Festa Pasta Salad

Festa means party in Italian. So here is a delicious meal called Festa Pasta Salad. Festa Pasta Salad is a great healthy dish with broccoli, shredded up zucchini, grated Romano cheese, the Lime vinaigrette dressing from a previous post, parsley, and basil. This calls for a delicious recipe!

Cheese-steak Rice

If you had to ask me which baseball team I like, I would say the Philadelphia Phillies. The main reason is that my dad is from around the Philadelphia area. But I love the food at the stadium. The amazing cheese-steak is the main food of Philly. But at my house we don't always have rolls, but we almost always have rice. One day we had cheese-steak separated from the rice. I put the two together and tried it. Delicious!

S'mores Galore

The other day my mom bought marshmallows. She did not notice that the label said JUMBO. The label was right! So we had to figure out something to do with them. An idea popped up in our heads when we saw the Nature Valley Dark Chocolate Granola Thins in our pantry. We took them out along with the huge white food of fluffiness! We had some S'mores Galore to make.

You can toast the marshmallows inside or outside, whatever you would like to do. We toasted ours by putting the marshmallow on a skewer and placing it over a gas stove burner until roasted golden with just a little char - but you can toast yours until it's the way you like it. To toast outside, just put the marshmallow over the barbecue until it's toasted the way you like it. Now take two Granola Thins and put the marshmallow in the middle. The granola part should be the side you are holding and the chocolate should be on the inside so it melts onto the marshmallow.

For the inside marshmallow toasting, make sure your vent is on so the smoke alarm doesn't go off. But for sure one alarm will go off...the Delicious Alarm!! Enjoy!

Watermelon Salad

Watermelon salad is a great way to refresh you in the summer. It's a healthy and delicious dish that is really easy to make. If you like substituting foods like parsley for oregano then you will love this dish because it has 2 substituting ingredients. Watermelon for tomato and arugula for lettuce. This is a great party dish! Serve it at a party and people will keep going back for more!
 
Ingredients: the Lime Vinaigrette Salad Dressing from my earlier post, Arugula, Watermelon, and Feta Cheese. Toss together just a moment before you serve it so the arugula doesn't get soggy.

Lime Vinaigrette Salad

So,  every night,  I have a vegetable of some sort with dinner. Tonight I had salad. My mom has a great dressing that she makes called Lime Vinaigrette. She makes it right in the salad bowl so she doesn't have to dirty another dish. So here's the ingredients.

1 large or 2 small cloves of crushed garlic
juice of 1/2 lime (or more if you like it really citrusy)
Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste
1/3 cup of EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
1/4 cup of shredded parmesan or romano cheese
thinly sliced Bermuda onion (optional)

Mix up the first four ingredients til they come together, then add your favorite lettuce. I like iceberg but my mom likes Romaine or green leaf. Then toss together the dressing, lettuce and cheese. Mom adds red onion for her and Dad...

Anyway, I was helping my mom make it. My job was to squeeze the lime juice into the bowl. My mom says "Don't squeeze the lime in your face!" Then my mom takes it to finish it up. And PLOP! She splashes it all over my face! :) Still tastes good, though!

Which is Better: Cupcakes or Cake?

OK, I know there is a feud between cupcakes and cake. The deliciousness of a small, delicate cupcake with icing swirled on top. The amazing look on your face when you get your slice of cake. So I'm here to settle this feud. A cupcake cake! It's a cake on top, and underneath, but attached are about 14 cupcakes.(depending on the size of the cake.) But anyway, this may not totally solve the problem because I have taken a side. CUPCAKES!!!

Pasta with Pesto - my all-time favorite food!

It all started when I was little...when I tried Pasta with Pesto. Once I tried it, I couldn't get enough of it!  It has been my favorite dish since I was 2, so I hope you feel the same way that I feel about it.

Pesto is a sauce with basil, pine nuts or walnuts, Romano or Parmesan cheese, olive oil, and garlic. Pesto goes very well on rotini pasta - which in my house, we call romatimi because that's what my big sister, Haley, called it when she was a little girl.

When it's summer and there's a lot of basil in our garden, we make it fresh. Here's my mom's recipe:

• 2 cups basil leaves
• 2+ cloves garlic (we like a lot of garlic!)
• 1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts
• 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Locatelli Romano cheese

Just pop all the ingredients into a blender or food processor (a grown-up should do that!) and blend until it comes together into a paste. Thin with oil if you like. Add to warm pasta and eat warm or room temperature. I like it leftover for lunch!

It's also great on sourdough bread - and my mom puts it on salmon, too. So far, I don't really like salmon, but I bet I will soon.