Last of the Garden & Confetti Pasta

It's hot in Texas finally.  After a mild summer with tons of rain and low temperatures, the humidity and heat has set in.  Our garden that produced so well for us this year is now on it's last leg and veggies are not producing as much as I'd like.

This past weekend I picked some of our last banana and bell peppers from our garden and along with the basil we've grown in large quantities, I created this simple pasta dish.  As my daughter's friend Ashley said, it had a fresh taste to it using the peppers and especially the basil.  The added sour cream, Real Mayonnaise, Rotel Tomatoes and cream cheese made the pasta creamy and delicious too.  If you still have fresh tomatoes, by all means replace the Rotel Tomatoes and use them instead with a sprinkling of cilantro. If you like a little heat, then add a chopped jalapeno to it as well.

                            Click here for the recipe for Confetti Pasta.

Confetti Pasta is just so bright, fun and colorful! 

If you serve this pasta outside, be sure to keep the bowl on top of another bowl of ice to keep this pasta chilled.  I think adding cooked chicken, tuna, salmon or even pepperoni would easily turn this side dish in to a main dish for dinner or a light lunch.

This recipe would be perfect for a church or work potluck or large family gathering or reunion.

If you have similar pasta dishes, please consider sharing them on The Ranch Kitchen Share a Recipe Section of my recipe site.  I love new recipes and would love to share yours on the blog with fellow followers.

Enjoy the rest of your July, try to stay cook and let me know how you like this Confetti Salad!

Alise
The Ranch Kitchen 

Chicken and Eggplant Dressing

My first batch of eggplant from our garden have been wonderful!  Each year we plant eggplant and I usually fuss that there is never enough.  So this year we planted what probably is to many, but I know my friends and family will also benefit IF I decide to share! 

Tonight I decided to create a new dish from the leftover Rotisserie chicken in my refrigerator, our Ichiban eggplant, green bell and Anaheim peppers, and onions all from our garden. 

As I chopped and began to cook, I started to think of a topping and decided that my new box of Ritz Crackers that have Roasted Vegetables in them would make an excellent crust on top.  Thankfully it turned out to be a good decision and I'll be using these in place of bread crumbs from now on. 

You'll find this recipe on the link below underneath the first picture.  As my new www.theranchkitchen.com site is up, I will now post links to direct my readers to my site where all my recipes are stored. 

You will notice on my blog now that when you click on the recipe link it automatically takes you to my new .com site!  How nifty is that?!!  I have to again thank Nia Hill, Tonya Perez and AgTown programmers for their genius work on my new blog design and new The Ranch Kitchen site!  Thank you, thank you!

I hope you'll try my new Chicken and Eggplant Dressing.  It takes a little more preparation than most of my recipes, but the end results was my husband, 'Ranchman Approved'! 

Enjoy!

Chicken and Eggplant Dressing

We also finally picked our first tomato from our garden! 

We are so happy summer is finally here after the long winter in the south!



Enjoy!

The Ranch Kitchen




The Ranch Kitchen's Chicken and Eggplant Dressing

The Ranch Kitchen's Pico De Galo

Click here for a recipe card of Pico de Galo

I miss summer.  I miss my flowers, my garden and most especially our homegrown tomatoes.  I am starting to be sick of winter and all that comes with it. EVERY mosquito in my yard should be dead by now.  And we are ready to camp, wear short sleeved shirts and grill outside again! Winter needs to go away quietly, but for some reason this year it's wetter, colder, and more miserable than we ever remember!

I don't think it's because I'm getting old.  I do however think it's because like so many of us this year our winter in the south, north, east and west has been the most brutal we can imagine.  My heating bill attest to it and we've burned more fires in our fireplace than in the past!  My husband said the other night he had built his last fire in the fireplace....Kyle and I think differently!

