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Angie’s Marinated Pasta Salad

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December 12, 2018

After driving a circuitous route for two days (I’ll explain why in a minute), I got home to Santa Fe from Palm Springs last Wednesday to a surprise.

My husband and I had plans to attend the holiday party for the Department of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, where he is Associate Professor, on Friday.  The surprise was that the party was a potluck and we had to bring a dish.

So, there I was on Wednesday evening, exhausted after two days of driving, with no prior knowledge that I had to produce a dish for a Friday event, coupled with the logistic challenge that I had to leave home around noon on Friday and ultimately make it to the party in Albuquerque by 7:00 PM with a dish in tow that I could neither refrigerate nor heat up!

It didn’t take long before I settled on my cousin Angie Catanese’s Marinated Pasta Salad.  This is a recipe that I’ve been making for about 45 years and it never fails to please.  It has so much stuff in it besides pasta that it’s almost a misnomer to just refer to it as a pasta salad!

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I went grocery shopping on Thursday morning, assembled the salad Thursday afternoon, and the rest is history!

You might also enjoy my cousin Angie’s recipe for Pickled Hot Peppers.

 

The availability of pasta in many different shapes has ballooned over the decades. Cavatappi makes a great replacement for shells in this pasta salad.

Now, for an explanation as to why you haven’t heard from me in two months and what will be coming up for the blog…

In early October I went to Palm Springs to complete recipe testing for the Trio Restaurant Cookbook.  One can’t really test recipes for a cookbook at 8,000 feet in elevation so I spent five weeks in Palm Springs testing and finalizing over 125 recipes for the cookbook.  I had intended to continue posting to the blog during this time but very quickly found it impossible to fit in anything other than grocery shopping, recipe testing, and note-taking!

I got back to Santa Fe a few days before Thanksgiving then, less than a week after Thanksgiving was back on my way to California to go to the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles to apply for a visa.

In early January I am going to Italy to attend a three-month intensive course in Italian cuisine geared toward professional chefs at the Italian Culinary Institute.  Because I’ll be in Italy more than 90 days I need a visa.

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My visa appointment was Friday and I was planning on spending the weekend in Palm Springs then driving back to Santa Fe on Tuesday.  The consular official said my visa would be ready by Tuesday so, rather than trust my luck (and my passport) to FedEx, I decided to drive back to Los Angeles to retrieve my passport.

It took me 3 hours and 45 minutes to drive the 122 miles from our home in Palm Springs to the consulate!  I got my passport in about 5 minutes then did some shopping at Eataly, conveniently located across the street from the Italian Consulate.  (I’d love to know who was responsible for securing THAT location!)  I then reversed course and started the drive back to Santa Fe, passing within a few miles of our home in Palm Springs where I had started the day.  I spent the night in Payson, Arizona then finished the drive Wednesday (which is when this story began).

The entrance to the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles which is conveniently located across the street from Eataly!

While I’m in Italy I will most likely be posting fewer recipes than usual.  I hope to chronicle some of my experiences at the Institute and pass on some tips and pointers on Italian food.  I hope you’ll stick with me during that time.  When I return, I’ll be back to my regular schedule of posting recipes.

Oh, and by the way, judging from how the pasta salad disappeared at the party, I think it was a hit!

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 Angie’s Marinated Pasta Salad
There is so much “stuff” in this that it could easily be the basis of a light meal with just some bread and cheese. Angie’s original recipe called for shells but other types of medium-size pasta work just as well. In fact, I think the cavatappi are especially nice given their unusual shape. If you are making this when tomatoes are at their peak, use three medium-sized tomatoes in place of the cherry and grape tomatoes. You can use 2 cups of purchased Italian salad dressing instead of the homemade dressing if you’re so inclined, though the flavor will obviously be somewhat different.
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Course Pasta and Grains, Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces, Salads, Slaws and Dressings, Sides
Cuisine Italian-American
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 10 minutes
Passive Time 16 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Salad Ingredients
Dressing
Course Pasta and Grains, Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces, Salads, Slaws and Dressings, Sides
Cuisine Italian-American
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 10 minutes
Passive Time 16 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Salad Ingredients
Dressing
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Instructions
  1. In a large mixing bowl, combine all the dressing ingredients and set aside.
  2. Cook the pasta in abundantly salted water until just cooked but still slightly al dente.
  3. Meanwhile, cut-up all the ingredients.
  4. Onion
  5. Bell pepper
  6. Tomatoes
  7. Celery
  8. Genoa salami
  9. Pepperoni
  10. Provolone
  11. Oil-cured olives
  12. When the pasta is cooked, drain and rinse in cool water to stop cooking.
  13. Stir the pasta and diced onion into the dressing. Allow to cool to room temperature.
  14. When the pasta is cool, stir in all remaining ingredients.
  15. Refrigerate overnight before serving.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2018 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Pasta with Silky Zucchini Sauce

6 Comments

July 5, 2017

Pasta tossed with a sauce of some sort of vegetable cooked in olive oil is an Italian classic.  My mother frequently used either eggplant or zucchini, cooked them until they became very soft, and then tossed them with pasta.

