Pasta Salad: Trader Joe's Components

Typically, doing all your shopping for a meal at one place means compromising on either the cost or the quality of some of the components. I'm lucky to have many grocery store chains, as well as farmer's market and bakery options, to find my ingredients. Ideally, I shop in a nomadic way, getting guacamole from TJs, salsa from Safeway, meat from one of the smaller places that only carries Painted Hills (because they won't have a lower quality for specials). That requires a lot of time and traveling.

So I have an ongoing challenge to myself to take the components from any one place to make a meal. For the last few years, I've had the extra challenge of not having a real kitchen to cook in, only plug-in appliances and a small refrigerator. This has meant that I eat a lot of simple salads, using oil and vinegar as a dressing.

That wasn't going to work when I needed a ready-made entree to take to a party. I needed to make something where I wouldn't be stuck trying to store lots of leftover ingredients. I feel that I succeeded in this pasta salad because it covered these bases:

1. total ingredients bought in a $20 shopping trip
2. minimal cooking
3. simple prep/short time to prep
4. varied and tasty
5. organic ingredients
6. vegetarian
7. good for hot weather

This recipe makes good use of Trader Joe's package sizes. You'll need something to cook pasta (appliance and pot or dish), refrigeration or other cold-holding, containers for cut vegetables, a zester/peeler if you have one, a cutting board, and a knife.

Because I used the marination from the mozzarella as the dressing, to make a dairy free/vegan version of this, you would need to substitute in a vegan dressing with garlic and herbs as well as leaving out the two cheeses.

Cooling the cooked pasta apart from the raw veges allowed the marinate flavor to sink in to the cooked ingredients. I didn't have any large containers, so I had to use several. This is how I split it up for travel. It was assembled at the final destination.

A) penne, broccoli, parmesan cheese, peppers, cherry tomatoes

B) cucumber, carrots

C) mozzarella

D) olive can unopened

TJ Trip Pasta Salad

Organic Penne Rigate, dry, 8oz (half of the package)

Organic broccoli (1 package crowns or crowns from 1 stem)

Purple carrots (2 from package of organic rainbow carrots), thinly sliced 

1 organic cucumber, seeded and thinly sliced

4 mini bell peppers (from 8oz package of baby bell peppers, red to yellow), slivered

Organic cherry tomatoes (3/4 of a 10oz package) cut in half

12 oz Marinated Mozzarella (small mozzarella balls in oil/herb/vinegar marinade)

Slivered parmesan cheese, about 1 oz (to taste)

Sea salt (to taste)

Cook 8oz of penne in a saucepan for 7 minutes, or until cooked but still very firm. For me, this means:

boil water in an electric kettlepouring enough water to cover the penne in the pot, cover with lidstart timerleave the covered pot on a hot plate until there's a rolling boil, turn off the hot plate

Add the cut broccoli crown pieces directly into the pot. Cover and cook for 3 minutes. (If you are using whole broccoli, save the stem! Cut away the hard outer layer and slice the tender middle for stir fry or soup.)

Drain. Pour 2 Tablespoons of the mozzarella marinade into the mixture; stir until coated evenly. Cool for 1-2 hours in the refrigerator. After cooling, add salt to taste.

Cut up the rest of the vegetables after washing. Thinly slice the carrot into elongated coins. Use the zester to peel furrows into the skin of the cucumber before slicing, then seed (if desired) and slice thinly.

Select four (about 4 oz) of the baby bell peppers, orange and yellow. Cut off the tops, slice in half lengthwise, and scrape out all seeds. Slice each half against the grain into slivers. Cut each cherry tomato in half.

Assemble: cooled pasta, broccoli, parmesan, vegetables. Add the marinated mozzarella balls. Spoon out the herb mixture from the marinade over the cheese, but not the rest of the marinade liquid. (Save for future salad dressing.) Drain the olives and add them in.

Makes 4 entree portions or party food for 8.

Raid the Freezer: Thai Style Curry Soup with Shrimp and Angel Hair Pasta

Adapted from Serious Eats "20-Minute Thai Red Curry Noodle Soup with Chicken" by J. Kenji Lopez

Coming home tired on a cold night, I realized that I had everything I needed to make a warm, fulfilling soup that didn't require a lot of brain power or prep. All of the main ingredients were in my freezer. I had fish sauce and an open curry paste in my refrigerator.

