Yesterday there was a potluck lunch at work. Here's what I made for it. It's from 365 Ways to Cook Vegetarian and it's recipe #178 in that book.
Obtain
- 8 oz of rotelle pasta (the book calls them corkscrew but they look more like wagon wheels to me; it also says I can find them in multi-colored form)
- 8 oz asparagus
- 8 oz mozzarella cheese
- some (ugh) tomatoes (recipe calls for two, seeded and diced; I put in a dozen cherry tomatoes so I could easily avoid them)
- 8 oz mushrooms
- 1 C walnut pieces
- 1/4 C olive oil
- 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1 oz of Italian salad dressing mix powder
- two saucepans
- serving bowl
- small mixing bowl
- some water
- pinch of salt
Prep-work
- cut enough off of the base of the asparagus that you could imagine what you have left being edible
- chop the asparagus into 2" chunks; be careful if you are sizing it by putting your thumb next to it while cutting
- cube the mozzarella cheese; the recipe says 1/2 inch sides but you're a free-willed chef monkey so do what feels good
- slice the mushrooms
Cooking
- put water in a saucepan, throw in the salt, get it boiling
- put your pasta in the water and cook until tender, maybe ten minutes or so
- put water in the other saucepan, get it boiling
- put the asparagus pieces in the second pan of boiling water
- cook the asparagus until it's tender but stop if it's starting to disintegrate, about three minutes
- when the pasta is done cooking, drain it, rinse it, throw it in the serving bowl
- when the asparagus is done cooking, do likewise
- add the cheese bits, tomatoes, mushrooms, walnut pieces to the serving bowl
- whisk the olive oil, vinegar and salad dressing powder in the mixing bowl until it's as grit-less as you can get it
- dump the wet stuff from the mixing bowl into the serving bowl
- toss the salad
Notes
- transports well
- serves well chilled; still good after sitting out for several hours
- mozzarella cubes may be misidentified as tofu so if you dig soy and hate dairy you could substitute those on purpose
