Pretty Pasta Salad !

This is a personal favorite, one that I would love to make more often except I know that the rest of them prefer their pasta with sauce – unless it is au nature, with just some olive oil, which is the way the girls love it.

But they eat this without fuss as well, though with a lot of Parmesan cheese grated on top.

When I made it a few days ago the salad looked so pretty, sitting there so full of color, that I just had to take a picture, much to Indira’s amusement.

Pasta Salad

There is enough here for 6.

Tricolor pasta, preferably the whole wheat kind – 200 gms (dry weight)

one large orange bell pepper, sliced quite fine

3 tomatoes, diced in to chunks

1 can of sweet corn (drained weight 140 grams)

some salad leaves, any kind (green as well as the ones with some  purple as they add so much color)

salt and dried basil to taste

3-4 tablespoons of olive oil and 2-3 tablespoons of lime juice for the dressing

Cook the pasta till it is done. In the meanwhile, assemble all the other ingredients except the salad leaves, season with salt and basil, pour the olive oil and lime juice evenly all over and toss everything well. When the pasta is done, drain and then cool it a little, before mixing it well with the other ingredients. Now add the salad leaves, and toss the salad a couple of times and leave it to rest for a while so that all the flavors mingle.

I love to eat this dish with a little drizzle of chilli-flavored oil and some freshly grated Parmesan.

This salad is a good picnic meal as well, like the wheat berry salad.

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Tomato,Mozzarella(or avocado), and Pesto Sandwich

There is a wonderful Mediterranean salad, which brings together tomatoes, mozzarella, and either fresh basil or pesto. The result is an incredibly fresh and flavorful dish.

Sandwiches and paninis that combine these ingredients are common in boulangeries here, and I often make variations of that theme.

This is the sandwich that Shri feels he could eat every day for lunch.  Noor loves it too, and I make a much smaller version of it for her sometimes.

Indira doesn’t like the taste of mozzarella – unless it comes to her all melted on top of a pizza or inside the Aubergine Parmigianna in which case she loves it – so she likes me to skip that bit when I make this sandwich for her, though she loves avocado in it.  But I think the combination of mozzarella and pesto is what makes it so special for the rest of us.

Tomato,Mozzarella, and Pesto Sandwich

Half of a multi-grain baguette , or olive bread

1/2 of a medium sized tomato, cut in to thin slices

1/4 or 1/8 of an avocado (optional), thinly sliced

50 gms of mozzarella(drained weight), cut in to thin slices

some salad leaves

2 tsp of pesto

Slit the baguette along the length on one side, without cutting through the other side.  Sprinkle a tiny amount of olive oil on both surfaces.

Layer the leaves over the lower half, then follow that with the tomato slices, the cheese slices and the avocado slices. Spread the pesto next, then close the sandwich and wrap tightly in cling film.

Ideally, make this an hour before eating, and all the flavors will come together beautifully.

One could season the filling with some salt, but I tend to think that there are so many lovely flavors here, one would surely not miss the salt; so I skip it.

This sandwich is especially nice if made with olive bread.