labor day pasta salad

pasta salad y'all!

danielle has a camouflage-painted jon boat, which we took to bayou st john for labor day. they picked up some fried chicken and she made two kinds of boiled peanuts. (more abt that later). i made this pasta salad!

1/2 pound pasta

1 small head broccoli

5 sweet peppers

1/2 small red onion

about a cup of diced summer squash

salt

pepper

zest and juice of a lemon

apple cider vinegar

extra virgin olive oil

dash of hot sauce

notes: i didn't have any on hand, but fresh herbs would be delicious. mint, basil, or tarragon would all work nicely. the flavors in this salad are simple. saute the veggies in oil with salt and pepper, but not for too long. you want them to still taste fresh. i blanched the broccoli in the same water as the pasta, for about a minute, while the noodles cooked. i used gemelli noodles, which incidentally are also known as unicorn horns. as pasta salads cool, they may need to be re-seasoned. i season as i assemble the salad and then after taking it out of the refrigerator just prior to serving and see if anything needs to be adusted; something usually does. 

we got our green peanuts to boil from holly grove market. if you're in the south you should get some while they're in season! we did one traditional batch, with a ton of salt. the other was fresh ginger, brown sugar, salt, pepper, and curry. the only downside to making them is time, you need around 4 hours to really let them absorb the flavors. 

let's all try to enjoy the end of summer!