I have one very vivid memory of this dish and it goes back to the summer of 1992.

After my mother was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer in early summer 1992, she came to live with us.  Until the last few days of her life in early January 1993, she took over our kitchen, a very comfortable role for her.

Over the years prior to her diagnosis, she had become friendly with our next door neighbor, Carla.  During the last six months of her life she and Carla spent hours every day visiting and chatting.  This was a wonderful arrangement as my husband, Frank, and I were working long hours.  (It also led, through a number of interesting steps, to Frank and I becoming the god-parents for one of Carla and Billy’s children a few years later.  But that’s a story for a different day.)

Frank had very long work hours a couple days per week.  He rarely got home before 10 PM on those days.  My mother and I would eat dinner earlier and then she would set aside his food.

But she did more than that.

When he got home, she always warmed up his dinner and then sat with him at the table while he ate.  She never let him eat alone.  Most likely, I was upstairs in bed.  Since I got up earlier than Frank, I tried to be in bed by 10 PM to watch the news and go to sleep.

For some reason, the plate of pasta with zucchini sitting on the counter one evening to be warmed up for Frank’s dinner, knowing my mother would sit with him as he ate, is the mental image I have of this dish.  I can’t make this without that image appearing in my mind.  I think somehow that dish, made of very humble ingredients, came to represent the best of my mother’s nurturing characteristics.

She was a fierce advocate for her children.  My sister and I both started school a year early because my mother thought we were intellectually ready (she was right) and she wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer from the school authorities.

Once, in second grade, my sister arrived home with the hem of her school uniform let down because one of the nuns thought it was too short.  My mother promptly hemmed it, even shorter, and sent my sister to school the next day without ever saying a word.  The hemline stayed put.

You didn’t mess with my mother where her children were concerned.

She continued cooking for us until less than a week before she died.

In those years we always gave a New Year’s Day party, a casual affair where people could come and relax and chat and eat.  The Soviet Union was officially dissolved December 25, 1991.  Most of 1992 saw the effects of the dissolution so the theme of our January 1, 1993 party was the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

For the party, my mother made 14 dozen stuffed cabbage rolls and 17 dozen potato pancakes!

She sat on the sofa throughout the entire party, chatting with everyone and being the life of the party.  The next day she took a turn for the worse and on the morning of January 6th she died.

Some of my best memories involve food, most of which was cooked by family and friends who are no longer with us.  Capturing and preserving those recipes is the way that I pay homage to them and to the culture and values they passed on to me.

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 Pasta with Silky Zucchini Sauce
Zucchini are cooked to a silky softness to make a luscious sauce for pasta. Finishing the pasta in the pan with the zucchini and adding some pasta-cooking liquid, Parmesan cheese, and a couple of glugs of olive oil creates glossy sauce with a wonderful mouthfeel. When choosing zucchini, pick small ones, preferably not more than about six inches long. They should be firm and have glossy skin. It will take about 4 or 5 to yield four cups of sliced zucchini. Crushed red pepper is completely optional. If you have fresh basil you can omit the dry basil and toss in a tablespoon or so of basil chiffonade when you combine the pasta with the zucchini.
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Course Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Servings
people
Ingredients
Votes: 0
Rating: 0
You:
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
  1. Dice the onion.
  2. Peel the zucchini and slice approximately ¼ inch thick.
  3. Mince the garlic.
  4. In a large, heavy-bottomed sauté pan large enough to hold the pasta and sauce, sauté the onion and crushed red pepper, if using, over medium heat until the onion is golden and soft. Do not brown the onion.
  6. Add the zucchini. Toss to coat with oil. Season liberally with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
  7. Sauté on medium to medium high heat, adjusting from time to time to avoid browning the zucchini.
  8. Add the dry oregano and dry basil, if using, after about 20 minutes.
  9. Continue to sauté, stirring often, until the zucchini is quite soft, but still intact. It can turn golden but should not brown. Taste and adjust salt and pepper while the zucchini is cooking.
  12. Add the minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about 5 minutes longer.
  14. The dish can be prepared several hours in advance to this point. Simply take the sauté pan off the heat and cover it.
  15. Bring three quarts of water to a rolling boil. Add 1/3 cup salt. Add the pasta and cook at a full boil until the pasta is almost al dente. It should still be just the tiniest bit hard in the center.
  16. Reserve at least one cup of pasta-cooking liquid.
  17. Drain the pasta and add it to the zucchini in the sauté pan. Add about ½ cup of reserved pasta-cooking liquid and fresh basil, if using, and cook over medium heat at a light boil until the pasta is al dente. Add more pasta-cooking water as needed. There should be some liquid in the pan when the pasta is finished.
  18. Off the heat, stir in the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Add a bit more pasta-cooking liquid if needed to emulsify the cheese and olive oil to create a glossy sauce that just clings to the pasta.
  19. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2017 by VillaSentieri.com. All rights reserved.

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