I had a few minutes to blog tonight and found a post of my summer tomatoes where I had posted the pictures above and below with the intent of posting the recipe some day soon.  Oh, how it made me ready for summer and this Pico de Galo!  Honestly though, this tomato side dish can be made anytime of year.  In Texas it's made year round in Mexican restaurants to go on the side of fajitas (beef skirt steak with bell peppers and onions served steaming hot on hot flour tortillas) or as a type of chunky salsa to dip your chips in (fried corn tortilla chips). 

The recipe pretty much follows what I have included below, but you can make variations by adding guacamole, sweet banana or bell peppers.  We love lots of lemon or lime juice in ours and I especially love using my Persian limes from my pot off my back porch.  And that makes me realize that I didn't think about how much I missed my fresh limes! 

Pico de Galo will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and I have been known to add more tomatoes to it to keep it going bringing it out at dinner each night.  This dish isn't just for Mexican food and is great with just about anything be it summer, winter, spring or fall.

The Ranch Kitchen's Pico de Galo

8 tomatoes, chopped in 1/2 inch cubes

1 sweet white onion or red onion, chopped fine

1 bell pepper, seeded and chopped fine (optional)

1 sweet banana pepper, chopped fine

1 bunch cilantro, chopped fine

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped fine (seeding takes our some of the heat)

1 lime or lemon, juiced

1 teaspoon garlic salt

1 teaspoon pepper

Cut up tomatoes, onions, bell and sweet peppers, cilantro and jalapeno pepper.  You use the food processor for the peppers on the pulse button to get my vegetables to the right consistency.  I don't suggest pulsing the tomatoes in the food processor as they may get too mushy.  I like my tomatoes firm for my Pico.  Add all seasoning and taste.  If you need more lemon or lime juice, garlic salt or pepper, just add it to your own liking.





Looking at this picture from last summer really makes me wish for

summer and our  garden tomatoes!



Not Your Everyday Veggie Platter

I think people truly miss the boat on a great salad!  A great salad doesn't always have to be tomatoes, lettuce, and a calorie overload of dressing.  A good salad can be anything you want it to be.  This summer in an attempt to use my favorite serving dishes and eat the bumper crop of tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers from my garden, I thought about color.  Yes, color.  Color does please the eye.  As teachers we always laugh at our menu from our cafeteria.  We decided long ago that color plays a major role in what they serve on our trays each day.  The combinations are sometimes surprising, but always colorful. I don't know about you, but when I serve hot dogs in my house, I always place a healthy serving of cooked spinach right beside it, don't you?  As the kids say...not!  I say all of this in dear respect for our cafeteria cooks who honestly due to their good cooking have helped me add on the pounds over the years!  I realize that menu choice and selection are far, far out of their hands! 

I could rant on this for days, so back to my recipe of the day.  This really isn't a recipe...just a way to serve a salad in a different way.  In an attempt to make my dinner colorful, I got creative with my crudites or veggie platter.  My new white dishes from Crate and Barrel are the perfect white to complement the reds, greens, whites and yellows I serve on these plates.  On the side, you can really choose any dressing from light to creamy, or with nothing at all.  I like to add color when I serve my dressing in the choice of serving bowl I use.

Below is my salad platter.  There's no recipe...so be creative. Some of you may say to yourself that you do this all the time.  But what I have been delighted with most in doing this blog is that it is the simple things to me that are new things to others.  We all were a budding cook at one time, or didn't have the privilege as I did to watch my granny and mother cook meals night after night.  We are turning into the fast food nation, when honestly if you just shop ahead and plan a slight bit ahead, meals are not all that hard to prepare. 

It's my greatest hope that it's the simple ideas and recipes I share that will ultimately prompt you to cook for not only yourself, but for your family and friends.  As a teacher ultimately at heart, and mom that hopes my girls will be proud one day that my recipes are archived and online for them, I hope to make cooking look easy to the young and old. Because it; that is cooking, really, really is.  Promise!


Note:  You'll notice the open faced hand sandwiches I have beside the vegetable platter with my favorite Ranch Dressing.  Even sandwiches can be creative! 

Simple, easy...and it doesn't have to be a work of art getting salad on the table.

Alise