(I think the recipe would still be palatable without the fish sauce. Maybe some tamari or soy sauce added to the serving bowl would work?)

Ingredients
2 TBSP Thai red curry paste (for a medium heat)
1 tsp oil
5 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1" piece of whole fresh ginger, about 1/2 a tsp
1 TBSP chopped green onion (optional)
16 ounces of mild chicken or vegetable stock
3 TBSP Fish Sauce
2 TBSP cane sugar
Juice from 1 small lime (about 2 tsp); cut frozen limes work great for this
15 oz Coconut Milk
2 TBSP grated carrot
7 oz (about 1/2 a box) of Angel Hair or Thin Spaghetti
1 Quart water for boiling
12 oz salad shrimp
leftover, cooked butternut squash (if you have it), in 1" to 2" chunks
fresh cilantro for garnish if you have it

Directions
This works best with 2 pots so that you can eat in less than half an hour.

1. Fill one pot with the quart of water for boiling the pasta. Cover and set on low/medium heat to bring it to boiling while you start the soup. No need to add salt or oil.
2. In the soup pot, add curry paste, garlic, and oil (unless your paste has a lot of oil) and cook about 1 minute, pressing it against the bottom of the pan and stirring. You want the paste to cook but you don't want the garlic to burn.
3. Add your chicken or vegetable stock.
4. Add fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, green onions, and ginger. My limes were frozen wedges. I put them in as they were and fished them out once they had softened from the hot soup, squished the juice out, and discarded the peel. This is totally OK to do.
5. Add coconut milk.
6. Stir or wisk to blend the ingredients. 
7. Add the grated carrot.
8. Reduce the heat to low and allow to simmer covered.
9. By now, your pasta water will be boiling and ready for the pasta. Add your Angel Hair, stir it around in the water once the noodles are soft, and use the cooking time to warm your bowls, pour drinks, and set your table. You want your pasta slightly undercooked!
10. When the pasta is cooked al dente, turn off the heat. Do not drain it.
11. If the shrimp are frozen, add them to the pot of pasta and water. This will thaw them out and cool the water to stop the pasta from overcooking. Allow one or two minutes for the shrimp to warm up. If your shrimp aren't frozen, skip this step.
12. Using a spaghetti fork or other slotted instrument, spoon the pasta and shrimp directly into the simmering soup base. The extra water (about 16 oz) from the pasta adds to the soup volume. When most of the pasta/shrimp has been transferred, you can discard the remaining pasta water, which should be about 2 cups (16 oz). I don't recommend adding all the pasta water to the soup because it will make the final soup too thin.
13. Allow the soup to return to a simmer, then turn off the heat.
14. If you have leftover butternut squash, portion it out into your serving bowls.
15. Ladle the finished noodle soup into warm bowl over the squash, garnish with cilantro, and eat.

I like this curry paste, which is all-natural and has low sodium:

Thai and True red curry paste costs a bit more at my local natural grocery store, but it's a bigger jar and very, very good. Plus, it's been open in my refrigerator for about a year and it's still good!

The nation brand Thai Kitchen is easier to find, likely to be on sale or have a coupon, and has 38% of your daily sodium per serving. It works fine, but my experience is that it grows moldy after being open in the refrigerator about 3 months.

The fish sauce, oil, sugar, pasta, coconut milk, and the curry paste can all be in the pantry for when you need them.The perishable ingredients for this soup can be kept in the freezer, even the limes, garlic, ginger, green onions, butternut squash, and carrot. One bunch of green onions is always too much for me to use up while fresh. I have the same problem with fresh ginger, which I don't personally love, but recognize as the ingredient that makes or breaks a lot of soups and other recipes, and powdered ginger just doesn't give the same fullness.

Limes are expensive in the Pacific NW, so when I can't use up a whole one quickly, it's good to be able to cut it into slices or wedges and freeze them. They stay good for a month or so.

