What are you bringing?

Don’t you just love that question? The invite for a social event comes and you’re tasked to bring a side dish or an appetizer to share. Immediately your head starts buzzing with food ideas and you lie awake at night wondering who will fall in love with your rendition of deviled eggs or potato salad?! No? Is that just me? Well… ok then. I admit it. I am whole heartedly addicted to food and love any chance to cook for a crowd. Not to show off any special culinary skills, but because I grew up in a large extended family and we don’t make anything “small”. We cook to feed the masses, regardless if 4 or 40 are showing up.  Maybe my next blog post should be on the 175 different diets I have tried in my life to no avail. But that’s a whole different story.

So back to the carbs…many of my recipes come to me after staring into the fridge for several minutes and deciding what to do with the hodge podge of ingredients I have. I DESPISE throwing food away, especially fresh produce, so I have mastered the art of creating random dishes. This one in particular is my go to for social events and it’s the dish that always prompts the question “can I get the recipe for that?”. So…I figured I would set myself to the painful task of rough measuring to figure one out. Again, these are best guesses. The good news is, this one is hard to mess up and it feeds a lot. I mean…unless you’re in my house…because this stuff is gone within 36 hours. In fact, it’s almost better the next day. Enjoy!

Champagne Pasta Salad

Cook according to directions on box: 1 lb. pasta (any shape except spaghetti noodles). I prefer bowtie or rigatoni…but you do you.

Chop:

¼ red onion

10 FRESH basil leaves

2 bell peppers…I like red and orange. To me, green ones taste like plastic. If I have time, I also like to cut the peppers in half, drizzle them with olive oil, and set them on a hot grill for 10 minutes or so. It softens them and gives them a nice char…then I chop them after they have cooled.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain and place in a large bowl. I like to drizzle 3 tablespoons or so of olive or avocado oil on the hot pasta and let it cool for about 10 minutes. The oil will prevent the pasta from sticking. Next, add all of the ingredients above and mix together with ½ bottle of Girard’s Champagne Dressing (I get mine at Save Mart) and ¼ cup real mayo. And please. Don’t use that fat free or low cal crap. I mean, if you’re eating white pasta, aren’t you already on the downhill slope? And if you tell me you don’t eat mayo, I just don’t think we can be friends. Although Devi, family is forever so…I still love you. Add salt and pepper to your taste preference. I’m not even going to attempt to set a measurement for that because salt should have been added as an extra category in my BFF post. But I realize that not everyone likes to wake up the next morning retaining water like they’re 9 months pregnant.

Extras: I add these as variations to this dish if I have them.

**¾ cup pine nuts…but only when they’re on sale because those suckers cost a small fortune.

**Whole, cooked, deveined, fresh, large shrimp (make sure you remove the tails). Again, only if those are on sale. Frozen shrimp works and it’s usually cheaper at Costco. I defrost them in warm water while the pasta is cooking.

**If you like your pasta creamier, add more mayo. If not, add more dressing.    

Cover the bowl and keep it in the fridge until it’s time to eat! You may need to add a little more dressing and stir it before serving. Oh and happy eating in carb heaven.