SUMMER SALADS IN WINTER

Summer foods to me are those foods which are quick and easy, and don't require much (if any!) cooking. Anything with tomatoes...a BLT, a salad with tomatoes, even a plate piled high with sliced tomatoes is fine with me. A cold pasta salad is also my idea of a perfect summer meal.

Cold pasta salads seem to be much more popular in American than they are here in Italy. Broccoli, like celery and carrots, stays nice a crispy in a pasta salad but, as I’ve mentioned before, one of my biggest disappointments with the seasonal availability of various foods is that we can’t find broccoli in the summer.

I’m not a lover of cooked broccoli, but I know it’s good for you, so I do try to eat it raw with dips, maybe quickly cooked in a stir-fry, or in a cold pasta salad. Art loves broccoli any way I fix it, but generally if I don’t like to eat it, I don’t cook it, so no cooked broccoli for Art....although without a cheddar cheese sauce he doesn’t miss it as much!

I decided to take advantage of the fact that broccoli is plentiful right now to make a pasta salad for lunch. First I cooked a pound of fusilli pasta. Of course all pasta should be cooked to just “al dente”, but with a pasta salad this is even more crucial….you don’t want mushy pasta in your pasta salad! The pasta was cooked in about 9 minutes, then I plunged it into cold water to make sure it didn’t cook any more.

I chopped up a medium sized bunch of broccoli, thinly sliced a large carrot, and chopped a purple onion into small pieces. I then mixed up some ranch dressing using a powdered mix that Jill and Larry left for us when they went back to the states.

I’d never seen this mix before….when we lived in the states if I wanted ranch dressing I just bought a bottle, but really I’m not a huge fan of ranch dressing. I guess Jill and Larry really like ranch dressing, so this mix was perfect for their time in Italy. Bottled salad dressing just doesn’t exist here…..you’ve got olive oil and vinegar…red wine, white wine or balsamic, so why would you need bottled dressing???

I mixed up about 1 ½ cups of the dressing using mayonnaise and milk, but I used about twice as much ranch seasoning as called for on the jar. I tossed the pasta with the ranch dressing and the veggies, then added about ½ cup crumbled bacon bits and about ½ cup parmesan cheese, maybe a little more. I grated lots and lots of black pepper over the entire bowl and stirred everything until blended. We’ll have this for lunch, maybe for a quick snack, and as a side dish with dinner tomorrow.

All I need to do now is to find someone who’ll bring me some more (real) bacon bits from the states!