One of the best things about the original recipe is that it uses plain ol' pasta. I loved that! Who hasn't cooked too much spaghetti, at one time or another, and not know what to do with the extra? Leftover cooked noodles can also go into this soup.

If you prefer chicken to shrimp, here's the original recipe with chicken related instructions: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/10/20-minute-thai-red-curry-noodle-soup-with-chicken-recipe.html

One-Bowl, 15 Minute, Super Easy Ham & Vegetables Dijon Pasta Salad

Emails about food make my email inbox at work a little more fun. One of the big brand's free calendars graces our wall, brightening the space with a big, colorful photo every month of something that looks mouthwatering.

For summer, I have been getting recipe emails that tout easy dinners with minimal cooking. These inevitably utilize the brand's cooking shortcut products. I understand that these have their place in the world, but they are not for me, a person who doesn't even make hot chocolate from a mix. 

The "recipe" in today's post is a hack of one of the 30-minute, Cooking Shortcut Bag recipes. The result is a slightly warm pasta salad (yum) with a crisp vegetable appeal, low in salt and without a lot of fuss.

Mine is faster and leaves fewer dishes to wash, but it requires that you, like me, are someone who has small amounts of good stuff in your refrigerator and cupboard for the components.

These were my ingredients:

• 1/3 Cup elbow macaroni or small pasta of choice, such as rotelli or fusilli
• salt to taste
• pinch oregano
• pinch onion powder
• pinch dry basil, to taste
• pinch red chili flake

If you have fresh herbs, add them to the chopped vegetable mixture instead of the pasta water.

• 1 TBL sliced red onion (I used the onion heart, which is tender and makes small pieces)
• 1/4 Cup diced red bell pepper
• 1/2 Cup chopped heirloom tomato
• 1 TBL olive oil
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• 1/2 Cup diced ham of good quality (avoid using a fatty ham steak)

• 1/4 Cup frozen green peas (if you have fresh peas, add them to the vegetable mixture)
• 1/4 Cup grated parmesan

1. In a small saucepan, bring 2 to 3 Cups of water to a boil. I use as little water as possible, enough to cover the pasta while it cooks. Add oregano, onion powder, dried basil, chili flakes, and salt. 
2. Measure the elbow macaroni by pouring one layer of the dry pasta into the bowl that you are going to use for the completed pasta salad. Elbows are plain, so I didn't want to use so much that the end salad is blah. Too much pasta makes a bland pasta salad.
3. When the water is boiling, add the elbow macaroni. Set a timer for 9 minutes. Lower the heat to medium and allow the pasta to cook uncovered.
4. While the pasta cooks, chop up your onion, bell pepper, and tomatoes. Place them in the bowl.
5. Add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and dijon on top of the vegetables. (Do NOT add the frozen green peas!)
6. Dice the ham. Add it to the bowl.
7. Grate the parmesan.
8. When the timer goes off, test the pasta for firmness. I like mine slightly past al dente for pasta salad. If you like yours firmer, 8 minutes may work better.
9. Add the frozen green peas to the pasta water. Stir for a minute.
10. Drain the water from the peas + pasta. Stir it around to get the water out of the pasta tubes.
11. Carefully spoon (I use the same fork that I will use for eating) the peas, herbs, and pasta mixture into the bowl. Some water will still be in the saucepan, and you don't want watery pasta salad. Using a fork to push the pasta out of the saucepan helps drain it as you go.
12. Gently stir together everything in the bowl until well mixed.
13. Add parmesan cheese.

Cutting up the vegetables while the pasta cooked meant that this only took me about ten minutes. I've added five more for the grating of the cheese and putting away of oil, vinegar, etc.

I put the dry herbs in with the cooking pasta to kickstart their flavor. With single serving amounts of everything, it's more difficult to get flavors to infuse or mix evenly.

I thaw the peas with the pasta to stop the cooking of the pasta without rinsing the pasta. I never rinse pasta if I can avoid it. Rinsing removes the starch in the cooking water that helps the sauce or dressing stick to the pasta. I'd rather keep a small amount of cold ingredient or sauce to toss in with the pasta in place of rinsing. I like my pasta salad slightly warm, rather than refrigerator cold.