Greek Pasta Salad

So, this is one of my go-to lunch dishes, and something that I seriously will have all year long (no matter how expensive it gets to buy out of season produce!). So, in the summertime I take advantage of the fantastic availability of local, fresh produce... perfect time of year to find bell peppers, cucumber and sweet cherry tomatoes... and lots of them!

I love this dish because it's so easy and so healthy. Actually, I've had a bit of free time on my hands over the last 10 months, and "for kicks" one day I decided to count my daily calories, and so I figure this dish to be around the 400 calorie mark. Pretty reasonable in my mind. The calorie counting only lasted about 2 days because it's just way to much work, and really, who wants to keep that up? I know, you don't care too much about calories either - you care about delicious food. And this is. Try it! You'll love it. And it's easy.

Greek Pasta Salad

Serves 2

1 cup Whole wheat rotini pasta

1/2 Bell pepper, chopped (I use any combination of red, orange or yellow peppers)

10-12 Cherry tomatoes, chopped

1/2 cup Long english cucumber, chopped (I usually cut off about 4 inches worth)

3 Tbsp Zesty Italian salad dressing

3 Tbsp Feta cheese, cubed

10 Black olives, sliced (not shown, but definitely improves the salad!)

1) Bring a pot of water to a boil, and cook pasta according to directions. Drain and rinse in cold water in order to cool down (I prefer the pasta to be cold in my salad).

2) Meanwhile, cut up bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and cucumber into bite-sized pieces. Slice the black olives if using them.

3) Add pasta and vegetables (well technically fruit) into a bowl, and mix in feta cheese and salad dressing. Mix and serve! See? Easy.

I always make this with store bought salad dressing, but have seen some interesting recipes for homemade italian dressing including this one at Our best bites that I want to try soon. Do you have any good recipes? Share them with me if you do!

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Ok, so you know that you're starting to become a foodie when getting a cookbook for your birthday excites you, but I have to say that I'm so excited about this! I recently got the Joy of Cooking and couldn't WAIT to try one of the many soup recipes in there! I tried the Roasted Red Pepper soup and was pretty darn pleased with it. It has a little bit of tang, and that sweet red pepper flavour. Also, when I know I've had a fairly carb- or protein-heavy week, I can have this soup and get a few servings of my veggies for the day! Oh, and it fills you up too! I hate nothing more than having a bowl of soup, and being starving 2 hours later... this one has not been like that at all for me. Have a couple of crackers or croutons with it, and I can have it for lunch, and be good to go until dinner time!

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Adapted from the Joy of Cooking

Serves about 8

6 large red bell peppers

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups chopped onions

1 cup diced carrots

1 cup diced celery

6 cups chicken stock (I used homemade)

3 tablespoons uncooked brown rice

2 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried rosemary

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 cup milk (I used soy)

3 drops balsamic vinegar

Salt & pepper to taste

1) Roast bell peppers in the oven: Place whole (washed) peppers on an aluminum foiled lined baking sheet. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil, and place under the broiler (about 6 inches from heat). Roast for about 7-8 minutes until pepper looks blistered (it will look black)... rotating until the whole pepper is equally blackened. Once done, place peppers in a resealable plastic bag, seal closed and let stand for about 10 minutes (the peppers will steam, and help the skin to come off). Once the peppers are cool enough to handle, remove, peal and remove stems and seeds. Make sure not to rinse them at this point, as the smoky flavour lies in the surface. Cut into long strips and set aside.

2) Heat olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat, and cook onions, carrots and celery until tender. About 10 minutes or so.

3) Stir in the roasted peppers, chicken stock, rice, basil, rosemary and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until rice is tender, about 30-40 minutes.

4) Once cooked, remove the soup from the heat and puree until smooth. I pureed mine in a blender in batches (since I *gasp* don't have a hand-held immersion blender), which works just fine... just be careful when putting hot liquids in the blender, you don't want to fill it all the way up! It'll go everywhere if you put too much in at once.

5) Once smooth, return the soup to the pot and stir in the milk. In order to make sure the milk doesn't curdle since you're adding cold milk to hot soup, I actually ladle a couple of ladle-fulls of the warm soup into the milk first, in order to bring it up to temperature. Once warmed, I then add it into the full pot of soup.

6) Add the balsamic vinegar and season to taste. Yum.