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.

Farmers Market Beets, Goat Cheese, Pecans, and Butter Sandwich

Well, that makes it sound fancy.

A big bag of small red beets was my inspiration for beets in a sandwich. The small beets mean that I can cook one or two of them in short time and have fresh beets ready to eat with minimal fuss. Beets are dandy with butter. I'm a fan of artisan bread, so making a beet-and-butter sandwich. This sandwich evolved.

It would be a pretty sandwich if done with thin layers of sliced beet, using the goat cheese as a spread on the butter-grilled roll. However, beets are slippery. Slices of beets shoot right out of the sandwich if it is any larger than a slider. The concoction pictured is quick and easy -- and can be eaten without flying beets.

For 3 well-filled sandwiches:

Ingredients
1 Cup of cooked beets, chopped into small pieces or julienned
2 ounces of goat cheese (this was half a package of Trader Joe's basic goat cheese)
Artisan bread rolls or demi-baguette (any firm, crusty bread)
butter, about 1 TBL
1/4 Cup pecans or walnuts
2 TBL cream cheese (optional)

Prepare your beets. Ideally, you will have done this in advance, and you'll be using them chilled from the refrigerator. My little beets -- about 3" in diameter -- took about 15 minutes to cook to tender, boiled. I scrub them well, put them in a saucepan with water to cover, and simmer covered until a fork pokes through easily. When they have cooled, I peel off the skins. I suspect that these sandwiches would taste good with grated, raw beet as well. I guess I'll find out in the next round!

* Beet juices wills stain your skin, clothes, and porous dishes. No kidding! Wear an apron, watch out for your shoes, and use a plastic or glass cutting board. If you don't have food gloves, plan on prepping your beets just before you wash your hair. Shampooing hair is pretty effective at getting fresh stains out of your fingers (says the multi-media artist and former barista). It also helps to moisturize your skin well before working with dyes. The hydrated skin won't be as absorbent.

Cut your rolls in half lengthwise. In a large skillet or on a griddle, melt the butter. Place the rolls cut side down to grill them with the butter. Don't let them burn!

Mix the goat cheese and beets together in a bowl until incorporated together. The more you mix them, the more pink the mixture will become, so go easy.

A little cream cheese rounds out the flavor and helps everything stick together, so I like a little spread on each half of the grilled roll before applying the beet-and-goat-cheese mix. Add your pecan halves and the other half of the roll.

You can make these in advance; they hold up surprisingly well and are good cold picnic food.

Gruyere & Applesauce biscuits

2 C all purpose flour
2 1/2 TBL baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 C non-hydrogenated shortening
small knob of gruyere, about 3 TBL


1 C small curd cottage cheese (including separated whey)
1/4 C unsweetened applesauce

Preheat oven to 450F.

Combine flour, b. powder, & salt. Mix thoroughly. Cut in shortening until you create a sandy consistency. Slice the gruyere into small pieces and blend in.thoroughly. You can do this with your hands.

Add cottage cheese and applesauce. Mix in, allow to rest 5 minutes if it looks dry. Knead to incorporate the dough into a ball, shape into a log, and slice into 6 pieces. Bake for 15 minutes for a golden color.

Mac & Cheese

Elbow Mac & Cheese

This is for tonight. It's a too-much-work recipe that is also one of my defaults (i.e. something I eat more often than is heart-wise). I start with a variation on a Cooking Light recipe that came from my sister, where the cream sauce base is made on the stove top. I like to finish it in the oven for the crispy top, so I have mutated the recipe to be more like the all-oven ones, sans egg. Also, I usually use twice the cheese asked for in most recipes, closer to a full pound. Cheeeeeeeese...

I tends to look a lot like the photo above. Today I will be using a chedder-gruyere hybrid from Trader Joe's that is a pretty good sandwich cheese, but not one I want for cheese-and-crackers snacking. The texture is crumbly like the manchego or the goat milk cheddar to which I've recently taken a shine. I have whole milk in my refrigerator from making a shrimp & peas cream sauce the other night.

2 Tbl butter
4 Tbl flour
1/2 tsp dry mustard
pinch salt (omitted because I have salted butter)
pepper (white pepper would be ideal, black pepper is more robust)
2 C whole milk

In a small saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Add flour, mustard, and pepper until blended. (Make a roux.) Pour in milk, stirring constantly. Increase heat to high; bring to a boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

8 ounces of cooked pasta (macaroni, shells, or penne)
up to 16 ounces of shredded cheeses (a little smoked cheese in the mix is very tasty, but don't make it with only that)
smoked paprika

Layer the pasta, cheese, and cream sauce in a casserole dish, as if making lasagna. Finish with sauce covering all the pasta and cheese as the top layer. Garnish with a sprinkle of paprika, if desired. Bake in a 450 oven for 15 minutes or until bubbling on top with a nicely browned layer. This works best with cheddar or mozzarella in the mix.

This is ready to eat hot. I have doubled the sauce from the original recipes because the sauce is my favorite part. This is a dish with a queso fundido quality, great if you are a bread lover. As leftovers, there is more sauce than the pasta can suck up, so it reheats pretty well. Tell yourself this when you are reaching for your 3rd serving.