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Posts Tagged ‘pasta salad’

  1. On Episcopalians, Pasta Salad, and Power Outages

    June 10, 2012 by The Yum Yum

    It’s no secret that Gigi and I love pasta salad, and today, that came through for us. 

    I drove through the dreary weather to Mass at St. Michael’s even though I had a distinct feeling this morning of not wanting to attend. But humans are creatures of habit, and once we’re programmed one way, breaking that programming can be difficult. 

    So I went. 

    I wasn’t planning on staying for the post-Mass feast, as I haven’t stayed for fellowship for a few weeks now, but I somehow ended up doing so. 

    Two different people had made pasta salad, including my friend Will. He declared that it wasn’t homemade while some of the other parishioners told him that one should never admit that one’s food isn’t homemade.

    Then, as he and Dray were leaving, he offered up the pasta salad to me…all because he didn’t want to take it home. 

    So, I gladly accepted, and I brought the pasta salad home while bidding my fellow Episcopalians good-bye. 

    When I arrived home, I started to pop the pasta salad into the fridge…

    …and noticed the light was out.

    Then I realized: the power was out.

    Gigi told me that she had reported the power outage and was told that it woudl be back on between noon and 3:30. 

    This was at 12:30.

    Well, at 4:30, the power still wasn’t on, and it finally came back around 5:30 or so.

    In the meantime, we feasted on Will’s pasta salad which was totally delish. Too bad there wasn’t more of it! (The bowl is enormous.)

    Gigi’s not been feeling well lately, so she wasn’t sure if she could eat it, but she managed to get a bowl down, woohoo!

    Also, I normally drink water, lots and lots of water, and then today, my water bottle was almost empty. Our water system requires electricity since we have a pump, so I couldn’t get any fresh water all the time the power was out. Instead, I drank sodas, nasty Ginger Ale sodas called “Southern Spice” that taste like someone melted a stale gingersnap into a bottle. Oh, woe is me! I’m so happy to drink my sweet, sweet water again. 

    Also, look forward to my review on the off-brand Cheerios tomorrow and how they’re vastly superior to regular Honey Nut Cheerios.

    Get your nosh on!

    Beaux

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  2. Rejected Pasta Salad: Start Your Day the Emo Way

    November 20, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    So, as luck would have it, I came down with a sinus headache the day before the First Thanksgiving on the Deck, and the next thing I knew, I was put out of commission. Four pills and two sinus tablets later, I still wasn’t better, but my pasta salad was waiting at Earle’s, and so I pressed on- completely out of it. 

    Let me tell you, when people say, “Oh, just get up and get going- you’ll feel better,” they are ABSOLUTELY LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH. What they really mean is, “Oh, your being sick is inconveniencing me.” But that’s human nature, I suppose; when we do it, it’s top notch okay; when other people do it, well, that’s grounds to be annoyed enough to punch a kitten all the way to Iraq. 

    So I woke up in the middle of the day with the sinus headache, took medicine, was awake for three hours, when back to sleep, and then woke up way too late to go get the burritos that I forgot to get at Publix to make the wraps. Yes, folks, I arrived home from Publix with two packs of Tofurkey, a pack of baby spinach, two tubs of cream cheese, and NOTHING WITH WHICH TO WRAP IT ALL UP!

    Anyway, I’m glad I took the medicine because there were tons of folks at Kelly’s house, and the medicine made me fairly out-of-it. And that was just good for me, to really be spaced out beyond all belief.

    Then my pasta salad was late getting there because it was all at Earle’s house, and he and Jessika took 10,000 years to arrive, so by the time it appeared, everyone had already eaten and no one really touched the pasta salad, leaving me with two huge bowls that would not possibly both fit in our fridge. Earle’s bowl stayed at Kelly’s; I brought our bowl home. 

    Luckily, Gigi loves pasta salad, so it’ll be a field day for her.

    The weird thing happening now is how much food I’m craving is totally random. I’m having pasta salad (which needed salt, bt dubs), and I’m craving a Tofurkey sandwich with spinach while also wanting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

    What’s up with that?

    Thanksgiving was a blast, and I dove into the mashed potatoes that had both mayonnaise and butter in them; they were absolutely amazing. Three plates of mashed potatoes and pumpkin bread later, I pepped up a bit, and after about four cups of Goji Berry and Raspberry tea, the sinus headache went away (but first it moved from the left side of my head to the right side.)

