Chef Russell

I'm not a bad cook, or maybe I am. I don't know.

I've been fixing things and eating them for years, but many are the same things, ones I know how to cook. Of course, when I make something new that I like, I end up making it a lot and then forget something that I enjoyed in the past, but that's the way it goes.

When it rains and I'm home, I make chili. When I'm ill, I make chicken soup, but that's about the extent of my rituals. Everything else is catch as catch can, but I usually try to make something quick. Most famous, of course, is my Asian Fajitas Surprise, which can be just about anything. Thus, the surprise.

Today it was hot, damn hot. Unseasonably hot. "Turn on a fan and leave a cotton rag in the freezer" hot. I knew I'd be hungry around dinner time, hungrier than a salad, so I thought I'd make a cool and filling pasta salad. The thing about pasta salads is I've never made one before and have only eaten them once or twice in my life, so I don't know much about them.

I could look up a recipe, but that's no fun. I just remember that they were cool and had fusilli in them, a pasta I don't think I have, so I made mine with mostaccioli, which was handy. The centerpiece was going to be brocolli, but when I looked at it, it had spoiled.

Hmmm, I thought, now that a ton of pasta was cooking. I had sugar peas, celery, bell peppers and decided to cook those, but then decided the celery would be better raw. (It would add "texture")

It looked a bit weak and I considered tomatoes, and still might, but I looked in the freezer and found some emergency peas and carrots. I steamed the veggies and by the time the time they were done the pasta, naturally, was a solid lump in the collander. That's easy enough to fix, and into a big bowl went most of the pasta and most of the vegetables, cooked and otherwise.

Then, I dumped in what was left of my salad dressing, an amount that's probably excessive, and put it in the fridge to cool down. The pasta and veggies that didn't fit in the bowl went in a smaller bowl, with no dressing. A couple hours later I was hungry, but the salad wasn't cool yet. I just took the smaller bowl out, dumped in oil, vinegar, whatever spices I grabbed and seasoned it with salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese, and the result was ... filling.

I'm not sure it's a real pasta salad, so I think I'll call it my Pasta Salad Surprise. Eating like this it's a wonder I didn't die years ago.