Seasonal Ontario Food

Here's a nice simple salad. It does require a bit of advance planning, but if you marinate the veggies the night before when you are cleaning up the kitchen, you can come home the next night and have dinner on the table in the time it takes to cook the pasta. This is starting to feel nice and summery. Nice to eat sitting out on the porch, where we can wave to the neighbours and to Presto Pasta Nights, this week at Chew On That.



4 to 6 servings
1 hour prep time - plus marinating time 4 hours to overnight



2 recipes Italian Salad Dressing

8 to 12 small greenhouse tomatoes (plum sized)
2 to 3 small Mediterranean type greenhouse cucumbers
8 to 12 button mushrooms (optional)
1/4 to 1/2 green, yellow or red bell pepper(optional)
2 stalks of celery
1 or 2 green onions (optional)
150 to 200 grams stubby pasta
salt
lettuce


Cut the tomatoes in quarters, and slice the cucumbers. Clean the mushrooms, and dice the pepper if using. Put them all in their own non-reactive container, with a cover, and divide the dressing between them. You may have a little left over, which is fine; it can be saved for something else.

Marinate the vegetables for 3 or 4 hours to overnight. The tomatoes should be put in a cool spot, but not the fridge. The others can go in the fridge.

Half an hour before you are ready to serve the salad, cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water until tender. Drain and rinse in cold water until cooled. Drain well. Chop the celery, and green onions if you are using them.

Lift the vegetables out of the marinade with a slotted spoon, and toss with the pasta, celery and green onions. I do tend to cut the mushrooms in half first. Add a bit of dressing from one of the marinated vegetables if it needs some more, and it probably will. I tend to prefer the tomato-y one. Check the seasoning; it may need a little more salt.

Serve over lettuce leaves.





Last year at this time I made Maple Layer Cake and Maple Syrup Boiled Frosting.