Greek Pasta Salad

I posted this picture on Instagram and Facebook the other day and got a lot of comments and ‘likes’ about it.  Clearly you are all as into bright, colourful, fresh veggies about as much as I am!  As I was cutting up the cherry tomatoes I looked across the counter at my other ingredients and realized that this salad incorporates all kinds of colours and flavours.  It really does brighten the mood.  Eat the rainbow!

We were attending a backyard barbecue turkey boil (!) for our friend Jessica’s birthday and when we started discussing salads to bring I really wanted to do something Greek.  Maybe I’m really starting to miss actually being there last year!

I wanted to make sure the dish was big enough to feed the whole party so I decided to ‘beef things up’ by rounding out the veggies with a box of pasta.  A little twist I’m sure the Greeks would tsk-tsk me for but otherwise I didn’t stray far from the delicious Greek salads we enjoyed on vacay last year.

Greek-Style Pasta Salad with Easy Oregano Dressing

Yields enough to feed about a dozen people at a potluck :)

Ingredients:

• 1 (454 gram) box rotini (or small pasta of choice…orzo would be fun)
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 English cucumber, quartered and chopped
• 1 orange or yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 1 cup pitted Kalamata olives, halved
• 125 grams feta cheese, cubed small

Homemade Oregano Dressing:

• 2 tbsp dried oregano
• zest & juice of half a lemon
• liberal pinches of salt & pepper
• 4 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Directions:

1. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente.  Drain and immediately rinse thoroughly with cold water.  Place in refrigerator until ready to use.
2. While pasta is cooking, chop veggies, olives and cheese.
3. Prepare dressing by adding all ingredients to a sealable container (I use a small mason jar) and shake until combined.  Shake occasionally until ready to use.
4. Reserve a couple of tablespoons of feta, then mix all pasta, veggies, olives and cheese in a large bowl (use your hands!).  Add dressing and toss until coated.  Transfer to serving dish and garnish with reserved, crumbled feta.
5. Cover and chill until ready to eat.

Simple, fresh, salty.  I think the Greeks I met on vacation would be OK with this one!  Opa!  Enjoy.  :)

Happy Birthday Hour

After starting a Friday afternoon off with a cider tasting with dear friends you can’t very well just call it a night.  More plans must be made.  Especially when an important birthday has just passed without a celebration and several bottles of sparkling cider have just been purchased.

We can’t let Tiffaney get away without a girlie birthday dinner!

Unpictured: herby cheeeeese, mixed olives and crack-crackers.

Bigass roasted beet and apple salad with candied pecans and fresh orange juice dressing.

Butternut squash gnocchi with brown butter and sage from La Piola.

And homemade birthday cake…complete with sour cherry buttercream. 

Also unpictured (geeee, how did that happen?): mass quantities of Sea Cider.

Our potlucking skills have become excellent.  Talk about team effort!

Happy Birthday Tiffaney!!

Twisted Tater Salad

I did not walk to Starbucks.  I did not waste another $3.  I did not kill another paper cup tree.  I sipped home brew and pretended to like it.

Do not dirty a bowl when a near empty yogurt container presents itself.  Just fill ‘er up with fresh pineapple and blueberries and go to town.

Eat breakfast for lunch.  Especially if it means you can finally break into your first jar of Peanut Butter & Co since leaving Halifax. 

I searched high & low and you wouldn’t believe where I finally found the stuff.  Wal-freaking-Mart.  That place really does sell everything.

The sun is shining and it’s yet another game night…which means one thing…potluck!

Not wanting to duplicate my guacamole or fruit kabobs I decided on another Summer favourite…potato salad.  My potato salad comes with a twist of course. :)

Jaime’s Potato Salad with a Twist**

Ingredients:

• 4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, boiled to al dente and chopped
• 1 large yam or sweet potato**, steamed to al dente and chopped
• 4 eggs, boiled and chopped
• 3-4 green onions, chopped
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp honey**
• 1 tsp dill
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• salt & pepper to taste
• (optional:  celery and/or bell pepper)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl whisk together mayo, mustard, honey, dill, paprika and salt & pepper.  Taste and adjust as desired.
2. Add potatoes, yams, eggs, and green onions and stir carefully to combine.  Make sure you get all dressing from bottom of bowl (I use a rubber spatula).
3. Transfer to serving dish and garnish with sprinkles of paprika.  Et voila, c’est bien fini!  Chill until ready to serve.

Note:  Room temp or still slightly warm potatoes (not hot) work best to absorb the dressing.

Pack up your salad and stuff another beer in your purse before catching a ride to your hockey viewing household.

Other yumminess at tonight’s food festivities… Joanne’s pineapple salsa…

Tia’s quinoa salad (you may remember I made a similar version last week)…

Smokies and turkey dogs…

And somehow I missed the photo op on Joanne’s deeeelish butter chicken.  Man, do we girls know how to eat for a Stanley Cup game or what?