    So, here we can conclude that either the medicine works slowly, my sinuses are a bit slow, or tea truly is a cure-all. I’m going with the last answer.

    This also means that buying presents for me is incredibly easy: hot tea, hot tea, and more hot tea. I suppose I’m just bougie that way. 

    What’s in my pasta salad: 

    noodles of your choice

    mayonnaise

    peas

    bacon bits (the soy kind)

    and chopped onions

    There are no specific proportions; I literally eyeball ALL these things. Also, salt is a must unless you have high blood pressure and don’t eat the salt because of it, which is understandable.

    Basically, the colorfulness is how you judge if you’re doing the recipe correctly. The more it looks like Mardi Gras, a gay pride parade, or something Lady Gaga would wear, then the more you’re on the right track. A simple way to remember this is Pasta Salad = MG, GP, LG.

    Next time, I’m going to the store and buying a can of cranberry sauce instead of troubling myself with Rejected Pasta Salad. It’s so emo I fear that it could be cutting itself in the fridge as I type this. 

     

    Have an egg-cellent day!

    Beaux 

     

     

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  3. Good. GRIEF.

    November 18, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    I just keep forgetting to write blogs!

    Tonight, I had a valid excuse- I was actually involved in a phone conversation.

    And today, I finally had a sandwich that I’ve never had before. Drumroll, please…!

    Cream cheese and jelly.

    Yes, yes, I heard about cream cheese and jelly sandwiches long, long ago. They’re actually fairly decent, though as of late, I do prefer the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead.

    Also, an update: my brother tells me that we actually have purchased a new refrigerator, which is great news!

    Also, an update: we’re still without an oven, but little Ms. Suzy Creamcheese here is smart enough to work around it.

    I’ve been eating fish sticks lately, which is not exactly my favorite food in the world, but they do hit the spot sometimes. Gigi made really good coleslaw, and I’ve eaten the fish sticks with the coleslaw in a kind of “salad” by chopping up the fishsticks and adding them to the mixture. Deeeeelicious!

    Tomorrow begins the Greatest Great Publix Adventure Ever: Earle, myself, and a new person I’ve yet to meet all will venture into the famed halls of Publix and will return with food to be prepared for the Thanksgiving Extravaganza at Kelly’s this Saturday. Macaroni and cheese is what I want to make, but methinks the pasta salad is the most viable route, along with, you guessed it, delicious wraps.

    In addition to these, I’ll also have to make something for tomorrow night, so I’ll be cooking for quite some time, needless to say.

    This will be my first Thanksgiving eating Tofurkey, and I adore Tofurkey! It’s totally going in the wraps, along with cream cheese, pesto, and spinach leaves. BRING IT, TOFURKEY DAY!

    I’m totally behind on my Veggie Table and Onyx Plate readings, too, and I think my respective ladies will create food-seeking missiles to destroy me if I don’t get around to commenting soon.

    As for everyone else’s comments, forgive me for not responding soon! I’ll get to them ASAP!

    Have an egg-cellent day!

    Beaux 

     

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  4. Preparations for Thanksgiving at Kelly’s Deck

    November 14, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    Okay, so this weekend’s Thanksgiving Extravaganza should prove really interesting: we’ve not a oven to use, but I’ve got dishes to cook.

    Mother of God, HELP ME! (I mean that sincerely, not in a pre-post-modern 90s secular blasphemous way.)

    The saving grace is that Earle may be able to get off work and go to the festivities this weekend, which means he and I could spend Friday evening’s Great Publix Adventure cooking dishes for Thanksgiving One. 

    My goal is to make macaroni cheese; I make some excellent mac’n'cheese, y’all. Naturally, wraps are on the menu, though I’m not sure what I’m using with that (but I can hear pesto calling my name), and then pasta salad is a favorite at all times. 

    Anyway, these days, I cook so little that I feel basically like Sandra Lee. Maybe I can start my own show on the Food Network and drink gallons of whiskey while Not Really Cooking™; we can name the show “Barely Cooking with Beaux.”  When I do cook, my food all goes to hell. Something’s not right here.

    Also, as you can see in the above comment, I’m not a big drinker; I said “gallons of whiskey.” However, I do know the drinkers caught the humor in that one.

