Skip to Content

Mystery dinner

Dinner tonight was something I made up all by myself. It’s called throw crap in a bowl and make it taste good. Everyone should try it. Technically, its a “pasta salad”. My husband wanted me to buy one of those boxes of pasta salad that has that clear bag of plastic veggies pieces. Maybe they aren’t plastic but they look like clumps of confetti. I decided to try my own pasta salad but since I don’t eat that kind of thing, I was at a loss.

Open doors and throw stuff together. Here is what I used.

pasta2

  • black olives
  • navy beans
  • 1 cup of broccoli florets
  • 10 baby carrots, sliced
  • 1/2 cup of onion, chopped
  • 10 sliced mushrooms, sauteed in butter
  • 2 cups of spiral garden pasta
  • 1/8 cup of vinaigrette dressing of choice. I used Newman’s sun dried tomato basil. Any Italian type dressing will be great.
  • 3 Tablespoons of ranch type dressing.
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • 1/4 cups chopped green onions
  • 1/4 cup crumbled feta
  1. Cook pasta according to directions. Add raw broccoli and carrots to cold pan of water and cook WITH the pasta. This saves a lot of time and extra dishes.
  2. Drain. DO NOT RINSE. Lay out on paper towels or sheet pan to dry while you figure out the rest.
  3. In a large bowl add olives, sautéed mushrooms, beans, onions, pasta and vegetables, parsley, feta. Mix well.
  4. In a small bowl, combine 2 dressings until incorporated. Pour over pasta salad and mix well.
  5. To serve warm, garnish with green onions. and serve immediately.  Put rest in fridge.
  6. To serve cold, let bowl chill up to an hour.

Stephen thought it was outstanding. He likes his cold so that would have made it even better. I like warm pasta, so I thought it was a whole lot better than a box of plastic confetti.