The Best Pasta Salad

As I mentioned in my last post, the weather here lately in New York has been resembling the West Coast, which is something we just weren't prepared for. It went from a steady 60•, to a scorching 92•!  Usually in preparation for that sort of weather you dig out your summer clothes, set up your air conditioners and prepare for a few meals you don't need the oven for, or at least that's what I do. But because of the sudden appearance of Mr. Sunshine, I was caught off guard and decided just not to cook at all for a bit. I finally decided that I could handle one day of turning on my oven and stove for an hour tops to make a pasta salad. The stove would only need to be on long enough to boil the pasta. 

I had recently made a trip to my favorite supermarket, Trader Joe's, and came across this new rainbow pasta! Well, anyone who knows me, knows that two major things about me are that A) I am a fan of all things rainbow and B) since marrying into an Italian family, who considers pasta to be a major food group, I have been looking for more fun & inventive ways to eat it, because a person can only eat spaghetti & meatballs so many times. This new pasta was called Trofie Colore and resembled a thinner, stretched out Rotini.

As I was putting this salad together, I realized that it was very similar to a Greek pasta salad, minus the red onions. I had never tried a pasta salad where the main dressing was vinegar before ... usually its coupled with mayonnaise. At first I thought there was too much vinegar, but after it had time to sit, it was actually quite perfect. I had made this dish with the intention of it being dinner for my wife during those few late work nights I have during the week, but because I was such a huge fan, it would up being my late night snack instead!

I added feta cheese and left out the chives

Party Cake

I would first like to begin by apologizing to everyone for pulling disappearing act on you the last couple of weeks. It was a combination of overworking myself, being extremely busy with other activities and events, and it just being too damn hot to even contemplate turning on my oven. I'm not sure where everybody is from, but here in Brooklyn, NY it basically went from winter time weather, to feeling as if it is right smack in the middle of August. We New Yorkers were definitely not prepared for the heat wave.

During my two week hiatus, Jamie Oliver's birthday past (May 27 Th) and so I thought it would be a nice gesture to make him a birthday cake. I know it sounds kind of strange, baking a birthday cake for someone you not only will not be seeing, but don't even know… It's not like he'll get a chance to eat it, but I thought that the sentiment was there. And I have a feeling that Mr. Oliver himself might actually agree with that because he recently liked my latest tweet about making a birthday cake for him.

 

At first this cake seemed like I might have bitten off more then I can chew (food pun!), with its multiple layers, more then one ingredient for the filling and chocolate ganache like frosting -- but it was actually pretty simple. I haven't made a cake from scratch since college, so I followed the recipe step-by-step. I did wind up leaving out the pieces of shaved almonds though -- I'm not the biggest fan and I knew they wouldn't be missed by my wife. Once the cakes had cooled off, I "whipped" up some whip cream (added a dash of vanilla extract), spread it onto the face of one of them and threw on a handful each of strawberries and raspberries. I'm guessing that Jamie's handfuls are a bit larger then mine though because where his cake had a decent red layer on it, mine seemed to have s few bald spots. Then came the frosting! I've never been good a the drip frosting look. I could never figure out if you're supposed to pour the entirety of the mixture onto the center of the cake and pray that it drips off of the sides evenly, or help it along by spreading the mixture as close to the edge of the cake as possible. So I did a combination of both. It worked for the most part. It's definitely not as pretty as the one in the cookbook, but it's not as bad as some others I've made.

After working so hard to make this beautiful cake, I actually had to rush off to work and never actually got a chance to try it. In my haste, I also forgot the because it contains whipped cream, and it was a mere 85 degrees outside, I should have made room for it in my refrigerator. Alas, I completely forgot and had to throw the whole thing out last night! :-( COOKING FAIL!