Amy was house sitting this weekend so we decided to head over and cook up a feast. After being indecisive all day, we came up with some sort of Indian skewer thing. Mandi and I narrowed it down to a mustardy curry flavor similar to something we get at a restaurant here. When it came down to it however, we decided not to take the bones out of the chicken and skewer them. They were beautiful pieces of chicken and deserved to be grilled bone-in. Be sure to read to the bottom of this post to check out descriptions for all the Indian spices we used.

Today is a foodie fight day!  Go check out the entries on the main page over there.  Vote for your favorite!  I am still up in the air on who I will vote for because I really think people killed it this week!  I say that every time dont I?  I guess I just love foodie fights.  I also love Garam Masala and Zucchini.

We have recently begun to see some really beautiful fresh corn popping up at the grocery stores here in Bermuda. You have to grab it quick though! It seems to be sold out in an hour everywhere I go. Mandi and I wanted to do something that highlighted the fresh corn flavor. We decided on a simple soup with not too many ingredients to cloud or confuse the corn. At the last minute, the addition of masa harina enhanced a different type of corn flavor, and thickened the soup to a perfect silky consistency.

Now that we have gone over many pasta salad basics, I have a few awesome ones to show you that I made to bring to that beach party from last week. Yesterday I hinted a little about making sure to have at least 3 different colors besides the pasta. I feel that this is really important because it causes people to salivate for your pasta when they first see it. Bring either of these to your 4th of July party, and they will be a huge hit! I came up with both of these ideas focused more on the shapes rather than the colors. I thought of the pasta shapes and tried to emulate them with the other ingredients. Here we have noodle salad, and ball salad.

Today's post isn't necessarily about the specific recipes listed; it is more about giving you the idea that anything can be a pasta salad. With the new theme on the website of frugally using up your leftovers, today I am presenting you with two different pasta salads made with only what was lying around in the fridge. Use these as inspiration for something to do with your leftovers! When making a pasta salad with leftovers, as a guide I try and check for 4 things; at least 3 colors besides the pasta, crunch, juiciness, and acidic bite. If you have all these things, your pasta salad is ready for the big time!

I decided to swap around some days in pasta salad week and show the healthier option today. As I said in the intro on Monday, the title "pasta salad" is a bit misleading because most of these are far from salads or healthy in any way. I wanted to have at least one healthy one up for you guys. I decided to make Tabouli (or Tabbouleh) because bulgur is much healthier than normal pasta. Cracked wheat you say? I say it is pretty much whole grain pasta. Don't believe me? Check out this chart I made to prove it.

Yesterday, in my introduction to pasta salad week, I mentioned how we all probably have the "old standby" salad which we bring with us to picnics and BBQs every year. In college my standby pasta salad was nothing more than bowties or fusilli mixed with a bottle of Italian dressing, pepperoni, peppers, onions, and feta. Simple and tasty. But growing up my mom always made one that was pretty unusual. She would pack it up for me to take all sorts of places, from swim meets to school lunches. We've re-created her pasta salad a few times since then just tooling it out and guessing; but last week I called my mom in order to get the exact recipe to share with you. One bite brought me back all sorts of memories!

Welcome to pasta salad week! A whole week you say? On just pasta salads? YES! I love pasta salad and I think it deserves it's own week. Let me tell you why.

WHY:
Pasta salad is the best thing to bring to a BBQ. It is a fact that almost every person who reads this blog will be going to a BBQ in the next two and a half months. (Except poor Marina in the southern hemisphere.) More than that, most of you will be going to a BBQ in the next two and a half WEEKS. Fact number 2, you will be asked to bring something, or because you read this blog and are a food lover, you will offer to bring something. Fact 3, you will make that stale old pasta salad you have been bringing to BBQ's for years. Everyone will say how tasty it is even after all these years, you will forget your dish at your friends house and never see it again, and all will be right in the universe. Well I wanted to put pasta salad week out here to give you guys some options and help you try something new. Something that will really knock the socks off Aunt Susie at your fourth of July party. Everyone will love you and ask for the recipe. You will say it just came to you in a dream. That can be our little secret.

Lets talk a bit about pasta salad.
What is pasta salad? What is pasta salad NOT? Pasta salad is not a salad really, nor is it anywhere close to healthy (most of the time.) My pasta salads are generally a bit better for you than the average mayo soaked version, but not all of them, and not by much. I suppose pasta salad needs pasta in it. I sometimes use bulgur, quinoa, or other grains, but still call it a pasta salad. I don't think I have ever made a rice salad in my life. Below is the pasta salad week menu that will be populated with links as the days go by. To get us started, I have some older pasta salads I have made. Two of these posts were linked in my summer grilling recipe round up from a few weeks back, but I wanted them on here too to make pasta salad week complete.

Today:            Intro and old pasta salad posts
Tuesday:        Old Standbys
Wednesday:   Leftover pasta salad
Thursday:       A healthier version
Friday:           Playing with colors and shapes

Bulgur Citrus Zucchini Salad

Steak, Arugula and Roasted Red Peppers with Penne

Black Bean, Avocado and Corn with Quinoa

Cous Cous with spinach tomatoes and feta

Come back tommorow for more of exciting pasta salad week!

Long post for you guys today, but there are 3 great recipes at the bottom! This past weekend when my sister and her boyfriend Matt were down visiting, we threw a party on secret beach. You may remember secret beach from our party last year? As always, we took our grill grate down to the beach and lit a fire. We cooked some excellent food over an open flame wood fire! In a way, you could say that this was the first of many engagement parties for my sister. Allie and Matt got engaged the day before this party! Everybody can wish them good luck and congrats in the comments!

I must admit. I have been afraid of potato gratin my whole life. Au gratin, scalloped, dauphinoise, call it what you will, it's all the same. Why should I hate it? Potatoes, check. Cheese, check. Cream, check. Onions, check. Sounds amazing? Well when I was very young, I had this dish made from a box and I still have bad memories about it! This isn't a diss on my mom, or boxed scalloped potatoes; it was just a personal thing. I still remember that gummy awful texture to this day. It was the worst thing I ever ate and it caused me to fear potatoes au gratin for the rest of my life. Until this past weekend. We threw this dish together without a recipe or a plan, but it came out amazing. How could you mess up with such simple tasty ingredients? That's what I am still trying to figure out about that box. One thing that made this texture better for me was that we made the whole thing very thin. This caused less gumminess on the inside and more crispiness ratio on the top.