    If Earle and I can’t do the cooking Friday night, the macaroni and cheese will have to be damned, because I bake mine and refuse to simply take a pot full of my deliciousness unbaked anywhere. 

    I guess I could try making cranberry sauce, too. I mean, what is there to it? You open a can, and ta-da! 

    That’s a joke. 

    But you know, HPE has seen a real lack of fruit aside from yours truly, so maybe something fruity would really be kinda nice. 

    ON TO THE GREAT THANKSGIVING ADVENTURE!

    This is my second post today to make up for the lack of posts earlier this week. I actually missed two days in a row quite by the accident.

    Have an egg-cellent day!

    Beaux 

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  5. What Really Happened Last Night

    October 1, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    Things went somewhat as according to plan. Unfortunately, all my food turned out terrible, but as I said before, that seems to be the case when I have to cook for someone besides myself so many times, and then that launches me into a self-esteem cycle with seemingly no end.

    I discovered almost too late in the game that a few individuals present were not fans of olives, so my olive pasta salad suddenly became a no-go and I had to half it up.

    Did I say olive pasta salad? Yes, friends, I decided to go ahead, shop at the Slocomb Grocery instead of going to Publix, and because the Slocomb Grocery doesn’t believe in spinach, well, I decided olives were a better idea, and along with some spices and mayonnaise and then today mustard in the leftover pasta salad, it tasted fairly normal.

    But oh, good grief, on the Harvest Casserole. Stephanie’s mom and her mom’s friend actually adored the casserole, which was a kind gesture, and I found the casserole to not be nearly enough and not nearly so great.

    The good thing is that at Kelly’s house, we typically have all kinds of finger-foods available, and people basically just snack throughout the night as opposed to sitting down for one specified meal.

    I think my Harvest Casserole was just missing a good, old-fashioned, Paula Deen-style stick o’ butter. A stick o’ butter would’ve done the trick, at which time Kelly would’ve flown into the house and murdered me, but at least everyone would see me die happy. I thought that potato soup would make it rich enough, but something was still missing after all was said and done.

    Stephanie said that the casserole tasted like a pot pie. If I do that casserole again, and I have to in order to undo my sins from yesterday, then I’m going to go to Publix and get the Morning Star Chik’n Strips and include it and turn the Harvest Casserole into an outright Vegetarian Chicken Pot Pie.

    At the end of the night, as Stephanie and I were leaving, Danyele whipped out a bag of Mediterranean “Terra Chips” from Publix. Now, I’ve never had these before, but they are amazing- talk about the punctuation at the end of a great sentence, these were truly the cherry on top of the night. I felt very sad that a single bag of chips from Publix could trump everything I made in the course of the night (and time passes very fast when you’re in the middle of cooking a great deal of food. You’ll never know that you’ve been standing there for three hours because you’re constantly going with something!), but that’s the way the cookie crumbles, and I’ll be okay.

    Danyele laughed when I said the prayer to Jesus as the noodles were boiling; I made the point that I wasn’t taking any chances with the food, and everything turned out to be mediocre and not nearly as terrible as I’m making it to be.

    Now on to the plans to cook for Mimi, which will involve the stuffed tortellini that’s available at the local grocery store. Pasta stuffed with cheese is amazing, for those of you who’ve never had it.

    Carpe Diem!

    Beaux

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  6. The Great Publix Adventure AGAIN!

    September 30, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    As you read this blog, I will likely be at Kelly’s house or in Publix, freaking out, as we’ve moved the Great Publix Adventure to her house for this week since she’s read so many times the adventures we’ve had and the delicious food we’ve cooked.

    On the menu: Beaux’s Harvest Bake alongside Pasta Salad!

    What would’ve been only a few people has expanded to a wider circle, which is of course okay, but now I have a kind of performance anxiety welling up inside of me. Doesn’t that sound awful? Yeah, my immediate family can eat any old thing I cook, but for other people, I want to make the food taste good.

    Every time I’ve tried to cook something for Kelly’s house, I’ve run into a failure. Nothing keeps well from my house to Kelly’s house and the 30 minute long drive down Highway 52 because some set of idiots, for some god-unknown reason, decided to reduce the speed limit from 55 mph to 45 mph, thereby taking me even longer to get to Dothan by 52 than it would have before.

