Fresh ingredients, ready-made pasta and an easy dressing come together deliciously in this hearty salad.
Quick and easy, the veggie-packed dish is a welcomed fresh addition to the weekly rotation.
As the food editor of the Toronto Sun and co-author of the cookbook Best Recipes Under the Sun (Totem Books, 1987), Marion Kane has a busy time testing recipes and reviewing restaurants. Her teenage daughter, Esther, 18, loves this vegetarian pasta salad, which her mom says is "a super sidekick for barbecued meat or fish." Kane suggests varying the veggies according to the season; "Go for contrasting colours if possible."
As a lover of pumpkin and pasta it seemed like a natural fit. I love the flavour that roasting bring out in many ingredients. It's the simplicity of this dish that makes it extraordinary. I usually serve it with a spinach, mushroom, and red onion salad.
Flecked with bits of red pepper, pale cheese and green parsley, this salad is appealing and intriguing. Wheat berries are either soft or hard: soft take 15 minutes less than the hard to cook.
Orzo, a small rice-shaped pasta, gives a pleasant texture to totable salads. Other small pastas, such as tubetti or farfallini, are just as delicious, as are slightly larger shells or penne. Cooking the mushrooms and onions in the dressing infuses them with flavour.
Kamut pasta, made from an ancient form of whole grain wheat, is usually found in the organic section of many grocery stores. You can use any whole grain pasta or even regular pasta for this dish.
Load up on fresh herbs, cucumbers and a variety of colourful tomatoes at your local farmers' market for this dish.
Caponata is a Sicilian sweet-and-sour eggplant relish or salad often served as part of an antipasto platter. It can also be spooned onto toasted baguette slices or used as a base sauce for pasta.
