Author: rang2015

Pasta Salad

My mother loved macaroni salad.  Her friends did too.  I think that they got a lot of ideas from the Woman’s Day magazines they picked up at the A & P.  In any case, macaroni salad gave them an outlet for their creativity.  New varieties appeared like mushrooms after a warm rain at every church potluck, school picnic or family get together that I can remember from my childhood.

There was plain macaroni salad (just macaroni with mayonnaise or salad dressing, salt and pepper); Mom added celery and onions to hers and spiced up the dressing with some mustard; some of her friends added cheddar cheese cubes, red or green peppers, and carrots; and the more adventurous stirred in chunks of canned tuna or cubes of Spam or summer sausage.
 
Mom liked macaroni salads, her friends liked them, even my father liked them, except for the ones with cheese in them.  I don’t remember if my sisters liked them, but even if they didn’t they probably ate them just to make me look bad because they knew I hated macaroni salad, even the one with apples and grapes that a white-haired lady once assured me tasted just like dessert as she ignored my request for only a small spoonful.  

But as the Apostle Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.”   When I was in high school, my friend Eddie’s Italian grandfather showed me how he made his own macaroni and introduced me to the wonderful world of pasta.  I was hooked.
 
Today I really like pasta salads, even the ones with macaroni, mayonnaise, apples and grapes, so maybe I should thank my parents for making sure that I ate at least a small serving of whatever was put before me.
 
Here is a simple pasta salad that encourages creativity.  If you follow the quantities suggested, you will have a good pasta salad:  if you adjust ingredients to your taste you may end up with a great salad.  Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Most of the vegetables should be sliced into thin small pieces.  Quarter the carrot and slice the celery stick in half lengthwise before slicing them crosswise.  I like to cut the green pepper and red onion into slightly larger pieces (about 1/4” to 1/2” square) because this provides a little more contrast for color and texture.

INGREDIENTS:

12 ounces rotini
1 tsp. salt
1 rib of celery
3 or 4 green onions
3 T red onion
1/4 sweet green pepper
1 carrot
1 hot red or yellow pepper (or one of each) minced
12 to 15 pimiento-stuffed green olives
3 to 4 T olive oil
1 to 2 T fresh lemon juice
1 to 2 T wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. celery salt
1/2 to 1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. thyme
Salt to taste

PROCEDURE:

Heat three to four quarts water in a large pot.  While the water is heating, chop the vegetables.  When the water begins boiling, add one teaspoon salt and the rotini.  Add the rotini gradually so as not to cool the water too much.  Stir the rotini two or three times while it cooks to keep it from sticking to the pot or clumping together.  You can finish chopping vegetables while the rotini cooks.  After eight or nine minutes, use a fork to remove a rotini and test for doneness.  It will be done when the starch taste of uncooked flour is gone, but when it offers a slight resistance when you bite through it.  The Italians call this “al dente.”

When the pasta is done, drain it thoroughly and put it in a mixing bowl.  Add about four tablespoons of olive oil and the vegetables to the hot pasta.  Toss to mix thoroughly.  Add the lemon juice, vinegar and spices.  Toss again.  Let sit for three or four minutes, taste and adjust flavor. You can serve this salad warm, but it improves if allowed to sit for an hour or two while the flavors blend and is delicious chilled and served the next day.
 
SUBSTITUTIONS:

Use reconstituted lemon juice for fresh.
Use several dashes of Tabasco sauce if you don’t have hot peppers. Omit either the green or red onion, but adjust the total quantity to taste.

OPTIONAL ADDITIONS:

When the pasta salad is cool, you can add about a quarter cup of diced sharp cheddar cheese or hard sausage like pepperoni or salami.  This salad is a lot like a soup:  Use what you have and adjust the ingredients to create a salad that pleases you and your guests.

Blueberry Pie

Berry picking was a regular summer weekend activity for my family when I was growing up.  Most berry picking expeditions were fun, but there were times when we kids dreaded those hot afternoons on logging roads and in the woods, when the only breezes were fanned by deer flies and mosquitoes and the berries were few.  When we found a good patch, however, it was fun to fill our pails while we looked forward to all the good things our mother would make.  

My sister Barbara published a small book for our parents’ 50th wedding anniversary with photos and notes by my siblings and me.  One that I contributed was about berry picking.  

A Catalog of Berries

What did we gather

From roadsides and fence rows?

What fruits did we pick

On hot summer days?

First wild strawberries,

Then Juneberries and blueberries,

Followed by raspberries, blackberries

And pin cherries and sometimes some

Chokecherries and wild plums too.

Made into shortcakes,

Baked into pies,

Turned into jams

And jellies and sauces

To cool us on hot days

And warm us on cold days

With memories of summer

In the middle of winter.

But enough of this.  The blueberries are plump and starting to ripen.  In two weeks, the Lord willing, you can be picking your own blueberries.  Just drive the backwoods through the county and national forests north of highway 70 until you find some open pine woods.  

Stop the car and walk into the woods.  You may not find any the first two or three stops, but if you keep looking, suddenly you will be walking through a carpet of blueberries.  Drop to your knees and fill your pail, then head home to make blueberry pie. 

Here is my recipe.  It is based on one from an old cookbook of my mother’s that I used for my first blueberry pie in 1954.  It is best made with wild blueberries, but tame blueberries are okay.   The pie is easy to make and delicious, especially when served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

INGREDIENTS:

Pie dough for a double crust

4 cups fresh wild blueberries

3/4 cup sugar plus extra to decorate the top crust

4 T all purpose flour

Dash of salt

2 T lemon juice

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. butter

PROCEDURE:

Wash the blueberries and remove any stems, leaves or bad berries.   Drain the berries and mix them with the other ingredients in a large bowl.  Set the bowl aside for at least fifteen minutes while you are making the pie crust.

Preheat the oven to 450º.

Line a nine-inch pie plate with the crust.  Stir the blueberries and fill the crust.  Dot with four or five pea-sized pieces of butter.  Cover with a top crust and seal the edges.  Make a few slits in the crust to allow steam to escape and sprinkle a little sugar on top.  Put it into the hot oven and bake for ten minutes.   Reduce the heat to 350º and bake thirty-five or forty minutes until the crust is golden brown.  Allow the pie to cool thoroughly before serving.

NOTE:  This pie always seems to run over in the oven.  Put a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom of the oven to catch the overflow.  This is actually a pretty good idea for any pie.  If you prefer, make a lattice for the top crust.