Too bad our Canucks just could NOT get their shiz together tonight.  I have no problem losing a game but holy man, tonight was painful.

That’s OK.  I said Boston could take ONE game.  ONE.  Hear me?

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Go Canucks Go!!!

Smoked Salmon Dip

This rich and delicious spread used to be a regular item on our family’s Christmas Eve hors d'oeuvres menu.  Everyone loved it.  Over the years we discovered that Philly makes a whipped salmon cream cheese so this recipe got nixed and replaced with an easy to open store bought container.

While thinking of creative ideas for what I can take as a snack offering to this weekend’s parties I remembered this dip and asked Mom for the recipe.  Turns out it’s fairly easy and of course it’s 10 times more delicious than the cheater cream cheese!

Smoked Salmon Dip

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup butter (melted)
• ½ cup finely chopped onions (sautéed until clear)
• 1 - 250 gram pkg. cream cheese
• 1 – 250 ml whipping cream
• ½ lb flaked smoked salmon
• ½ tsp dill seed or 1-2 tbsp fresh dill

Directions:

1. In a large bowl blend the cream cheese with the salmon (easiest is to use a hand mixer).  Add the butter and onions and mix to combine.  Add dill and mix again.
2. In another bowl whip the whipping cream until thickened and fluffy.
3. Fold the whip cream into the salmon mixture.  Mix just until combined.  Don’t over mix.

I like to make it a day ahead and let the flavours mingle overnight but you can serve it right away if you are in a hurry.  If refrigerated let stand about 30 minutes to take the chill off before serving.

My favourite way to eat this dip is with multigrain Wheat Thins but any firm cracker does the job. :)  This weekend I plan to bring some kind of rye and/or sourdough bread to go with it instead. 

Here’s hoping my friends think it’s as yummy as I do!

Hollybloggers!

Last night was the first annual Halibloggers Christmas Potluck and Cookie Exchange!  In honor of our first official 5km run/walk together we decided to get together to get organized and do what we seem to do best…eat!

In preparation for the night I ate pretty light during the day…mostly because I was busy and didn’t get around to a proper lunch but somewhat because I knew dinner was going to be HUGE!

Half-caf with splooooosh of egg nog…

Whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter & jam…

Perfectly ripe bartlett pear.  I love a good pear!

Between working and puttering around the house getting things ready, I made one of my contributions to the potluck.  I might have made extra bacon and nibbled that as “lunch”.  :)

Blue Cheese & Bacon Dip 

• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1/4 cup light cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup light sour cream
• 1/4 cup crumbled crispy bacon
• 1 tbsp honey (to taste)
• 2 tbsp minced red onion
• fresh ground pepper
• 2 tbsp fresh minced Italian parsley (and extra for garnish)(I omitted this as the supermarket was out)

Mix everything together.  Taste and adjust seasoning to taste.  Refrigerate for at least one hour.

This recipe was adapted from a potato skin recipe I’ve used a few times, but for tonight I decided to go the healthier route of using Belgian endive leaves instead.  So good!

Other options: skip the bacon & add dried cranberries or apricots, add toasted walnuts or pecans, serve with crackers or crudite.

 

Other appetizers included Angie’s mushroom caps…

Lex’s Extradordinary Epicure Cheese Dip in a sourdough bread bowl…

(I just ordered the extraordinary dip mix pack from her and now I know it was a GREAT choice!!)

And Tasha’s bruschetta…baguette with perfect little heirloom tomatoes and sundried tomato havarti…

And because we really know how to bring the food…there’s more!

Dinner included Lynn’s homemade black bean burgers…

And Farm Girl’s jambalaya (we’ve all been harassing her for the recipe!)…

 

And because it’s what I do, I made the bigass salad! 

Mixed greens, matchstick carrots, matchstick beets, English cucumber, grape tomatoes, red onion & yellow pepper.  With Renee’s Spring Herb dressing.

 

That’s a whole lotta food!  I kept myself busy in the kitchen and tried not to snack tooooo much on the appies. We were having fun doing a Skype video chat with our lovely Miss Jen way over there in Fort McMurray!!  Why have we not been doing this all along?!!  It was like having our little Jenny right here with us for a few minutes.  Now someone just needs to invent a way to hug and smoooosh via the computer!!!

 

We kept hydrated with “fancy water”.  Sparkling mineral water (and later still water) with fresh slices of orange, lemon & lime…

 

This was also our cookie exchange…so I now have five dozen fabulous cookies staring at me from the kitchen counter!

Yikes!  I’m soooo diving into those AFTER doing some activity this weekend!!!  Good thing we have that 5km Santa Shuffle today!

Thanks again to all my lovely ladies for popping over for fun, food and festivities!!!  Merry Christmas!!!