mixture to the egg mixture.

• Stir in the carrots and nuts.

Again, don't those carrots just look beautiful?

Even before it is baked, this cake looks absolutely beautiful!

• Divide the batter evenly between prepared cake pans.
• Bake about 40 minutes or till a tester comes out with only a few small moist crumbs attached.
• Let cakes cool in pans on wire rack for about fifteen minutes
• Carefully turn cakes out of pans onto wire racks to finish cooling completely.
• When cakes are completely cool, set one of the cakes rounded top side down in the center of an heirloom round ironstone platter that you inherited from your Granny.  (If you don't have said platter, any beautiful round cake plate will do.)
• Plop a couple of tablespoons of the frosting onto the cake and spread it out to where it is just beginning to ooze over the edge of the cake.
• Place the other cake on top of this layer of the frosting with the rounded top up.  
• Spread frosting around the sides of the cake.
• Then, cover the top of the cake with frosting blending it down to the edge of the sides.

Enjoy each morsel of yummy, chewy, goodness!

Easter Egg Fruit Salad

It was suggested that I bring something sweet...a cake to the hubs' family Easter gathering.  So, I did both!  The first thing I did was search for inspiration.  I found somewhere that a creative blogger had created an Easter Egg Fruit Salad.  (Sorry I don't recall my inspiration source!)  So, I decided to give that a try.  It was easy and turned out beautifully!

Ingredients:

2 pints of Strawberries
1 pint of Blueberries
1 Pineapple
4 Kiwis
1 large oval platter

• Wash and drain the strawberries.

• Wash and drain the blueberries.

• Peel and slice the kiwis.

• Cut the pineapple into chunks.

• Gather the fruits together and admire the beautiful vibrant spring-like colors!

• Bring out the beautiful white ironstone oval platter with the chip on the handle.

Start with one of your fruits - I chose the Kiwi - and lay it across the center of the platter in a zig-zag design.  (I wound up quartering the slices so that I could more easily make that zig-zag pattern.)

Continue adding fruits to fill the platter holding the zig-zag design as you pile them onto the platter.

• From any angle it looks like a bright and delicious Easter Egg!

UPDATE: We are going to my parents' for a belated Easter celebration today and I decided to take Easter Egg Fruit Salad again.  So, here is Take 2 with Madarin oranges instead of Kiwi...

Which do you think looks prettier?  Which do you think tastes better?  I know I have my opinion!