    Anyway, the Harvest Bake is simple:

    • Morningstar Crumbles
    • Peas and Carrots
    • Potato Soup
    • Bread Crumbs and Cheese for the topping

    Cooking the crumbles a good way through, then put them in a baking dish. Cover with peas and carrots and potato soup mix. Then add the bread crumbs and cheese. Bake until golden and bubbly.

     

    Pasta Salad

    • Your choice of pasta. I plan to use Wacky Mac’s rainbow pasta.
    • Spinach, chopped
    • Parmesan OR Feta cheese
    • Mayonnaise

    Boil the noodles. Drain. Drizzle them with EVOO, add a little mayonnaise, add cheese and chopped spinach. Salt and pepper to taste.

    Carpe Diem! I already feel so busy!

    Beaux

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  7. Dinner with Friends: Saturday’s Spread!

    September 19, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    The MODEL (Mystics On Deck Examining Life) mostly went to the beach this past weekend. I declined going; the beach, while quite lovely, just didn’t appeal to me this time around.

    So as an alternative suggestion, my friend Chris suggested I come over and have dinner with him and Jim. This had been a suggestion several months ago, and of course, I try to comply with other peoples’ schedules and never knew when they were available, then entered my month-long hiatus and, well, yeah.

    I thought, why not? We’ll take this opportunity so that I can see their home and have dinner together.

    Chris and Jim have an incredibly lovely home. Jim’s done a great deal of work to the house, especially the front porch, and I do love big, old houses that have been remodeled and fixed up. Sturdy houses such as those are rarely made these days.

    Their kitchen is enormous- one of the largest kitchens I’ve seen in this area. I’m a huge fan of big open kitchens after working in so many that are cramped and tiny for no apparent reason.

    Also, the house, being old, had interesting features, including what I call the Zombie Window that’s in the front room. I was not terrified by it, per se, but it was a bit unnerving to know that someone could be looking down on me.

    We had several good foods. I brought French bread that unfortunately turned out to be too dry, but of course, anytime I take food anywhere, the food invariably isn’t good or turns out bad and makes me want to try. I also took a bottle of the Sparkling White Grape Juice since none of us really drink.

    There was so much food. SO MUCH FOOD! I also met their dog, a chihuahua (I think) named Osiris. They were amazed that Osiris flocked to me and made friends with me so quickly. He’s adorable, and I really love him! If he were my dog, I could have him as my mascot in the way that Salvador has become Veggie Table’s mascot.

    I’ll try to remember everything that we had.

    First, we had pierogies by my specific request. Jim DEEP-FRIED them- so they were like gourmet French fries. I do prefer pierogies fried to boiled, but boiling is an easier affair for me.

    Next, we also had potato salad, though I can’t remember anything specific to remark about it. I love potato salad!

    A pasta salad came in next, featuring crab meat that may or may not have been imitation crab meat. This was one of my favorite parts of the meal.

    Another part of the meal I really enjoyed was the spaghetti squash and spaghetti sauce. I’ve never had the good fortune of eating spaghetti squash, and now I know that some powerful entity must have been holding me back, because spaghetti squash is amazing. The homemade spaghetti sauce to go with it featured eggplant and mushrooms, and Jim said that eggplant had mostly just dissolved into the sauce and left it with a rather meaty taste and texture.

    Spaghetti squash is better than actual spaghetti, as the squash’s tanginess mixes well with the spaghetti sauce, and you aren’t eating pure strands of carbs. This recommendation comes from a carboholic, so you know that’s some good stuff.

    Jim had green onions set out in a glass of water. He explained that you can keep green onions this way for weeks at a time in a fridge and they’ll stay crisp. A very excellent foodie tip!

    We also had grilled salmon; I love salmon but ended up saving it for last and was too full to really eat my piece by the time I got around to it. I felt bad for only having half a piece of salmon, but that’s the price I paid for eating so much.

    Dessert was a cake Jim made according to his mother’s recipe, a sort of pineapple-upside-down cake. The fruit was on the bottom: pineapples and cherries, and no icing topped the cake. Jim explained that the fruit keeps the cake moist as its on the inside, and that the general idea of icing on cakes is to keep the cake moist, not to add 5000 calories to it.

    The cake turned out to be sweet on the perfect level- sweet enough to be good, not so sweet as to give toothaches and stomach problems!

    Enjoy all the beautiful pictures from my phone!

    Beaux

     

     

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