Perfect Pasta Salad

Pasta salad is a delicious, healthy and inexpensive dish that is very easy to prepare and always goes quicky at parties. I make this all the time in the summer to carry to potlucks and get togethers. I hope you all love it as much as we do!

Pasta Salad

Ingredients
1. 1 pd. tri colored rotini pasta
2. 1 pint of cherry tomatoes
3. black olives (pitted and drained)
4. Italian dressing
5. 1 red, green or yellow bell pepper

Directions
1. Boil the pasta
2. In a large bowl add: the can of black olives, the tomatoes which have been rinsed and sliced in half, 1 bell pepper finely diced
3. Once the pasta is done cooking drain and run cold water over it to stop the cooking process and to cool the pasta down.
4. Add the pasta to the bowl with the olives, tomatoes, and bell pepper.
5. I always make my own Italian dressing (simply follow the directions on the back of an Italian Dressing Seasoning packet) but feel free to purchase a bottle if you don't want to do that.
6. Drizzle a fair amount of the dressing over the salad and toss to combine.
7. Serve with the Italian dressing by the side of the bowl so that people can add more if they want to. For some reason no matter how much you add to the bowl it always seems to need more on your plate.

This salad is very easily adaptable to your own taste. My mom likes to dice half a red onion and put it in hers. Every now and then I will add some fresh broccoli to mine.

Great Gratin!

This recipe is so delicious and easy to prepare. The gratin is quiet rich what with the butter, milk and heavy cream; but I figured it's okay to splurge on calories every once in awhile!



Spinach Gratin
from Ina Garten

Ingredients
1. 4 tbps. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
2. 4 cups chopped yellow onions (2 large onions) This seemed a bit excessive to me so I only used one onion. There was still plenty!
3. 1/4 cup AP flour
4. 1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg
5. 1 cup heavy cream
6. 2 cups milk
7. 3 pds. frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
8. 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
9. 1 tbsp. kosher salt
10. 1/2 tsp. black pepper
11. 1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saute pan over medium heat.
3. Add the onions and saute until translucent, about 15 minutes.
4. Add the flour and nutmeg and cook, stirring, for 2 more minutes.
5. Add the cream and milk and cook until thickened.
6. Squeeze as much liquid as possible from the spinach and add the spinach to the sauce. The best way to do this is to take a clean kitchen towel and put the spinach in it and then wring all the water you can out.
7. Add 1/2 cup of the Parmesan cheese and mix well.
8. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. I used way more than 1 tbsp of salt and 1/2 tsp. of black pepper. To me it needed it.
9.Transfer the spinach to a baking dish and sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan and the Gruyere on top.
10. Bake for 20 minutes until hot and bubbly. Serve hot.