Mid Summer Garden Pasta Salad

It's the middle of summer and the garden is full of things that need to be picked and eaten. It's also hot out so something cool sounds nice. So, I decided to make my basic pasta salad, leave out the store bought olives and such and instead put in as many things out of the garden I could think of. I had lots of ripe cherry tomatoes, plenty of large sweet onions, the Corno di Toro peppers were starting to turn red, and the broccoli needed picking.  I put it all together and it turned out quite well!

This recipe makes enough for about 6 people.

1 13 oz box of shell pasta (Barilla Whole Wheat)
1/4 cup sweet pickle relish (home made)
1  cup mayonase
30 cherry tomatoes whole or cut in half
1/4 sweet onion minced
1 small or 1/2 large head of broccoli cut into small pieces
2 sweet peppers cut into small chunks
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the pasta until tender and drain. Let cool. Mix everything together. Put in the refrigerator for a few hours to get nice and cold.

Broccoli!

It's that time of year when we have more broccoli that we know what to do with. This head will last for several meals for three people.

After growing different varieties over the years, we've settled on Belstar for the nice heads it produces.

Gooseberries

Almost 30 years ago we picked up some gooseberry bushes planted in milk cartons at a garage sale in Boulder, Co. We planted them at our house in Thornton, Colorado then, when we moved to Jefferson County, we took them with us. They have been growing in the front yard ever since.

There are three gooseberry bushes. They are deciduous bushes that bloom in the spring, fruit in the summer, and turn color in the fall. The berries ripen sometime around the middle of July. When that happens, I have to beat the birds to them if I want to get a good crop.

We have no clue if these are any particular variety of gooseberry, but they do turn deep reddish purple and are quite sweet when ripe. Picking is the easy part since they pull of the bush easily and are so easy to reach despite the bush having prickles. The time consuming part comes afterwards when the berries all have to have their stems and dead flower parts removed.

The stems are very firmly attached to the berry and don't just pull of without squishing the fruit. So it has to be pinched or cut off. At the other end is the old, dried up flower which also has to be pinched off.

Once I get all the stems and flower bits removed, I pour them into freezer bags and freeze them. Later, I use them in fruit crisps, make oatmeal squares with them or even use them as a topping on a cheesecake. Maybe I'll make jam with them someday.