It’s Easter Sunday, and it feels ‘weird’. The sun is peeking out and reflecting on
the spikes of green surrounding us, in the Ozarks. The rains have departed and
I’m enjoying a quiet, stress-free afternoon. We’re having our Easter dinner this
evening accompanied with a sugar-free banana cream pie. Ervin can hardly wait
for that pie!
This week besides working on many many projects at home, I wrote a new dish. I
am pleased with the recipe and hoping you might try it in the days ahead. The
recipe is ‘large’, so if there are only 2 of you I would make half the recipe. I made
a full-batch on Tuesday and the boys have eaten it all week. One dish meal with a
glass of fresh lemonade, perfect.
The quiet at home is totally enjoyed at our household, but I imagine if you live
alone it’s pretty dog gone boring. We are blessed to be entering the spring
season and we can get outdoors. Personally, I feel like being able to go outside is
one of our saving graces through this time period. As long as the spring rains stay
at bay we can be gardening, spraying for weeds, trimming, planting, mending,
ironing, creating, cooking, calling a neighbor, friend or family member, praying for
our nation, and drinking a good cup of coffee. Hopefully all my ideas will help
provide a ‘little’ inertia to get up and ‘do’. Make lists, (My assistant, Bonnie, is
laughing, at this moment.) so you get satisfaction from whittling down the chores.
The pun here is I’m a big list maker and Bonnie teases me about it in good fun.
What’s the status of your pantry? Well, I cleaned mine this week from top to
bottom and it was not pretty! We put things on the shelf and keep pushing things
to the back, it is scary what you can find in there. I re-tidied the spice cabinet. I
tend to do this about every 8 weeks. When I’m cooking, I tend to get messy with
the spices.
Recipes would be another good place to tidy this week. If you didn’t get out a
Christmas letter this year, do one now! Speaking of Christmas, work on gifts for
December now! I have two that I am anxious to start myself.
I’ll continue to try and give ideas on things to break up the quiet times. I will say
this time period has allowed us to work on things we usually can’t do because of
time. I’m working on an above ground garden at my friend’s home. Scheduling
the planting and protection plans for the wildlife!
Give the salad a whirl, it’s refreshing, light and perfect for meals at home or the
office. Simply yours, The Covered Dish. www.thecovereddish.com.
Refreshing Pasta Crème Salad
13 1/4 ounces Dreamfields* Penne Pasta
1 pound chopped deli turkey of choice
8 ounces marble jack cheese or cheddar, chopped into small pieces
6 Green onions, diced
Clementine’s or mandarin oranges, (Used 6 clementine’s) **
20 ozs. Chunk pineapple, drained, recommend no sugar added,
Grapes (optional)
4 ounces sugar snap peas, cut at an angle, in half or thirds
1/2 cup Walnut halves, toasted, sprinkled over top at serving.
Cook pasta according to box instructions. Rinse in cold water and drain well. If
making the salad at a later time, place pasta in gallon Ziploc with a few shots of
light olive oil. Massage oil into pasta, and refrigerate. Chop meat and cheese into
similar sizes for the salad.
Wash & prepare green onions, setting to the side. Peel mandarin oranges, drain
juice from pineapple, save if desired and mix into a beverage.
Trim & wash pea pods cutting diagonally. All ingredients can be prepped the
night before and made into the salad at serving time, if desired.
Toast walnuts in a 300 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. The length of time to
roast depends upon how many nuts you are preparing.
Place all salad ingredients into a ‘large’ bowl and mix. Now to the dressing finale!
*This pasta can be researched on line, for the amazing health benefits. It’s great
for the glycemic index. Another route to go is the use of whole wheat pasta.
Since the salad will be eaten cold all pastas will be in ‘resistance’ form, which is
great for a diabetic’s diet, in general.
**I prefer using clementine’s in just about every recipe calling for mandarin
oranges. The reason, mandarin oranges fall apart drastically. With the
clementine, there’s no disintegrating and the salad looks great! There are 6-8
sections in each clementine.
Dressing:
7 ounces Greek Vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup mayonnaise of choice
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 tablespoon light olive oil
2 tablespoons agave nectar (Better for glycemic index.)
Approximately 1/2 teaspoon Black Kettle seasoning spice.
In a small mixing bowl combine all dressing ingredients and blend until smooth.
There should not be any lumps. Drizzle over the ingredients and blend, coating
ingredients. The pineapple juice could also be saved and used for thinning the
dressing down, if desired. Sprinkle the black kettle seasoning salt, lightly over the
top, before adding the walnuts.
The salad is big and would easily serve 8-10 guests. It could be used as a main
entrée accented with fresh greens and scratch muffins. As a main entrée plan on
the full recipe serving six persons.
Options: Ham, shrimp, sliced celery, water chestnuts, various fruits,
and nuts. Different flavors of yogurts.
Black Kettle: This is an all-purpose seasoning salt. Feel free to substitute with
something like ‘Lawry’s, keep in mind, however, Lawry’s has more salt than Black Kettle.
